Kim, Your side comment about your mother “Even though she was still alive, I had lost the mother who’d raised me” is such a profound and real admission. As I’m in my seventies, I’ve experienced that phenomenon and am currently experiencing that phenomenon with my older brother. They are there but they are not really there. The pain and difficulty is realizing they are not the people we want to remember in those states. It’s truly hard losing a living loved one. Belated condolences.
Brilliant breakdown of reconstructing interiority when the subject can't be interviewd. The part about mining archives and conflicting secondary sources really hits at the core challenge of posthumous biography. I've done similr work with historical figures and that tension between getting psychologically accurate without inventing is real. Pre's story became way more compelling once I understood the methodological challenge behind it.
It's a satisfying challenge and one of the things that makes reconstructed narratives feel like detective work. Some writers use "perhapsing" or "supposing" to imagine what a character might have been thinking while signaling to the reader that they're engaging in a bit of speculation. If there's some record of the character saying what they were thinking or feeling, that's one of the best ways to go, IMO. But there's room for both. As long as you're clear and don't mislead the reader or abuse their trust.
My first/rough draft was so quote heavy because Pre was such good copy. I did t want to step on his toes. When the writer takes command of that material it reads more confidently. You're not just outsourcing the text to others. You're starting to make it your own.
Kim, Your side comment about your mother “Even though she was still alive, I had lost the mother who’d raised me” is such a profound and real admission. As I’m in my seventies, I’ve experienced that phenomenon and am currently experiencing that phenomenon with my older brother. They are there but they are not really there. The pain and difficulty is realizing they are not the people we want to remember in those states. It’s truly hard losing a living loved one. Belated condolences.
Thank you, Joe. I’m sorry you are going through this with your brother. It’s a specific kind of grief, mourning them as they incrementally disappear.
Brilliant breakdown of reconstructing interiority when the subject can't be interviewd. The part about mining archives and conflicting secondary sources really hits at the core challenge of posthumous biography. I've done similr work with historical figures and that tension between getting psychologically accurate without inventing is real. Pre's story became way more compelling once I understood the methodological challenge behind it.
It's a satisfying challenge and one of the things that makes reconstructed narratives feel like detective work. Some writers use "perhapsing" or "supposing" to imagine what a character might have been thinking while signaling to the reader that they're engaging in a bit of speculation. If there's some record of the character saying what they were thinking or feeling, that's one of the best ways to go, IMO. But there's room for both. As long as you're clear and don't mislead the reader or abuse their trust.
My first/rough draft was so quote heavy because Pre was such good copy. I did t want to step on his toes. When the writer takes command of that material it reads more confidently. You're not just outsourcing the text to others. You're starting to make it your own.