Last week I was lucky enough to attend the Sydney Writers' Festival.
Not to bore anyone too much with my backstory, but...... I used to attend the Sydney Writers' Festival religiously. I would spend all day on the Saturday and Sunday going from event to event and attend some extra events throughout the week. With the arrival of my children, it just became harder and harder to find the time between birthday parties and kid's activities and eventually I let it go.
This is the first year I have really made an effort, and it was really worth the wait. The Festival itself has changed a fair bit. The venue has changed, but more so it had gone from a mostly free event to a mostly paid event. I don't necessarily blame the Festival. With rising costs, I am sure that this was a necessary evil, even if it may mean that it becomes less accessible for a wider audience. There were live streaming tickets that could be purchased - and I purchased these for the Saturday and Sunday and was able to watch a wide range of sessions across the weekend.
The good news is that I was able to attend three events in person: a talk by Hannah Kent about her new memoir Always Home, Always Homesick (which I will write about in a separate post with a review of the books), Untrue Crime and Big Beginnings.
Untrue Crime: Kate McClymont, Shankari Chandran & Ian Rankin
Novelist Shankari Chandran, investigative journalist Kate McClymont and Diamond Dagger Award winner Ian Rankin discuss the line between fact and fiction in the stories they tell about crime.
This session was hosted by Australian author Michael Robotham and explored the authors' experience of truth in their crime writing. It added variety to have Kate McClymont on the panel to provide the perspective of someone writing from a non-fiction / journalist perspective where the crimes that she writes about are true. Kate spoke so articulately and with great humour about the challenges of writing true crime: doing the research, collecting the sources, testing the sources, balancing detail with a desire to engage the reader and, as a lawyer, my favourite part - avoiding defamation proceedings.
Chandran and Rankin spoke about the importance of using facts and accuracy, as far as possible, to ground their fiction in reality and create a more authentic experience for the reader. I loved hearing Ian Rankin talk about his approach of writing his first draft as the starting point - and researching second. He spoke about setting one of his crimes on a particular street in Edinburgh and then finding during his research that the street had been dig up to put tram lines down. Rather than move the crime, he wrote the road works into the story, making his detectives have to tackle with where they would park their cars and the mortuary van as they investigated the crime.
In truth, I hadn't enjoyed Unfinished Business by Chandran as much as I would have liked to (my review here). It helped to hear Chandran speak. I identified with her in some ways. We are similarly aged, both lawyers, both mothers doing the balancing act.
She spoke about the ethics of gathering information to use
in her writing – ethics in crime writing was a theme throughout the session.
Chandran’s book deals with the oppression and war against the Tamil population
of Sri Lanka. She spoke about understanding the trauma of those individuals who
experienced the war and therefore not approaching individuals for their stories
and instead focusing on what is publicly available or formal government
sources. However, she did say in some circumstances individuals approach her,
hoping she can tell their story in a way that they can’t do in Sri Lanka. In
those cases, she does listen to their story, and it might form part of her
writing.
McClymont is bound by journalistic ethics, and Rankin spoke
about basing his writing on true stories that were already in the public
sphere. He did share a story of a woman turning up a speaking event and
realising that she was one of the women involved in the case that he had based
his book on. It would have been interesting to hear some more reflections from
Ranking about the ethics of crime writing in that respect. If it’s a true case,
happening to real people out their in community – does the fact that is has
been reported on in the media mean that its fair game to use in fiction
writing? I think Rankin would obviously say yes.
Overall, this was a thoughtful and engaging session that
highlighted the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction in crime writing.
Each panellist brought a unique perspective to the ethical and practical
challenges of writing about crime, whether imagined or real. As a lawyer and a
reader, I was particularly struck by the depth of reflection around ethics and how
writers reckon with the consequences of telling stories drawn from real lives,
and the responsibility they bear in doing so.
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