CREATIVE WRITING
Faux memoir: MERGE AND MANIPULATION
Historical fiction written as a memoir can immerse its reader in a character and the events they experience. Author M J Robotham explores creating a faux life on the page in the process of writing her new novel The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux
It began with a book. Of course it did, since a writer’s life is immersed in words, and we scribes read far more than we ever type. In my case, it was a favourite author in William Boyd; turning the pages on his Sweet Caress and the story of protagonist Amory Clay, I wondered if I’d picked up a non-fiction book by mistake. Here was a colourful life story, embedded in 20th-century history, with fuzzy black and white photographs scattered amid the text. Intent on discovering more, I turned to our friend Google, only to draw a blank; Amory Clay did not exist, except in Mr Boyd’s head, and now in mine. But there were pictures! Real events! Surely, she’d been flesh and blood?