So you’re a nonfiction writer. You’ve spent years writing about other people, mostly celebrities, and people who have been important to you. Some have said that your writing offers insight into the inner workings of people’s heads, about what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s not surprising because, after all, you used to be a shrink. It’s one of the skills that has made writing nonfiction so seductive and even fun.
Then, in a search for further learning, you get admitted to an MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. You think, maybe you can write that memoir you’ve been contemplating. Ah, but then, comes the edict from the Director of the program: you need to write in another genre in addition to nonfiction. Uh oh. Screenwriting? No. You can’t imagine writing superhero adventures; Poetry? OMG. No way. The final option is…fiction, a genre you neither read nor have ever written. The MFA degree is on the line. What to do?
Wait. You grew up near Hollywood, spent much of your childhood watching movies. You wrote movie reviews. You’ve read hundreds of biographies of Hollywood people, both above and below the line. How to make use of this extensive knowledge base? You know the real stories, the ones disclosed only in whispers, even though dirty laundry was covered up by the powerful publicists of the five major studios during The Golden Age of Hollywood. No bad news, they decreed, and they made sure movie magazines printed only the sanitized versions of a star’s life and loves.
In fiction, you’re thinking, the reality could be amended to make it more provocative. Everyone who followed the news knew that film icon Doris Day was swindled out of her fortune by her third husband, discovered only after his death. Reading the shocking story raised irresistible questions: How did she find out? Who told her? How did she react? How did she
process that unfathomable betrayal? Enter a fictionalized short story, building on a single nugget of truth. See? It could almost be easy.
First off, you have to produce a short story for your classmates to discuss at the semi-annual residency. Fortunately, a possibility comes to mind almost immediately. It has been many decades since an addled and perhaps drunk Mary Pickford was given an Honorary Academy Award on live national television. Her face looked puffy and out of focus, her words slurred. It was painful to watch. Pickford was once “America’s Sweetheart” in the 1920s, one of the first women to run a motion picture studio. At the peak of her fame, she was the most famous woman in the world. How could this happen? What was the slippery slope she traveled over the years? It wasn’t enough merely to tell that story. You need a friend in this, someone who helped her succeed and who might have watched her disintegrate. Add in the sexism and ageism factors so evident in every aspect of Hollywood history and you have a story, “Frances.”
To your surprise and delight, “Frances” had been well received by your fellow students. Someone even speculated that there might be further fictional fodder based on old Hollywood. You had written the memoir, As Alone As I Want to Be, in essay form, incrementally over time. You could attack fiction writing the same way, right? While the focus of fiction is often the great American novel, why not convert the nonfiction technique from the memoir into a book of short stories? It wouldn’t have to be done all at once, or with a through-line plot with the same set of characters. This is sounding more doable, isn’t it? You’re starting to feel less anxious.
As the stories began to pour out, it became obvious that you were actually telling about how women age in show business. The infamous casting couch was a given for most of these women, but what happened when they were cast aside for younger “talent”? Pickford didn’t cope well, obviously. She lapsed into alcoholism and spent her declining years in her mansion on a hill in Beverly Hills. What about the others? How did they survive? What did they tell themselves?
They must have been struggling to cope, to reformulate a sense of self in the absence of the spotlight. Once groomed by the studio, adored by millions, it had all faded away. Through fiction, there’s the ability to fabricate their internal lives, to take readers on unexpected expeditions. While some of the stars have recognizable names, you decided it wouldn’t be necessary to identity real people in every case. Some of the tales could be consolidated and shape-shifted, just so long as the primary theme was underscored each time—famous women navigating the inevitable aging process.
And so, armed with a backpack of real Hollywood stories, you tweaked, morphed and lied your way into writing Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood, consisting of ten short stories and two short plays. Switching genres is never an easy task for a writer, but when all one’s tools are amalgamated, anything is possible.
Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood (Adelaide, 2021) is available at Amazon.com
Pam Munter has authored several books including When Teens Were Keen: Freddie Stewart and The Teen Agers of Monogram, Almost Famous, and As Alone As I Want To Be. She’s a former clinical psychologist, performer and film historian. Her essays, book reviews and short stories have appeared in more than 150 publications. Her play, “Life Without” was nominated for Outstanding Original Writing by the Desert Theatre League and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Pam has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts, her sixth college degree. Her latest book, Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood, was published in 2021.
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