Hi, all. The New York TImes daily digest included a link to this long-form article from their weekly magazine:
Here's the header: "Who Is the Bad Art Friend? Art often draws inspiration from life — but what happens when it’s your life? Inside the curious case of Dawn Dorland v. Sonya Larson. (by Robert Kolker)"
I thought it was interesting. It may be behind a paywall, but I think it's still accessible to non-subscribers who have the link and haven't reached a monthly article limit. In any case, it's not necessary to read the article to comment on the questions below.
Anyway, once one gets beyond the emotional issues which are basically what the article's all about, I think there are some intriguing ethical questions here. A couple of them:
- If a piece of fiction is inspired by a true story that one learned from a post to a private Facebook group, is it unethical for the author to write it at all? If it's written, does the author have any responsibilities to the poster that she wouldn't have if, say, she were basing her story on a newspaper article?
- Is it unethical for the author in the above case to use that event less than positively: i.e., to consider the poster's take on the situation self-aggrandizing (as turned out to be the case in the story discussed in the article) or simply thoughtless or factually wrong? What if the author changes the situation -- after all, it's fiction -- to make the poster's character more clearly in the wrong, while leaving the situation close enough to the real thing that the Facebook group, if not the general public, will recognize the source. Is the poster right to feel defamed and humiliated, and if so, is she justified in asking the author to publicly apologize?
(One more: does it matter whether the author intends to sell the story, as opposed to posting it on a free site, so that she'd be literally profiting from someone else's post? And in the last scenario above, would the poster be justified in suing for damages?)
Eric
Here's what you do
Get ready and as soon as the article appears on your screen (images still loading), in Windows hit CTRL-A, CTRL-C
(highlight all, copy it) and then open a Word document and CTRL-V (paste all) Images are included. OR, for just the text, in Word, paste, paste special, unformatted text.
This works on many pay sites (shhh).
The ethics of storytelling
"If a piece of fiction is inspired by a true story that one learned from a post to a private Facebook group, is it unethical for the author to write it at all?"
Making a story out of the inspiration of someone else's experience is totally ethical. Many of the great stories of literature have been inspired by people's real-life experiences... even when they weren't the author's. Was it unethical of Charles Dickens to write of the horrid conditions of the Workhouses and Orphan Asylums of his time? These were based on real people's lives... and yet it should no more be considered unethical than the situation you cite.
So no... it's not unethical to follow inspiration... no matter where its source comes from.
"Is it unethical for the author in the above case to use that event less than positively: i.e., to consider the poster's take on the situation self-aggrandizing (as turned out to be the case in the story discussed in the article) or simply thoughtless or factually wrong?"
Again, however the author utilizes the inspiration, it's ethical to go forward with the story... regardless of whether or not they turn a profit doing it. Making money from your labor doesn't suddenly change the ethical nature of the question. Neither does it change the legal aspects. Libel has legal definitions. If the author changed enough about the story (the names are usually sufficient) so as to not be libelous, then there's no harm - no foul. I've written stories where I've used real-life events... even real people. Anytime someone writes an autobiography they're using the lives of real people for their profit. (ether financial or just for the profit of acclaim) These stories almost always paint some people in a negative light. It's only libelous if it's not true and if it damages the person in some way. Proving damage can be very difficult.
So the answer is, "It depends on whether or not what is written is true, false, or just an opinion... if it's opinion, it's not libel and therefore ethical... if it's true, it's ethical to shine the light of truth on any subject. It's only unethical if the author is lying about real people and it injures them in some way. It's also actionable in a civil suit."
Hope this helps!
Roberta
I have to disagree
Basing a story on someone's real experience is O.K. only if it doesn't follow so closely as to become thinly veiled biography. This is doubly true if you make changes that portray the person in a bad light. For example, If I write about a younger brother named Eli Matting who is a number one NFL draft pick that's going too far. If I imply that that person threw a game for gamblers it's going way too far.
Biographies and Libel
People write biographies on other people all the time. Courts have ruled repeatedly that anyone in the public eye is subject to this kind of scrutiny. The entire gossip column industry is based on doing just that, and most of those publications are completely ethical in their reporting. One can argue the relative merits or lack thereof of individual biographies, but they aren't by their very nature unethical. If it's a total hatchet-job full of lies and innuendo, that's unethical and libelous. If it's just an opinion piece that doesn't lie about someone, or if it's just a chronicle of their life with nothing but true facts, that's perfectly ethical and legal.
Libel has legal standards. So long as you don't lie about someone and intentionally injure them in some way (damaging their reputation is considered injury) it's not libelous or unethical. The only gray area is when you damage someone's reputation without lying. Then it comes down to intent, which is really hard to prove that you intended to injure them. (basically you have to show proof of a previous statement of the author where they essentially confess that they intend to injure their subject)
The rights of authors to be free in what they write, how they write it, and where they get their inspiration from are pretty broad... and that's a good thing. Suppression of ideas, no matter how well-intentioned, is the fast-track to tyranny.