“Boswell Carnegie, Esq.,” the pseudonym used by our client, published his book entitled Rabbit-Hole Journey: A Fictionalized Recollection of How the Fort Pitt Icemen Were Saved One Score and Five Years Ago with Modern Memoirs in 2024. This work of fiction, inspired by actual events, took just six months from the day we started the project to the day books arrived on his doorstep. We asked “Carnegie” to reflect on what the publication process was like for him, and what it has meant to share his book with others.
Rabbit-Hole Journey opens with a note from the author that describes the book as “a work of fiction inspired by the colorful cast of characters” involved in a real-life drama played out in the U.S. sports world in 1998–1999. In addition to writing under a pen name, the author acknowledges changing names, embellishing events, and inventing dialog “in order to create a full narrative.” Most of the questions in the following interview were inspired by a Writer’s Digest article by author Joan Jackson entitled “Based on a True Story: 4 Advantages to Fictionalizing the Truth.”¹
1. Why did you choose to write a fictionalized account of an actual event and publish it privately for limited distribution? Whom did you intend your readers to be?
Boswell Carnegie: I chose to write a fictionalized account because my primary purpose was to tell a story rather than write a report. Fictionalizing allowed me to simplify and dramatize what otherwise would have been complex and dry. I wrote the story to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a remarkable event, for distribution to the surviving participants, my family, and my friends.
2. Author Joan Jackson says that fictionalizing the truth in her novel Just in Time: Based on a True Story allowed her “the freedom to rewrite history.” She found that she became “so absorbed in the characters that the characters had room to take over.” How did your approach shape your depictions of the multiple personalities and organizations involved in your complex story?
““We’re all fictional characters in a collective dreamscape.””
Boswell Carnegie: Fictionalizing the workings of the legal process allowed me to amplify its theatrical aspect, by presenting the participants as caricatures playing their respective roles in a stylized heroic struggle, similar to the storyline in a romantic opera. As Deepak Chopra said, “We’re all fictional characters in a collective dreamscape.”
3. Jackson says that by expanding the imagination, “fictionalizing allows the writer to make discoveries.” What insights into the facts did you gain by taking a creative approach? What further insights did you gain through editorial and book-design phases of the publishing process?
Boswell Carnegie: I realized that I cannot take a creative approach to a story without proceeding from a personal basis in fact. The editorial phase of the writing process provided me with confidence in what we produced, and the book design was chosen to reflect the spirit of the story. The design of the book’s cover was inspired by the cover of the 1791 first edition of The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., written by James Boswell, the author from whom I adopted my pseudonym.
4. Jackson also discusses point of view. Your book tells the story in first person. Why did you take that path, as opposed to describing events from different perspectives, which fiction writing gives license to do?
Boswell Carnegie: I told the story in the first person so that the reader could experience the “journey” vicariously through the eyes and mind of the “traveler,” Boswell Carnegie, similar to wearing a virtual reality headset. I fictionalized myself as “Boswell” because I fictionalized all the other participants and did not want to draw attention to myself.
5. Jackson points out that truth is subjective anyway, that it “really is all perception.” She says that, after some time has passed, she cannot always remember if some of the scenes she has written in a novel actually happened. And she asks, “Does it really matter?” How would you answer that question, and why?
Boswell Carnegie: If truth is your honest perception of the facts, then a fictionalized recollection should at least convey the essence of the writer’s honest perception of the facts. Anything less than that becomes pure fiction.
¹ Joan Jackson, “Based on a True Story: 4 Advantages to Fictionalizing the Truth,” 11 December 2017, Writer’s Digest (https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/based-on-a-true-story-memoir-vs-fictionalized-truth : accessed 3 October 2024).