The Importance of Being Earnest and Ethical: Academic Integrity in the Context of Creative Writing
Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia
Abstract: Focused on issues related to intellectual integrity in the context of creative writing, this chapter takes as its point of departure the widely held and not incorrect assumption that, unlike other disciplines, creative writing is less about following “rules” than about breaking them. The reality, though, is that various kinds of ethical considerations are crucial, complex components of our craft. Creative writers face dilemmas to do with drawing on details about living people (family members, friends); the fine line between “intertextualizing” and plagiarizing; borrowing from cultures to which we do not belong; and toying with facts. These dilemmas are discussed, and some specific advice is offered, but the chapter should be viewed as a general guide for how to write creatively and with integrity.
Keywords: Creative writing, ethical considerations, intertextualizing, plagiarism, cultural borrowing
Author’s Note: The title of the chapter contains a reference to Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, first performed in 1895.
In 2003 — practically a lifetime ago — I published my first book, Kalyna’s Song. It’s the coming-of-age story of Colleen Lutzak, a third-generation Ukrainian Canadian who grows up in northeastern Alberta and then travels to southern Africa, where, on a scholarship, she finishes her last year of high school at a boarding school. The novel is semi-autobiographical, to be sure, though a lot of it is fictionalized. I spent my childhood/adolescence in a small, prairie town. For two years (not one, as is the case with Colleen), I lived in (what was then called) Swaziland (it is now eSwatini). Like my narrator, I had a beloved piano teacher, who was a nun, and an aunt (I made her Colleen’s older cousin) who never recovered from a severe mental breakdown following years of domestic violence. I based Sister Maria and Kalyna on “real-life” women, but loosely: very loosely. The same is true of Colleen’s parents, as well as her brother and sister. I borrowed some bits and pieces from “real life,” embellished others, and entirely invented an awful lot. Kalyna’s Song was, for the most part, well-received, especially by prairie-dwelling Ukrainian Canadians; it seemed to resonate with those who saw their own experiences in the pages of the book — experiences which tend to fall through the cracks of Canadian history and Canadian literature. The novel was a finalist for the Amazon Books in Canada Best First Novel Award and the Kobzar Literary Award.
Of course, not everyone loved the book. A few of my relatives, for example, weren’t thrilled with the versions of them who appeared in Kalyna’s Song (my sister saw her fictional counterpart as too aggressive in her sibling rivalry; my brother viewed “his” character as too whiny). A number of audience members from the wider Ukrainian Canadian community took exception to what they viewed as the book’s damaging (mis)representation of Ukrainian culture and history. (In one scene, when my narrator, Colleen, at a young age, attends a Ukrainian Orthodox church service, she finds the strangeness of the rituals intimidating and the priest himself terrifying. And the narrative, as a whole, is shaped by Colleen’s discovery that some Ukrainians collaborated with Nazis during the Holocaust, a historical “fact” contested by many.) A handful of Ukrainian Orthodox readers raised concerns about my unflattering depiction of their religion. They sent me letters, phoned my mom, and, in one case, threatened legal action against the publisher of my novel. Other readers, either via reviews of the book or in private conversations with me, made it known that I had a deeply flawed understanding of how Ukrainians acted during the Second World War.
I heard nothing from southern African readers, probably because the novel never made it into the international marketplace, but such readers would have had every reason to object to the core premise of Kalyna’s Song. Did I have the right, as a white Canadian who spent a paltry two years in (then-) Swaziland, to write a book that substantially relied on depictions of the place and its people? I see, now, with the 20/20-ness of hindsight, what never crossed my mind as I was writing the book. The “Africa” portions of Colleen’s story, which foreground her bewildering perspectives on an “other” part of the world, exoticize Swazi culture and perpetuate painfully uneven, colonial power dynamics. Colleen is the centre of the story. Swaziland is exploited as a device to effect her growth as a (privileged, white, “western”) character. I quite obviously made mistakes.
I’m using those mistakes as a starting point for this chapter in order to be transparent about how I’ve gained “expertise” on academic integrity in the context of creative writing. Believe me, I would love nothing more than to open with a different story in which I’d dazzle as an author who understood her responsibilities from the get-go and never stepped out of line. That, regrettably, wasn’t the case with Kalyna’s Song. As I proceed, then, identifying challenges faced by creative writers and reflecting on possible strategies for avoiding missteps, I hope that my readers — you — will keep in mind that I approach my subject matter with humility. Many of the lessons that I aim to pass along were learned the hard way.
