Why Nonfiction Writers Should Try Writing Fiction (and Vice Versa)

In 2019, I watched a fantastic (in both senses of the word) documentary called Tell Me Who I Am. It tells the story of Alex and Marcus Lewis, identical twins whose lives were upended by an unusual, perhaps even unprecedented, form of amnesia. As a teenager, Alex suffered an accident that destroyed his memory; he remembered nothing but Marcus’s face and name. In this tragedy, Marcus saw a chance to give both himself and Alex a gift: he would concoct a new history, replacing the truth with a bright and lovely fantasy. The documentary haunted me for several reasons. Beyond Alex’s heartbreaking predicament and Marcus’ shocking web of deceit, there was the singular nature of the story itself: a stranger-than-fiction true narrative based entirely on lies. I had written four bestselling books of narrative nonfiction that focused on history’s seamy underbelly, its subversive characters and dark corners, and this story about inseparable twins and shadowy secrets naturally appealed to me. I wanted to write about it, but the story had already been told; there were no archives for me to explore. Like many nonfiction authors, I’d always dreamed of writing fiction, but the genre change would require an entirely new set of skills and tools. For the first time in my career, I mined my own life and unusual family history for inspiration. While writing Where You End , I imagined what my mother and her sister might do in such an extraordinary situation. Like Alex and Marcus Lewis, my mother, Katherine, and her sister, Judith, were identical twins. More than identical, they were mirror twins—a rare type of identical twin in which the twins seem to be mirror reflections of one another, which occurs when the embryo splits later than usual. My mother is right-handed, while my aunt was left-handed, and their hair parted naturally on opposite sides. Their similarities extended beyond the physical: both worked as emergency room nurses, smoked Vantage menthols, and loved to gamble in Atlantic City. They communicated in ways no one else could understand. Like many nonfiction authors, I’d always dreamed of writing […]

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