I would be lying if I said it was a moment I had been waiting for all my life. Rather, it was a pivotal career turning point that I myself was not even allowed to dream about after more than a decade of striving to succeed as a writer. My first novel for adults, "Broken People" (opens in new tab), suddenly found multiple publishers competing for it and, incredibly, film and television offers.

So there I was, hiding in the fire escape stairwell of a Soho loft space, like all the fancy people waiting to talk to Hollywood bigwigs, a tattered notebook in my hand and the producer's printed IMDB pages scattered on the stairs. It was the only place in the ad agency where I worked where personal privacy and a Venn diagram of a quality cell signal made sense (open plan offices be damned). The call went well, my fingers may have been shaking the whole time, but my voice remained smooth (as an added bonus, no one broke into my stairwell): "I like that you are dealing with abuse issues."

Is this based on real life?

I froze. I was ready to talk about my training as a journalist, my five published YA novels, and my interest in the possibility of adapting this book into a screenplay myself. I was not ready to answer these personal questions on a professional phone call. All the Broken People, about Lucy, a young woman who runs away from a dangerous boyfriend but who gets more than she ever imagined when she befriends a new neighbor, is not about domestic abuse. Yes, it is part of Lucy's story, but the novel's relationship with Vera, a modern-day femme fatale who convinces Lucy to fake her husband's death, is more central. I shook off my surprise, muttered "no," and the call continued.

What felt like a shocking one-time event was in fact not. Over the course of several weeks of professional phone calls, the frank question, "I bet the men around you aren't too happy about this novel," or at least implying that I had a history of abuse, became a frequently recurring question. It was a question that caught me off guard. All Broken People is fiction. Murder, extortion, faked death. Editors and producers did not ask if I had been blackmailed or lured into a noir plot with a couple of charming but toxic friends.

Of course, industry gatekeepers need to be able to ask the necessary questions of authors they are considering working with. The publishing industry (opens in new tab) has a troubled history of white, cis, straight, able-bodied writers appropriating the stories of marginalized people and often getting much higher advances and publisher backing than the people they are writing about get. This needs to be reviewed in its entirety.

There also needs to be a safe space where we can talk honestly and openly about domestic abuse, which is a serious and pervasive problem and one that has been on the rise during the pandemic (open in new tab). When I was in the hospital late last year for the birth of my daughter, I was grateful when a nurse encouraged my husband to leave the room and asked if he was safe at home. This kind of dialogue is necessary to ensure that people get the resources they need.

Nevertheless, we must not forget the issue of context. Hospitals are full of people trained to deal with trauma. Film producers and book editors are not. If I had experienced domestic abuse in the past, would they have expected me to suddenly open up about it to people I didn't know? Is it really fair to assume that the protagonist's experiences came directly from the author's life?"

And if we assume that, then we have reduced the vast and exciting world of fiction to a creatively written memoir.

Talking to other women writers, I am often asked, "Is this based on real life? 'Assumptions and doubts were common and often downright ridiculous. Andrea Bartz, author of the murder mystery The Lost Night (open in new tab), and I laughed (and were a little surprised) when a mutual friend insisted that the killer in Bartz's debut novel was based on me. Finola Austin, author of The Bronte Mistress (open in new tab), has been asked several times if the sex scenes in her novels were inspired by personal experience (she is writing about the Bronte family); Elle Marr of The Missing Sister (open in new tab) is said she is often asked if they are twins. Diane Zinna's novel All Night Sun (open in new tab), inspired by a trip she took 20 years ago, is perhaps best described: "The first-person narrative by a woman writer is often read as a confession."

Even if there are nuggets of truth in the fiction, the decision to open up or not should be made by the author herself. Vanessa Lilly, author of Little Voices (opens in new tab), says, "At the first few events, I was surprised when someone raised their hand among a group of strangers and asked if I had severe postpartum depression like the main character. 'I'm not afraid to share my postpartum experience, but I'm sure many others aren't,' she said." Asha Remy, author of the debut novel Fifty Words for Rain (open in new tab), describes one woman's attempt to gain acceptance in post-World War II Japan: "I don't want to show off my trauma to justify why I wrote a book of fiction ...... I didn't write my memoir for a reason."

I wonder if male writers are asked the same question. Stephen King has written extensively about domestic abuse and sexual assault in his extensive backlist, but did his editors ask him if he was an abuser or a perpetrator?

When I set out to write Lucy's story, I wanted to consider the nuances of the abuse she is receiving from her boyfriend, including emotional, mental, and financial. I hope that this book will spark conversations among readers. But I also hope that writers can find space from their works of fiction and be allowed to discuss their personal lives on their terms.

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