A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Marty, as depicted in Reunion: Coda on her graduation day in 1983   Marty as the Anti‑Cece: How a Character Was Born Every character has an origin story, and Marty’s is no exception. She didn’t arrive fully formed; she emerged from a long process of refinement, replacing an earlier, racier dream subject with someone emotionally fluent and real. Marty was created in 1998, but her roots stretch back to a fleeting encounter in April 1983, when I first noticed a classmate named Cecilia. Cecilia was gorgeous—striking in her presence, unforgettable in her heterochromia—but I only became aware of her late in our senior year. That timing mattered. Had I carried a multi‑year crush, it would have been a heavy burden for a shy guy like me. Instead, Cecilia remained a spark: a motif of beauty glimpsed too late to shape my teenage life, but just in time to shape my creative one. Marty, in many ways, became the anti‑Cece. Where Cecilia was absence—someone I barely knew, discovered at the t...

Marty Several years ago, a former classmate read one of my blog posts and—without hesitation—declared that Marty, the central female character in the   Reunion Duology , had to be based on a real girl. She was so certain, in fact, that no amount of authorly denial could sway her. Why? Because, in her words, “Jim’s feelings for Marty were just so strong.” I’ve been turning that over in my head ever since. To be clear: Marty is fictional. She’s not a thinly veiled version of anyone I knew well—though her physical appearance was inspired by a classmate I barely spoke to, someone whose yearbook photo struck a quiet chord fifteen years later. That image became a door I stepped through in 1998 to imagine a character who was vivid, smart, guarded, hopeful—and, yes, magnetic enough to pull someone like Jim Garraty into her orbit. If Marty feels real , it’s because I poured a good deal of emotional truth into her, even if the details are invented. She’s stitched together from memor...