Novels should tap into emotions. If a reader doesn’t react to your book, she’s likely to put it aside in favor of another book that touches her heart and mind. One-star book reviews hurt; but at least if a reviewer passionately hates your book, you’ve evoked emotion. In some ways, a three-star review calling the book bland is worse.
This time last year, I was happy in the knowledge that both of my parents enjoyed vibrant lives. Years ago, I witnessed the decline and passing of all four of my grandparents and how my parents responded, so I possessed secondhand knowledge of the reality of losing a parent. I knew the passing of a parent is beyond awful. But the depth of pain was still in the abstract for me.
When Daddy passed away in August, that abstract knowledge became all too real. Everything everyone had warned about and talked about turned out to be true, only worse. But I have been blessed to be loved by friends and family.
When you write characters, it’s unlikely you’ve experienced firsthand everything you want to convey. Considering most novels focus on high drama, that’s a good thing! But of course, sometimes we reach into the well of firsthand experience to write.
I never want to write about the death of a parent; but if I do, I know the book I would write today would be utterly different than the book I would have written two years ago.
How about you? Will you share your experiences?
Your turn:
In your writing, when have you needed to write from the abstract?
When have you written from firsthand experience?
How were those two writing experiences different from each other?
Do you feel your writing was more effective when you wrote from firsthand experience? Or not? Why?
In your next novel, what primary-experience emotions will you write about? Why?
What’s Your Writing Playlist? (Part Two)
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Tamela –
I can’t say enough how sorry I am for the loss of your beloved dad. It cuts deep and talking about it is too raw, and platitudes don’t help.
For my writing, I make weird fMCs with serious flaws. I have them, we all do, and I draw on my experiences. I’m sarcastic and growing up in a home rife with a blade of with makes for great comebacks. I lost both my parents, and years later, my brother, sister-in-law, and cousin within the space of three months. My sister disowned me because of my faith. That leaves a mark. While I have no idea how to break into a building (ok someone sorta taught me but not that I practice) or rappel. Nor can I hack a computer but the emotions surrounding loss, pain, fear of getting close–those I can relate to. Many emotions come from what I see in people watching or what my family had been through.
This is such a timely post because I am struggling with the end of my novel. I want it to be worth remembering, not just finishing. I want people to know that salvation is real, that love can be attained–and gut-wrenchingly pulled away. So my fMC is beaten to a pulp (emotionally–and I have been there) and the love of her life is gone (hang on it’s a HEA). But I am twisting the knife but just am having difficulty turning the ‘gone’ into the ‘return.’ That end is different voice, hers as well, as a defeated soul. So been there too. BTW I go through the five stages of grief every time I write this scene…
The HEA is shortly after her disjointed recollection of how things had progressed, and while I want people to understand WHY she is so messed up, I don’t know how to dialogue this part. Never been a ‘resurrected’ mMC love interest in my life. That’s pretty abstract… However if I look more closely at the Gospel writings, I can see confusion, disbelief, grief, fear. Just not all of the same emotions. erg.
I’ve written in the abstract for most of my books because most of them are suspense, and I don’t have a lot of murder in my life.
However, I wrote a nonfiction book that delved into my relationship with my father that drew blood and tears. And now, I’m working on a middle-grade book where I’m using a couple of things that occurred back then that still hurt today. I seem to feel better once I get these things out though.
Great post.
A bit late with this, but what the heck.
If you’re going to write about combat, talk to a combat veteran. If you haven’t experienced it, both the highs and the lows, you’ll never get it right.
If you want a primer, I would recommend Al Sever’s “Xin Loi, Viet Nam”. He gets it right in this memoir.
Ditto for PTSD. The common view of combat-related PTSD is that it’s about shame and guilt, and that is in most cases really, really far from the mark.
Combat trauma comes from the realization that you will never be as awesome as you once were, and that civilian life has NOTHING to offer that match the sense of purpose.
It’s not a liberal self-agonising guilt-trip; it’s an exile from Valhalla.
Think it’s ugly?
Remember this:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
I agree, Andrew. I have to talk to cops, take verbal experiences from PTSD vets (they don’t talk a lot about the actual experiences -I worked on a psych ward. I wasn’t a patient there, just in case you wanted clarification).
I had a friend who suffered severe PTSD from abuse, and I can draw from her behaviors, since she was less than truthful about her history. But I can understand shame.
I have a book in the works including combat (it’s sorta done but in the line to be edited) with combat scenes in a world of intrigue.
Claire, abuse is totally different…an I don’t pretend to understand PTSD from that angle.
I would recommend Jonathan Shay’s seminal work, ‘Ulysses in Vietnam’,as a resource.
BTW, it really is Viet Nam, which translates as ‘far south’.
It ain’t ‘farsouth’.
Completely different, similar in some ways. But my experience (way back when) was with Viet Nam vets. A tough group. They always were polite (like, to me) jocular, but never spoke to me of the actual experiences. I had an old book with a vet who’d suffered PTSD and I wrote out of my experiences with the Viet Nam vets but had to conjure up inner feelings. I will check out that book, I am reading one by a Marine pilot his experience that was ‘under control’ until his brother was in a non-fatal accident and everything fell apart, came back in a rush, he flooded. This is similar in a way to abuse victims, particularly sexually abused kids. Something will trigger, they rush to a closet, fetal position and cry for hours, their behaviors become controlling, alcoholic, drug abuse, some seek counseling but it doesn’t help. For vets, unless the counselor or the writer was there, they/we have NO CLUE. We cannot. We can only try and seek someone’s (vet) blessing. Usually in a Yes or No. And not much else.
My dear Claire,, I’ve been to all of those places, and the only thing I can say that makes sense, said, to a counselor, is, “You weren’t f***ing there!”
It’ a closed brotherhood. The road to acceptance (even for an outsider (like Shay) is long, hard, and humbling.
And, no matter what, there are things I will never share, because a civilian would never unerstand.
My son is in the thick of it. I know better than to ask, because I know that I don’t know, and can never know. I know what he did, I have seen the change in him, but I have not heard the bullets coming, the brothers dying, the suffering, I just cannot. I can’t even manage how to imagine. Unless I join (at like, my age…) and jump into the line of fire to save or hope to save those go down (he was spec forces combat medic, jumping from helos), I can worry, but I can’t know or feel it. I had a Viet Nam vet help me with the scenes from the combat side but he too couldn’t share. My dad was a Marine, and he couldn’t share about WWII.
Claire, another resource is David Bellavia’s “House To House”, his memoir of Fallujah and Urgent Fury.
On a personal note, if I may ask for your prayers…rising tumours in the chest, hard to breathe, and pain unrelenting. I think I may be in trouble here.
Semper Fi.
Oh, Andrew!
Father God, we ask your richest blessings on our precious Andrew. In Jesus’ most precious name. Amen.
Andrew, I continue to pray.
Thank you for the suggestions, and Andrew, am praying. I am close to starting A New Mexico Christmas, btw…
I’ve never felt my writing is better when writing from first-hand experience. I’ve just felt it comes easier. If we just write what we know, or what we experience, we’re journalists. Fiction lives in the realm of imagination, and your imagination, not your experiences, is what gives it the stuff it’s made of. But experiences do give you interesting details to draw from immediately. At least, that’s how I think of it.
Let me add my voice to those offering condolences.
I think it is absolutely true that for good writing, we need a certain amount of emotional maturity. Not that we can experience everything we write about. But we do have to be acquainted with grief in some form.
Like many writers, I’ve been “writing my whole life.” But the stuff I wrote as a young person was TRASH. Mostly because I had no idea how people worked. I didn’t even understand or fully experience my own emotions. Too scared.
My writing is better now (of course, there was no way to go but up) that I’ve lived through international moves, family crises, a loved one’s severe depression, and have had a few babies. Throughout all this, the Holy Spirit has been working on my heart to make it more tender and perceptive. The way a human heart is meant to be, with Jesus as the template. I now can’t believe how unintentionally hard and cold my reactions used to be, to others’ suffering.
I do find that the more emotional scenes in a novel are the ones I have to rewrite the most. The first draft is usually … Clunky.