on grist for the mill, and being honest in the writing.

[lagilman]

Everyone has heard the phrase "write what you know." To me, it's never meant "write only what you've experienced' but "experience more, so you can write more, properly." Or, as another saying goes, "everything's grist for the mill."

I had to write a scene today that should have been simple. It could have been easy -- a few broad strokes, some delicate slashes of color, a sprinkling of well-chosen dialogue, and the scene would have been well-set and perfectly enjoyable. But in the first draft process I realized that I had been there before -- not the exact situation: in fact, not the same situation at all. But I knew the emotions, knew the fear and love, the hopelessness and the hope all mixed into one horrible tightness in the gut.

I hate that memory. I hate the moment of it, the reality of it, the inevitability of it. I hate the pain it still causes me when I think of it.

But I needed it, for this scene to be more than simple, to be more than easy.

And so I used it.


EtA in response to something said in comments: There is a difference between using what you know to create something new, and only writing what you know firsthand, regurgitated.


Further musings, apropos my own experiences only.

Generic-You can write a decent story without digging below the surface. Generic-You can create fast and fun dialogue, and enjoyable plots, and characters who do the job admirably. But for things to be real, to bleed and breathe on the page, I haven't found any way to do that other than giving them some of my own blood, and breath, and flesh. My own experiences. And in doing so, I have to love them enough to share that gift. And in loving them, I have to love -- and forgive, and own up to -- myself. Which doesn't really explain it, but hopefully comes close.

Some days, this job is really, really hard.


Meanwhile, a few-three thousands words down the road, I've figured out how this particular book ends. The dragon at the end of the tunnel has started to sing*.




* no dragon. no tunnels. no singing. otherwise, perfectly apt.

Comments

[debg.livejournal.com]

You said it yourself: Be true. If there's any other way to write, I haven't found it yet.

And BTW, check out my LJ. COVER!

[lagilman]

It's not just being true, though. You can be true as first-person gospel, and have the characters be puppets on your string. Well-made, well-moved puppets, but still puppets.

There has to be more. Honesty, maybe, rather than truth. Honesty's harder, because it's more personal.

[debg.livejournal.com]

I suspect the semantics are purely personal: for me, honesty/truth works out to the same thing, which is being there, present on every level, being - as Jon Krakauer put it - on your knees to the event, whatever the event you're writing happens to be.

[lagilman]

We'll have to wave from opposite sides of this discusson, then -- to me, Truth s an ideal. Honesty is...an action.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Yep - waving over semantic chasm. I can't do one without the other, especially if I'm writing it, so they're conjoined twins.

[thecityofdis.livejournal.com]

In the inverse, it is possible to take "Write what you know" way way way too far. I could tell horror stories about my Screenwriting class, like the 6 students who have all set their movies on college campuses and have clearly never, ever, ever even seen a different campus than our own.

Or the girl who is writing a duller-than-a-sack-of-hammers screenplay where the campus is a thinly-veiled version of ours, the MC is a thinly-veiled (but just as irritating!) version of her, and all the classes and characters and technicalities and details are exactly the same as her daily life.

Write what you know does not - or shouldn't, at any rate - mean Mary Sues Ahoy!

Can we tell I want to stab people with sporks? This class incites violence in me.

[lagilman]

That's why I didn't start serously writing untl I was in my mid to late 20's. I didn't think I knew enough to be of interest, even to myself.

I think I was right.

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

I've had several points in my life where I've been in the middle of horrible experiences, about to fall down that long slope into hell and recently? I've caught myself thinking "I can use this here, here and there".

These are my "ok, you are SO a writer" moments.

I, yeah, hear you.

[lagilman]

The trick is to actually take that next step and USE it. No shying away because it's uncomfortable, or stirs bad memories, or is too private or personal. You aren't using the actual memory (one hopes, anyway) but the things it did to you, the things you got from it, and the things it got from YOU.

if I could emboss that in gold leaf and set it upon the doorposts of my office, I would.

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's always the feelings. Suddenly clicking with "oh THIS is why..." for a character. Knowing from inside the skin how to wrangle a scene or motivation.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[sci-o-biscuits.livejournal.com]

I've cried while writing entire chapters.
I've laughed while writing other chapters.
The characterization often comes from deep emotions that are driven by personal experiences.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

I've learned that if it doesn't emotionally stir somehow, someway ... it's just not worth writing.

I won't sit down at the keyboard and do "filler" anymore unless I've already received the proverbial emotional kick in the shorts. Save the fluff and filler once you have the meat and potatoes.

Yes!

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

I've spent a proportion of my life ensuring that I know the stuff I want to write about.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

* no dragon. no tunnels. no singing. otherwise, perfectly apt.

The teeshirt is in the mail!

Seriously, I, too, need a hook into the characters. I thought you preferred keeping your life out of things?

Or are your characters insisting? (Damn characters....)

[lagilman]

As I said in comments above, it's not my life I'm writing about. There is a difference between using what you know to create something new, and only writing what you know firsthand, regurgitated.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I should confess, though, that I was trying to build some characterization for a fantasy character, and since he's not human, I wanted to use a couple different things to describe the damage he'll have to work through to the other side.

I suddenly realized that *I* was working through to the other side the real human results of said somethings. This stopped work on that book just long enough for me to get sick.

I went back to the book this spring and started taking notes again.

Sometimes, working through takes longer than a day. Or a week.

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

I hear you!!! Writing, if done right, ain't for the fainthearted!

Go you!