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Life is full of dark times. Sadness, pain, grief and fear are aspects of the human condition we can't avoid. So when we do face difficult times, can we turn those experiences into something creative and in doing so, heal ourselves?
In today's article, author Eric Praschan shares his own experiences and how they helped him write.
The greatest writing lesson I ever learned came while lying on a hospital bed, temporarily paralyzed and mute. The lesson I learned that day:
If I want to pursue my dreams, I can’t live in fear anymore.
In December 2009, I found myself experiencing bizarre, stroke-like symptoms: blurred vision, slurred speech, cognitive fuzziness, and complete loss of muscle control. During that time, I thought to myself, “I need to come up with some story ideas or else I’m going to have an internal meltdown!”
Over the course of the next few hours, I used my own terror, pain, and confusion to imagine a character experiencing the same traumatic issues. From that tiny kernel of an idea eventually sprouted the book Therapy for Ghosts (The James Women Trilogy Book 1), and my life would never be the same again.
When I rose from that hospital bed, my health issues did not disappear, but I used my own trauma and roller coaster of emotions to give my female protagonist, Cindy James, a believable, raw framework of fear against which to struggle, strain, and strive.
As an author, you live two lives; one in your body and mind, and the other in the bodies and minds of the characters you create. Sometimes the best stories involve the intersection of these two lives—the place where your real life informs and transforms the characters you are pouring onto the page.
With that in mind, here are some writing realities that I’ve found helpful when trying to flesh out believable, dynamic characters and stories.
1. Discover your character’s psychological world within your own world.
The fodder for story is all around you.
The whirlwind of emotions you can experience in a single day is the exact range of emotions a believable character can experience. Think about your favorite characters from your favorite books. What makes them resonate with you so powerfully?
Chances are, it’s their relateable, complex constitutions—their goals, shortcomings, hopes, and fears. In some way, you can identify with those characters or understand them on some level because they reflect the best and worst parts of what it means to be human.
Why do we root for Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs when she confronts the killer Hannibal Lecter? Is it because she has all the answers and an impenetrable psyche?
Not at all. We root for her because we can sense her nervousness, self-consciousness, and desire to impress the notorious madman and seem in control of the interrogation. What makes us emotionally connect with her? We can see glimpses of ourselves in her, and we cringe at the thought of our own insecurities being laid bare, just as hers are exploited by the mastermind villain.
The author, Thomas Harris, has probably never interrogated a cannibalistic serial killer before in real life (at least I hope not), but he certainly understands the power of fear. Mr. Harris has undoubtedly experienced some measure of fear in his own life, and he weaves those same tentacles of terror into Agent Starling brilliantly. In order to create complex characters, you must dig deep internally to unearth the organic, real life emotions which can be transferred into your characters in order to authenticate them.
2. Fear is your friend if you inject it into your characters.
Fear is often taboo in real life.
We don’t want to seem weak to others, and we would rather hide our anxieties behind the façade of a strong demeanor. However, when it comes to our stories, we need to embrace fear in order to propel our stories forward. Conflict is the essence of story, and conflict is fraught with fear. Whether you’re writing a chase scene, a two-person argument, or an internal monologue, what fears are at work in your characters? How can you demonstrate those fears by showing rather than telling? Does your character have a nervous tic or odd behaviorism that signifies the onset of fear?
For my James Women Trilogy, there are seven women portrayed within the context of a 100-year saga, and most of them have nervous tics, some of which are my own real life nervous tics—scratching eyebrows, twitching fingers, and scraping fingernails. When I am nervous or agitated, I exhibit these particular behaviors, so I simply injected those same nervous tics and corresponding emotions into my characters.
3. Pain gives both you and your characters multiple dimensions.
Pain can spark growth and change in our lives, and it has the same potential for your characters. A trial-tested character is someone to whom readers can relate. Who wants to read about a character who strolls through the story with little or no conflict and no battle scars to show for it? Unless you are penning a Sesame Street novel, it’s imperative to give your character a deep reservoir of pain from which to draw and develop.
Think about the pain in your own life. How has it changed you? Are there traumas of your past which are unresolved or lingering? How do they manifest themselves—in nightmares, diary entries, or sob fests over the phone with your best friend or spouse? Use that raw emotion, infuse it into your character’s psyche, and expand it to form a multi-dimensional arc for your character.
4. When tragedy occurs in your life, channel that grief into a creative spark.
Each of us has experienced tragedy in our lives. If you haven’t, you probably need to travel to your own tropical island and sell tickets to the rest of us so we can learn your secret to pain-free living. We usually don’t want to revisit painful memories associated with tragedy, but if you’re going to find creative ways to flesh out your characters, then this is an important process to engage.
Think about how you felt at a loved one’s funeral. What went through your mind when the news came about a family member being hospitalized? What emotions coursed through you when you felt the sting of failure and loss so deeply that you imagined at the time you might never recover? Traveling back to those difficult memories is challenging, but it can be a helpful way to spur recovery in your own life, as well as a beneficial method to give you a creative spark for character development.
The idea is not to exploit your real life tragedy but to give the grief a new, vibrant voice.
For you as the author and for your character, sometimes the best and only way to fully heal is to revisit a wound for the sake of cleansing and closing it completely.
Gratefully, after numerous doctors, medical tests, and medicines, I fully recovered from my health issues. The ability to function normally is something I don’t take for granted anymore. The fears and pains I experienced during my trials gave me new insight into developing richer, multi-dimensional characters.
Seeing a character struggle through a dark time, face adversity with courage, and fight for hope in the midst of pain is something that makes us stand up and cheer. Incorporating your own emotions into a character is an honest, vulnerable process, but the result will be an authentic, heart-stirring, multi-faceted character. Try using your own experiences as a springboard for your story, even if they are painful and terrifying, and watch your characters come alive in a way that challenges, moves, and inspires your readers.
Have you used your own painful experiences and emotions in your books? Please do leave a comment below.
You can find him at:
https://www.facebook.com/EricPraschanAuthor
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1 2 Next »Hi Eric and Joanna,
Such a great post today and the different aspect of writing you have explained. I started writing to ease the pain of the loss of my husband but never thought about creating a character who feels that same pain. Something I will try out.
I am enjoying reading this blog very much.
Have a great day. Monna
Thanks, Monna! I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your husband, but I hope you will be able to experience some catharsis by using your feelings as a springboard for your stories. It can have a wondrous healing effect personally, while also deepening your characters. All the best!
Eric
Dear Joanna and Eric,
I appreciate this post more than I can say, and I fully agree with each single line, but... there is a "but". There just HAD to be, right? :-)
My point is: when you show (not tell) hard or painful feelings, that you have perfectly clear in mind from struggles or grief in real life, don't you ever get this frustrating feeling that what you write is not-even-barely-similar to what you really felt at that time? I always find myself re-reading what I wrote, and I always think "this is not painful enough, it is not strong enough, it just is not-enough!"
Do you think it is just a matter of insisting, trying to make our writing better and better with time and constant efforts, or is it a kind of sensation that can never be completely fought, no matter how good we think our writing is?
Sorry for the mistakes: English is not my first language but I think I have explained, more or less, what I mean. Thank you in advance for any opinion! :-)
V.
Thanks for your comments, Valentina! It helps me to think of my own fear and pain as merely a launching point for the emotions my character might experience, rather than a process of direct transfer. Each character is unique and has a set of motivations, history, temperament, worldview, etc. that is particular to him/her. With that in mind, the fear or pain each character experiences will differ in how it manifests itself. One character might feel inferior because of fear or pain, while another grows angry because those sensations cause him to feel weak. Instead of trying to transfer your exact feelings into each character, maybe try taking the core emotions you felt and use those as your starting point, without setting an expectation on yourself that you need to articulate the fear and pain in the precise manner that you experienced it. The fear and pain will look different in your characters than it did in your own life because your characters are different than you. That’s the joy of fiction—you can expand, embellish, and extrapolate all you want because you are telling someone else’s story and his/her experience doesn’t have to mirror yours.
Memoir is a wonderful narrative form for transferring our fear and pain undiluted onto the page, but fiction is a different animal. For working with fictional characters, try recalling those raw emotions and then funnel them through the set of motivations, history, temperament, worldview, etc. that is particular to each character. On the other side of that process, you’ll find an organic, believable reaction from each unique character based on the circumstances he/she is facing. There’s no exact science for using personal experiences as fodder for story, but your real life can give you some great inspiration so that the fictional people populating your story can seem real to us. The more you practice it, the more natural the process will become. Best wishes with your writing! :)
Good point, Eric! I'll try to keep your advice in mind. Thank you very much for your attention, and best of luck with your career.
Hi Valentina
Saw this and thought it might resonate with you :)
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/558164947539223235/
Thank you. Yes, I think stories are much more authentic and believable when we write from our own deepest emotional experiences or when we deeply understand the psychology of the role. I believe it helps the reader feel and connect with the characters more. How inspiring you used such a scary physical experience in your life to support yourself and now all of us.
Sherry Marshall (Author of E. book, 'A Search for Meaning. Connecting with Buddhist Teachers')
Thanks for your kind words, Sherry. I agree that using our deepest emotional experiences to inform our writing helps the reader feel and connect with the characters more. Good luck with your continued writing!
Eric
Personal pain and personal experience can be a deep well of material we can tap into from time to time. While I have not written an autobiographical piece with the intention of informing the reader about my own life, I have done exactly that by happenstance. All my characters take something from my own experience, whether that's in the form of joy, or pain, or fear, or affection for another human being. In that sense I'm lucky. I've been upside down in an airplane. I've experienced a pair of police officers pointing loaded guns at me. I've been married, divorced, been present for the birth of my children and been on scene when the skeletal remains of a mother and child were recovered from a sandy gravesite where their killer buried them. All this comes into my writing somewhere. Sometimes I execute it well, sometimes not as well as I might like. But I keep trying and I keep living. Somewhere out there I'm hoping the vanishing point of my life blends my fiction and my real life into one cosmic pin point of perception.
That's not an unreasonable hope, is it?
Wow, Jamie, you certainly seem to have a deep well of personal experience from which to draw. I imagine those experiences have given you keen insight into your characters. Your comments are encouraging!
All the best,
Eric
Hi Eric
Great post, thanks.
The notion of 'write what you know' is often ignored by authors of fantasy and sci-fi. As one such, I think you've nailed the point of that saying. The emotions and journey our characters go through are always likely to be the compelling part of our stories, regardless of how many dragons we squeeze in there! Every one of us has experienced pain and fear to one extent or another and it is recognising that, and learning how to bring it out in our writing and make the experience for the reader as strong as possible, that is key to creating successful character arcs.
cheers
Mike
Well said, Mike! You summarized the concept perfectly. I must say, I'd have genuine fear if encountering a dragon. Probably a little pain afterwards, too. All the best to you in crafting richly developed, dragon-defeating characters. :)
I think the best sci-fi and fantasy digs deep like this. Regardless of genre, the beauty of fiction is its ability to illuminate the human struggles inside each one of us. Dragons notwithstanding.
Donna, I heartily agree. It's the concept of art imitating life, reflecting our foibles, fears, and hopes. I know that's what keeps pulling me back to books like a magnetic force. I can't get enough! Thanks for your comment.
I am currently writing my first novel as well as my first non-fiction book. I also write blog posts twice a week. Writing using painful experiences and emotions is something I'm really working on. I am transparent but do struggle really putting the emotions into great descriptions that make readers truly feel it. Sometimes I think the real emotion is too much that its hard for me to voice it. Just trying to get over myself to try and apply what you've talked about here.
Kari,
I appreciate your honesty about trying to voice your real emotion in your writing. It is definitely a struggle sometimes, and it can cause us to revisit memories that may be uncomfortable. When I have a hard time articulating certain emotions, I try to generate a feeling by exhibiting an action. For example, if I am struggling to express the pain a character is feeling, I might give him/her a distinct behaviorism that shows the reader the onset of pain, such as biting the lip, avoiding eye contact, or sighing or stammering to speak.
Often, a visible sign of a character's turmoil gives the reader more insight than we realize. Through visible actions, the reader subconsciously infers characters' emotions and adds his/her own paradigm of experience, filling in the gaps of what that emotion might suggest. Everyone experiences pain, fear, hope, and conflict, so when a character demonstrates a sign of such an emotion, whether in an overt or subtle manner, the reader draws an immediate conclusion based on his/her own experiences. Maybe try using outward behaviors, rather than internal monologue or description, as a tool to show emotion--that way, you can show rather than tell, allowing the reader to interpret the characters' emotional state. This gives your readers a deeper sense of investment in the characters. All the best to you, Kari, as you process those emotions and channel them into rich, well-rounded characters!
That's a very helpful suggestion, Eric. I'm going to apply this as I turn my focus to my fiction book in the coming weeks.
Great article!
"Each of us has experienced tragedy in our lives. If you haven’t, you probably need to travel to your own tropical island and sell tickets to the rest of us so we can learn your secret to pain-free living" . Love it.