Don’t Picture Your Readers in Their Underwear: Writing Stage Fright
By Allie Larkin | April 28, 2017 |
While touring for my first book, an older gentleman I knew sidled up to me to ask about my main character’s love interest. He said, “So who’s this Alex guy?” in a wink wink kind of way and it ruined me for writing for awhile.
Writing STAY wasn’t part of a master plan to be published. I was about seventy-thousand words in before I even admitted to myself I was writing a book, so I hadn’t thought through the idea of PEOPLE I KNEW READING SEX SCENES I WROTE.
“So, who’s this Alex guy?” and I stretched that question through to the implication that this person thought not only was Alex based on a real person, but that my main character then had to be me and. . . the hyperventilating came fast. After that, any time I sat down to try to write, those words would hijack my mind, bouncing around like the refrain to a terrible song: So who’s this Alex guy? So who’s this Alex guy? So who’s this Alex guy?
I started pre-editing my ideas, thinking through what people might think of me if I wrote them, which is a terrible way to write. No one wants to read a book about a character who sits quietly with her hands folded in her lap. And no one really wants to write one either. It’s not satisfying.
I’ve read a lot of writing advice in the “Think of your audience” vein. And I get it. When we’re writing books for other people to read, we have to remember to make them readable. We have to figure out how to reach the right people with our stories. Of course we do. And I consider my readers in the broad stroke choices I make, but then I have to stop doing that and consider my characters in the fine-tuned moments of their world. I need to forget that anyone will ever read what I’m writing, because even though it’s fiction, it has to come from a vulnerable place. That Alex guy is the product of my uninhibited mind and if I want to write more characters who seem like they’re real, I have to make sure they grow from the same kind of free thought.
But, how?
My cure came by accident, through necessity. I sold my second book on a proposal with a tight timeline. Also, my husband and I were facing a cross-country move. I couldn’t move until I finished the book and I couldn’t finish the book until I tackled my stage fright. The pressure forced me into a strange kind of tunnel vision about my work, which I talked about a bit here. It felt like I was writing for my life (to get back to normal). The immediacy of my mission drowned out my destructive mantra. The characters had to matter more than my fears.
Obviously, that pressure isn’t something I can (or should) mimic with every book, but the experience gave me clues about what might work going forward. It also made me realize that conquering inhibition is a legitimate part of the work that goes into writing.
Here are some things I do to combat writerly stage fright. Maybe they’ll help you too.
- Play Head Games. I can’t really pretend I’m not writing a novel anymore. I am. But I made a pact with myself to always look for the most honest ways to describe a feeling or a moment through my character’s lens, with the knowledge that I can edit it out later if it feels too vulnerable to share. What I’ve learned is that honesty of emotion makes a story world work, and when something is working, there’s a natural distance that occurs. The vulnerability is transferred to the characters. I need the safety net of knowing I can hit delete on sensitive content, but I rarely have to use it.
- Get Silly. In college, as a theatre major we started acting classes by shaking our faces out and making ridiculous sounds. It works. It centers you in your body, and also helps you let go of pretense. Singing/dancing to cheesy music is a good option too. Of course, this may not work if you write in coffee shops, but I’m not here to limit you.
- Exercise. Hard. (But, obviously only if your doctor thinks it’s okay for you.) Some of my best writing is done while dripping sweat on our fake leather Ikea chair, madly typing thoughts I spun while tearing through the neighborhood trying to (almost literally) outrun my insecurities.
- Consume Brave Art. Reading, viewing, or listening to art by people who have pushed their own boundaries (and we know it when we read/see/hear it) is truly effective inspiration. Conversely, consuming only work that plays it safe can be limiting.
- Set Steep First Draft Goals. For my most recent project, I gave myself slightly unreasonable weekly word count goals for the first draft. There was much work to be done after that draft, but I got thoughts down before I could second-guess them.
- Get Absorbed in Something Else Before You Write. Sometimes it’s easier to make the transition from self to work in stages. (That brave art comes in handy here too.)
- Take a Break When You Need One. When we can’t shake the stage fright, we might need a little extra self-inventory and care to tend to the feelings keeping us afraid. I know sometimes in the face of a writing goal, it’s hard to step away, but think of it like having a pebble in your shoe. If you take the time to remove the pebble, you’ll be able to walk that much further.
What do you do to get over your writing inhibitions?
Allie Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novel Stay (2010), and Why Can’t I Be You (2013). She has never ordered a dog off the internet or assumed a new identity to attend a high school reunion.
Allie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Jeremy, and their German Shepherd, Stella.
Food for thought, Allie. Interesting post. I’m writing my current WIP in first person. Not something I’ve done before. Short stories seem to be fine, but a novel? Not so much. When I feel I’m distancing myself instead of being as close as I need to be I write a scene as usual then open a new file and abandon myself to just letting it pour out again without thinking too much about what I’m writing. For some reason that works for me. I don’t keep everything I’ve written in that second go round but I always find bits that work much better than what came before.
Ooh! That’s an excellent tactic. I can totally see how separating it would be helpful. Thank you so much for sharing that, Linnea!
Such an important topic, Allie. I’ll never forget the very first thing my first non-family beta-reader, a friend and neighbor, said about my first manuscript: “Who *are* these people?” I didn’t quite understand the question, and we moved past it. Then several weeks later I heard him say to a mutual friend: “None of them are anyone we know.” He was talking about my characters. He’s remarked to that same effect several times since. He seems incredulous that he can’t see who my characters are based on. Even to the point of being mildly miffed about it. Seems like something people really want – like they can find some juicy gossip in doing so.
As for fighting my stage fright, I’ve found some success in forgetting about a broader audience by imagining my “Right Reader” (my wife). When I’m writing something funny or sad, I think of whether or not she’d laugh or cry. And when I stray into, you know – bow-chica-wow-wow territory – deciding how she’d rate the scene sort of keeps me from getting too guy-ish and yucky, or sappy… Well, I hope it does, anyway.
Thanks for the great tips and techniques! I can see all of them being useful in the future.
It is such a strange thing to have people assume we’re our characters! I guess if you don’t walk around with imaginary people in your head all the time, the idea of fabricating them must be strange. I love that your neighbor was kind of miffed!
I think this is what I’m currently struggling with. It does help me to think, “I’ll use a pen name!” But the bottom line is that so much great writing comes out of saying the things we don’t normally allow ourselves to say.
Thank you for this very good post!
“So much great writing comes out of saying the things we don’t normally allow ourselves to say.”
YES. YES. YES.
Yes! I totally agree too! That’s a brilliant statement, Becky!
Lately, I’ve been drawing. It’s something that I’m doing only for myself. I have no hope of ever being good at it, which takes away all the pressure. It’s also soothing.
I’m finding that if I spend some time drawing, it puts me in the right frame of mind to write without worrying about readers. The mindset of doing something creative for its own sake seems to transfer.
That’s awesome, Laura! Such a great way to get ready to write!
“Consume brave art”—there you have it, in a nutshell. Love it, Allie. How many times have we been afraid to “go there,” only to see someone else do it brilliantly and then recognize deep in our souls that we have experienced all those same emotions? Brave art reminds us that we can do this, too. Just like you did.
Thank you, Kathryn! I really do feel like the more I watch others be brave with their work, the more I want to jump in and do the same.
I write for me.
Yes, there is story craft. Yes, there is shaping, revising, editing. All of that matters. I want to be read. But the more the story is for me, the more it will reach others.
My struggle–if writing fiction can be called a struggle–is to achieve honesty. It is sometimes difficult for me to tell the difference between what I think my characters should do and feel versus their authentic and autonomous actions and emotions.
Maybe I should stop thinking of them as “my” characters. Maybe what I should be asking, actually, is, “So who is this Alex guy?”
Hmm. Your creepy acquaintance thinks that your characters are actual people. Perhaps I should regard my characters that way too–without being creepy, of course.
Great post.
Oh! I absolutely believe in treating your characters like real people. I don’t think that’s creepy at all! The more human texture you craft, the more they seem to almost write themselves!
My most avid audience is the people with whom I grew up. (I grew up and attended school in a village in South Louisiana and most of my stories are set there.) They enjoy the setting and have a great time trying to figure out who the characters are based despite the fact that when I create a character, I never have anyone specific in mind. One of my readers actually asked me if one of the characters was based on her father because he, too, owned and ran a saloon in the village. I realized that it was a source of pride for her to think that her dead father could be the inspiration for a character in a novel. It is a dicey situation, however, because some of my characters are “bad,” downright evil, even. At first, this troubled me, but I quickly realized that if I was going to worry if people identified with my characters, then I wouldn’t write. Now, whenever someone asks me if my character is based on so and so, I tell h/her that the character is a product of my imagination and my experiences–that so and so is real and my character is made-up. Sometimes, h/she accepts that. Other times, I get a nod and a wink. I have come to realize that it comes with the territory and that all I can do about it is deal with it. Not writing is out of the question.
I can imagine writing about your village hometown would add an extra layer of assumption!
Hah! I’m working on it … thanks for a great post.
I try to call to mind a couple of very close and trusted friends as my ideal readers when I think of my audience.
That sounds like a very workable tactic, Vijaya! I’ve done that with public speaking!
This is fantastic, Allie. I especially like “let go of pretense” and “I need to forget that anyone will ever read what I’m writing.” Spot on. I’m great at drafting for just me. It’s when I’m revising and editing that I start thinking beyond me. Maybe an early reader makes comments that have me second-guessing. I catch myself softening things, thinking about how someone might take it the wrong way. Since my protagonist has to be “likeable,” I start thinking that means she can’t do anything that isn’t “nice.”
I have to remind myself that boldness and maybe even a bit of discordance is what makes writing and characters memorable. That it’s okay for the reader to not like her at this moment, or to be shocked that he said that.
One method of silencing that voice for me is to remember how fun I’ve always found it to go a slightly different direction, to recapture that “I can do what I want” spirit I had when I was younger. The spirit that said in high school, “I hate the color of our letter jackets, so I’m ordering a different color that I actually like, and when people say, ‘You can’t do that,” I respond, ‘I just did, though.'” Remembering that girl who didn’t mind standing out — that’s what helps me deal with the stage fright.
Oh! The likable character curse. . .grumble grumble. I do think there’s a lot more we can get away with if we work on those human feelings and the motivations behind “bad” behaviors. But man, that’s a thing to wrestle with.
I love what you said about the jackets. “I just did, though.” That is absolutely awesome!
“You can’t do that…I just did” — Yes! yes!
When I wrote my first novel in high school, my proud mother wanted to share the manuscript with her book club friends. The friends refused to read beyond the first few pages, saying the story made them uncomfortable because they were “too close to the people involved.” See, I had given the heroine an abusive mother, and these people assumed I was airing our family’s dirty laundry for all to see!
I was confused and mortified, because nobody who knew my mother could possibly think she inspired the monster in the novel. But there it is–some readers will think every story is an autobiography, even if there’s no basis for it.
I think if someone were to make that assumption about one of my stories now, I’d say, “That character? I stole her from Mommie Dearest. But shh, don’t tell the Paramount lawyers.” And if someone were to ask me with a sly wink about an “Alex guy,” I’d probably say, “Oh no, I’ve never experienced anything like that scene myself. I just watch a lot of porn.”
“Consume brave art” is maybe my new personal motto. Love it so much.
Great advice all around, thanks!
It is so bizarre to have readers assume that we base our main characters on ourselves and our other characters on people we know. I had one incidence in which a friend said, “Now I know how you think.”
Really?
From reading one novel and assuming my main character is me, he knows how I think?
*shaking my head
Your tip about theater is awesome! I actually try to explain my wild stories and characters to friends by using theater as a reference – writing characters is like acting a part on a stage. It’s not me. It’s a pretend character. :)