The Therapeutic Benefits of Writing a Novel
By Guest | May 7, 2017 |
Please welcome guest Jessica Lourey (rhymes with “dowry”) whose new book Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction is the only book that shows you how to transform your facts into a compelling, healing novel. Jessica is a tenured professor of creative writing and sociology, a regular Psychology Today blogger, a sought-after workshop leader and keynote speaker who delivered the 2016 “Rewrite Your Life” TEDx Talk, and a leader of transformative writer’s retreats.
Jessica (Jess) is also the author of the critically-acclaimed Murder-by-Month mysteries, that have earned multiple starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist. The next one is due out in September 2017: March of Crime. Her other novels are The Catalain Book of Secrets, Salem’s Cipher, The Toadhouse Trilogy: Book One, May Day, June Bug, Knee High by the Fourth of July, August Moon, September Fair, October Fest, November Hunt, December Dread, January Thaw, and February Fever.
Connect with Jessica on her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
The Therapeutic Benefits of Writing a Novel
When my husband died unexpectedly in 2001, I’d never heard of expressive writing. And you know what? It wouldn’t have mattered if I had. Three months pregnant, raising a three-year-old, and suddenly a widow, the last thing I wanted to do was spend even one sharp second journaling about how I felt. No offense to Dr. Pennebaker, the founder of the expressive writing movement. It’s just that I couldn’t survive reliving the pain of my husband’s suicide, not then, not on my own. I needed to convert it, package it, and ship it off.
So I began writing fiction.
I’d find pockets and corners of time, and in them, I began to create a world where there was death, but there was also justice. Answers. Allies. Closure. The end result was May Day, which went on to become my first published novel. I hadn’t set out to write a mystery. It’s just that I had these questions, this shame, this fear, and I needed to get it out of my head or it was going to destroy me. Channeling it into fiction seemed like the safest method.
And you know what? Not only did I create a publishable book. I began to heal.
The research would tell you that I was externalizing the story, habituating myself to it, inoculating myself against deep grief by exposing myself to it in small, controlled doses. All I knew was that my brain wasn’t spinning as much and I was beginning to feel again, even if it was the emotions of fictional characters. Little by little, I was carving out new space for thoughts that were not about death or depression. Through the gentle but challenging exercise of writing a novel, I was learning how to control stories, which is what our lives are—stories.
The healing I experienced makes sense when you consider Dr. Pennebaker’s discovery that two elements above all else increase the therapeutic value of writing: creating a coherent narrative and shifting perspective. These are not coincidentally the cornerstones of short story and novel writing. Writers call them plot and point of view.
I came to call this healing process “rewriting my life,” as I was taking real events and repurposing them to fit a fictional narrative. The power of this process is transformative. Writing fiction allows you to become a spectator to life’s roughest seas. It gives form to your wandering thoughts, lends empathy to your perspective, allows you to cultivate compassion and wisdom by considering other people’s motivations, and provides us practice in controlling attention, emotion, and outcome. We heal when we transmute the chaos of life into the structure of a novel, when we learn to walk through the world as observers and students rather than wounded, when we make choices about what parts of a story are important and what we can let go of.
Based on the number of people who line up after my writing workshops for a private word, or who contact me online, I know I’m not alone. There are many of us who need to process our garbage so we can choose a better life, but who can’t bear the idea of writing memoir, whether it’s because we are too close to the trauma, don’t want to hurt or be hurt by those we’re writing about, or simply prefer the vehicle of fiction.
I’m not the first writer to discover this healing process.
Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is his public grappling with some of his more haunting childhood experiences, including a complicated, troubling relationship with his father. In addition to Dickens declaring David Copperfield his most autobiographical and favorite of all the novels he wrote, The Guardian places it at number 15 in a list of the 100 best novels in history. Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran whose The Things They Carried is about a Vietnam War veteran named Tim O’Brien. The work is fiction. He coalesces something fundamental, something almost mystical at the heart of rewriting your life, when he writes in his most famous book, “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.” The Things They Carried has sold over 2 million copies internationally, won numerous awards, and is an English classroom staple.
Isabel Allende was the first writer to hold me inside of a sentence, rapt and wondrous. It’s no surprise that her most transformative writing springs from personal anguish. Her first book, The House of the Spirits, began as a letter to her dying grandfather whom she could not reach in time. Eva Luna, one of my favorite books of all time, is about an orphan girl who uses her storytelling gift to survive and thrive amid trauma, and Allende refers to the transformative power of writing in many of her interviews. Allende’s books have sold over 56 million copies, been translated into over 30 languages, and made into successful plays and movies. Such is the power of transforming your pain and insight into fiction.
Nora Ephron’s roman à clef Heartburn is a sharply-funny fictionalized account of Ephron’s own marriage to Carl Bernstein. She couldn’t control his cheating during her pregnancy or the subsequent dissolution of their marriage, but through the novelization of her experience, she got to revise the ending. In Heartburn, Rachel, the character based on Ephron, is asked by a friend why she must make everything a story. Her answer speaks directly to the power of storying your life: “Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.” Heartburn is Ephron’s first published novel. In addition to being a bestseller, her screenplay was turned into a box-office hit starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
This alchemy of transmuting-pain-into-gold isn’t the purview of an elite group of gifted, well-trained authors who were born with pen in hand. When I wrote May Day, I had an English degree but had never taken a novel-writing class. I didn’t even know the basics of writing a short story, let alone had met a person who actually wrote books. Plus, I was living in rural Minnesota and, pre-Internet (at least where I lived), I had no access to writing groups. I taught myself to write a novel.
Nor is the therapeutic power of novel writing exclusive to those who have experienced deep trauma. Dr. Pennebaker found that directed, expressive writing is beneficial for everyone, meeting us where we are at, whether we’re coming to terms with a difficult commute, struggling against an annoying coworker, navigating a divorce, or coping with deep grief or PTSD.
You don’t even have to want to publish what you write, and in fact, it’s okay if you don’t. If you begin from the perspective that your writing is private, you give yourself permission to write freely and with integrity without polluting your story with the fickle demands of the publishing world because here’s the truth: it doesn’t matter if you burn the novel the second you finish penning it. You can even toss it in the air, still burning, fire bullets into it, pour acid on it when it falls, and bury the ashes. You’ll still reap all the physical and psychological benefits of writing it. The balm and insight lie in externalizing and controlling the story, not in showing it to others.
If you decide to publish, though, you’ll have something genuine and powerful to offer the world. Dickens, O’Brien, Ephron, Allende, and hundreds of other bestselling authors created compelling stories because they pulled them from a place of truth, vulnerability, and experience. Turning crucible moments into a novel is not only regenerative for the writer, it’s glorious for the reader. That authenticity creates an indelible story.
You don’t have to believe any of this.
You just have to do it.
This is the power of writing.
Have you discovered the healing power of writing fiction? How have you re-written your life? We’d love to hear!
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
I have just the story to write about. There is something that has been rotting away at me for years affecting my life for far too long. I am not sure just how I should go about writing about it though, I guess one word at a time is a good start… thanks for the good words.
by the way, what part of MN are you originally from? I am in Fargo ND but love to travel to MN.
Ryan, I hear you. And it feels so good to get the rotting stuff out. My book showing you how, step by step, to get it it out released on May 1 and is available wherever books are sold or your local library should be able to get it for you: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781573246934. It’s called Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction. And yay to Fargo! I’m in Minneapolis now but am originally from Paynesville.
Well, geez, I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. I’m in therapy because of the whole novel writing thingy (the voices in my head).
Back to the storyboard- YEAH- I’m going to rewrite MY life.
Yeah! Do it. By the way, I’m also in therapy. :) I’m a big fan of personal evolution and think there are many paths to it. But yay! Rewrite your life!
Dear Jess:
It seems we can’t get away from each other this week. (Note: Jess and I touched base at Jane Friedman’s blog earlier this week.
This is a wonderful, heartfelt post. I did not know your personal history, or the terrible heartbreak you suffered and overcame. (For the others who will read this thread — I know Jess primarily through Left Coast Crime, where she leads a panel which year in, year out, is everyone’s favorite — not surprisingly, it concerns sex.)
First, as a fellow widow/er, I have some idea of what you did indeed need to overcome, but the particular pain of suicide and having not just a child but another on the way makes what you overcame particularly inspiring. I frankly don’t know whether I would have had such wisdom, perseverance, and hopefulness. I doubt it. It’s quite admirable what you’ve done. I’m not just moved but in awe. Because I know that dark place, I’ve known the difficulty of crawling out and turning the result into fiction, and I think the success you’ve enjoyed and the compassionate outreach you’ve accomplished, inspiring others to heal, is an act of remarkable generosity.
But what I was most moved by is the gentleness that your words exhibit. The horrible temptation of grief is anger, and you’ve not only put that behind you (it seems), but you’ve reached that point where you understand that only by caring for others can we escape the horrible pain of such loss. I think that is also part of the healing process in writing.
Although it is true that we can tear up what we’ve written once we’re done, the sneaky secret truth of writing is that it is intended to be read, and that reader, like the recipient of the prolonged and personal letter in fiction form we’ve written, is our companion and accomplice in healing. The writing does indeed help objectify the feelings and permit us to process them in manageable ways, but I also think it is a safe way to reconnect with others, those invisible and unknown readers out there in that suddenly very unpredictable and seemingly unsafe world.
Thank you so much for such a heartwarming start to my day. I’m teaching at the Oregon Writers Colony Conference this weekend, and will share this post and your book with everyone. I’m so glad I decided to check out WU this morning instead of take a walk on the beach (but I’ll get one in later…) Have a wonderful day, and best wishes for the new book. I think it will do a great deal of good for a great many people.
Ah, your kindness here has brought me to tears. Thank you, David. Thank you for sharing your story, as you’ve done, and for understanding. There’s no way you could know this, but your The Art of Character is one of nine books on writing that I recommend at the end of Rewrite Your Life. You’re a fantastic writer and teacher.
Jessica and David, thanks for the big shoulders and soft hands of your writing here. Pain is inevitable in this neighborhood we call the world, but damn, you guys had it deep in the walls.
There’s a Homer quote that goes something like, “If you wish me to weep, you must first grieve yourself,” which I think speaks of writing from, through, and with the pain. Seems like a bearing witness to the reader—who might be working through their own pain, or moving toward a deeper knowing of its sweep. Heavy stuff.
David, thank you for a wonderful comment.
“The writing does indeed help objectify the feelings and permit us to process them in manageable ways, but I also think it is a safe way to reconnect with others…”
My very first draft of my first novel felt like reconnecting with myself, retracing steps into what could and couldn’t be, discovering that one weekend sparked a world of ideas. It hurt in all the right ways. That connection within myself pushed me to revise and improve and connect with others.
I agree. About six months ago, I volunteered for a company drawdown, closing out a two decade career with my employer. This took me out the door a few years short of retirement age. Even though it was the right decision, it was still a hard one. I was walking out on projects and people that needed me. A couple of weeks after I left, I started doodling at the keyboard, with no specific plan to do more than a few pages of stress relief. A few pages quickly turned into fifty, then, a hundred, and then I realized that I was writing a novel, which hadn’t been my intent. It wasn’t until I was almost done that I realized that the hero of the story was working through the same weird melange of emotions–frustration, anger, pride in accomplishments, betrayal– that I’d gone through, but written larger. At one remove, I’d been using him as a mirror to ask myself how I felt about what I’d done. I can’t say whether or not it helped me, but it certainly helped the story.
That is beautiful. I’m so glad you followed that instinct.
Not an easy post to comment on. Your story is such a difficult one to have lived – and you had no choices at all because your children depended on you. And you did what you had to do.
I am doing the same with the subject of chronic illness as my base layer, complicated by what society tells the disabled and chronically ill: it’s somehow all your fault. Pride’s Children also proves that’s not true, that there is worth in the person and value in the life; it’s just lived with a much higher degree of difficulty.
We praise that in athletes; it’s the same spirit in people who must deal day in and day out with burdens most of us won’t face.
We’re all people.
Thank you for reading my post and sharing your experience, Alicia. There is absolutely worth in the person and value in the life–you have a story worth telling.
Doesn’t hurt at all that it’s a mainstream love story – and a love triangle – and definitely a ‘big book.’ Lots of room – and not ‘inspirational.’
I firmly believe that the harder the themes, the better the book has to be – or it comes across as preachy, which is the kiss of death.
Wow, Jessica, I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your spouse in such a horrible way and have to come to terms with that while pregnant and caring for a toddler. That you have managed to not only survive, but thrive, is a real testament to your strength.
My first attempt at a novel lives only on the hard drive of my computer and will never again see the light of day. It’s thinly veiled autobiography about my childhood trauma and, to put it gently, literary vomit. Writing it was therapeutic and necessary, but I am glad to have it behind me now. I have no desire to open and read that document again.
Subsequent books have highly personal elements weaved in, though my characters are very much their own people. Tapping into emotionally charged memories makes for some of the most gripping and genuine prose. I will have to pick up those books you listed that I have not yet read.
Kim, I have my own literary vomit. :) Unfortunately, not being as wise as you, I made it my Master’s thesis and so it can be found and read by the cunning. I tried to steal it out of the library where it’s held but had a pang of conscience and returned it. Sigh. Keep on writing, sister.
Dear Jess, I am so glad I got on the computer this morning and clicked on the WU tab. Your story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Reminds me how God can write with crooked lines, can bring goodness out of tragedy. Of course, it being the Easter season, I’m reminded daily that the greatest tragedy in the history of the world was also the greatest triumph.
There’s always a little bit of me in all my stories. And I love rewriting the way things might have gone. One of my first stories to be published was about how a mother stitches a quilt out of six-inch squares from her children’s clothes. The truth is that I don’t have patience for quilting … but my children did get to wear an apron out of those six inch squares. Through writing I’ve discovered who I am, what I believe, and what matters. And it’s great fun too!
Thank you for writing this essay and sharing your work with us.
“God can write with crooked lines.” Love this. Thank you for stopping by and sharing a snippet of your insight, Vijaya.
I started my first, unpublished novel when my first marriage was unraveling. During those months, and the divorce, the project gave my life structure, gave me a place where I was in control, where I could delve into emotion without dissolving into tears. And it isn’t even necessary to write about the trauma or drama to heal from it. Writing that ms. set me on the writing path I was meant to be on. The ms., and the dogs, gave me reason to get up every morning.
Thank you, Jess, for telling your story, and reminding us all of the essential power not just of story but of story-telling.
So nice to see you, Leslie! Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m feeling sorta naked and wobbly out in the world with this very personal story exposed, and it makes it easier when other people share their experiences. Big love to you!
Not to take anything away from the actual writing as therapy but, I think, the most critical part of rewriting my life came from the community of which I had become a part. It was being invited into the tribe with such open and welcoming arms like yours, Jessie; of being received with love and compassion allowed me to heal enough from a childhood of neglect and emotional abuse and feel safe enough to write the story I had inside – knowing that I was valued and supported allowed me to open up those festering wounds, writing then flushed them clean and swept out the poison that had been killing me slowly.
Reading Sheryl Sanders’ Option B recently, a phrase struck me – “Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried.”
My writing community gave me the tools and writing itself made the box I carry it all in now.
Beautifully said, Aimee. The tribe cannot be underestimated. Finding people who are messy and imperfect and creative and honest has made a tremendous difference for me, too. When you tell your story, you find your tribe.
I really needed to read this today, Jessica. I was on the verge of cancelling a trip to a writers retreat because I’m on the verge of giving up writing altogether after eight unpublished years. I’m ordering your book today so I can redirect my goal to working on myself through fiction. Thank you.
MaryZ! I’m feeling so nervous for my launch party tonight (despite what is suggested by my article, and my book, and my TEDx Talk, I am soooo uncomfortable revealing this much of myself), and you have reminded me why I’m doing this. Big love to you. May your kindness return to you ten times over.
The last several years I’ve been going through some intensive self-realization, and not surprisingly, it’s led me to dive deep into the actions and drive behind my characters. What I see on my pages feels so powerful that sometimes when I read it back, I can hardly believe I’m the one who wrote it.
I heartily agree with you. Writing is therapeutic. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Back atcha, Suzanne!
This is precisely why I write. I had recently written a similar blog (here if you want to check it out: https://bit.ly/2p90fcw) which touches on the same topic. I recommend it to all writers.
Thanks
Lee
Tears stream down my cheeks. Had to get a tissue before writing this. “This post really resonated with me” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
My spouse was 33 when he was diagnosed with an incurable cancer. Even though our oldest was 3 and our youngest 3 months old, he was ready to give up. “What’s the use,” he’d say, “the doctors are telling me I have between 3 and 5 years.” So I became The Pillar. The Warrior. I took care of everything, of everyone. Made sure everything stayed under control, that everyone was reassured, consoled. We saw a therapist, who suggested reading “Love, Medecine and Miracles” by Bernie Siegel, and my man found hope. We scoured for medical break-throughs and clinical tests, we learned this type of cancer may not be curable, but it is treatable. We blocked out statistics and believed in the better odds. Only one year after intense chemo and a stem cell transplant was he back to work. The doctors said he defied even their best prognostics. But by then, I was exhausted.
A husk.
He went back on tour (he used to work for Cirque du Soleil) and I was home alone caring for our two daughters. I could barely get up in the morning, I had no appetite, for food or for life. As some sort of survival mechanism, I started making up a world to escape to. I’d zone out while doing the dishes or folding the laundry, or I’d weave stories in my head to help me fall asleep at night. It’s just like you described, Jess, it was giving me a break from all the craziness I’d just been through, it was a respite.
My better half is alive and well, the cancer, a sleeping dragon. I’ve learned to be softer, kinder to myself. Gratitude and writing are part of everyday now. Sometimes I use my story as an escape, but more often than not, writing anchors me to ME. I’m a creative, a sensitive, and I’ve learned to be a different kind of strong.
(Woah. Just realized this might just be a leit motiv in my current WIP. A different kind of strong. Oh the power of WU. Thank you!)
Veronic, your writing gave me chills. Thank you so much for sharing that raw, honest story. You say it so well throughout, but especially here: “Sometimes I use my story as an escape, but more often than not, writing anchors me to ME. I’m a creative, a sensitive, and I’ve learned to be a different kind of strong.” Yes. YES. Thank you for this authentic connection. It makes the whole world a little bit better and stronger (I truly believe that).
“We heal when we transmute the chaos of life into the structure of a novel,” That is my favorite line from this excellent post. Personally, I have deliberately avoided the direct transmuting of my life chaos into my fiction because of the continuing presence of too many of those “characters” on my allegedly real-life plane. In other words. people would be hurt to have all of that messy trauma hung out in public like the dirty laundry our parents always admonished us to keep private. That is the reason I write genre fiction, romantic suspense novels to be exact, because those stories are so far afield from my real life. Yet, I have no doubt my personal chaos creeps in under less direct guises. In the meantime, the process of storytelling itself, being transported into the world of the narrative, is consistently comforting and curative indeed. Alice – http://www.aliceorrbooks.com
Alice, I’m so glad to hear that you’ve found the comfort and cure of fiction writing.
Just yesterday I thought about a time in my life I need to write about but can’t because of its effect on people I love. Today I read this. Okay, Universe, I got the message. I will write about this. Maybe I will burn it and shoot bullets at it. Maybe I will transform it into a fictional story. But write it, I shall. Thank you.
Yes! Storytellers are the bravest souls.
“The research would tell you that I was externalizing the story, habituating myself to it, inoculating myself against deep grief by exposing myself to it in small, controlled doses.”
And that is the way we deal with grief, which is why the first weeks or months after a loss like this, we are numb. If we were to come face to face with the enormity of the loss and the impact on our life in one big moment, it would crush us. I learned that first as a hospital chaplain, then as a wife who lost her husband after 47 years of marriage.
No matter what some people have said about grief, it is never the same for each person and it is not easy.
Kudos to you for finding your way through fiction.
Thank you, Maryann.
This encourages me so very much Jessica. I have been through a lot in my life, both good and bad.
I was told when I was in high school, by an english teacher, that I am a great writer. However, I’ve started and stopped for many, many years due to insecurities and self-doubt. I now think fiction is the way to go verses telling my life story.
I’m going to get your book and digest it. Then I will start writing my own, one page at a time.
Blessings to you.
Cathey