Fueling Your Writing With Feeling
By Kathleen McCleary | April 15, 2020 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Giuseppe Milo
After a month of social distancing and the uprooting of almost everything that was routine in my life, I’m having a lot of feelings about this whole situation. I miss hugging my friends—heck, I miss seeing my friends. I miss the casual banter with the lettuce lady at the farmer’s market and the camaraderie of my workout buddies and running to the store on a whim to pick up the bread I forgot to buy earlier. My palms are peeling from all the hand-washing and I have dreams about Clorox wipes. My husband and my youngest daughter are fine people but now they are in my house 24/7, having conference calls and Zoom meetings in what used to be my private work space. I lie awake at night dreading my weekly visit to the grocery store, or worrying how I will survive if my 90-year-old mother dies and I can’t even have the comfort of a funeral. And then it becomes more personal—a friend’s mother dies, a college classmate’s husband gets sick and writes goodbye letters to his family, my daughter has a bout of asthma and we spend a sleepless night, worrying. My 17-year-old cat dies and I feel like I could drown in grief.
I am anxious and I am grieving and I am lonely and I am bored and I am frustrated and I am grateful—does any of this sound familiar? And as hard as it can be to focus, all I can think is that all this emotion is raw and true and real and is exactly what fuels the best fiction. So how do I take all this feeling and use it in my writing?
Write the scene that you’re feeling right now, not necessarily the one that comes in the next chronological order in your story. My father died suddenly in 2011, as I was in the midst of working on a major revision of my second novel. The book was under contract, my editor wanted me to try adding a second point of view to the book, and my deadline was six weeks away. Of course my editor and agent were understanding about my father’s death, and told me not to worry about the deadline. But I found that it helped to pour my grief and shock‚ raw and real, into my writing. I looked for points in the story where my characters were experiencing loss or sudden upheavals in their lives, and I wrote those scenes. I didn’t worry about how I’d work them in or exactly where in the chronology they would appear. I knew certain events had to happen to my characters, and I wrote the events that reflected the emotion I was feeling then. It led to some of the most genuine writing I’ve done. None of my characters experienced the sudden death of a parent. But they had their own losses, and their grief was mine. Once I finished those scenes, I wrote other, less intense scenes, and mapped out the story arc, and moved scenes and chapters around—the equally important but less emotionally charged work of writing.
Invite your emotions in and really get to know them. I ask students in my creative writing classes to write down an emotion they’ve experienced in the past week—any emotion, no matter how big or small. Then I ask them to write a welcome manual to that emotion, as though anxiety had just knocked on the door and was standing out there, waiting to be let in. I’ve had students write some of the most insightful, honest, creative pieces I’ve ever read, including welcome manuals to lust, insecurity, gender dysphoria, boredom, and fear. It’s interesting to try to imagine an emotion with a physical presence, an attitude, a manner of speaking. It forces students to dig deep into all the facets of that feeling, how it makes itself felt, how it changes the way we think and talk and carry ourselves in the world. Those are useful things to think through in showing how emotions affect our characters.
Step back and calm yourself down. Maybe you’re overwhelmed with all this feeling. Maybe the LAST thing you want to do right now is take a deep dive into grief or fear or frustration or boredom. That’s fine. Write the scenes that are the calm after the emotional storm, or the character who is the foil to all the intensity another character is feeling. When writing that same second novel I created a character, an elderly man who had traveled the world, immersed himself in the natural world in his work as a botanist, and who was practical and no-nonsense and smart. Writing him, and writing the things he said to some of the characters who were emoting around him, centered me in a way I hadn’t imagined possible. His character had a genuine emotional truth, too, but a different kind of emotional truth. And it’s that spectrum—from despair to rage to exhaustion to calm to wisdom and back again—that defines the human experience. And that’s what good writing is all about.
How are you using feelings you’ve experienced during the pandemic in your own writing?
[coffee]
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (https://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she’s not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
They had been knocking for four weeks straight. Until I read your words, I didn’t realize how hard they were pounding. For me, I just plow through all this junk. What the heck, everybody is doing the same thing. Why should I start whining? Who would even want to know? Then while reading, these feelings poured right through the front door of my heart. You just opened it with your words … gave permission to come on in.
I took a deep breath (didn’t know I hadn’t taken one in four weeks) and looked at this miserable company. Makes me think that maybe it does matter … maybe it does matter that we share. Thank you, Kathleen.
Oh, Heidi, I’m glad you found my words helpful, and hope you can feel all those feelings and find some use for them in your own writing. I believe it does matter that we share; there are certain beloved books I turn to again and again in hard times, because the words comfort me. I’m sure we all have books like that; my goal is to write a book like that. Thanks for the comment.
Wonderful post, Kathleen.
We have to give ourselves permission to FEEL. However that looks.
Hugs
Dee
Thanks. I debated about whether or not to write about all this, but I figured it’s what everyone is thinking about and feeling about so it’s hard to ignore. Stay well, Kathleen
Brilliant advice — thank you!
You’re welcome, Bethany. It’s good to know it struck a chord with you.
Use what you feel. Use it right now. Yep, solid advice and an essential tool. Right on, Kathleen. As you probably know, this has been a preoccupation of mine.
There’s much to say about the emotional impact of stories, I have a whole book’s worth, but this morning I’ll just add this: In what you feel today, what *surprises* you?
That is good to focus on, because feelings obvious to the reader have low impact but emotions that need processing tend to stick. (Or, more accurately, it is the act of processing itself that has the impact.)
In any event, when working with feelings, take us somewhere “new but true.” A post close to my heart. Thanks, Kathleen!
Yes, Donald, The Fire in Fiction is one of my treasured writing guides. I love the addition of exploring what surprises us about the way we’re feeling. Great point. Thanks for the comment (and the inspiration). Cheers.
Hi Kathleen, I appreciate your writing process and how your experience of loss found its way into A SIMPLE THING. I lost my father when I was three, but that loss has found its way into much of my fiction. And during this time of sheltering, I have returned to my memoir, to the talks I had with my mother about every detail of his death. The memoir centers around that event, but celebrates the life we three children had growing up with our mother, an amazing woman who made life wonderful. In these times I hope I can pull what she taught me into my writing and I am grateful that she does not have to live through this, as at the end of her life she was living in a Senior Home. Thanks, Kathleen. Beth
Hi, Beth! Thanks for sharing your story. I am sure the early loss of your father has shaped you, your life, and your writing–how could it not? I love that you’ve used this time of sheltering to explore memories and meaning and the joy of your early family life. Hugs.
Thank you! Scary as it may be, I just may invite those feelings in and give them permission to have their say! You are a wonderful writer and friend, gifted with so many talents. Thank you for sharing your writing (and art work) with us all.
Hi, Barb! You are wise–inviting those scary feelings in may be the best way to sap some of their power. Thanks for your kind words. Hope against hope that I’ll see you this summer!
Thank you Kathleen for your honest and authentic words. My writing coach continues to tell me to go deeper. It is hard when the emotions are so raw. We have so much going on and so little control that it is easy to follow the road to despair. It is also a gift to go to the heart where life is raw and naked and overwhelming. For me, that is when words reach out and pull me in and speak to me and say , I see you,” and “I hear you – you are not alone.” Again thank you and take care of yourself.
Hi, Becky. It IS hard when the emotions are so raw. As you point out, though, there is comfort in knowing others are feeling equally raw, or a similar mix of gratitude and despair. Thanks for your thoughtful comment, and take care.
I don’t have your option, of choosing which scenes to write based on what emotions might or should be in them which correspond to my current emotions, because I write the way everyone tells you not to: one scene at a time until it is finished, polished, and turned to stone. The reason: I work with a damaged brain that cannot skip around, and a process that supports that brain.
But, based on Maass’ The Fire in Fiction, Chapter 8 – Tension All the Time, I have a step in that process which involves going through a long list of emotions – applied to both what the pov character is going through and what I want the reader to be feeling, and that invariably finds several places where I can use the emotional states I’m experiencing.
I write them down, and use the results as prompts to make the scene as full of micro-tension as I can.
It’s amazing how much you forget if you (okay, I) don’t go through your own checklists – I’m constantly finding refinements that make the scene better.
It takes time and labor – and I love the results. Each one of those prompts is like having another writer at the table.
Hi, Alicia. Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I love the fact that you’ve figured out the best way to work with your brain and emotions to get the most out of your writing. The idea of using emotions as prompts is a great one. Best of luck with your writing!
Kathleen, beautiful post. I want to wrap you in a sari and give you a real hug. We are body and soul, and we need the physical presence of our family and friends in our lives. I esp. feel for the people who are alone and lonely with not even a hand to hold through this.
Because we are all home together all the time, it harkens back to an earlier time when my children were with me 24/7. We had a simple life and so I’m putting together a collection of stories that evokes the joys of early childhood. My daughter is illustrating them. We drew up a simple contract. We are having a good time at home, except when we’re not. lol. Swords are drawn on a regular basis.
So many graces being poured out even in this pandemic–families together, people helping one another, compassion. Deo gratias!
Hi, Vijaya. I’d love that full-sari hug and I’d give you one right back. What a wonderful idea to work on a children’s book right now—I’ve had the same thought, and you (and your daughter!) are an inspiration. There are many graces during this strange time, even just the clear skies and cacophony of bird song that accompany less traffic. Every time I walk I’m amazed at how many birds I can hear here in the D.C. suburbs. Stay well!!
Kathleen, this post is so helpful! In what is a “Doh!” moment for me, I realised that the shock and loss I’m experiencing now is exactly what my protagonist feels at the beginning of my WIP. I mean, I knew that was what she felt, but hadn’t connected it to my own emotions in this suddenly upside-down world. Thanks for linking them! Off to revise those chapters.
Thanks, Barbara. I’m glad the column was helpful. This is such a crazy time; it’s hard to make connections of all kinds these days. Good luck with your writing!
I wish I was feeling anything much right now. I just seem to be in a holding pattern until it is over. My life has not changed a lot, as I live alone and don’t go to work. The people I normally connect with seem vague and shadowy out there, and following what is going on through the internet substitutes for actually contact. It is hard to write because I don’t feel anything except a vague curiosity about how the pandemic will turn out, and some guilt because others are really suffering, and I am not. I certainly can’t enter into my characters’ emotional lives.
Hi Kathleen, this is great advice, thank you! The first emotion that comes to my mind is “frustration”. Frustration that so many plans I had for this spring have shattered (some big ones like holidays, some easy ones I would not even call “plans”, just things I intended to do). Frustration that I cannot go and see my mom, 88 years old, living on her own in Austria, while I am stuck in the Netherlands (although “stuck” might convey the wrong impression, I am living here, and normally quite happily). Frustration that I can’t seem to concentrate properly in a house that is suddenly filled with husband and teenage sons all the time… Frustration about being interrupted x times per day by above teenage sons (twice already just typing this paragraph). Frustration that I am not capable of using the uninterrupted time I do have properly. Frustration that my mind seems to have turned into some kind of rabbit brain, jumping around like crazy. – So yes, this is something I could use for my protagonist, who has quite some reason to be frustrated too (especially at the beginning of the novel). I will see if rabbit brain is capable of writing it down. :-)
What helps me these days, to prevent from succumbing to frustration and the other ones lurking behind the door: Trying to invoke gratitude. Gratitude for the things that are still ok. Gratitude for the ease we are still experiencing in our daily life. Gratitude for everyone being healthy so far. Gratitude for spring time and sunshine and the fresh green leaves in my garden (immense gratitude for the garden!!!)
Lots of virtual hugs to everyone!