WIP Wednesday: Writing What You Have Felt.
I think I speak for most fiction writers when I say we write what we know. Even when we think we’re writing/thinking outside our mental box, we’re really just borrowing something we have already absorbed from the world around us and now see with different eyes. Living does that. Life demands it.
Moments in our lives can take what we thought we knew and widen it to proportions we will never be able to shrink back from and then with the same gusto, break our thoughts down and scatter them to the winds to be rebuilt again different. Moments shine lights on ideals and set fire to new ones, but just as easily can yank them by the scruff of the neck and tosses them into shadows making us ask… “What the hell just happened?”
Sad to say, much of my characters emotions-or at least the really emotional ones (I know. Elegant right?)-came from the things I know, but not how you may think. I will probably never write an autobiography, my feelings on my own personal life events are my own. Like any other writer, I do use my life experiences to indirectly flesh out my characters, never getting so personal that it can be easily identified as my own experience. But most of the hardcore emotions and reactions that come out of my characters came from my observation of others throughout my life. Like a lot of writers, I am a people watcher who can be both distant and empathetic. While working my decade long stint in the “other people’s problems” business I accumulated an extensive and diverse catalog of other people’s emotional baggage that’s kept me well versed in human behavior. And of course there is the over thirty year diet of TV watching, movie watching, book reading and music rolling around like loose candy in my piñata head.
The fact that I haven’t relied on my own personal stockpile to bring life to my characters experiences (or so I thought), has made me feel as if I have been cheating in some way over the last couple of years. It’s only been recently have I stepped back and looked at some of my old work and seen that my emotions, my heart, my wishes were there in my writing in plane sight. Maybe I was just in denial at the time of the writing, not comfortable looking at the things that bother me. Probably so. (And I am also new at making observations about myself. It has been off-putting but useful.)
I guess I just needed a couple more years of ‘moments’ to bring me around and face-well, me.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
This bit was from my Jericho Chapters Series, the last chapter out of 22. Jake (the MC) is in a dream talking with his dead father, Johnston. I wrote this about a month after my own father’s death. I think this was the first time I wrote something so close to home. The paragraph marked *** was that moment.
"Heather needs you now. That child will need you…” Johnston ordered.
“But what if I…” Jake stuttered out.
“Screw it up?” Johnston smirked at his son before looking back out over the lake. “Hate to tell you, kiddo, but you probably will on occasion. No Dr. Spock baby book is going to make that any different. Which reminds me, throw your mothers out before she gives it to Heather?” The older man grinned to his still silent son then looked down at the hat he turned in his hands. “Having that child is just the tip of the iceberg, got plenty more to be scared of or wrong about, afterwards.”
“Great, no worries.” Jake groaned, placing his hands over his face and then away.
A deep bark of a laugh rose in Johnston Green’s chest as he smiled at his son. “You know you’ll get some stuff right, too? When you do it will make all the wrongs worth the gray hairs. I know that from my own personal experience.” Jake looked up and gave his father a slight grin. “You’ll do good, son. Might even get a little more right than your old man did.”
***Jake watched his father smile, and felt his mind spin trying to take in all that was said between them. He wanted to remember tonight, when his eyes opened from this dream. His heart grew heavy, knowing the moment must end. If his Dad could just be with him again, not in this world of dreams and memories, but with him like he had once been. In that moment, he wished more than anything to take his father back over the great divide.
“I miss you, Dad.”
Johnston reached out to his son’s cheek; his eyes warmly watching the younger man swallow down emotion. The elder Green gladly acknowledged the man his son had become, but right then the father in him could only see the young boy he’d once been. He saw that naked honesty in son’s soulful eyes and not the stubborn silence that took him in the teen years. He saw his son’s limitless courage and heart, things that life’s circumstances never took from Jake, only buried for a time to be found once more. It seemed to Johnston, that in some strange way his son had finally come full circle. Back to his family, back to himself, back to life. It’s all he could have asked for.
“I’ll always be with you, son.” His words deep and warm. “Always.”
Moments in our lives can take what we thought we knew and widen it to proportions we will never be able to shrink back from and then with the same gusto, break our thoughts down and scatter them to the winds to be rebuilt again different. Moments shine lights on ideals and set fire to new ones, but just as easily can yank them by the scruff of the neck and tosses them into shadows making us ask… “What the hell just happened?”
Sad to say, much of my characters emotions-or at least the really emotional ones (I know. Elegant right?)-came from the things I know, but not how you may think. I will probably never write an autobiography, my feelings on my own personal life events are my own. Like any other writer, I do use my life experiences to indirectly flesh out my characters, never getting so personal that it can be easily identified as my own experience. But most of the hardcore emotions and reactions that come out of my characters came from my observation of others throughout my life. Like a lot of writers, I am a people watcher who can be both distant and empathetic. While working my decade long stint in the “other people’s problems” business I accumulated an extensive and diverse catalog of other people’s emotional baggage that’s kept me well versed in human behavior. And of course there is the over thirty year diet of TV watching, movie watching, book reading and music rolling around like loose candy in my piñata head.
The fact that I haven’t relied on my own personal stockpile to bring life to my characters experiences (or so I thought), has made me feel as if I have been cheating in some way over the last couple of years. It’s only been recently have I stepped back and looked at some of my old work and seen that my emotions, my heart, my wishes were there in my writing in plane sight. Maybe I was just in denial at the time of the writing, not comfortable looking at the things that bother me. Probably so. (And I am also new at making observations about myself. It has been off-putting but useful.)
I guess I just needed a couple more years of ‘moments’ to bring me around and face-well, me.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
This bit was from my Jericho Chapters Series, the last chapter out of 22. Jake (the MC) is in a dream talking with his dead father, Johnston. I wrote this about a month after my own father’s death. I think this was the first time I wrote something so close to home. The paragraph marked *** was that moment.
"Heather needs you now. That child will need you…” Johnston ordered.
“But what if I…” Jake stuttered out.
“Screw it up?” Johnston smirked at his son before looking back out over the lake. “Hate to tell you, kiddo, but you probably will on occasion. No Dr. Spock baby book is going to make that any different. Which reminds me, throw your mothers out before she gives it to Heather?” The older man grinned to his still silent son then looked down at the hat he turned in his hands. “Having that child is just the tip of the iceberg, got plenty more to be scared of or wrong about, afterwards.”
“Great, no worries.” Jake groaned, placing his hands over his face and then away.
A deep bark of a laugh rose in Johnston Green’s chest as he smiled at his son. “You know you’ll get some stuff right, too? When you do it will make all the wrongs worth the gray hairs. I know that from my own personal experience.” Jake looked up and gave his father a slight grin. “You’ll do good, son. Might even get a little more right than your old man did.”
***Jake watched his father smile, and felt his mind spin trying to take in all that was said between them. He wanted to remember tonight, when his eyes opened from this dream. His heart grew heavy, knowing the moment must end. If his Dad could just be with him again, not in this world of dreams and memories, but with him like he had once been. In that moment, he wished more than anything to take his father back over the great divide.
“I miss you, Dad.”
Johnston reached out to his son’s cheek; his eyes warmly watching the younger man swallow down emotion. The elder Green gladly acknowledged the man his son had become, but right then the father in him could only see the young boy he’d once been. He saw that naked honesty in son’s soulful eyes and not the stubborn silence that took him in the teen years. He saw his son’s limitless courage and heart, things that life’s circumstances never took from Jake, only buried for a time to be found once more. It seemed to Johnston, that in some strange way his son had finally come full circle. Back to his family, back to himself, back to life. It’s all he could have asked for.
“I’ll always be with you, son.” His words deep and warm. “Always.”