“Write what you know.”
How many new authors have read that in numerous how-to books? And often it can be taken literally, for instance giving a character a hobby you know about. If you’re a knitter, giving a characters that competency allows you to speak to how it’s really done, while showing that this character has a sense of organization, can retain patterns in their brain, count stitches, etc., something I cannot do! Give me a jigsaw puzzle or a piece of furniture to restore and I’m there, but knitting, not so much…
That’s a good way to show character because it creates authenticity for the reader, while at the same time giving the writer a sense of comfort that they know this area. It works in other ways, too.
When my mentor, PD James, insisted I write a series about someone who had done my favorite real-life nursing job as a medical consultant for a NY movie studio, she explained, “Readers love a behind-the scenes look at a world they don’t know.”
Who was I to argue with PD James? And so Trudy Genova was ‘born’ with the added benefit of a nose for murder, but also an innate sense of human nature that serves her well. There are three books now in the Trudy series and I feel like I am discovering more and more about her with each book. But after thirty years, I have the medical and nursing stuff down pat.
But taking the “write what you know” advice to a more abstract level is something writers shouldn’t ignore, and may help to round out your characters, too.
Maybe you have never jumped from an airplane, but have you ever felt true fear and excitement at the same time on a new roller coaster? Channel that into your character who may be on the brink of a disaster.
Have you ever had the hair stand up on the back of your neck watching a Hitchcock movie? You can put that same sense of foreboding and raised heartbeat into a character who walks into a darkened room and you want to show the feeling of menace in the atmosphere.
My husband recently died. The first time someone referred to me as a ‘widow’ was shocking. That was, indeed, an apt description, but I hadn’t thought of myself that way yet. A widow was someone who wore black lace perpetually like Queen Victoria, or perhaps a younger person whose husband had died in a tragic accident. During the last six months of my husband’s life, I always thought of myself as Arthur’s wife, but never once considered that I would be called a widow when he passed. Now I am being invited to a monthly “Widow’s Club” lunch, and we all agree it is a group we never wanted to join, but sadly wear that label.
What was also surprising, running alongside my grief, was the feeling I had of walking through a fog for those first weeks, coupled with a sense of unreality, like a waking dream. I kept myself going by putting one foot in front of the other as I faced a surprisingly overwhelming amount of paperwork associated with the business of dying, something no one had ever mentioned to me. Even my love of reading as a distraction failed me because for those first weeks I lost my ability to concentrate and the words swam on the page.
Grief is different for everyone, I know. But my experience must have been shared by others, and so I am shamelessly co-opting those feelings for a character in my work-in-progress, Eleven Days, set in 1926 Yorkshire at a Harrogate spa. A character with a young daughter has just lost the mother she was inordinately close to, when her husband tells her he wants a divorce to marry the mistress whose existence she has chosen to ignore.
Her grief overwhelms her.
She reacts with those same feelings of fogginess and unreality, the inability to concentrate at first, and in her case, carries it to a fugue state where she takes on the name of someone else to shield herself from her own new reality.
I hope readers will be able to empathize with her, because grief is universal, and surely most readers will be able to understand her depth of despair, even if they haven’t experience it themselves.
Tell me, readers and other writers, if you feel it is shameful to co-opt personal tragedy to understand the emotions of a character you’re creating~
You might have helped someone also going through a recent profound loss feel a little less alone, Marni. So, I don’t feel it’s shameful. I think it’s connecting.
This must have been a hard post to write. Thank you.
Thank you for this post and for reminding us that “write what you know” applies to emotions as well as to the external world novelists describe. And I agree with Lane on all counts. Being brave enough to put your own emotions on the page will make others experiencing loss feel understood and less alone. On a much lighter note … Your mentor P.D. James?!? How wonderful!
Mally, in 2000 I was studying Gothic Literature at Oxford, and the magazine I wrote feature interviews for, Mystery Review, sent me down to London to interview her – it was a fantastic experience meeting the person who was my personal hero of crime writing! She was gracious and had a dry sense of humor, and after two hours of talking with me for the magazine article, I prepared to leave. Instead, she invited me downstairs to her kitchen in her townhouse for a cup of coffee and shortbread cookies! I sat at the pine table where I knew she wrote her drafts in longhand. I had started the first Nora by then and we talked about that series, and then she asked me about my nursing background. When she heard about my last nursing job in New York, as a medical consultant for NY movie studio, she extracted a promise that once I wrote a few of the Nora’s and got the process of writing a novel under my belt I would start a second series with a protagonist who had that job – she said that readers love a behind the scenes look at a job that they’re not aware of—and that’s how Trudy Genova came to be born! Death Unscripted is dedicated to her. We stayed in contact by letter and email and I am still close to her personal assistant, Joyce McLennan. Whenever I would go to England, we would all have tea, and I still see Joyce on my trips to England for setting research. Phyllis was a marvelous person, and I was so fortunate to know her for the last 15 years of her life, one of my life’s blessings. When I went over for her memorial service at the Inner Temple Chapel, I met Nicola Upson and Mandy Morton, also writer friends of hers, The three of us are quite close now and we always say it was Phyllis who brought us together – another blessing!
What wonderful memories, Marni! Thank you for sharing them. (I’m a huge P.D. James fan, too.)
I admire you for using your grief to inform your writing. I believe it will resonate with readers so deeply. And there is NO shame in using ANY personal experience, hobby or tragedy or joy, to enrich the portrayal of characters’ experiences. How weak and soft our literature would be without it!
I agree with Lane.
You may help people going through something hard. Lovely post
Marni, I think whether it’s intentional or not we use our own experiences and feelings in our writing. And whether they are good or bad experiences, or feelings that we label bad or too heavy like grief, they enrich the work. It’s hard to dig deep but it’s necessary.
Thank you
Marni, there’s so much here, I hardly know where to begin! First, I guess, is having P.D. James as a mentor–what an exceptional experience! Having met you, I’m unsurprised that you ended up forming a lifelong connection with her or anyone else.
And now, the tough part: In this post, you’ve already accomplished the goal of expressing emotions that resonate with readers. I’m so moved by it, and, needless to say, look forward to reading this new book.
I second what Lori said. This is a very moving post. I don’t know if I can dig into heartbreak with as much grace as you did