Today I'm guest blogging on why not to "kill your babies" over at WordVessel. Click on over and come say hello!
The third installment in the Personality Disorder Parade is up today over at The Character Therapist. Learn about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and why it's so hard for these people to maintain relationships.
I've been thinking about endings lately. Part of this was prompted by Lady Glamis' post on the Innocent Flower. But most of it is because I'm at the end of my first draft of Blessed.
While I was writing my climax, I was given a really exciting psychological method to view the climax by (I know, vague...but I don't want to give it away to my crit partner who will surely read this post later) that I decided to go with. It is shocking (not vulgar shocking, but just surprising...especially how I did it, I think) and creates anxiety for the reader (at least I had anxiety writing it). But isn't that what "edgy" Christian fiction does? Think Ted Dekker here, people.
I'm also thinking about this new twist from my counselor viewpoint. It's very real, very true to form psychologically. But since it is less-than-100%-perfect for the readers' sensibilities, it made me wonder just what our preference about book endings say about US as readers. Do perpetually happy people shut a book that doesn't end in marriage in disgust? Do those among us who are more "dark" in our outlook shut a book in disgust if it does? Just curious.
Of course, my genre is romance. And people typically pick up a romance book for one reason: the romance. All the different takes on how boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again thrills that typical reader. Which leads to my question for you.
Q4U: How many of you romance readers have to have the superbly happy ending? The picket fence? Yappy dog? Are you okay with just a general nudge that that could happen? Or do you need it in black and white (either on paper or quite literally in a black tux and white wedding gown)? Do all the strings in the book have to be tied neatly, or can one of them be tied disastrously?
Hee hee...I'm laughing. My crit partner is going to be going insane with questions! So is Sue.
[deviant, evil laughter]
As promised, more on the idea of conflict and writing to heal. I like to think that whenever we encounter conflict, whether it's a person who cut us off on the way home today or it's a long-standing grudge that we've carried for years, writing through the conflict can be a way to make sense of it.
There's something healing about putting your own responses into the character's response (or what we wished we had done). We see in black and white the proof of what we did (or wish we had done) and we can either be proud of it or ashamed. If proud, great. You stared conflict straight in the eye and didn't lose your integrity. If ashamed, then you can further analyze why that was the case.
Writing should evoke emotion, as I wrote before. So if that emotion, evoked by words, can kill another bird with the same stone, i.e., make you think about something you said or did or didn't, then it's all the more powerful in the life of the word-writer.
I was thinking about this topic again this morning over breakfast. For writing to be healing doesn't mean that the world will suddenly look like you are viewing it from rose-colored glasses. Healing writing can evoke various emotions, some of which aren't on the "happy" continuum. Sadness, anger, regret, guilt, annoyance, confusion - only to name a few - can and do have their place in writing.
Personally, I like to work in little vignettes that have happened to me over the course of my life into my books. I'm grinning even now as I remember one of my favorites. Of course, not all of them are favorites, but it just goes to show how life is a writer's fodder. There will never be a drought of life (although you may certainly suffer from writer's block from time to time) from which you won't be able to garner material for writing. It's everywhere.
One of my favorite examples of a well-known author who did this is Karen Kingsbury. She wrote a series about the 9-11 attacks, and in her preface said it had been her own way to assimilate and try to make sense of what happened on that awful day. The story idea just came to her as she watched the news coverage. It was healing. And anyone reading her books (if you can get through one of her books without crying, my hat's off to you) also is taken on her journey of healing. As her characters cried out against what happened, we cry out. As they grieved the loss of loved ones and the feeling of security, we grieved. Healing writing at its finest.
So think about what issues you might have in your life currently, or in your past, that you might be able to heal - or at least allow to scab over - by writing. Usually our "issues" revolve around conflict, and as any student of the writing craft knows, conflict creates great plot. More on this in the next post.
On the side, I've been cataloging the reasons why a writer would write. There could be any number of responses: compelled to, for the money, for the accolades, to see your name on the spine on a book, for the sense of accomplishment.
But I'm adding to that list: writing to heal, or therapeutic writing. This is something that therapists use frequently when in session with a client. Keeping a journal is usually a homework exercise. Letter writing is also a common exercise, but either way, it's healing. You can journal your innermost thoughts on a piece of paper (or word processor) that doesn't talk back, try to get you to change your mind, or make you feel guilty for what you expressed. You can use bad grammar (well, unless you really want to be published), be repetitive, chase rabbits and have no apparent point...and that's okay!
In the interest of being transparent, I wrote my first novel for very therapeutic reasons. When I was fresh out of college, I did an internship for a year where I worked with college students. Being young and immature, I messed up. A lot. And the regret I felt really stayed with me. So I wrote this book, and the protagonist was a girl who looked strikingly like me and had lots of my character traits, but I wrote her doing things right. I wrote her doing things the way I wish I had done.
In essence, I rewrote my past. Well, to be more specific, I rewrote a portion of my past that caused me and a lot of others pain. In a way, I was asking for forgiveness through my writing. Forgiveness from God, forgiveness from the ones I hurt and forgiveness from myself. By the time I finished that book...I felt more complete. Whole. Forgiven. And that was worth the toil and labor for that book.
Stay tuned for more thoughts on writing to heal.
