13 years ago
19 Jan 2012
Writing what you know
I don't know if this is true for everyone, but I find that it's more difficult to write about intense personal experiences than about fiction. It shouldn't be, logically. After all, the facts are all there to hand, right? You don't actually have to make anything up or, y'know, be creative. But when you're writing about something you've been in the thick of, something that has affected you deeply and permanently, it becomes harder to self-edit.
It suddenly becomes vital that you perfectly express every tiny nuance of what you felt, otherwise it doesn't seem true, or seems flat and emotionless and devoid of the intensity that so affected you in the first place. So many words, images and impressions come rushing to the fore that you struggle to bully them into some semblance of order and make them line up coherently on the page.
In case you're wondering what the hell I'm on about, I visited Libya in April of last year, during the thick of the fighting. After weeks of watching the slaughter of civilians on TV, the tipping point came when I learnt that we'd lost a family member during fighting in Brega. At that point I couldn't take it anymore, so I bought a backpack and sleeping bag from an army surplus shop, packed what gear I thought I'd need in the desert, and headed on the long road to Benghazi.
I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing or how much of a difference I could really make. I didn't know where I'd be sleeping or how long it would take to get there - I only knew I had to do something more than passively watch the horror play out on the news.
So I went.
The trip left me with some indelible images that I'm still struggling to come to terms with, and I think writing will help me through some of that, but it's difficult. Sometimes writing what you know really is tougher than writing what you don't...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree. I think it's because writing about something real is only ever going to be an approximation of the truth. Whereas with fiction, it's more malleable. Which gives you more scope. Don't know if that makes any sense. It's been a long day!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the way to approach it is to write it from a fictional observer's perspective - that way much of what you want to say will probably come across subconsciously. It often feels a 'safer' viewpoint because you feel like you're writing fiction but it is informed by your own experience.
ReplyDeleteBeing a writer is sometimes like performing open-heart surgery on yourself!
M xx
I don't know, y'know. Sometimes - especially with travel based writing - less really is more. You've perfectly summed up the experience in the last sentence of the third paragraph. I think the problem comes from the writer's perspective - as a reader, we like to do some of the work, follow clues, have our imaginations fired. Writing fiction, of course, places us closer to that perspective whereas writing about our life experience doesn't require clues. Personally, I find distilling something in a poetic sketch helps enormously, even with prose.
ReplyDelete