Getting Distance or Going All the Way
This post is an expansion on a one I wrote during discussion over at our creative writing role-playing game, Escaping Reality. Feel free to drop by the game boards.
Writing fiction can be an amazing adventure and a fantastic release from real life. But characters can also create chaos in your life. They’re creatures from your mind. You thought them up. You made them what they are.
What happens when you feel like you’re just too close to the situation that you can’t be sure you’re writing your character true? Where does your character start and where do you end? What are your thoughts and your character’s thoughts? Which are your emotions and which belong to your character? When is too much, too soon, too fast?
It’s a question that comes to many writers. They let themselves go in the story and enjoy it wholeheartedly only to realize they suddenly can’t seem to separate themselves and their characters.
Worse, some writers struggle to sever the connection. It’s as if they literally fight in their own mind, shouting, “This is me, and this is you. Get out of my head!”
Embrace the Conflict
This internal conflict happens to all good writers, I believe – or at least all honest, genuine writers. Those of you who proudly claim great distance between yourselves and your characters, I say go back to the drawing board. If you have that distance, you haven’t come close to being a *good* writer.
Without realistic character portrayal, all you have is a two-dimensional bit character. Without pain, joy, agony, bliss, a character is nothing. Where do you think these emotions and feelings come from? You, of course, writer extraordinaire.
And why should you not allow this to happen? There’s no good reason not to want to inject your characters with feelings so tangible you can almost touch them. What marvelous brilliance it creates when a character comes alive to the point that he or she is almost real.
Writers agonize over what they write, from the latest blog post to website copy to a work of fiction. Writing with emotion is a writer’s duty and world. If there is never struggle or difficulty, if there is no conflict or emotion, then we become robotic and routine. Cold, unfeeling.
But without routine, we have internal chaos – for the character, and for the writer as well.
Embracing Introspection
There are days when I need to write – furiously. The fiction and the words come hard and fast, rolling out of my mind faster than I can keep up.
Other times, I have to wait a few hours before tapping out my words, sometimes even a full day. I always seem to know exactly what my character wants to do and say, but I personally need time to feel okay with that. I think over my character’s reactions and I introspect on how that makes me feel.
There have been times when I simply cannot write. Period. I want to, but I the conflict I feel is a snarl and it becomes very difficult to know whether I should write or not. In these times, getting distance from my character only sums up the state of how I feel.
From my experience, I see this need for distance occur most often when the writers’ beliefs or morals cross over into the lives of their characters. The scenes are sometimes deep, highly emotional or very involving, and writers find themselves caught in the web of the story. The writer struggles with a difficult decision, and the character thus struggles as well.
Stepping back is normal. Take a breather. Slow down. Think – and think a lot. Introspect on why you feel you need distance from your character. Ask yourself where the crossover between you and your character is occurring.
What is creating internal conflicting? How do you feel? Which emotions are upsetting you – and most importantly, why are they upsetting you?
Of course, you can choose not to think at all. Break away. Walk off. Leave your writing and your character.
Personally, though, when I walk away from a hard scene, I’ve copped out. I’ve turned my back on something really, really good because it was too heart-aching, too difficult or too tough to figure out. (And the best scenes are never the easy ones, trust me.)
It’s a cop-out because I didn’t want to take a peek at who Iwas and who my character was. There are overlaps, of course. This character was born of my mind, my thoughts, my experiences and my beliefs. Yet the two – writer and character – are distinctly different ‘people’. Look and you’ll see.
I will say one thing: Be thankful that you need distance from your character at times because you feel internal conflict and not because you don’t know what to write.
41 Responses to “Getting Distance or Going All the Way”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Go ahead. Leave a Comment!
-
Affiliate Program
-
James Is Reading…
-
Social Hookups
As Seen In…
Overheard on the Web
MwP is Powered by…
Hmmm… is that a picture of Race and Liv? Or perhaps Cole and Sasha?
I know what you mean about needing to write sometimes, and just not being able to at other times. I’m so thankful for the downtime boards, because when I really need to write and it’s not my turn, I can head over there and do a scene by myself.
I find that at other times, I need to get real life out of the way before I can write. I’ll have a pretty good idea of how Nat will be acting and reacting in my next post, but sometimes I just can’t get the words out or make them sound true to how she would sound or act. At those times, I find that I just need to step away for a few hours and get everything else off my mind before I can write.
I don’t think I’m quite understanding what you mean by this: “The writer struggles with a difficult decision, and the character thus struggles as well.” If the character has to make a difficult decision, wouldn’t it make sense for them to struggle with it? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?
I can’t imagine ever walking away from a situation that my character has gotten herself into. I know there are at least a few situations that I would have a very difficult time dealing with, just because these certain situations are difficult for me in real life, but if something like that happened to Nat, I would think I would at worst just need to step away for a few days so I can deal with it and figure out how she would react to the situation. But of course I would be back… that would probably be a situation where I can’t write and need some time to get my mind out of the way. To just leave and never come back would be almost like abandoning a good friend in a time of need.
“Be thankful that you need distance from your character at times because you feel internal conflict and not because you don’t know what to write.”
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. In one of my downtime threads, I’ve taken weeks between posts, not because I didn’t know what to write – I knew exactly what was going to happen to Nat – but because I needed to make sure I didn’t put too much of me in there.
Allison Days last blog post..Hotate Special, and More Randomness
@ Allison – Oooh you have good comments. A couple of comments/questions:
Absolutely – but many people don’t accept that. They believe that while their character struggles, they themselves should not struggle at all. They absolutely and fully refuse to connect emotionally with their character and become their character for a while… and that is the essence of what role playing is. And role playing makes for one damned fine fiction writer.
Some people realize this is more difficult to do or say when the situation hits too close to home. A character is raped, let’s say, and the player was also raped. How to you feel the player might deal with that? A character falls pregnant and needs to think over the moral issue of abortion… and that happened to the player. A hurricane comes and sweeps the character’s life away – and that disaster happened to the player. Tough stuff, sometimes.
You made my day. That’s exactly it.
I have one question: WHY?
James,
Yes! When I started writing my not-so-little novel, 350 hand-scrawled pages tumbled out in a matter of a week and a half. (The last 100 took longer.) I was so involved that if I was in the shower, I could almost hear them talking outside the door; if a meeting was boring, it seemed like they were walking on the lawn outside the window; if the scenes were horrible, I cried, and if the scenes were sexy… I blushed. (What?)
Anyway, I write this by way of saying that one day I had no intention of ever writing anything like it, then one day I was doing it, and—not having read this post yet—I had *no idea* the characters would overtake me. Sure, I can get involved in a blog post. When I write a family history I live and breathe it, but not so emotionally. When I write a report I sometimes feel for my client, but none of it is at all like writing characters.
I definitely wouldn’t want to step back. The way they took over was amazing, and I think letting them run amok was the key to making it seem real.
But… it was exhausting.
Regards,
Kelly
Kellys last blog post..Happy Small Business Friday: The Merriment Post
This seems silly to me, but you’ve already touched on the reasons why.
If a player was raped, and then at some later point in time the player’s best friend was raped, is the player going to walk away and turn their back on their best friend? Generally no, although the player would probably need a little longer to deal with it happening to their best friend. But then, I suppose this goes back to your first point of people refusing to connect emotionally with their character.
There are things you STs could do to Nat that would get the same sort of reaction from me – for example, if you gave her little brother leukemia. That would be both difficult and easy for me to deal with – difficult because of the emotions associated with it, but easy because I’d know exactly how she might react to something like that. Yeah, I would probably have to step away from the scene for a little bit in order to make sure I’m dealing with it by being true to Nat (and not putting too much of my own emotional baggage in), but I would never turn my back on her.
Why did I not want to put too much of me into the scene? Because even though the scene was almost exactly like the event in my own life that I derived it from, there were many different factors that made Nat’s reactions very different from how I reacted – her age, loss of her parents, etc. Had I put too much of myself into the scene, it would have been unrealistic for her circumstances.
Also, even though the event is not emotionally painful for me to recall, it was extremely difficult for me to get the words to sound right in my posts. I would go for several days without being able to get more than a sentence down, and then one morning I would wake up and it would all flow from my mind to the keyboard. Especially for something that was such an important event in my own life… I wanted to get the words just right.
Allison Days last blog post..Hotate Special, and More Randomness
@ Allison – Ah, that makes sense. People tend to equate “didn’t want to put too much of me” as being “cannot cope with the emotional situation therefore must disconnect” which I feel is counter-productive to a good story and ends up that the writing sounds flat or not very genuine. The way you explained it makes good sense, and that I get. I do that myself
I truly appreciate the way that you consider your character a best friend. Many of the best fiction writers out there treat their characters just like this, and those are the works that I feel really shine. Good on you.
(And yes, your work has come leaps and bounds since you started. I love reading Nat now.)
@ Kelly – Oh hell do I hear you. There are times where Harry and I work on scenes for our novel and we’re just wiped out after getting over a week of emotional turbulence that our characters create. The scenes just freakin’ rock and we’d do it all over again. But tired? Hooo yeah.
My novel wasn’t anything but a doodle until its second draft. But once I started the first rewrite, something strange happened. One of the main characters in the book has a real hatred for modern life; the noise, and pace, etc.. I’d find myself in a parking lot with traffic on one side and construction on the other, and I would be cursing the world inside my head, knowing full well that I was doing it through the eyes of this person I invented. It’s weird; like you’re the puppet of the marionette you carved.
Writer Dads last blog post..Nominate Writer Dad
When I’m editing stories, one of the most common troubles I find for an author is authentic dialogue. Dialogue may be easy for some but it often comes across as forced or stilted for many others. I think this is because of what James mentioned about not creating real enough characters, of having too great a distance between you and them.
Letting your characters in your head in such an intimate way as James described is actually, I find, the best way to great, natural, compelling dialogue, as well as action. You’ll often hear good authors say that their characters dictated what came next in a story, that they “told” them what to write.
Keeping your characters close is what makes them so human, what makes the readers so able to relate. If one can’t relate to realistic characters, you have no story.
stephs last blog post..I’ve Been Meme’d
@Writer Dad – Ha, that’s a great way to put it! It’s weird because usually you don’t really feel the character take over until suddenly he or she does something you never saw coming…
(Unless you are struggling with a character — then it’s nice to feel them take wings themselves…)
@James – You always hear people ask authors if their characters are based on people they know. I think that you can’t help but use “real” people — or at least facets of them.
But ultimately all characters are filtered through the writer, so really all characters are facets of you.
Failing to “understand” or “relate” to your characters may have more to do with either not wanting to dig too deeply into your own emotions or hoping to avoid that conflict. Both of which, as you and Kelly pointed out, can be exhausting. It can also be painful and embarrassing. So it’s no wonder many writers consciously or unconsciously try to avoid it.
As you say though, you need to embrace and explore it. What I find helps is to give myself permission ahead of time to delete anything I am about to write. This allows me to get all the rawnesss down for the first draft, and then decide what embarrassing bits need to be removed.
Funny thing is though, you are actually helping yourself by transferring those feeling onto your character. It’s a little cliché to say that it is cathartic, but that’s what it amounts to. I find that usually that raw truth ends up staying there anyway, now part of my characters’ lives rather than my own, giving a realness that wouldn’t be there if you balked at exploring those deep, dark recesses in the first place…
~Graham
Graham Strongs last blog post..Find and Replace – Update!
@ Graham – If you want a little bit of psychology education, here’s a thought:
Facing fears and overcoming them is a very difficult path. One way to reduce a fear to a manageable size is to name it, which can be empowering. A certain scene situation disturbs you as the writer? Find out why. What fear do you have or does your character have that upsets you? Explore. Dig deep. Ahhh, fear of X, then.
Write it down. I fear X because of Y, Z and A. Then look at those fears. Are they realistic? Well, no. Z is just silly, now that you think of it. Y and A are pretty valid, though… so how do I eliminate them or reduce them? Well, if I expose myself to a mini-Y, then that won’t be so bad… then big Y won’t look so scary… and maybe A is valid but I can find a workaround…
Journaling, writing it out and finding ways to overcome what we can name allows us to take US out of the situation, put it on paper and work it out from a third perspective. And eventually, what upset is is no longer upsetting at all.
You’re right to put the focus on the characters and how we create them. It’s hard work. Nothing loses me more quickly when reading fiction than no longer believing a character.
Even hundreds of pages in, if a character suddenly rings false, that story is dead to me. And I don’t think I’m alone, even if people don’t recognize that’s what’s happening to them when they suddenly lose interest in a book, or drop it after reading the first few pages.
As writers, that ups the stakes on everything we do.
Bill Kanapauxs last blog post..White devil in Caprivi: an outsider’s tale
This is kind of silly, but I have issues reading very tragic books with realistic characters – it’s just too real for me. If a character is written well enough, I WILL believe that this person actually exists and I’ll grieve her/him if something terrible happens.
This is probably detrimental to me as a writer, because there are certain issues that my characters can never face. How do you guys get past that? How do you relive the most terrible parts of your lives with your characters? Right now, it seems so difficult, but if you all are doing it, then one day I can too
RL Davids last blog post..Meditation for Monday: Humility
@ RLD – It’s not silly and perfectly understandable. I’ve had books that I’ve bought and haven’t been able to open and read for a few weeks because I know it’ll be tough to read.
In general, though, I personally enjoy facing issues no matter how they affect me, because I have no fear of being a better person because of having done so. It took a while to get there, though.
You just made my day.
Allison Days last blog post..Hotate Special, and More Randomness
I write and draw what I know. In other words, I write about me and mine. Okay, a little bit of fiction thrown in, but I prefer to call it literary licence. I can write descriptive text, and have even been complimented on how good it is, and how I should write fiction, but again, it is a representation of what I see either in front of me, or in a dream or vision. I admire people, like my brother, who can see completely imaginary events and people in the same detail.
Urban Panthers last blog post..I dream
Since I was just talked about, I guess I’ll dive in here…
I write slowly. I find that when I write quickly I get overwhelmed, the words start pushing at me and then it all turns into nonsensical mush.
Distance is good – about 1500 words in a sitting works for me. I’m not the type of writer who can crank out 10,000 words of what I know is crap with the intention to edit it down to pull out the good stuff.
I outline and outline and outline so that I know all the characters, know the conflicts, know the choices, the consequences and the reasons for the choices. As I go along as things change (because they always change), I tweak the outline so that I’m still working from a viable outline.
And I don’t go back and edit until it’s all done.
As James says, however, there are times when I feel like walking away from a scene when I KNOW that I need to push through and get it written. Usually because it’s an emotional one that literally hurts to pull out. Once I start, however, I get invigorated and the whole thing comes out word by word, needing a good edit (of course), but otherwise exactly as I wanted it (or in a way that’s even better than I imagined).
Alex Fayles last blog post..Connecting Desires with Actions: James Chartrand Interview
Ohmigod, Alex, jesus, man, you’re *killing* yourself! Stop, stop, stop that! No outlines! No plots! No no no!!
Ohmigod. Go buy On Writing right now. Seriously. You have to stop that; it’ll kill you. Or at least, it would kill me if I ever had to write with such rigid restrictions…
No, no, no – I LOVE outlines! They get me excited and get me moving.
I ignore them at will of course.
Then I go back and get all excited about the new outline that I’ll toss out the window at a moment’s notice.
But knowing where I’m (supposed to be) going in the next scene and the next scene and the next makes me very happy.
Alex Fayles last blog post..Connecting Desires with Actions: James Chartrand Interview
Alex, dude, step away from the structure right now. At this rate you’ll never get out of the garage.
That’s part of the reason we have ER. Not all of our posts are sheer genius, I have my off days and know when I’m writing crap, and usually those are the days when I’m over thinking each and every word.
Use ER as a place to experiment. Try just writing. Don’t plan. You can afford to do it there. We all can. In fact, I dare you to try it that way. For one week. I think your characters will surprise you once you let go of the leash.
@ Alex – Oooh, a control issue… Now let’s play psychology for a minute (humor me). How well do you handle unexpected change in real life? What happens when an event occurs that you didn’t plan? I’m curious.
A DARE!! Oh man, a DARE! Can I accept on Alex’s behalf? (Of course, and make him do the work?)
@James @Harry – um, I’m confused. If Alex’s method shouldn’t work, then how come he wrote a book, re-wrote it, and found an agent who is willing to publish it? Please explain!!!!
Urban Panthers last blog post..I dream
I say: Ooh what fun! More plans!
What it comes down to is that each author has a method that works and the method evolves over time. I’ve found my method and it works for me. You have your method and it works for you.
One of the reasons I’m doing ER is because it is different from what I normally do and I can just open up and let the character flow. As for not planning for a week, that’s easy because this week is all about world-building for my next novel and it’s all freeflow stuff.
@UP – several agents have said no and one said she really liked the idea but the thing needed tidying up – now I’m waiting while it’s in her to-read pile – so in reality I don’t have an agent yet…
Alex Fayles last blog post..Connecting Desires with Actions: James Chartrand Interview
@ Panther – That may be, but that is not the point. The point is finding ultimate fulfillment, joy and freedom through writing, which I feel simply can’t be done with restrictions. Plot chains characters, period. Outlines refrain them from being themselves and forces them to be someone they’re not.
Take me, for example. I’d feel like shit if someone dressed me in a shirt two sizes two small and said, “Wear it. Because I am your dresser.” Yeah? Watch me rock the town in sweats that fit just right because I chose them.
(I’m sure Harry has something to say that will probably disagree with me.)
On a side note, and not to diminish Alex’s talent (because he does have talent), publication means very little. The success of the story in a reader’s mind matters – that means everything. Don’t you think?
Ahh James.
So glad you turned this into a post, because my mind has been rolling it over and over since the discussion started, and it helps to get more opinions on it.
Lizzy is very much a chunk of me. She’s also missing huge layers of me, and there are parts of her that are nowhere in my personality. When I write Lizzy, it’s very easy to know how she’ll react and what she’ll do in a given situation, even when that situation is completely foreign.
It does get odd at times when Lizzy reacts so… emotionally, because I react right along with her. My heart pounds and my breathing speeds up, and my fingers fly over the keyboard trying to keep up with my thoughts. It can get damn scary when I move to click the “post” button. I’m so wrapped up that I can’t help but wonder sometimes if what i’ve written is (like Allison says, too much of ME, and not my character). BUT, just because I’m emotionally involved in a scene doesn’t mean I’m not being true to my character.
More often, the reason I pause with my mouse hovering over the “post” button is not because I’m writing myself instead of Lizzy, but because even though the raw emotion I’ve just put out there IS Lizzy, it came from me, and that makes me feel vulnerable. While Lizzy is comfortable with all sorts of emotions, I’m not, and it’s intimidating and downright frightening sometimes to put it out there like that.
It’s also absolutely amazing. Addictive really. It’s like emotional base jumping.
Nicole Brunets last blog post..Mum & Dad go boating
@Panther: We’re not saying it doesn’t work, it obviously does, but it’s a rather painful route to take – and an exhausting one at that.
Stepping away from the outlines enables you to discover parts about your plot and characters you might not have thought of before.
I’m all for writing and re-writing, never said I wasn’t. That’s what James and I are doing now. We have a lot of good material, but with each draft we narrow it down further. Re-writing is good. It helps to refine the whole picture.
Outlines can be good, but they can also fence you in. When I used to try to work with one, everything came out far too scripted.
@Alex: True, everyone does have their own method. I guess what made James and I recoil from that comment was it sounded so harsh. I’ve seen way too many people get caught up in the details that the project never gets off the ground.
@ Alex – I disagree. I have found many methods that work for me, and I will continue to find others. There is no right or wrong method. If a person says he’s found *the* method, then wouldn’t that individual lose out if something better comes along?
(This is a great discussion, btw!)
@ Nicole – Oh, that was a brilliant comment. Seriously.
It takes someone very strong to say that. That’s fantastic. Kudos.
@James Yeah, now see that? You’ve got me feeling weird. But thank you.
Hopefully by my putting it out there it will help someone else understand their own issues and motivations.
Aren’t people fascinating??
Nicole Brunets last blog post..Mum & Dad go boating
@ Nicole – It’s why my first love was psychology
As for the outline vs. just write discussion…
In every other area of my life I’m an organizer. I make lists and outlines. I plan and design databases for heaven sake. Therefore it made sense to me that I should approach writing the same way.
But it doesn’t work for me. Now I’m not saying it’s not exactly right for you Alex. Hey, different strokes, right? I’m just saying that I didn’t write a damn thing I truly enjoyed – I wrote a lot of great things, but didn’t necessarily have fun writing them – until Escaping Reality.
There I didn’t bother with outlines or plans. I had my very rough character sheet with a vague background story in mind, and I just started writing. Wow, what a difference it’s made. Letting my character react, and forming back story based on things that happened to her along the way allowed me to come up with some really interesting things in Lizzy’s past that could explain how she’s dealing with things now.
It gives me more freedom than if I had mapped out her entire history beforehand. This way she does things all the time that surprise me, and I love it! When she does that I get to ask myself “Why?”, and based on that answer I have a whole new story to add to her history.
Nicole Brunets last blog post..Mum & Dad go boating
I’m the same way with Nat. When she thought DC was talking to a girlfriend on the phone (but it was really just his sister), my heart dropped just like hers. When James put that ghost in her computer (or whatever it was), that scared the heck out of me!
At times I feel this way as well. There are things I’ve written about with Nat that I would ordinarily never feel comfortable sharing about myself. That’s when I have to step back for a moment and think, “No, this is Nat. Not me. It’s okay for me to write about this stuff for her, because it’s helping everyone (including myself) understand her better.”
Allison Days last blog post..Hotate Special, and More Randomness
@James – re: publication means very little. The success of the story in a reader’s mind matters. Okay, now you are going all arTEEST on me. *smile* The success of the story IS in the reader’s mind. I totally agree. But if you don’t publish, then you don’t have readers. N’est ce pas?
Urban Panthers last blog post..I dream
@ Panther – Define published author.
I have no novel. I am a published author. I have no agent. And yet, I am a published author. This blog counts as published. My work on ER as well. Anything that is posted publicly is published. You too, are a published author.
In fact, there’s a post or three about that on this site… search on “published author” and I’m sure they’ll turn up.
As far as arTEESTe… um… sh. Just shush.
@James – I’m published?!!!!! Oh happy day!!!! I am taking the Lion out right now to celebrate!!!!!
Urban Panthers last blog post..I dream
Have wine on me, because yes, you are.
Have to interject on this outline thing. Some rather successful novelists and screenwriters thrive on outlines. Structure in and of itself is not a bad thing: Shakespeare wouldn’t exist without it. Plot driven stories are not necessarily bad. I think you can have plot and structure and still do the deeper explorations of character that you originally recommend.
Bill Kanapauxs last blog post..Danger? What danger?
On outlines: I am the world’s happiest thesis writer. I can outline my butt off and be in 7th heaven. I thought I’d write everything out for my little side-project, too, and then just flesh out like I used to with theses, like I do now with client reports.
Then I saw the first scene in my head, so I thought, I’ll just write that down and come back to outlining.
Then the characters took over. They frighten me, in a good way. I don’t outline my life (though it might help!) and they wouldn’t let me outline theirs. I had a timeline for continuity, but instead of writing it in advance, I wrote down things as they “happened” so I could refer back and not mess up a later scene. I couldn’t outline—I didn’t know in advance!
It was a remarkable experience.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with outlining. Alex’s characters let him do it, and he loves working that way. Seems like it frees him. That’s what we all want for whatever kind of writing we do, isn’t it?
Later,
Kelly
Despite being a Professional Organizer (or perhaps I’m a PO because of the way I am) I can be an incredibly disorganized person and when I get that way the world turns to chaos, and nothing gets done.
To be creative, I need structure – the more structure, the more creative I become – it’s like an inverse proportion thing. I get overwhelmed by details very easily because they all take on importance and I lose sight of where I am. So by outlining I end up writing in stages, first looking at one set of details – basic plot, then another set – character motivations, then another… until all I have left to do is the writing and I can focus on the writing itself without distractions.
As I’ve said above the story always changes along the way and I let it. I’m not rigid in my outlines – in fact they are very fluid – I just redo each set of details when things change and I can get back to focusing on the words.
Alex Fayles last blog post..Connecting Desires with Actions: James Chartrand Interview
Hi James – it’s difficult isn’t it? When the character is feeling depressed or miserable, it affects your own emotions too.
I am writing about a serial killer now. I had to make him likeable, or he wouldn’t be able to get away with all the murdering. But now I’m starting to like him and actually understand why he commited the murders and that is scary – I never thought I could empathise with a serial killer.
Cath Lawsons last blog post..Paint A Picture Of Your Perfect Day
@ Cath – People are people, and the way they become who they are is just situational based on choices they make. I think we can all relate to these choices – only we just choose differently – and that’s what makes it easy to empathize.
Good comment, by the way!
@ Alex – Oh, all right, stubborn… have it your way
James, thank you for this helpful advice. One of the things I love about fiction is the raw honesty. I can be authentic without offending. I started a memoir style piece and found it hard to write (risk of ticking off too many people) but fictionalized I could let honesty rip and take it a step further. The truth of fiction is both the beauty and the curse as you noted, and admittedly I have been stuck with what to write. Thank you for the encouragement to pick up the pen and get back in the fight.
Karen Swims last blog post..Guest Post Today at Word Sell