![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauraanne_gilmanEveryone has heard the phrase "write what you know." To me, it's never meant "write only what you've experienced' but "experience more, so you can write more, properly." Or, as another saying goes, "everything's grist for the mill."
I had to write a scene today that should have been simple. It could have been easy -- a few broad strokes, some delicate slashes of color, a sprinkling of well-chosen dialogue, and the scene would have been well-set and perfectly enjoyable. But in the first draft process I realized that I had been there before -- not the exact situation: in fact, not the same situation at all. But I knew the emotions, knew the fear and love, the hopelessness and the hope all mixed into one horrible tightness in the gut.
I hate that memory. I hate the moment of it, the reality of it, the inevitability of it. I hate the pain it still causes me when I think of it.
But I needed it, for this scene to be more than simple, to be more than easy.
And so I used it.
EtA in response to something said in comments: There is a difference between using what you know to create something new, and only writing what you know firsthand, regurgitated.
Further musings, apropos my own experiences only.
Generic-You can write a decent story without digging below the surface. Generic-You can create fast and fun dialogue, and enjoyable plots, and characters who do the job admirably. But for things to be real, to bleed and breathe on the page, I haven't found any way to do that other than giving them some of my own blood, and breath, and flesh. My own experiences. And in doing so, I have to love them enough to share that gift. And in loving them, I have to love -- and forgive, and own up to -- myself. Which doesn't really explain it, but hopefully comes close.
Some days, this job is really, really hard.
Meanwhile, a few-three thousands words down the road, I've figured out how this particular book ends. The dragon at the end of the tunnel has started to sing*.
* no dragon. no tunnels. no singing. otherwise, perfectly apt.
I had to write a scene today that should have been simple. It could have been easy -- a few broad strokes, some delicate slashes of color, a sprinkling of well-chosen dialogue, and the scene would have been well-set and perfectly enjoyable. But in the first draft process I realized that I had been there before -- not the exact situation: in fact, not the same situation at all. But I knew the emotions, knew the fear and love, the hopelessness and the hope all mixed into one horrible tightness in the gut.
I hate that memory. I hate the moment of it, the reality of it, the inevitability of it. I hate the pain it still causes me when I think of it.
But I needed it, for this scene to be more than simple, to be more than easy.
And so I used it.
EtA in response to something said in comments: There is a difference between using what you know to create something new, and only writing what you know firsthand, regurgitated.
Further musings, apropos my own experiences only.
Generic-You can write a decent story without digging below the surface. Generic-You can create fast and fun dialogue, and enjoyable plots, and characters who do the job admirably. But for things to be real, to bleed and breathe on the page, I haven't found any way to do that other than giving them some of my own blood, and breath, and flesh. My own experiences. And in doing so, I have to love them enough to share that gift. And in loving them, I have to love -- and forgive, and own up to -- myself. Which doesn't really explain it, but hopefully comes close.
Some days, this job is really, really hard.
Meanwhile, a few-three thousands words down the road, I've figured out how this particular book ends. The dragon at the end of the tunnel has started to sing*.
* no dragon. no tunnels. no singing. otherwise, perfectly apt.
