Fair warning: this is going to be a personal post! Usually I wait for a Monthly Recountal post to share life updates, but well, a blog post is kind of overdue so I figured I might as well.So, life has pretty much stagnated for the last few weeks... or months you could say. For various reasons that I don't think I should be sharing on my blog. What's important is that it's stalled. Which is scary because life hardly ever remains stationary for long... soon enough I presume it will start to accelerate at a velocity that I may not be able to control. Or who knows... life is full of amazing miracles, and one such miracle may just find its way to me... I am a firm believer in a higher power, God, The Creator, Allah... so I figured I should leave things to Him for now, because I have no idea which way to go.
Crazy times like these are good in a way... they put so much into perspective. Things that used to matter a lot suddenly appear to be pointless... and things I never thought of before have become important all of a sudden. I feel like I look at the world so differently now. Imagine this... we all think we know how difficult it is for the poor who do not have a roof over their head, or those who do not have anything to eat for days... but do we really understand? We sympathize, but it is impossible to empathize. Not unless we are put in a very similar situation.
Well, this wasn't meant to be a bookish post... but at this turn I can't help but wonder, how do writers write the things they write? How do they so accurately describe the feeling of being lost, and scared, and not wanting to open your eyes because you are afraid of what you might see? I'm certain they have not gone through all these various situations they write so well about themselves! So how is it that there are times when I read a book and feel like the author is describing my own feelings?
There are couple of young, potential, World dominating writers out there who sometimes read my blog posts... you know who you are... and if you are reading this, please, do tell me... how do you write these stuff? How do you feel what others feel so acutely even when you yourselves have never been in these situations? What sort of gifts were you born with? Or are they gifts? And not acquired skills?
Anyhow, back to life and its ups and downs... it's life, so there will be ups and downs... may be it's best to just stop worrying and do what we can today, and make the best out of whatever we have right now. Easier said than done though. Anyhow, I still feel like I'm so much luckier than some others... so may be I really shouldn't complain.
Also... I think if I ever wrote something (like, something other than a blog post) it would be non-fiction. Because you see, I have realized something. I don't have much of an imagination. May be that is why I cannot even fathom how authors pull off writing about stuff they never experienced themselves. So, if I were to ever seriously think about writing a book, or an article, journal, whatever... it would be non-fiction. A true account of someone in this world... or an event, based on hardcore facts! I'm no Murakami... and it's about time I accepted that!
Ok, Lets do this! I hope your lives have been dandy...
... even if mine has been a bit rockier than usual. So, writers out there... can you describe this metaphysical phenomenon that all writers (especially fiction/fantasy writers) experience? How do you feel what your characters feel even if their life experience is vastly detached from your own?
Photo by Matthew Bedford
I think this was a really good post, and an excellent question. I don't think I'm an amazing writer or anything, but I'll try to answer your question as best as I can and I'll do it with a Stephen King quote. “A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.”
ReplyDeleteThis quote resonates on so many levels to me. People always say write what you know. And that doesn't mean write about being a middle class Christian white girl (because that's what I am and that's what I know). It means writing about the scars that you know.
And everyone, I mean everyone, has a scar or two. Some of them are deeper than others. But if you write honestly even about your small scathes, then you've got something to work with there. Every great writer, I think, has written out of their own pain.
As for what dragons look like, you can imagine that. As to how much pressure you need to apply to cut through human skin, you can Google that. As to what it's like to go to war, you can interview a vet.
But at the heart of a story your character needs to feel some kind of pain, a really deep pain. And you have to be so honest with yourself about the pain in your own life to make that character's pain real. In many ways, it's almost like living through another person. Working out your own issues through a fake character. I think that's why many writers find it therapeutic. But it's also scary, because you have to lay some secret part of yourself out on paper and then send it into the world.
People like covering up their scars. They like pretending they don't exist. As writers, it's our job to openly bleed on paper. And it can be scary, but I think it's the only real way to write a compelling story.
I guess the real answer is that we don't write about the pain we don't know. We write about the pain we do know and try to put it out there as honestly as we can.
Another great quote I know is from V for Vendetta. “Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.”
Through all the fiction and fantasy and things we have never experienced, there will always be a bit of truth. A bit of what we know. All the lies are built around that truth. To support it and cultivate it so that it's something pungent and powerful.
I may have gotten a bit off track here. Sorry for the long reply, but I hope I answered your question.
Hey Katherine! That was so well put together. And that V for Vendetta quote!! (Best movie ever, by the way.) Deep down may be it really is talent that makes a difference... channeling a certain kind of pain to imagine even the things you do not know to a degree where it's so real, and sometimes more than real! Not everyone can do that. And I don't mean dragons here... but the pains and sufferings of the characters, on a more humane level, are sometimes portrayed so vividly by some authors that it scares me.
DeleteI have this immense respect for authors who can do that... bring out the old scars that I had forgotten all about... but reading a passage or a chapter can bring out emotions I never knew I could feel... those are the writers I dig!
Once again, great response. And thanks for stopping by!
Ohhh, this post is GLORIOUSNESS and I think these are really interesting thoughts. You're making me think! XD Tbh, I don't even know how I go about writing, personally. I know I "live" through reading a lot. So I read book after book on a topic and I guess I absorb it enough that I can go and write like a stab wound or falling from a great height or losing a loved-one even though I haven't experienced it. I think probably people how have experienced all the things might do it better though??? But I'm a firm believer that sometimes writing is just about winging it and going with your instincts and seeing what happens. (Isn't that SUCH an annoyingly unhelpful answer?!)
ReplyDeleteI also imagine myself in my writing. So sometimes I feel like the things are happening TO ME as I write them. I think I do have a good imagination...buuuut...practise. PRACTISE PRACTISE! Not many people have the ability to write wonderfully the first time. *nods*
Loved this post, Maliha!! :D
Thanks Cait! I'm so glad you liked it. It's so interesting to hear the views of different people on how they come up with what they come up with. I have spent a good part of my life convincing myself I will never be a writer, and so I never practiced. Now I wonder... what made me so sure? What stopped me? Back in the days when I was really young, I kept a journal. But I only wrote in it a few times before stuff happened, and I stopped writing completely.
DeleteSeriously though... I used to be an idiot when I was younger... I took things way too seriously. But mehh... what's important is that now I am blogging! A far cry from writing the things I love to read myself, but ehh...
Anyhow... I went off on a tangent. Thanks for stopping by, Cait! =)