For fiction writers.

Empathy  for writers - The two edged sword

Written years ago for the late Skip Slocum at The Writers' Circle.

He was having a few problems getting into the head of his character, a fourteen year old warrior boy.  He was still writing a hell of a book though.  This is the advice I sent him.

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Hi Skip.

This is where it gets painful for we writers.

Have you ever been in situation yourself where you were completely overwhelmed by the hopelessness of your situation?  Even if you knew it was probably only temporary.  If so you need to revisit that dark time in your head and tune into the recall of how it felt.  It won't be easy, but the worse it was the better you'll be able to understand how Matt would be feeling, faced with imprisonment and no obvious way of escape.

Add in the bugger factor of him being young.  He may be a hardy little warrior, but he's not yet lived long enough to know that most bad things will pass, given time.  He's going to feel it even more so because he's not long since set up house with his Megan, so all those flowering emotions and plans are going to be cut off short as well.  Stir it all together and apply it thick and heavy.

If it doesn't make you weep or howl with frustration why should it make the readers feel that way?

This is not the sort of thing you can write in cold blood, like assembling a Lego tower from blocks.  It's more like digging a hole in sand and watching the sides keep falling in and refilling the bottom as you work.  You just have to keep digging.

As Wolfe said in another thread, make your character face your greatest fear(s), and survive.  It won't be easy writing, but the result will probably be pure gold.

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If you have reached the grand old age of nearly fifty without suffering any traumatic  and hopelessness inducing events - which some lucky souls have - then you'll need to take a slightly different route to get to that motherlode of feelings and raw emotions.  Think of someone else you know who went through hell, and how you felt when you had to watch it but couldn't help.  My guess is that you're quite big on empathy, so tune into how it felt, and what you felt for them at the time.

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Be warned that either of these methods may turn you into a grumpy irritable and thoroughly 'out of sorts' person for a while.  There's a good reason why our minds lay a protective callous over some memories, and you're about to rip off the scab and prod the still bleeding/festering wound.

Neither of these approaches need to exactly mirror Matt's situation, but there are common themes in all human suffering.

Desolation at the realisation you will never see a particular individual again.  (You know Matt will get home eventually and find Megan waiting, but he doesn't.  He's not been with her long enough to have the certainty which comes with the years of living together.  He'll wonder if she'll forget him and find another.  After all, he's already had mad moments of jealousy, hasn't he?)

Isolation:  This one will really get to him. Through his Keening he's always been able to tune into his Mother, Grandad etc, so he's never truly been alone.  If I recall one of your earlier drafts correctly he gets taken 'out of range'.

You can add an extra layer to his torture and beatings here.  He'll probably know in advance what they're planning to do to him.  He may be able to turn off this knowledge to some extent, but then he'd fear he was losing the gift which would otherwise give him an advantage if he ever thinks there's a chance to escape.  A real dilemma there, and one which he can only solve for himself, alone.

The physical beatings he'll probably be able to endure moderately well, being a hardy little soul, but it will still wear him down and make him easy prey for the mental torments of his own mind.  A couple of cracked ribs and bruised lungs from a thorough kicking may make him feel as if he's going to die.  Once he's lived though it the first time and survived he'll still dread the pain, but a little part of him will have toughened and know it's not necessarily the end. 

The dirt and vermin of imprisonment will also wear him down.  In many memoirs of trench warfare old soldiers say that the one thing which really got to them, which made them feel so far away from all they knew and loved, was the dirt and the perpetual lice.

Habit:  Once again, in an earlier draft you had him imprisoned in a pit, being forced to fight others and being used as a 'training aid'.  After a few months of this it will begin to become a habit, willing or otherwise.  He will look forward to these moments of violence with a wolf-like relish as relief from the otherwise crushing boredom of imprisonment.  His memories of his previous life will dim, and there will be times he doubts if they are real, wonders if it was all just a sweet fantasy.

Like others in this position he may decide it's best not to think too often about the past, that to live in the present, however brutal, is better than the mental torture of remembering.  This is how some soldiers survive the unspeakable, by totally immersing themselves in what they have to do.  The ones who can't get back out afterwards are the PTSD victims.

Summary:  It's not going to be easy for you.  Accept this.  Writing it is going to be the easiest part, compared to living the anguish alongside Matt.  The other snag is you really like your character, don't you?  He's become real to you.  But you're going to have to cross the line and think of him as his enemies would.  You're going to have to think evil.  Put yourself into that pit.  What is the worst thing they could do to you.  Apply it to Matt.

This is likely to be rough writing.  Don't even think about editing it until a), you've finished those parts, and b) you've calmed down enough to be Skip The Editor again.   When you've finished go out into the countryside or wherever with your Bunny and find yourself again before you edit.

If what you find on the page shocks, sickens, and angers you then you've got it right.  Don't be tempted to reject it as too horrible.  Remember it was Skip The Writer who wrote it, not gentle PawPaw who plays with his grandchildren ;-)

Welcome to the Gates Of Hell.  Arm yourself, and enter.

Best wishes,

Gyppo

By heck, Gyppo, that's telling it like it is.  And actually, that is how it is.  You have to get down into the dirt: you've created it, you have to live it to know how it feels.  At least we only have to do it in the privacy of our own minds.

Something that may resonate with what you were saying.  When I was writing my last book - "China Roses" - and not only telling the story but wrapping up the series, I hit a moment that was like a literal blow.  It made me reel, and it made me grieve.  I realised that the only possible way to continue was to have one of my lead characters make the worst mistake of his life, and that it was going to cost him everything he valued.  There was no alternative, not for him and not for me.  And it was worse because it was a mistake, not an act of noble self-sacrifice.  He didn't know where it was going to lead, but I did.

I've never forgotten how writing it felt.  For a few moments - only that; no longer - I wondered if there was an alternative.  A happy ending.  But I knew there wasn't.  If the characters I'd written behaved in the ways I'd constructed them to behave, the ending was inevitable.  And do you know, it still grieves me a little?

And people who haven't been there tell us "But they're only imaginary."  Which is why they're readers, not writers.

Cheers, Jo.

Occasionally outsiders see into this writer's world of ours and it freaks them out.  I was talking to my then wife one day whilst she was having a bath.  (It was a quiet place for some private conversation when our flappy-eared kids were otherwise occupied.  It was generally by invitation, I never just assumed.)

Being a short woman she could genuinely float in the full length bath.  Or breathe out and sink below the surface.

A thought came into my head one day and her face froze for a second.

"You've just worked out how to drown me and make it look like an accident."

"True."  In precise full detail.  "But don't fret.  It was the writer who thought it, not your husband."

I'm not sure she ever truly accepted that distinction.

Gyppo