Write what you know...w
Write What You Know... 21/09/2021
(first published by Women Writers - www.booksbywomen.org)
‘Is the woman based on you?’ my friend asks. ‘I mean, have you really behaved like that?’
Her eyes are widening, her brow furrowing; I can imagine the kind of thoughts crowding through her head. She has just read my novel and is wondering whether the protagonist I’ve created, may be ever so slightly autobiographical. This friend thought she knew me, but she’s now wondering whether the middle-aged woman in my story who has had affairs/ neglected her children/ lied to her friends/ embezzled her employer/ thrown her aged parents into a care home and stolen their money (delete as appropriate) may be based on a real-life person. Me. The author who created her.
‘No!’ I say, laughing too loudly, to show how ridiculous that is. ‘None of my characters are based on me. Not in the slightest. Or on anyone I know. Why would they be?’
Because of course the whole idea is ridiculous. The characters scattered throughout my books and stories are often caught up in traumatic situations. Their lives are unhappy and stressful (at least at the outset) and they do crazy things. One of my previous (unpublished) books was about a woman who falls in love with a stranger: she stalks him, becomes obsessed with his girlfriend and ruins her own marriage into the bargain. NOT me.
In my debut novel, A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, the main character, Martha, discovers her dead mother has left her home to the dog walker. Overwhelmed by other issues in her personal life and struggling with grief and resentment, Martha makes some bad decisions – the biggest of which is to destroy the evidence... Again, NOT me.
So, of course these women aren’t autobiographical. Hah! Perish the thought.
Except... maybe that’s not quite true? All authors write about what they know – we’re advised to do precisely that, because it’s what we’ll do best. If you write from personal experience, you can do it so much more intensely, because you know how it feels to say those words, to act in that way, to have those sorts of things happen to you. I admit I’ve frequently stolen and reproduced characteristics: a neighbour whose hair is bright orange and piled into a teetering beehive, made it into short story (even if she never knew it) and I regularly listen in on (and jot down) snippets of conversation overheard at bus stops or in the supermarket.
But there’s a difference between drawing on your own life experiences and things you see and hear, and recreating a version of yourself in a novel. And that’s maybe why I deny any autobiographical similarity so strongly. Some of the women I create and write about are not particularly nice people, but most are good-hearted, kind and hard-working; they are just under so much pressure that they behave in ways they later regret. As an author, my aim is to put my characters in these awkward situations and then throw so much at them that they’re pushed to their limits and have to cope with the fallout. Ultimately, I will create happy endings for them – or at least ensure the challenges they face will help them come out the other side stronger, more resilient and able to make some good decisions about their lives and their futures. But the journey won’t be easy and the way they behave along the way won’t always be admirable. If that wasn’t the case, it would make for a pretty dull book.
So back to the premise. Are these flawed - often weak, sometimes vulnerable - women based on me? While the answer is still generally no, if I’m honest, I think there must always be a little bit of me in the characters I create. It may only be the occasional turn of phrase – after all, when I hear them talking in my head, they will probably use language and intonation that I use myself. Or it may be the way they handle a situation, or how they react to their husband, friend, mother or daughter in a particular scene I’ve created.
I may not have had those exact thoughts, but I’ve probably gone through something similar. My stomach has flipped at the sight of a good-looking man, I’ve gone into shock when someone I love has died, I’ve felt the hurt of a friend’s betrayal, I’ve been brought up short by a relative’s cutting remark. All of those life experiences – and so many more – have worked their way into my writing, possibly at times subconsciously. The end product is a novel that consists of imagined characters, but every single one of them is peppered with tiny, often insignificant bits of me.
So, when that friend of mine reads about Martha, in A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, and asks, ‘Is she based on you?’ my immediate reaction will still be to laugh and shake my head. But my honest response should be, ‘No, she’s not based on me, but there’s a lot of me in her. I understand her, I sympathise with her and I like her – even though she makes some dubious moral choices.’ And while my friend may not understand that, I think many other writers will know just what I mean.
A Thousand Tiny Disappointments is published by Bloodhound Books and available as an e-book and paperback through Amazon - mybook.to/TinyDisappointments
Write What You Know... 21/09/2021
(first published by Women Writers - www.booksbywomen.org)
‘Is the woman based on you?’ my friend asks. ‘I mean, have you really behaved like that?’
Her eyes are widening, her brow furrowing; I can imagine the kind of thoughts crowding through her head. She has just read my novel and is wondering whether the protagonist I’ve created, may be ever so slightly autobiographical. This friend thought she knew me, but she’s now wondering whether the middle-aged woman in my story who has had affairs/ neglected her children/ lied to her friends/ embezzled her employer/ thrown her aged parents into a care home and stolen their money (delete as appropriate) may be based on a real-life person. Me. The author who created her.
‘No!’ I say, laughing too loudly, to show how ridiculous that is. ‘None of my characters are based on me. Not in the slightest. Or on anyone I know. Why would they be?’
Because of course the whole idea is ridiculous. The characters scattered throughout my books and stories are often caught up in traumatic situations. Their lives are unhappy and stressful (at least at the outset) and they do crazy things. One of my previous (unpublished) books was about a woman who falls in love with a stranger: she stalks him, becomes obsessed with his girlfriend and ruins her own marriage into the bargain. NOT me.
In my debut novel, A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, the main character, Martha, discovers her dead mother has left her home to the dog walker. Overwhelmed by other issues in her personal life and struggling with grief and resentment, Martha makes some bad decisions – the biggest of which is to destroy the evidence... Again, NOT me.
So, of course these women aren’t autobiographical. Hah! Perish the thought.
Except... maybe that’s not quite true? All authors write about what they know – we’re advised to do precisely that, because it’s what we’ll do best. If you write from personal experience, you can do it so much more intensely, because you know how it feels to say those words, to act in that way, to have those sorts of things happen to you. I admit I’ve frequently stolen and reproduced characteristics: a neighbour whose hair is bright orange and piled into a teetering beehive, made it into short story (even if she never knew it) and I regularly listen in on (and jot down) snippets of conversation overheard at bus stops or in the supermarket.
But there’s a difference between drawing on your own life experiences and things you see and hear, and recreating a version of yourself in a novel. And that’s maybe why I deny any autobiographical similarity so strongly. Some of the women I create and write about are not particularly nice people, but most are good-hearted, kind and hard-working; they are just under so much pressure that they behave in ways they later regret. As an author, my aim is to put my characters in these awkward situations and then throw so much at them that they’re pushed to their limits and have to cope with the fallout. Ultimately, I will create happy endings for them – or at least ensure the challenges they face will help them come out the other side stronger, more resilient and able to make some good decisions about their lives and their futures. But the journey won’t be easy and the way they behave along the way won’t always be admirable. If that wasn’t the case, it would make for a pretty dull book.
So back to the premise. Are these flawed - often weak, sometimes vulnerable - women based on me? While the answer is still generally no, if I’m honest, I think there must always be a little bit of me in the characters I create. It may only be the occasional turn of phrase – after all, when I hear them talking in my head, they will probably use language and intonation that I use myself. Or it may be the way they handle a situation, or how they react to their husband, friend, mother or daughter in a particular scene I’ve created.
I may not have had those exact thoughts, but I’ve probably gone through something similar. My stomach has flipped at the sight of a good-looking man, I’ve gone into shock when someone I love has died, I’ve felt the hurt of a friend’s betrayal, I’ve been brought up short by a relative’s cutting remark. All of those life experiences – and so many more – have worked their way into my writing, possibly at times subconsciously. The end product is a novel that consists of imagined characters, but every single one of them is peppered with tiny, often insignificant bits of me.
So, when that friend of mine reads about Martha, in A Thousand Tiny Disappointments, and asks, ‘Is she based on you?’ my immediate reaction will still be to laugh and shake my head. But my honest response should be, ‘No, she’s not based on me, but there’s a lot of me in her. I understand her, I sympathise with her and I like her – even though she makes some dubious moral choices.’ And while my friend may not understand that, I think many other writers will know just what I mean.
A Thousand Tiny Disappointments is published by Bloodhound Books and available as an e-book and paperback through Amazon - mybook.to/TinyDisappointments
They’ve got your back... 23/02/20212323
Over the last few years, I’ve discovered that writers are amongst the most supportive people on the planet. Not all of them, obviously: some writers are self-centred, manipulative, hard-nosed egomaniacs.
Luckily, I haven’t come up against many of those.
The writers I have got to know, are incredibly generous human beings. They read and critique each other’s work; they commiserate over failure and they applaud success. They rally round when times get tough and they reassure when doubt sets in (which it does frequently, because self-doubt is in the job description: when you become a writer, you leave your self-confidence at the door).
Published authors can be particularly supportive. Not only do they know how hard it is to write a book, they also know it’s even harder to get someone to publish it. They have gone through the stress of submitting their work, so know how exhausting the process can be. They understand what a struggle it is to keep going in the face of repeated rejections, how difficult it is to keep believing in yourself and the words you’re churning out, when you’re getting no interest from agents or publishers. Even when they’ve made it themselves, they take the time to support those who aren’t quite there yet. Although, ironically, few authors accept they’ve ever truly ‘made it’, because the literary lack of self-belief doesn’t end when you finally see your name in print on the front cover of a book. I know a couple of successful authors who have sold millions of novels, who still worry that the next book won’t sell, or the one after that may not live up to expectations...
But if you’re trying to get published, you really need those friends who keep telling you that you’ll make it. You need to be reminded that getting a book deal can be a numbers game, and there’s an element of luck involved (your manuscript has to land on the right person’s desk, on the right day, when they’re in the right mood and aren’t so overloaded that they can’t take on any new clients). Struggling writers also need to be reminded that, although being able to write decent prose is important, what you really need if you’re going to make it as a writer is resilience and skin as thick as a rhino.
Since I started writing fiction, I have met fellow writers on courses, at literary festivals, through workshops and via Twitter. My writing buddies come from all over the UK (all over the world, in the case of social media); they are different ages, from different backgrounds and have vastly different styles of writing, but we are all part of this fantastically supportive community. Distance means most of us stay in touch by email or Zoom, but I’m lucky to have also become good friends with writers who live so near that we can share literary highs and lows over a couple of bottles of wine. Most recently I was invited to be part of a Twitter group, where a dozen of us tapped away like fury last November, creating novels as part of NaNoWriMo. Nearly three months later, we’re all still writing, and the group has moved to WhatsApp where we chat, share tips and encourage each other on a daily basis.
Supporting fellow writers can take up some of your precious writing time – and a lot of your head space. But it’s worth the effort, and you get back the love in so many ways. I’m incredibly proud of my friends who are already published authors and grateful to them for their support, and hope that, when I join them, I’ll be able to help others who are just starting out on this journey.
Luckily, I haven’t come up against many of those.
The writers I have got to know, are incredibly generous human beings. They read and critique each other’s work; they commiserate over failure and they applaud success. They rally round when times get tough and they reassure when doubt sets in (which it does frequently, because self-doubt is in the job description: when you become a writer, you leave your self-confidence at the door).
Published authors can be particularly supportive. Not only do they know how hard it is to write a book, they also know it’s even harder to get someone to publish it. They have gone through the stress of submitting their work, so know how exhausting the process can be. They understand what a struggle it is to keep going in the face of repeated rejections, how difficult it is to keep believing in yourself and the words you’re churning out, when you’re getting no interest from agents or publishers. Even when they’ve made it themselves, they take the time to support those who aren’t quite there yet. Although, ironically, few authors accept they’ve ever truly ‘made it’, because the literary lack of self-belief doesn’t end when you finally see your name in print on the front cover of a book. I know a couple of successful authors who have sold millions of novels, who still worry that the next book won’t sell, or the one after that may not live up to expectations...
But if you’re trying to get published, you really need those friends who keep telling you that you’ll make it. You need to be reminded that getting a book deal can be a numbers game, and there’s an element of luck involved (your manuscript has to land on the right person’s desk, on the right day, when they’re in the right mood and aren’t so overloaded that they can’t take on any new clients). Struggling writers also need to be reminded that, although being able to write decent prose is important, what you really need if you’re going to make it as a writer is resilience and skin as thick as a rhino.
Since I started writing fiction, I have met fellow writers on courses, at literary festivals, through workshops and via Twitter. My writing buddies come from all over the UK (all over the world, in the case of social media); they are different ages, from different backgrounds and have vastly different styles of writing, but we are all part of this fantastically supportive community. Distance means most of us stay in touch by email or Zoom, but I’m lucky to have also become good friends with writers who live so near that we can share literary highs and lows over a couple of bottles of wine. Most recently I was invited to be part of a Twitter group, where a dozen of us tapped away like fury last November, creating novels as part of NaNoWriMo. Nearly three months later, we’re all still writing, and the group has moved to WhatsApp where we chat, share tips and encourage each other on a daily basis.
Supporting fellow writers can take up some of your precious writing time – and a lot of your head space. But it’s worth the effort, and you get back the love in so many ways. I’m incredibly proud of my friends who are already published authors and grateful to them for their support, and hope that, when I join them, I’ll be able to help others who are just starting out on this journey.
