Hello, there! I just found your blog via your post about focusing on being honest rather than good in your writing. It really resonated with me, but would you happen to have any personal tips or experiences you'd be willing to share regarding that concept? It's really difficult for me to be true to myself in my writing, both because I'm a people-pleaser and am not used to the vulnerability of writing honestly. Thank you for your time!
Sure! I can definitely give some tips.
Being honest in your writing is really important. When people read they generally aren’t looking for factual honesty-- and while you should do your nuts and bolts research, most people are looking for emotional honesty.
What is emotional honesty? It’s more than simply naming an emotion such as “anger” or “sadness” but expressing the gritty details and complexity of it. It can mean adding small things like sentences like “I knew I had every right to be angry, but why did I feel so guilty for it? And why did that just make me more angry?”
Emotions are a complex beast and it takes time and practice to be able to express them in a sincere manner. Here are a few tips!
The Method
Work on Yourself
I know this sounds a little broad, but it’s important. There isn’t really any way around it, if you want to write honestly you have to discover truths about yourself and your own emotions. This can mean a lot of things!
You can journal for 15 minutes before you begin writing. Your journaling time can be anything you want. You can ask yourself some important questions like “how am I? What do I want? How am I feeling?” Often, building emotional intelligence starts with finding and identifying emotions. Just give it a name! Other ways to build emotional intelligence is to practice forgiveness and gratitude. Some people even keep “gratitude diaries” for everything they’re grateful for that day.
Personally, I built-up a lot of emotional intelligence through going to a hell of a lot of therapy for years and years since I was a young teen. This wasn’t something I did for my writing obviously but learning strategies to accept and talk about emotions has been vital to my process.
The first step to understanding emotions is accepting them so be sure to name your own emotions and then let them in, accept them in any shape or form. As Rumi said “This being human is a guesthouse” and we must let our emotions have enough room within us for a proper stay.
Building up emotional intelligence can take a long time, but it’s all-important so keep at it!
2. Meditative Writing
If you’re not big on journaling, you can do what I do, and set time aside before you write to focus-in on the feeling of the writing itself. What I do is set a timer for 5-10 minutes (I’ve been allowing more time for it recently) and sit on the floor with my eyes closed.
I think about how I want my story to go and then I specifically concentrate on the emotion I want to bring out. I hold that emotion I want to convey to the reader inside of myself until I’ve memorized it and then I sit down to write.
The Execution
1. Don’t state the emotion outright
While it’s important to name your own emotions, but don’t name them in writing. Don’t write “she was sad,” but that she was racked with sobs or surrounded by used tissues in a museum of choking germs and wet silence. Emotions are more like sensations then they are simple words and you have to invoke those sensations if you want to connect to your readers.
2. Apply your own experience
You don’t have to write your own autobiography, but you do have to capture emotions that you’ve felt before and apply them to your character. How does your rationality interact with your impulses? How does your determination interact with your despair? What is your internal world and what’s important to you?
This is an internal process you can access through turning inward and asking yourself “what do you I need say?” If you’re not sure, then try journaling or meditative writing again.
3. Access “scary” and conflicting emotions
People are more interested in your fears and anxieties and joys and fury and trauma than they are your indifference or surface-level feelings. You must be brave and face the deepest parts of yourself, and again, this takes practice. Let yourself access “strong” emotions as well as conflicting emotions.
As Chobsky writes in Perks of Being a Wallflower “So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that can be.”
Emotions are layered. There is shame hidden under anger hidden under despair with hints of grief. You must weave emotions in and out of themselves in order to capture some sort of truth. You’re allowed to let your characters not understand their emotions, but you must convey it strongly and without fear.
Such as “It was a funeral, but I couldn’t get myself to cry. I couldn’t even get myself to muster anything but relief that it was all over. What’s wrong with me? I think I am going to die for it.” Let it be messy. Let it be hard. Let it even be repulsive.
Honesty hurts, but people will be grateful for your honesty and grateful for the catharsis it brings.
I hope some of these tips helped! And good luck with your writing.
