LIE
LIE
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| Deliberately written for casual readers |
“Why should we listen to her?” you ask your friend James, eyebrows furrowed. He’s not listening, though. He’s playing Tiny Tower on his iPod touch. “What does she know?”
The answer to your first question is; because I’m loud. It’s very difficult not to hear me. The answer to your second question is; a lot of trivia about Friends. And biscuits. And which biscuits are best suited to which episodes of Friends. But in reality; you don’t have to listen to me, because honestly, I don’t know much. I’m not an expert or a specialist or a qualified adult, paid wholecraploads an hour to coach you into your best, most prolific self. I’m just a gal — a hungry one. Wearing too much eyeliner — sharing pieces of me with a few of you.
Fortunately, I’m not writing what I know. I’m writing what I’ve felt. And it turns out that you should, too.
J.K Rowling does not know what it’s like to murder an owl (I hope)
But she does know what sadness feels like.
She’s never freed a house elf or lobbed herself at a brick wall on a train platform, successfully materialising in another dimension as a result. But she has experienced freedom, compassion, thrill and adventure. Whilst she hasn’t directly encountered these activities herself, she’s felt the emotions derived from them.
And yeah, you’re right, it is great to write about things you have experienced, because the subsequent feelings are bound to them, attached to your memories and stitched into your telling of each detail. That’s the best of both worlds. But what about the other worlds? The ones that belong to the past? Or the future? Or a distant universe that might not even exist? We cannot be expected to know exactly what happened back then or will happen soon or is happening out there now. But we can safely assume that, whatever those happenings might be, they evoked some kind of feeling. And feelings we know pretty damn well.
I’m not saying only write about the emotions, the sensations, the inner revelations as opposed to the external event.
I don’t mean don’t write what you know, at all. (That would screw over a lot of academics in the midst of their PhD’s. “Am I….? Do I….? Do I lie?” they ask themselves, glancing at their polished results, the palpable, paper-stacked evidence confirming the existence of the extraterrestrial life they’ve spent decades investigating. But — how are they meant to convey their findings if they’re unable to write what they know? Do they write about the euphoria, tinged with terror, without directly saying what for? Can they doodle an image of Paul in the bottom left corner of the page? Or should they just withhold this information, like the government, pretending that aliens do not exists, simply because they are unable to inform us so? What is the answer!).
What I mean is; do not think that you have to know something — that you have to have first-hand observed it, partaken in it, lived it — in order to express the scene. To write a world into existence — whether that’s an entirely new one or your perception of this very one right here — all you need is to be human. Because your audience, your readers, your people, they are too (despite the fact that I swear my cat is peering over my shoulder whilst I reread The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and following along with me).
And it is our humanness that binds us all.
We know nothing, but we feel everything
If we listened exclusively to the notion of writing what you know, then fiction would not exist. (Meaning Twilight would not exist. Meaning Edward Cullen would not exist. Meaning I would have much lower standards of what I require in an (after)life long partner, and I don’t know about you, but a boyfriend who doesn’t listen solely to the sounds of blood pumping through veins on Spotify is not the boy for me).
Readers don’t just connect with your stories because they, too, have experienced them. Sure, that’s a catalyst in a lot of cases — non-fiction, especially — but it’s actually what was born within those experiences that steers them towards your pages. It’s the emotions they felt throughout.
Honestly, I don’t know what it’s like to be stranded on Mars for a year and a half. But I sure do know what loneliness feels. I’ve felt fear and uncertainty and weakness (every time I try and open a fresh jar of pickled beetroot). Coupled with Andy Weir’s vivid imagery and my own human attributes, I am able to experience exactly what it’s like to stride around in Mark Watney’s big ol’ gravity boots. Without ever having left the Earth.
And you don’t know what it’s like to exist in 1940s wartime. But you know exactly what the joy of your loved ones being safe feels like. You’ve felt unbridled hope and pride and strength. You’ve known love so powerful that it pierces through the unnerving silence like a siren, signalling the end of the war. Combined with detailed accounts of what it was like back then, you are able to connect with those who have endured a darkness that has meant we haven’t had to. You have lived lives that no longer exist.
Readers read what they can relate to. What they can learn from and grow alongside and identify with. So writers should write the same.
Write what you’ve felt. Because life is defined by your thoughts and acted upon by your emotions. They’re a partnership. A coupling. A balance. Even if it’s a tale of something that you have experienced, you might not necessary remember every aspect of what happened, but you will always remember the feeling of it. The emotions attached to it. Like muscle memory of the heart.
Because everything ever induces some kind of emotion; whether that’s thrill or anticipation or indifference. Even feeling nothing is feeling something and everybody everywhere has felt that. So no matter what it is that you write — a cookbook based only on meals you can make with mash. Articles centred on Why Six Breakfasts Are Better Than One. Dystopian novels about global viruses that hurry an entire planet indoors to bake banana bread and forget how to wash (that sounds familiar. Might have read that one before?) — write with feeling.
You see what I mean? Do you feel what I mean? Don’t write what you know. Write what your heart knows.
-Deep
Great work brother
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