There is a quality of writing that comes through in voice, I think, and it is a step up in the learning process. I think I’ve just discovered it and while it draws on experience, it just as easily transfers to fantasy or any other genre that the writer may not have learned by empirical means. It is memory–as is all experience, thus tainted somewhat by perception and perhaps desire–but rather than the accuracy of the event, the accuracy of the perception and resulting feeling and change in thinking is filtered into writing.
I’m seeing some of that in my writing lately. Some of what my characters are up against I can at long last admit to having experienced in some manner in my life. All I need take from the memory however, is affect and effect. That is, how it affected me at the time and what effect it had in changing me. This gives me a better understanding of the characters.
Catholic and family oriented, my writing has been hampered in some ways by those around me. Even as a teen and young woman my actions were never to shock, but I did enjoy those many trips out of bounds that no one ever knew about. While I’d give anything to have my parents back, it’s obvious to me now that their passing has in a way released me from an obligation felt to, well, not embarrass them. Secrets kept from them can more easily leak themselves into my writing without fear. Other family members simply could never have such a hold on me as parental power, and in truth, the ‘kids’–nieces and nephews now in their thirties with kids of their own–would likely only think I’m cooler than they’d thought.
Some secrets I shared with my folks as we all got older. It’s fun to find that your mother never suspected that as a kid I’d take a can of black olives and hide it under my bed and sneak-eat them in the night. She was amazed when I told her and it became a shared experience to laugh about, changing its meaning as an experience from secretive to dumb kid humor. She had a sense of humor, thank God, and a sense of anticipation that she’d learned to keep at the ready for her youngest child. It carried her through from stolen olives hidden under beds to call-forwarding to cover a live-in arrangement.
So maybe I’m the only one who smiles slightly and shakes her head at what I’m reading in my own stories. But what I’m trying to share is the moment of it. That is, after all, what makes a character different or interesting; not what they’re up against necessarily, but how they react to it, whether it be an event, an environment, a change of some sort, or another character. It’s that oh! feeling, that punch in the stomach or the feel of the blood draining down through your veins that I can honestly bestow and am more willing to do so.
Glass from an antique clock, smashed in transit, saved by the clockmaker and taped together (with clear tape–had to take it all off) and brought to me for framing. Very expensive watergilded frames, some black velvet, lots of patience in taking off tape and cleaning without damage, the pieces replaced between two pieces of glass to be at least salvaged and appreciated.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology