My Latest Writing Problem
When I first started my MFA at the New School I was working on a manuscript that I thought was going to be terrific. It was about a somewhat innocent girl from a small town just starting out at boarding school. She had a sophisticated and radical roommate, an unrequited crush and issues with her friends back home who resented her changing. It was all very familiar material to me because it was pretty much my own ninth grade experience, with a little fiction thrown in to make it more interesting. And over the course of my first semester I realized that as a story it pretty much sucked.
That was when I started the manuscript that ended up being ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NEW YORK. Matisse's life is totally different from mine as a teen, but more than that she's hardwired differently. She's utterly confident, outspoken and not into talking abut her feelings. She's sure of herself with guys and could care less what people might say about her behind her back. Me as a teen? Let's just say I was the opposite: insecure, endlessly talking about my feelings with friends, totally concerned about what other people thought of me. And me with guys? I was that girl who stared from afar and never even managed a conversation with a guy I had a crush on. When Matisse first came to me I wondered if I could write a girl who is so different from myself as a teen. And I was surprised to find how easy it was. I slipped into Matisse's skin and just knew how she'd be feeling and reacting, even if it went against all my own instincts. There were moments when I had to stop and ponder things, but for the most part her voice became second nature.
After PRAGUE I took a break from writing teens and took on some middle grade boy characters. And then last month I started in on a new teen book. The main character, while sassy and confident in certain aspects of her life, is an insecure mess with guys. Kind of like me as a teen. Or exactly like me. And here's the thing- I'm finding it almost impossible to write! This should come to me without me even needing to think- I should just be able to channel myself as a teen and put an incredibly believeable character on the page. But all my descriptions of her crush sound false and even though I've rewritten things a hundred times her thoughts seem phony and from out of the blue instead of based on actual story. And I don't get it! I mean, this should be the easy stuff to write, right, the stuff that I know like the back of my hand? But apparently not.
So I'm starting to think that the age old advice, write what you know, just doesn't apply here.
#daphne
posted by daphne grab at 7:25 AM
4 Comments:
Daphne, I couldn't agree more. Writing a story or a character SO based on yourself is very hard.
I think Write What You Know applies more to setting, hobbies, places, activities...DETAILS. Things that make the book feel real. But it does not include writing characters that are too close to yourself! Anytime I've tried to write something too closely based on reality it ends up being trite and shallow, because I try to tell the story like it really happened. But fiction needs to be its own separate animal, and your characters have to be free to follow their own story.
I suggest you change up your character a bit, make her more different than you, and you might start flying through your draft!
Yeah, maybe you're trying to make the character think the way you thought and act the way you acted when you were a teen. So maybe you're squashing HER personality and trying to make her YOU.
When we're writing boy characters, that temptation to make the characters act like us isn't there, so it's easier. I know I felt that way with Tyrell. He is so completely unlike me I didn't feel the need to control him. (Or even understand what he was doing!)
So I agree with Caroline. Change enough of your character's surroundings and personality so that she reminds you less and less of you. That way, she'll be able to do her own thing and you'll be able to loosen the strings a little.
thanks, guys, good advice as always!
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