Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
This past week I had conversations with two clients about digging deeper in their writing: one was writing her first book; the other has been writing for about 30 years. Yet both needed to hear the same message: Your work will be richer, more layered and meaningful if you’ll dig deeper within yourself.
Digging deeper isn’t just a concept for nonfiction; it’s also important for fiction. When a novelist is told, “Write what you know,” that includes not only the setting and premise but also character development. That requires the writer to know him or herself, the troubles, tribulations and triumphs of life and to bestow authentic responses on a novel’s characters. If you haven’t traveled deep within yourself, how can your character?
In nonfiction that requires either stories from the writer’s life or the retelling of others’ incidents. 
Digging deep takes the book to a richer place. Sometimes that means asking those people whose stories you’re sharing the hard questions. Sometimes it means asking yourself the hard questions.
My two clients can help us to understand what digging deeper means.
Even in nonfiction, characters have arcs
The new writer, whom I’ll call Alice, was writing about one year in her life in which she chose an unusual way to live. Now she’s writing about what that year was like. When I read the first draft, I said to her, “You’ve told me what happened, but you didn’t tell what really happened. What did you struggle with most that year, and how did you try to resolve the issue?”
I pointed out that she was, in essence, the protagonist of the story she was writing. Readers would want to know what occurred not only with the people who encountered her that year but even more how she dealt with issues within herself. As a character, Alice needed an arc in the book. The year was bound to have had that kind of building of conflict until it climaxed in a moment of the greatest emotional pain–and its resolution, either for good or ill or some combination.
Much to my surprise, Alice came back with struggles she had never even mentioned–major physical challenges, a collapse of her self-image, and a descent into doubt. That is what the year really was about; the activities that set the year apart were the surface stuff. Suddenly the manuscript had texture, surprise, and challenges the readers wouldn’t have anticipated. Ah, plot twists and turns!
Deciding what to tell
My more experienced client, whom we’ll call Megan, had written about a turning point in her life that I’d read in other books she’d written. But somehow it came out flat and stilted in her work in progress. I mentioned to her that readers would be so distracted by the details Megan was skirting that they wouldn’t remember why she was even telling the story. Instead, they’d be preoccupied trying to figure out what she was alluding to.
So she told me the entire event. It was a stunner, filled with betrayal, lies, lost love, and lost faith. Here was the real story, the one readers would find jaw-dropping and vulnerable.
But Megan didn’t want to tell the in-depth story. So she suggested she cast herself in the role of counselor and some other woman tell that story to Megan. Nope. I wouldn’t have it. She needed to tell her story–as much for her sake as for the readers. The time had come to work through another level of healing, and that would occur as she wrote the scene.
Megan agreed. But challenges remained. She couldn’t tell everything because parts would reflect negatively on people active in ministry today, who most likely had matured in faith in the decades since the event. It wasn’t Megan’s job to drag others’ into a gauntlet of judgments.
So she and I discussed the parts that would enlighten the readers, bring authenticity to the story, yet not damage other people. We chose not to question where those people were spiritually today; it wasn’t our place to judge. But it was our place to respect others’ privacy.
Deciding what not to tell
Both Alice and Megan have parts of their stories they will withhold. But they’ll now do so with careful thought and a clear decision about what benefits the reader, shows the author’s genuine struggles, and makes the writing braver and truer. Soul-baring doesn’t involve over-sharing. Both writers have details that are private and should remain so.
How do you figure out what adds depth, a character arc, and a deeper identification with readers? What parts would be inappropriate to write about?
- Talk to a trusted adviser–someone with nothing to gain and nothing to lose. That might be your agent, your editor, a critique partner.
- Test within yourself what feels right. Sometimes you aren’t ready to share enough details to enrich the story. Then you should step away from that story and write another one. God will have you circle back to the initial event in his good time.
- Protect the identities of others involved or get their permission to tell the story. Don’t dip into a pool of potential legalities. When in doubt, talk to your editor about how to handle your story.
- Ask yourself how you’re likely to feel about that event being in print five years from now.
When have you dug deep to enrich your writing? What made you decide to do so? How do you feel about that now?
In what ways can you dig deeper in your work in progress?
TWEETABLES
Why writing is better when the author is vulnerable. Click to tweet.
What digging deeper inside yourself brings out in your writing. Click to tweet.
It’s easier to see the “skirting the issues” in someone else’s work, and tough to see it in our own work. That’s why crit partners are so treasured, and should tread softly on such sacred ground, yet continue to prod and urge. This idea is exactly what I said to my husband this weekend as he prepped to teach Sunday School class, and exactly what was missing from the sermon. The pastor went right up to the edge of digging deeper, then backed away and lost us all. It is so critical in ministry to find a way to “go there”.
It takes bravery to venture into this territory. Who said writing is easy?
Check out Wendy Paine Miller’s interview today about “going there.” Perfect compliment to this post! http://susiefinkbeiner.com/2013/08/26/writers-go-there-guest-post-with-wendy-paine-miller/
Sarah, the link didn’t work for me. Did it for anyone else?
Trying again:
http://www.susiefinkbeiner.com/3/post/2013/08/writers-go-there-guest-post-with-wendy-paine-miller.html
Sarah, that’s odd. It’s still not working. I’ll just zip over there sans the link.
Sarah, you’re so right. Wendy has tapped into that deeper material within herself and suffused her characters with it.
Janet I loved this. In your sharing, I realized there’s often a story behind the story. And that’s what I need to get to in my writing. I’ve been pondering what “going deeper” looks like. I think I understand it better now.
I have poured some emotion into my stories, but I can see there are places I need to go deeper. What a great post.
That’s well put, Jeanne, about the “story behind the story.”
I needed this today! I’m revising and making some major changes to a first chapter, and over the weekend I worried about losing emotion. Then I worried there wasn’t much emotion to lose!
It’s difficult to know how deep to go sometimes. Thanks for sharing this!
Jill, if your crit partners think the writing is okay but kind of flat, it’s likely emotion needs to be heightened.
Janet, your comments on digging deeper are definitely a word in due season for me…what to share, what not to share, how to share from the ‘deeper place’. As I a result I have been stuck, although working on other things in the meantime.
The four points you list provide some important food for thought and prayer. I feel like I’m ready to share personal details, but do have concerns about others who are part of the story. Your suggestion about asking an agent or an editor is the one that may get me moving again.
Which all boils down to–I prepare the best manuscript I can, hopefully catch an agent’s attention, and then we go from there. It occurs to me I may be ‘using’ a concern, albeit appropriate,about legal issues as a way to avoid the further hard work of editing and polishing the work.
Micky, it sounds as though you’ve worked your way around to some important insights. Sometimes the best way forward is just to write the story as it flows out. Then you can think about, let trusted critiquers take a look, and edit accordingly.
Oh, I love this. In my blog, being real has opened up so many doors for me. In my fiction, I had a draft and I knew it just wasn’t there. So, I started again, my characters took it over and went where I was scared to go. The difference was amazing. In a world where things are air brushed, a healthy dose of depth touches people and often opens their heart to share their stories too.
Lisa, thanks for sharing how you let characters take over and go places you’d rather not. And you’re right: authenticity breeds authenticity.
Good for you Lisa!
If we writers, fiction and nonfiction, do not dig deeper, our books will gather dust. You reminded me that every writing project must take mental and physical perspiration. Thanks!
Well put, DiAnn. If a writing project doesn’t press us into new territory, readers are unlikely to find it engaging.
Janet, my most recently finished novel is based loosely on some events from my father’s life. As I wrote, I noticed that my emotions fluctuated more, were closer to the surface. I finally realized that I was grieving my father all over again. (He passed away in 2009.) As I wrote about portions of his history and filled in the blanks in my story, I came to know my father, or at least my character based on my father, in a way I never knew him when he was living. I’m glad I poured that emotion into my story (my beta reader cried!), but I wish I had delved into this while he was still living.
Meghan, I’m sure that particular character is vivid to your readers because he was vivid to you. Grieving work takes time; you might not have been as ready to connect with your father when he was alive as you are now.
I write non-fiction – all summer I have shoveled, pruned and sculpted my outline and manuscript, and I have discovered that there is more than one story to be told. My manuscript continues to evolve – what I thought was one book has now bloomed into three. The deeper I dig, the more I find. The digging is painful at times – we must rip our hearts out and paste them in pieces all over the page. It’s a challenging discipline to practice, but doing so has yielded so much in terms of material.
“We must rip our hearts out and paste them in pieces all over the page.” Well said, Adelle.
As fiction writers, we infuse our characters with unsightly scraps of ourselves. This adds to the journey we take as we get their story, as well as our story, onto the page.
Your suggestions today help me realize that, instead of pushing my pain back, I need to approach it, not forgetting to fit myself with spiritual armor beforehand.
Approaching the pain is, for me, the most difficult part of writing. Life seems easier when I keep it locked away and unpacked. But in the writing is healing. A balm, as I believe you once put it, Jenni? 🙂
(Hello from a truck stop in Quebec!) Digging always means hard work, and finding treasures long buried, whether it’s what you’ve tried to hide or what someone else thinks no one will ever see again. By going deep into the mines, we can claim extrordinary riches that will belong to us and our readers. But it sure means a lot of sweat, pain and dirty fingernails.
Jennifer, not to mention blisters! Thanks for drawing out the analogy. Well done!
And as I ‘tell my truth in a different way,’ my book works through experiencing love, grief, jealousy, loss, confusion, misunderstandings,etc. though the character of my cat who, with human-like emotions, experiences all these problems. I try to make the reader see themselves in how they might react to these same situations. Yes.. I have to dig deeper to put the emotions into the cat. I am writing a completely different kind of book here, indeed, and it requires a lot of ‘going deeper’ to get all this into my character. Believe it or not, it seems to work.
Elaine, regardless what species your protagonist is, we readers need to relate to him or her. It seems to me that would take special effort on the writer’s part to make it work. So kudos to you!
Great post Janet. Part of me runs from tackling emotional stuff…’cause really, I don’t want “my heart ripped up” anymore…and I’m not really good at cut and paste…I’m kinda messy…so the refurbished version isn’t gonna be neat and tidy!
But just last week, a mentor at a conference, looked me in the eye and challenged me to “feel” what my character was feeling, and…I started crying. Oops, there went my well-ordered facade.
Emotion, deep emotion is necessary, even in fiction. Farming is like a perfect picture of the process. In plowing a field, the blade goes deep and turns over compacted soil. (“Rips the heart”). The harrow breaks up clods, roots out weeds and levels the ground. (Arranges the canvas) Now, the ground is ready for seeding. (“Glues the pieces” in place). (Great descriptive phrases Adelle Gabrielson!).
Thanks, Janet, for looking us in the eye and provoking us to get out that plow.
Whew…I think I’ll have a cuppa tea before I start plowing though!
Kathryn, it seems as though the conference mentor spoke to the heart of the issue. She realized you had been holding yourself back emotionally from your character. Funny how that stuff is visible to the astute reader.
Yes, I was amazed at her insight…and grateful. Makes me realize how much help I need!
Very timely blog for me, Janet. I’m forging into the last third of my WIP and started writing out index cards for each character to dig deeper than I was.
I began asking myself questions about why they do this and don’t do that. What changed in their lives to bring about the change? How far back did it happen? WWWWW&H
I discovered I was the one holding back whenever something I wrote struck me to the core.
The cards are on the linen boards over my desk to remind me to let it all bleed out. That first draft is so important to write without editing. I realized I was trying to control my feelings by altering the lives and experiences of my characters. (Never mind they were screaming at me to listen to them!)
Pain is good for the soul, it cleanses and exposes truth. I think that is what a reader is looking for is honesty they can relate to, even if it hurts.
Have now printed out your blog and pinned it up next to the cards as an additional reminder.
Thank you.
Kathy, I’ll say my blog was timely for you! Your readers will thank you (although they won’t know what it cost you) for going deeper.
Janet, I appreciate the references to the circumspect line we tread when writing transformational life stories. I don’t mind baring my soul as I share with readers my emotions & how I came to terms with my commitment to Christ.But the others whom I needed to forgive had a very important role in my growth, so I plan to frame the events in a way that honors them. My favorite books show stories with issues that remain unresolved at some level.
Lynn, I’m with you: I like stories that don’t have bows tied on them at the end. My life seldom resembles a bow.
“Instead, they’d be preoccupied trying to figure out what she was eluding to.”
Instead, they’d be preoccupied trying to figure out what she was alluding to.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
Great post, Janet. It’s impossible to fool a good editor. I remember asking one of my favorite editors if he had a Master’s in psychology. 🙂
Julie, most editors have applied knowledge in psychological principles rather than schooling in it. Nothing like Hard Knocks to learn those concepts.
“they’d be preoccupied trying to figure out what she was eluding to.” That should of course read “alluding.” 😉
Thank you! Fixed.