Why I hate writing, Part 9: Honesty
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Some writers can take a story about themselves and make it about the reader, some can take just about anything and make it about themselves. I’m not a fan of the latter. Navel gazing does not make for compelling writing.
I often read something almost good and mourn the first draft before the writer worried about offending anyone.
While both tweets may seem somewhat unrelated, they’re really not. Both are about my frustration with lack of honesty in writing. I understand that all writers should consider their audience and what they are hoping to accomplish through their words. Still, I think we spend way too much time worrying about what others think of us; too much effort trying to be a better version of ourselves–or worse–a different version of another person.
I know what a competitive field writing is. I also understand the pressure writers are under to build platforms and broaden their audience, even if much of that pressure is self-induced. But I’m telling you as an avid reader and a big supporter of writing and of writers: Intelligent readers can sniff out dishonest writing. The last thing you want to do is to insult your reader’s intelligence.
Writers, and fiction writers in particular, have the freedom to express what’s in their hearts; to live lives through their words they most likely will never experience in the real world. Do that well and you’ll do us all the grand favor of allowing us to come along on the journey.
And I for one will be extremely grateful.
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Good write!
I feel a little stone cold busted… I agree with you 100%, however I wrote a post a few weeks ago about a real incident that happened with some friends of ours entitled “What Does Christianity Look LIke.” In it I freely tried to cover many shortcomings that plague me still. My point was that we as Christians speak from the heart and the desire of it. Some others (my wife included) might not think we’re presenting the “real” us, my point was to try to show some transparency and then try to seek the heart of what God is revealing in our hearts. There is no perfection this side of the great dimensional curtain. I appreciate your “stone cold” honesty about yourself and your desires, that is the most compelling draw.
“Look Ma no hands”!
floyd´s last [type] ..AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX
Say, what do small oranges have to do with compelling writing?
Blessings.
Simply Darlene´s last [type] ..Lazy- Mirror-Smearing- Bean Dip Eaters
Ha! Took me a minute before I got that.
Mmm… I ‘m still mulling over that line about fiction writers. I have mostly considered fiction a way to avoid being honest. When I began my family’s memoir, I started it out as fiction. Stories I wrote for my children so they could learn who their grandpa was. I called the fiction work “Avoiding Dismemberment” because there was a family rumor my father had been decapitated in Vietnam. A rumor I heard as a young girl that terrified me. So I began the work as fiction, humor, got 150 pages into it and was completely stuck. I simply couldn’t get any further. Until over coffee with Alabama writers Dennis & Vicki Covington something clicked. Vicki, herself a fiction writer, said to me: “You have to write it as non-fiction. If you write it as fiction, it allows the audience to dismiss your mama’s pain.”
In other words, it’s a form of self-deceit.
Fiction gave the readers breathing space. It allowed them to sit back in their comfort and say, Well it didn’t really happen like that.
Whereas in the non-fiction account of After the Flag has been Folded, the reader gets no such breathing room.
Which seems right.
Because when you are on the receiving end of that Regret-to-Inform telegraph, you can’t breath.
As one young widow from the war in Afghanistan said to me: “When I lost my husband I lost my every other breath.”
Sorry for the long post. You started it.
karenzach´s last [type] ..Porn- Not just Weiner’s problem
Yes, but…
You are one of the few writers brave enough to write that kind of truth, and that book served as a way to educate folks on the many unseen casualties of war. In fiction, a writer can share intimacies wrapped inside characters and story lines that they might never be able to share in non-fiction form.
ah Kathy – that line just there at the end of your Reply made me lose a few breaths of my own. Yes. That exactly.
And yet why oh WHY is fiction so hard for me? Hm.
Kirsten´s last [type] ..Pardon me- Madam- your neuroses are showing
I love this Kathy.
As one who isn’t writing a book, and only one who reads a ton of books, I love the ones that I can feel the honesty of the writer showing… even if it is fiction.
For instance, I’m just about done with The Green Mile by King.
He uses racial terms that would make most writers lurch for their red pen, but I don’t consider them disrespectful to the particular race he’s talking about, but more of a necessary adjective to the story’s detail.
That’s the honesty that I find refreshing, especially in this day and age of “Don’t Rock the Boat” mentality thing we got going on.
Once again, great post!
Excellent. Just what I needed as I’m consumed by #rewriting!
Sue Harrison´s last [type] ..Vacation!
Your post made me say “Boo-yah.” It also made me do a fist bump. Then I did a dance around my room in my underpants.
I’ll let you decide the order.
Good stuff, Kat.
Jason´s last [type] ..Day 159- Game On
Gosh … love this! Thanks for the kick in the butt I need … as I try to be me!
Janet Oberholtzer´s last [type] ..I Want to Read YOUR Post!
It’s all so tricky, isn’t it? When I write fiction based on real events, it’s offensive, even though offensive things really do happen. When I write non-fiction, I have to be sensitive to my family members who read my stuff and didn’t plan on having a published writer in the family when they were just living their lives.
I take too much and make it about myself. I feel it more in my comments than in my posts, which is ridiculous, but I’m definitely working on it. :0
Jake´s last [type] ..Tattoos
Jake, I love your writing. And it’s your honesty that I find incredibly refreshing.
and of course, I’d screw up a smiley face. Ugh
Jake´s last [type] ..Tattoos