Write a novel for emotional energy
Answers
Answer:
I’ve not been posting as regularly as usual and that’s because I’ve been very much engaged in my current novel – The Book of Remembered Possibilities. With hints of Audrey Niffenegger’s themes of twin selves and different timelines as in The Time Travellers Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, it juxtaposes the story of a mother in the uncertain Ireland of today with her counterpart in an alternate ‘perfect’ world. While not autobiographical, it does – in the way first novels often do – draw on my experiences, in my case, of motherhood.
One of the themes of the novel is to explore storytelling itself, what is it for and why people do it. Why write at all? This is the question the New York Times asks when considering what the novel, in this age of ubiquitous entertainment offers us, above any other form. But why does the writer write? Mostly because he or she has to. It is a drive to communicate, release, express, understand ourselves and humanity.
The storyteller, as in my novel sometimes tells the story of themselves while telling the novel. Even when the writer is telling a story quite foreign to their own everyday life, the story reflects, obviously their interests and their engagement with the world. In memoir and in novels where you write about something close to you there is a strong emotional involvement with the topic. This can help to imbue the characters and story with a strength, resonance and energy that might not otherwise be there.
All forms of writing either release or require emotional energy. If a novel or a story is to work it must contain emotional (and mental) triggers. It must do something in the heart of us, connect with a memory, tickle an archetype of the human condition. After writing we might feel lighter, lifted, or equally drained. We may laugh or cry at what we have written, we may laugh or cry at the writing of others.
Answer:
I’ve not been posting as regularly as usual and that’s because I’ve been very much engaged in my current novel – The Book of Remembered Possibilities. With hints of Audrey Niffenegger’s themes of twin selves and different timelines as in The Time Travellers Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, it juxtaposes the story of a mother in the uncertain Ireland of today with her counterpart in an alternate ‘perfect’ world. While not autobiographical, it does – in the way first novels often do – draw on my experiences, in my case, of motherhood.
One of the themes of the novel is to explore storytelling itself, what is it for and why people do it. Why write at all? This is the question the New York Times asks when considering what the novel, in this age of ubiquitous entertainment offers us, above any other form. But why does the writer write? Mostly because he or she has to. It is a drive to communicate, release, express, understand ourselves and humanity.
The storyteller, as in my novel sometimes tells the story of themselves while telling the novel. Even when the writer is telling a story quite foreign to their own everyday life, the story reflects, obviously their interests and their engagement with the world. In memoir and in novels where you write about something close to you there is a strong emotional involvement with the topic. This can help to imbue the characters and story with a strength, resonance and energy that might not otherwise be there.
All forms of writing either release or require emotional energy. If a novel or a story is to work it must contain emotional (and mental) triggers. It must do something in the heart of us, connect with a memory, tickle an archetype of the human condition. After writing we might feel lighter, lifted, or equally drained. We may laugh or cry at what we have written, we may laugh or cry at the writing of others.
I’ll talk more in future about the marathon of novel writing and the energy of all kinds that are needed to complete a novel. In particular while writing my novel, a subject that is close to me, I’ve been aware of the emotional energy that is necessary to put into it and the difficulties when life circumstances impinge on that energy.
Sometimes when we talk about writer’s block we are talking about a resistance or a lethargy that results from the emotional requirements of the piece. As we write, life happens. We may even write because life has happened, because we want to explore something in our lives that has occurred. We might write around trouble in our lives to make sense of it or try to assimilate it into our mindset.
Life happens and in these economic times, life happens in spades. Unemployment, uncertainty, financial difficulties, marriage difficulties, the challenges of being a carer for parents or children when there is less support available, the death of a loved one – these are all difficult issues. There are times in our lives when we may not be able to write at all, when our head is busy just getting around reality, never mind our fictional endeavours. When dealing with daily life becomes emotionally draining, it’s extremely difficult to put it aside and write. How do we keep writing when we feel that it doesn’t really matter or we don’t have the heart for it?