Exposing Yourself in Public: Writing that Gets Personal
Thirty-six years ago today, I proposed to my wife in an old Buick, parked in front of her parents' home. I knew her for only a month. She was 17; I was 21. (Sorry, honey, everybody now knows your age.) Some would say that was a recipe for a short-term relationship. Thirty-four years of marriage and three beautiful daughters later, I believe there's no such thing as a "recipe" when it comes to relationships. I also believe there is no single "recipe" for interesting writing. Like great dishes, writing starts with ingredients, but, ultimately, transcends its parts by the creativity of the chef to make it his own. A little of that, a little of this. A dish becomes the delicious expression of the chef. It rises from within.
Here. Let me make this personal. I'm sitting at my computer, fingers poised over the keyboard, thinking, "What do I want to say? How can I Entertain, Enlighten or Educate tonight?" And I look at the date: January 11. And my wife brings in a paper plate full of "poppers," those wonderfully spicy, cheese-and-jalapeno-stuffed finger-foods.
Personal stuff. Food. Personal stuff. Food.
And I begin to realize something about the process of writing. In that moment--the date, my wife and the poppers--I jumped out of the gate, leaped from the precipice, plunged into the pool. The writing started with something personal.
But it wasn't always like that.
When I was eleven and twelve and wrote stories, they were always about things that I dreamed about: going to the moon; beating up the bully; spying on people; and pretending to be someone other than myself. As I got older, my writing took a bad turn, though. It became about my audience. I thought I had to write to do something to my audience. So in high school I became known for my gross, gory poetry--which rhymed, of course. It had nothing to do with me. I liked grossing people out. I liked watching the girls read my poetry, their faces knarled up in disgust, then giggle and tell me, "that was really cool." It was how it affected them that inspired me. All right. And getting chicks.
Then in college I wrote two plays that actually got produced. One was about a couple who went to a restaurant in a high rise to eat their last meal and jump out the window; the other was about a convicted man who happened to get put into a cell with another man who victimized him. Both sound like possible thought-provoking ideas, right? Well, they were really written to make the audience think, "Wow, isn't that guy clever." And to gross everybody out when the prisoner vomits on stage (vegetable soup in the mouth) and getting the crap beat out of him (I was knocked out briefly opening night--yes, I played the role, too). It was about getting a gross-out rush. It was about shamelessly shocking the audience. I loved it. It was safe. It had nothing to do with what I was, thought or believed. But it wasn't good writing.
As I matured as a writer and gained weight (see, personal stuff and food again), I spent more time thinking about what I was really doing. I started out with a little honesty--just a pinch. Then I added a dash of personal perspective--an opinion I held, say. Then I graduated to cooking up some autobiographical stuff in my stories.
It was actually easier to find things to write about when I...well...became nakedly honest. It was like exposing myself in public. It was scary and sometimes embarrassing. But it was thrilling.
As a man writing about a boy in Worlds Apart I remembered what it was like. I instinctively desired to tell the truth about it, but my upbringing made me cautious about how I described certain things...like getting a boner. I struggled with it. I expurgated some scenes, because I was worried it would bother some people. But then, in the final edit, I put them back in. The kid's 14 years old! Boners find 14 year olds, okay? Fourteen-year-olds feel up girls and get excited, okay? Fourteen year olds think about girls and get excited. It's what happened to me and it's why I wrote it in the first place. It's personal.
My choice of topics, themes, stories, and words are all systemically personal to what ends up on the page. I am exposing my points of view, my perspective on life, my bugaboos, my weaknesses. Even through my characters, I'm telling the reader about me. Of course I'm doing it vicariously through characters and topics, but think about it: the more of a writer's work you read, the more you grow to know him.
So is this healthy? Oh, Lord, yes. And it certainly makes for better writing. As writers, we've all heard that we should write what we know. So start with yourself. Do you know anyone better?
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