Like mildew in the sun: On writing and emotion

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role emotion plays in writing, probably because it confuses the hell out of me.

Currently, I base most of my writing decisions on feelings. I’m always asking myself: Is that exciting? Is there chemistry between these characters? Is this moving or a bit twee? Does this scene make me feel anything?

Emotion is how I choose which stories to tell. It’s how I decide whether to abandon a manuscript or stick at it. I do ask other people for critique sometimes, but my own response is the most immediate yardstick I have, and I rely on it more than anything else. There’s an element of intellectual judgement too, but if I read a scene and feel icky or bored or frustrated, I would definitely scrap that scene or rewrite it.

But am I making a rookie mistake?

I think it’s true that some books are books of the heart. They’re passion projects. We burn to write them. In a way, they’re easy, because the vision is so clear.

But if you move in authorly circles long enough, you soon come across lots of fulltime authors who have a more detached view of books and writing. They write to market. They write what they know other people like. They don’t expect writing to be ‘fun’ or treat it like some sort of therapy session. They believe in knuckling down and doing the work no matter how they feel. They say things like ‘plumbers can’t get plumbers’ block, so writers can’t get writers’ block’. As if writing a book was like unclogging a drain or deducing why a cistern won’t fill.

I used to think the ‘plumbers’ block’ analogy was very poor, because people who used it seemed to be deliberately ignoring the emotional/personal aspects of writing: the feeling and the meaning and the way writing forces one to examine one’s soul and decide where one’s values and beliefs lie. Some writers, for example, could practically have an existential crisis over every single sentence (ask me how I know). Whereas I don’t think most plumbers have an existential crisis over every u-bend or faulty washer.

But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe those authors are using that plumbing analogy for a reason. They’re ignoring the emotional soul-searching aspect of writing deliberately; they’re saying ‘it doesn’t have to be that hard’. Maybe, for some authors, writing a book really is as emotionally engaging as any other job. Sure, there’ll be days when the words flow and the pipes are easy to unclog, and days when imagination fails and you have no clue why the smell of mildew lingers in the foyer. But there’s no roller-coaster. It’s a living. It’s your job.

Perhaps my mistake is that lately I’ve been using emotion as a motivator. I want to feel the story, believe in the story, to make writing it feel worthwhile. But perhaps the thing that’s worthwhile is the story itself?

Or maybe the problem is that I mine my own emotions too much. Instead of thinking ‘how would character X feel in this situation?’ I start from ‘how would I feel in this situation?’ and then go from there. I don’t mean all my characters are based on me. They aren’t. But at some fundamental level I do use myself as an emotional resource about the human condition. I thought all writers did this, but perhaps other people tend to be thinking about other people more and themselves less? I think that might be less exhausting, because I do get awfully tired of thinking about myself and what I think and feel and what I would do in any given situation. I’m tired of myself. Not in a mean way. More in a ‘sick of navel-gazing’ kind of way.

In fact, now I think back to when writing was more fun, I did use it as a way to become someone else for a while. I wasn’t ‘me’. I was a trapped and angry Victorian gentleman. I wasn’t ‘me’. I was a photographer with post-traumatic stress disorder. And while of course I used my own life experiences to inform those books, I was more concerned about portraying the characters fairly and well, than about me, me, me.

I feel I’ve walked in a circle, and yet maybe the situation feels less confusing. Writers surely have to mine their own emotions if they want to produce work that will resonate with readers, but then they have to get out of the way to let the characters come alive and behave in ways that are true to them.

So perhaps it’s time to forget about myself again. Perhaps it’s time to use my emotions as an occasional resource, but not to get caught up in them.

Perhaps it’s time to trust again in the power of the story, to fling open the front door and hope that lingering smell of mildew will simply burn away in the sun…