Writers Write What They Know . . . Sometimes.

Every time I think I’m going to get back to talking about narratives and developmental levels, a fan asks a great question, and I think, Huh.  Must blog about that.  So here’s the great question I was asked just a day or so ago, and it was in reference to DROWNING INSTINCT.  Having loved the book, the fan asked if I was able to write so well about the topic–a girl’s very complicated relationship with her chemistry teacher–because I was drawing on something from my past.  In other words, had I had a crush on a teacher and was I writing about what might have been?

Interesting question, and I take it as the compliment it’s meant to be–that I presented something that felt very, very real–and so real, in fact, that my life might have bled into my story.  Like I said, interesting question.

And here’s my answer: I don’t have to have had a heart attack in order to know how to treat it. Something doesn’t have to been real for me–I don’t need to have that heart attack or that unrequited crush–to write about it in a way that moves people or feels like a what if.

I’m not being flip either, but this is something medical students have to learn early on: you can understand all the ramifications of a disease and how to deal with it–but the really good ones go the extra mile and truly empathize with a patient’s fear, confusion, terror . . . you name it.  That being said, you always have to pull up short, just a bit, because there can be no confusion or blurring of boundaries: the patient is the patient with his or her own agenda and you, the doc, shouldn’t impose yours.

In some ways, writers are no different.  We all take bits of real life and universal feelings–unrequited or forbidden love, for example–and try to present that to you in “novel” ways.  There is nothing new in Jenna’s story that Shakespeare didn’t deal with in Romeo and Juliet.  It was all in the presentation, the plot, that’s all.  The feelings behind the story are genuine; you wouldn’t respond to the story otherwise, and they are so because I feel as acutely as the next person.  But that doesn’t mean that every heartfelt narrative–anything that made you cry–is a personal one or reveals something true about the writer.  (C’mon, be honest: do you really think Stephanie Meyer knows what it’s like to be a vampire?  No, she only told a good story.)  So all it means when a story’s really gotten to you is that the writer found a nugget of commonality.  In a way, that writer was having your heart attack and going one better: spinning a good story from a shared truth, and one with heart.