On Writing Graphically
All writers hear it again and again. It’s the writing guru’s mantra: SHOW, DON’T TELL! And it’s a hard thing to grasp sometimes, especially when just telling the story seems so much easier. In fact, it’s not only easier; it’s more natural, isn’t it? My two boys ask me a few times a week to TELL them a story. They’ve never asked me to SHOW them a story. That’s up to TV and movies, right?
No, of course not. Active writing is a thousand times better than simple narrating. I can still feel my disappointment when I read Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, and discovered that the entire book is narrated. This might be a slight exaggeration, but I’m not sure there are more than four quotation marks in the entire novel. Tell-y writing is something that’s pretty pervasive among the classics. Didn’t we all want Emily Bronte to SHOW us the love story between Cathy and Heathcliffe, as opposed to relating it through the eyes and ears of the maid?
Of course those Victorian writers were shackled to an extent by what was considered appropriate for their times, but as Fifty Shades of Grey has demonstrated, anything goes nowadays. Indeed, a modern novel must contain a high degree of SHOW, or active writing, in order for anyone to want to read it.
But what happens when the subject matter is graphic? What happens when the characters in a novel are acting in ways that make the reader uncomfortable?
In those situations, it’s only natural for a reader to want to turn away from the book, and as readers, we’re welcome to do just that. I’ve certainly stopped watching many movies – good movies – because I was too uncomfortable to go on with it.
At the beginning of my novel, The Truth about Dandelions, the protagonist, a young woman struggling with her promiscuity, hates herself. She acts like a slut and with every sexual encounter, in which she attempts to assert herself and gain confidence, she falls lower and lower into the depths of self-hatred and despair. She’s pathetic and she knows it. She makes bad decision after bad decision, and readers can be forgiven for thinking she’s an idiot and a lost cause.
To write this part of my protagonist’s life in a show-y way is asking a lot of my readers. I’m basically asking them to trust me. I’m saying, through my writing, just get through this and she’ll come around. Stay with her.
Several of my family members (and I’m sure others as well) had a hard time getting through this part of my book, even though I assured them it wasn’t autobiographical. But still, they said, it’s just too graphic.
The thing is, how do you get into the mindset of a person who hates herself without showing the details? How can you feel her pain, her discomfort, her inner turmoil, without showing the meat of her actions, debased though they may be? And how can you show that, without making your reader feel uncomfortable?
This is a tough question. Surely really good writing can convey your protagonist’s discomfort without imposing those feelings on the innocent reader. Still, for writing to be honest, shouldn’t it take you places? True, it might take you somewhere you don’t want to be, and that’s fine. All you have to do is close the book and you’re transported back to the comfort of your own secure world.
Indeed, writing can fill you with sadness and tears, with annoyance and discomfort, and with hatred and revulsion. But of course it can fill you with joy and elation as well.
I still have a long way to go with my writing – I think every writer feels that way, even the most successful among us – and indeed, that’s the beauty of writing as a craft. It can always improve. There is no finish line. The road of writing stretches out in front of you with no ending in sight, and whether readers love my book or hate it, it’s a wonderful road to be on.
