Safety in Fiction

Most writers will tell you they enjoy writing, that's why they do it, but to say that everything you write about is something you enjoy writing about would be a lie.  Those writers that choose only to write about things they love and find happiness within will find it hard to write content that is believable because life isn't always a happy experience.  There is both light and darkness in the world and when it comes to writing, to write about darkness is often something that we can find difficult.  With some subjects, the act of writing can be cathartic, it allows you to process things in a way that is safe, in a way that is structured, in a way that you can give resolution to what you write, or simply delete it and start again - although admittedly with that last one there is less catharsis is pressing delete on a keyboard as there is in rolling up a piece of paper and firing it across the room or if you're more extreme, setting fire to it - which I know someone who actually did do that. 

Darkness is perhaps the most perplexing thing to approach as a writer, you have to embrace a mindset and a mentality that you yourself do not promote, you have to become what you hate, and you have to take into yourself the thoughts of characters that want to behave in a way that you never would.  The disturbing part of this whole experience isn't the invasion of intimacy that occurs when you invoke such character traits and entertain their thoughts but rather the moment when you read the product of that creative process and you find it believable, to read something so dark and to know that came from your own mind can be rather unsettling.

There is a description that is often applied to writers, that says all writers are people who are proficient at having conversations with themselves.  Some people go further and say that truly talented writers are people who have more than one personality rolling around in their head that they can call upon.  Setting aside the connotations of mental illness, which I might add is often associated with some of the greatest writers in history, something which is also rather unsettling, whether you see yourself as great or aspire to be great, the implication that such associations would be made with you again are unsettling.  The act of talking to yourself and making the conversations believable when written down relies primarily on your exposure to other people and their mannerisms.  In other words to be able to accurately portray a wide range of character traits and mannerisms you need to be exposed to a wide range of characters and mannerisms.  Only so much of this can be achieved through reading alone, you will inevitably have to talk to other people, and I do mean talk to them, not in short conversations but in long flowing conversations that explore deep and meaningful discussion, you will never see someone's true character until you see them talk about something they have a deep emotional connection to.

There is one little implication that can be drawn from that last point, to make things believable you need a template upon which to base them, experience.  Think then to yourself about all the books and TV shows and Movies that you have seen and pick out those characters that are the most vile cretinous people and realise the truth, that the characters you see whilst they may be extreme caricatures are indeed based in truth, people such as those actually exist.  Think of the absolute worst character from fiction that you can imagine and consider that a person such as them, somewhere, really exists - now that, is unsettling.

We like to think of all fiction as being safe, because no matter how disturbing or distressing it may be, it's not real.  We like to think the fact it isn't real is reassurance that the world we live in isn't as dark as the one depicted, but knowing that experience is what makes things truly believable, then the more believable fiction becomes, the closer to reality it actually is.  Fiction therefore whilst telling stories that never happened, ultimately involve people that do exist, and elements that are entirely possible.