Last time, we started mulling over what writing from Total Vulnerability looks like...
...sounds like...
...feels like.
But we just touched the very surface of it--which, ironically enough, is NOT what writing from "TV" ends up being, if it's done right.
Writing from TV, in the end, is about writing "soul deep."
The quote in the title above is one I've heard for years, one that's especially apropos--to my way of thinking, anyway--when we're talking writing love stories.
Now, this does not mean that you need to write tragedy. In fact, in the case of genre romance, you can't write a tragic ending and have it fulfill most romance readers' expectations. Which means that it won't fulfill a romance publisher's expectations, either.
Which means the only expectation it may fulfill is more rejection-letter fodder for your fireplace. Burn 'em if ya got 'em, I guess. 😔
But, to me, what writing from "TV" looks like is that the "feels" are what counts.
So, there are times when I'm crying as I write.
No. Really. I am.
Or holding my breath in suspense as I create a crisis...even though I know I'm making it all up, and they're going to be all right in the end.
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
But it's not. And I'm rediscovering this kind of writing, which I used to do before I knew all the "rules" and all the "stuff I couldn't do" and all the "stuff that wouldn't sell"...and I just told stories. And not only is it exhilarating, and risky, and scary, and sometimes rattling as all get-out...but, boy, is it fun.
The best comparison I can make to illustrate what this looks like is my late husband's favorite movie, Top Gun. Great stuff. No, it'll probably never win any sophistication, subtlety, or deftness awards. But it has absolutely one of the best uses of the "feels" I've ever encountered, in that last dogfight scene.
I mean, when I watched it the first time, I was on the edge of my chair. As probably most people were. The aerial photography, for one thing, is breathtaking--but the action is even better. And the ever-present danger, coming at our heroes at high speeds and seemingly from everywhere--when we've already seen one of these guys die earlier in the movie--is a slice of writing from "TV" that is genius. Because these guys are vulnerable in a way most of us have never, ever experienced...except vicariously.
But we experience it in this movie. And how.
We're already emotionally involved not only because Maverick's on a mission to redeem the somewhat questionable history of his father, but we've already lost Goose...and then all hell breaks loose in the sky, and it's tough to imagine that these guys are gonna all come out of this thing alive.
Of course, through a great many heroic moves, some smart-aleck stuff from Maverick, and some flying and fighting skill second to none...everybody does survive, and rousingly so.
And, having seen this movie, I know there's an uproariously happy ending to it.
And yet...
Every time I watch that dogfight scene, I'm back on the edge of my seat.
And that, to me, is where the emotional genius comes in.
When the writers were putting that together, they must have been pacing around the room, throwing out the words as fast as they could get them out. Feeling the adrenaline. Experiencing a very real, albeit fictitious, fear...even though, once again, they were making it all up, and the characters were all going to be all right in the end.
That's what total vulnerability looks like--on the page, and on the screen.
And that's what my writing has, thanks be to God, come back to.
Writing over the top.
Writing a touch melodramatic.
Writing on the raw edge of a nerve.
Writing hokey, in-your-face emotion--both funny and tragic.
Writing that makes my stomach go to butterflies as I'm doing it.
Writing that makes me choke up when the hero goes down on one knee.
Writing that, in my latest romantic suspense books, brings me to the edge of my own chair.
Even though I know these people are going to come out of this all right.
And so, what is happening now in my writing is that I'm peeling layers until I get to that sweet emotional spot--the one that will take me, and hence my reader, back to that "dogfight" again, and again, and again...and make her feel the same things.
Make her heart go to her throat wondering if these people are going to be together...or if their love won't, in the end, survive.
Make her tear up when death is closing in on the hero, or heroine, or both of them--and help may not get there in time.
Make her let out a long breath of relief when rescue finally does happen...
...whether it's actual physical life-saving intervention or emotional healing...
or a combination of both.
And make the happy ending something beyond merely "happy"...and the book into a keeper.
Will it be sophisticated, subtle, and deft?
Not on your life.
But is it authentic?
Yep.
And I know when I do it right...
...because before you feel it as a reader, I've felt it as a writer.
And if I haven't felt it deep enough, I sit back, take a breath...
...and go deeper.
And I don't stop until I figuratively "draw blood."
Or cry.
Or both.
What will happen with this latest writing, only time will tell.
But in the past four years, I have written five books--a pace at which I have never written in my life.
Which tells me that, both in terms of quality and in terms of productivity...
...I'm onto something.
So, if you're feeling dry...maybe the answer isn't to read another writing manual, or go to another writing conference or workshop, or find another critique group, or get an MFA in Creative Writing so you can "crack the code."
Maybe, the code is inside you...just buried deeper than cool, calm, sophisticated, and subtle can reach.
At heart level.
At vein level.
At the level of total vulnerability.
Where you write the stuff you're afraid people might laugh at...
Where you write the stuff you're afraid people might laugh at...
...but you then come out with stuff that will make people not just read your story...but feel it And feel. And feel some more.
And that kind of story...most people never get enough of.
Anytime you want to join me in doing our best to give them that kind of read...jump right in.
The water's fine. Even when--or maybe I should say especially when--you let yourself go deep enough to drown in it.
It's writing you never thought you could do.
And once you do it, you'll never stop.
Thoughts?
Janny
