The before and after tells the story
playing with time when tackling tough topics as a writer and thinker
For years, the scene I wanted to write wouldn’t come. The memory settled beneath my ribs and waited. The problem was one part inability and two parts fear. Whenever I started to write it, even for myself, I’d end up on safer ground.
The transformational times in our lives and thresholds we pass are the very reason stories exist and hold power. Meanwhile, we are often told that the tough stuff is too much. We have to fictionalize it or else it's therapy on the page, and we are navel-gazing and self-indulgent.
I agreed with this line of thinking for a long time. We might also believe, validly, that sharing certain aspects of our past as nonfiction will cement our identity to the scene itself. But it will only do so for those who are not our true audience.
I recently saw a post on another platform in which a writer friend of mine said that everything is fiction. I believe this in a meandering philosophical sense—we can never fully know the truth, let alone tell it—but I also believe something counter.
Creativity is always a reflection of a person’s lived reality, those memories we share and those we try to repress or deny.
Fiction, poetry and CNF are always autobiographical in the sense that they are funneled through a single perspective and refined with a single set of experiential tools. Even others’ stories, well-researched, are told through our lens. This is what makes the conversation interesting.
And for this same reason, genre aside, human creativity demands vulnerability because it exposes some aspect of us.
When I finally gave myself permission to allow the words to flow, I also found a new vista of the past, and a reminder of the magic I believed in when I was a small child. The change I saw inevitable in others, in nature, and myself. Magic, to me, lives in the cycles and movement of everything, the before and after. And I remembered it when I realized no one story is more or less valuable.
From a craft perspective, I also learned to approach things in a less linear fashion. And I also played with perspective.
“Chronology is entirely artificial and essentially determined by emotion.”
—W.G. Seabald
Memories that are inaccessible on the surface are still quite present in our lives. They can be tapped with our creative efforts. It’s not always easy and not always predictable when they’ll surface or when we’ll trust ourselves enough to let them surface.
I believe we have to write our way toward them.
The problem of repressed memories—beyond fallibility and emotional trickiness—is that they often materialize with force and present an unwanted, ill-timed obstacle course that pushes us to mental extremes. If explored, however, the memory may feed something unexpected and beautiful. A self acknowledgement.
In this way, perhaps it’s those who do not write about the tough stuff who are navel-gazing. We are releasing.
That said, it's not easy to share. When writing to tap memory or because a memory arises, it is necessary to slow down the process and truly approach it with tenderness and care.
I am not a patient person, but I did practice slowness with this work, its surprising nature; and I encourage you to do the same with topics you are avoiding in your work. To practice patience with one’s self soothes the creative mind and allows us to get to the space we need to be to go to the deeper places that only dedicated writers know.
The joyous memories warm us when we feel frozen by inaction and remind us how temporary and beautiful the movement of life is. The difficult ones test us and nudge us toward our deeper selves.
If memories are a struggle to capture, play with time. There’s always a sensation or minor detail to act as our portal into what wants to release. This is the ultimate foundational writing advice, but it’s also advice for living fully.
If the memories remain stubborn, walk the path again. Explore the same paragraph, the same textures and scents, and joys and pains. Write that paragraph over and over, until it becomes something more like a door that you can walk through and into the creative depths.
Or, do as I did, write about the before and after. A brief exercise is below. This has never failed me. Make it your own.
Prompt:
Briefly describe a time when/place where you were transformed.
Describe what happened right before in one scene.
Describe what happened right after in one scene.
Return to the transformation.
This post resonates deeply with me. I will also say that, for me, one of the biggest obstacles I'm just beginning to recognize is the HABIT of viewing memories through a particular lens, framing them in a habitual way, and drawing the same conclusions that block out alternative interpretations and discoveries. We must learn to try on different lenses when approaching the past.
Rings true. Thank you.