Consider the contents of your soul

I’ve started this blog post four times by now, and I still don’t really know what I should be writing about. I have a few ideas for topics lingering on my Dropbox, but each time I start typing something out, it just doesn’t feel right. Hopefully this is the one :)

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing a new story. It could probably be classified as a romance amongst a few other sub genres which intersect.

At first, I thought I would write a light and gentle summer romance story. But as I’ve continued to write, the story has become a lot more than that.

By this point, the story is turning into quite a big and invested project; turns out I’m going to be writing three different versions of the ending to see which works best… I don’t exactly know how I got myself in that mess but here we are.

Writing romance stories or scenes has never been particularly difficult for me. I read a lot of romance literature, and most of the movies I watch have at the very least some element of romance in them. Teamed with that, I’m a huge gooey romantic who is always rooting for love to conquer all, and so find it quite easy to imagine the “happily-ever-after” for my characters.

I didn’t want this story to be that. I wanted it to be more complex. In between the last time I wrote a love story, I learned a little more about the reality of love, and I wanted to represent that reality a little more than I have ever done before in my previous works.

There are plenty of formulas when it comes to writing a romance. Enemies turned to lovers. Best friends turned to lovers. Love at first sight. Star-crossed lovers. I could go on.

I tried to throw the mould a little bit out of the window with my characters this time, which is easier to say than to actually fulfil.

I also didn’t want there to be an overbearing voice of me in this novel. It’s a kind of accepted part of being a writer that when you write things, readers can infer your opinions from the way you write. For example, it’s fairly easy to ascertain when reading pretty much any of my stories that I’m in love with the idea of love.

So yes, I wanted an element of that to shine through, but I also wanted to get in some other voices, if you will.

My main character Morwenna is reluctant to love. There’s a part of general cynicism in her nature, matched with a certain frigidity when it comes to emotions. But, underneath all that pretence, she’s afraid to let herself fall in love.

I myself find it very hard to picture being afraid to fall in love. I know it’s quite common, and often a result of hurt in a past relationship, but love for another, and having them love you in return, is such an amazing thing to feel. How could you fear it?

So to convey Morwenna’s true character, as in her opinions on love she couldn’t possibly be more different to me, I had to find her voice through someone else’s words.

Where do you begin with such a challenge?

Of all the things I’ve seen on the internet, love and/or heartbreak in its many different forms is probably the thing I’ve seen most frequently. So, the idea came to me; if I was struggling to find Morwenna, and the hero of the novel Arthur, in myself at times, all the resources I needed were out there for me to find.

As a result, I’ve been doing a great deal of research. So much in fact that I have had to create a secondary document for working on the story mysteriously titled “extras”.

The extras file contains all sorts of bits and pieces I’ve collected over the past few months that I think may find a way into the work. Whether that’s literary quotes I like, words I think will fit in the emotions I’m trying to engage with, short phrases that eloquently express certain emotions, or song lyrics, aesthetic pictures and movie quotes.

It’s a lot of material, and I know a great deal of it won’t end up in the novel itself, but collecting all this background has been an incredible learning experience for me. I’ve never done anything like this before; when I need to research an element for my book I usually end up doing it as I’m writing, not beforehand.

It has made me grow as a writer, as I knew it would when I embarked upon this project. For the first time, I don’t feel just like a teenager with a passion for words who likes to tell stories. I feel like an actual author who can write something powerful and meaningful.

It’s not just the plot which has thrown me from my writing comfort zone – I have been attempting to change the register of my writing.

The book is written in the first-person (a challenge in itself as I've never done that before) as a kind of reflection. I wanted that hindsight to come through in the actual style of the dialogue. It needed to seem reflective, wise and perhaps even a little remorseful in certain parts. I wanted to express a kind of detachment from the action, as it is all recounting past events. And as Morwenna is an intellectual kind of woman, I felt the need to express her laid-back and aloof personality through her narration.

When I’ve read books written like this or seen movies like this in the past, I’ve engaged with them instantly as it is a style which I highly respect, however I never believed I could do something like that myself. I’m a very personal writer; it’s in my nature and style to put myself in the shoes of my characters during their immediate actions and feelings.

So, I’ve had to do a lot of research into writing reflectively and with a higher level of detachment from the events taking place. I won’t say that I’m nailing it as I’m going through, but I’m doing my very best. Once it is finished when you get a chance to read it, you’ll have to tell me how I did.

And finally, I have a confession to make: I haven’t written a full novel for two and a half years now.

I write a lot of short stories and novellas, but I haven’t finished a full-sized novel in what feels like a really long time.

And writing a novel is a whole new bag of bananas to short-story writing. It’s a commitment. It requires discipline and inspiration. Time and effort. And a relentless desire to make it perfect.

I’m very self-critical in most things, but particularly in my writing. Nothing I write is ever perfect for me. I will go over and over and over a certain passage, and even then it won’t be my definition of perfect. Which makes completing a novel a Herculean task.

By definition then, this novel is not just a step out of my comfort zone in terms of writing style and plot, but also it’s a push back into novel writing. It’s a push I believe I need, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not afraid.

I remember when I sat down to turn my initial story for “The Past Never Dies” into a novel. I panicked; after all, what did I know about writing a book? It wasn’t like I’d ever done it before.

I thought that with more experience, it would get easier. But I’ll admit that for me, it hasn’t. At least not yet.

It’s still scary, and I still worry that I’m not doing right.

But there isn’t really a formula. There is no defined right answer.

That’s always been my favourite thing about the humanities. With maths and science, there’s a right and a wrong answer. With the humanities, particularly English, it’s a matter of what you think.

My English teacher once said that it’s not about what’s right or wrong. If you can provide an opinion and some evidence for what you’re claiming, as far as anyone can say, you may be right.

I don’t really know what I meant you to take away from me writing this post. Humanity subjects are awesome? Writing a book is scary? I like to rant about my work too much?

There isn’t a right answer, because at the end of the day it depends on you and what you choose to take away. And maybe you won’t take anything, which is equally ok.

I get quite hung up on writing things that are profound or contain helpful advice. On here and in my stories.

But realistically, you can’t do that for every single thing you write.

Even Shakespeare wrote some stuff that didn’t hit the way he wanted it to, I like to believe.

In the movie “All is True”, one of my heroes Kenneth Branagh advises someone that to write you have to “consider the contents of your soul”.

That quote stayed with me because I think it’s not just true of writing; it’s true of everything.

As long as I consider the content of my soul, and write what feels right at the moment, then that's good enough for me.

If we all truly consider the contents of our souls, who knows what we can achieve?

#considerthecontentsofyoursoul #writing #roxyelle