The more savvy players, of course, opted for the "truth" (because notoriously we lied, anyhow), as often the "dares" were far more undesirable. By the time I became a teacher, in fact, and this game often erupted on field trip buses, the "dares' could easily get you suspended, whereas the "truths," well, that depended on your individual level of naiveté (or perhaps more importantly, how good your poker face was).
I think about that game a lot, now that I've become a writer...or am trying to became one, at least. This is because I realize that I am not very daring...never was, and at my age, am likely never to become so. Many of my regrets, in fact, stem from times when I had the chance to to something impractical, outrageous, dangerous, or otherwise daring, and (sometimes at the very last second) turned down the opportunity.
As a parent, I would tell my children how wise that decision was, how proud I was of them, and so forth, and pat myself on the back for having raised them so well. But to be honest, I would also be secretly pleased that I didn't know about the all the daring things they did do, because (having survived these escapades, of course), these "dares" ultimately made them better, more experienced adults, who would eventually handle life ever so much better than I have.
But back to writing...again reminding myself that this is a blog in which I write about writing. I'm feeling like a lot of the weaknesses in my writing stem from the fact that I don't take enough risks..."dare," if you will, to tell the "truth" in my stories. What I mean is, that my books are very tame...i.e., they don't reach out and grab the reader with same startling realities as say, Lisa Genova in her harsh portrayals of brain disorders, or John Grisham in his gripping suspense-filled narratives, or even Stephen King in his bloody horror stories. And yet these are all books I love to read.
My characters tend to be real people, which I suppose is fine, living real lives with emotional dilemmas that many of us can relate to. Yet two of my favorite authors, Anne Tyler and Richard Russo also have these kinds of characters and are far more successful at weaving stories around them. So what is the difference that accounts for their success?
Okay, good agents and aggressive marketing aside (as well as a bit of just plain luck), I think it all goes back to "Truth or Dare." In other words, how much "truth" they "dare" to put into their writing. I always used to quote Hemingway to my students (and to myself, as well, I suppose), when his advice about writing was to "write about what you know." But is it what you "know" or what you "really know" that you should be putting into your work?
I am working on the final draft of a new novel called Reunion. Coincidentally, I started writing this right after (or perhaps, at least in my head, during) my own high school reunion, which I attended in 2018. And no, I'm not telling you which reunion it was; suffice it to say that enough time has gone by for a good many memories to be created and possibly surface in the process.
I started this project by creating a group of characters who were close friends and composites mostly of me, but also of some of my childhood acquaintances. It's impossible, by the way, for a writer not to put parts of him or herself in the characters he/she creates, which, in itself, tends to make one wonder about some of the lives of some of the best-selling authors we all know and love. It's also not possible to create a character that doesn't have at least some minor traits of other people the writer has encountered along the way. Otherwise, these characters would be incredibly flat and inspire little or no interest from the reader. In other words, if we can't relate to the characters in a novel, we don't care what happens to them.
This is where I think that my writing abilities diverge from those of truly talented writers. I care too much what happens to my characters; I'm happy to get them in trouble, or perhaps to behave poorly at times, but I can't seem to help but rescue them at the last minute, or imbue them with some totally redeeming (though perhaps briefly hidden) personal qualities that will allow the reader to forgive and truly admire them again. In other words, I don't "dare" leave them out there to deal with the "truths" of real life and its consequences.
Here's the other thing; I don't seem to mind creating villains...in fact, I can do that rather well (which often makes me wonder what that says about my own life). But more often than not, I then end up worrying about how harsh I have been in the creation of these "bad guys" and worse yet, how precisely they might resemble real life individuals I may have encountered along the way. Then, as my grandmother would have said, "what will people think?"
So imagine writing a book about a group of friends preparing for their 50th high school reunion. Sounds kind of boring until you actually start thinking how many memories these characters have amassed in this number of years, and thus how many ancient skeletons are rattling around in their respective closets. For those born after 1980, it might be a bit hard to imagine anything particularly steamy or regrettable that could have occurred back then. If this is the case, I suggest you watch "The Graduate" or perhaps a Woodstock documentary and broaden your perspective a bit.
Anyhow, suffice it to say that memories of the bad guys get worse over time, and the minor sins of the good guys become more embarrassing, and possibly more intensely regrettable. And, as a writer if you "dare" to put the "truth" out there about either or both, you could end up with a hell of a good book...but also a rapidly diminishing social circle. On the other hand, if you don't, then honestly, why bother? Because you just created 300 pages of bargain bin material, and don't have any more of a social life than you did before.
So... Good writing tip # 3,425,690: write about what you know, and don't be afraid to "dare" to tell the "truth." Especially since everyone knows that we writers are all notorious liars, right?
