The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham [43]
Do you recognize any such distrust or blocking of emotions within yourself? Perhaps as a small child you gave in (quite naturally) to infant feelings of fear and abandonment; perhaps you had all sorts of problems coming to terms with your baby-impulses to have what you wanted or needed, now, and a growing and unpleasant awareness that Mother or Dad suddenly expected you to "behave," "be patient," or "be responsible." Maybe you had a temper tantrum and were punished; or you cried in frustration of your wishes and were studiously ignored; or you yielded to some vengeful impulse and were severely scolded (and therefore scared all the more).
It's a ghastly process, when you stop to think about it, this business of growing out of infanthood into childhood... the later process of "acting your age," "being a good soldier," etc. You're little. You're helpless. You're scared. If Mother doesn't attend to you instantly, your fear rises that she won't help you at all; and without her you're dead. At a very young age you resent this, and want to be on your own; but you can't be, yet, and even if it were physically possible, all sorts of psychological drives push you desperately toward reunion with Mom at the same time a little bit of you ... maybe... resents and even hates her.
Many of these primitive feelings are unacceptable. We know it at a very early age, and God knows our parents start telling us about it very soon. So we are torn, and our very survival seems to depend on our "doing better." We learn to do better either by hiding what we're feeling, or denying—even to ourselves—that such unacceptable feelings are inside us.
These same mechanisms are reinforced later, in school and with friends and associates. We continue to learn about our feelings, and unfortunately a lot of the lessons in life tend to tell us: Be cool. Don't feel that way.
But if you do feel that way, don't show it.
And so sometimes we really and truly block out many emotions—perhaps blocking out some "good" ones with all the seemingly "bad" ones—and perhaps we become "adult" by really and truly not feeling anything at all very much anymore.
Or we still feel... some... but hide it from everyone else, and feel guilty and try to deny even to ourselves.
It may be that you are one of the lucky ones, in touch with your feelings in all their ranges, and capable of expressing such emotions in a healthy way at least part of the time. Even if you are one of these, however, I suspect that when it comes to your fiction writing, you may have an impulse to "cool it" somewhat in dread of looking odd to your reader, or "dumb," or "too sentimental."
We still live in an age that looks askance at direct confrontation with many feelings, especially elemental ones such as rage and fright. But you as a writer of fiction must never hide from such feelings because they are absolutely essential to good stories.
You must observe yourself... your innermost, secret workings... and consider your feelings, working always to be more aware of them. Remember: You do not have to act on whatever feelings are there; but the more clearly you are aware of them in all their nuances, the better you can know and understand yourself.
You must observe others around you, using your references in your own emotions to try constantly to understand what they must be feeling emotionally, what primitive fires must be goading them.
And you must confront such feelings in your stories. Fiction characters who only think are dead. It is in their feelings that the readers will understand them... sympathize with them... care about their plight in the outcome of your fiction.
William Foster-Harris, a wise writing teacher who preceded me at the University of Oklahoma, used to talk endlessly about the necessity for a subjective view of reality if one were to write decent fiction. Foster-Harris,