The Kindness Bench for SimLit Writers - For All Games!

"sweetnightingale;14988471" wrote:


I know what it's like to experience overwhelming sorrow and to analyze - really look deep within - my emotions, how they make me react, and if they are justified, even if it's just in my own mind. Because I know how it is to experience such deep emotions, it helps me write my characters in situations where life may seem hopeless. Even though my characters go through things that I didn't (in one of my stories, my main character lost everyone she loved except one person), I can tap into how I was feeling at a certain point in my life and translate that into a character's reaction and actions. I hope that makes sense.

I like what you wrote here, @sweetnightingale. The darkness, the sorrow, the pain - all of that helps us to learn who we are and to really know ourselves in the good and the bad. When we know ourselves better, I think this makes it easier to know our characters and to understand and sympathize or in some cases, empathize with what they are going through and how they react and experience situations and scenarios.

I do also think that it's okay for your characters to experience things you haven't. There's possibly an element of research or basing it off someone else's experience or possibly thinking about how you would react if you were in their shoes, etc. but in any case, I wouldn't want my characters to experience everything I have and vice versa because again, this would be dull.

I once received the advice "write what you know." I think that's fairly common advice for writers actually. I find, I often write because I do not know and I want to know. I want to explore. I want to feel. I want to think. I want my characters to think differently than I do, feel differently, and act differently because this helps me to expand my worldview, to learn what I do not know, or to at least better understand and hopefully, in some cases, this can translate to other areas of my life. Writing what I do not know has helped me become more understanding, more sympathetic, more patient, and more loving and respectful to others in my world. (This also happens through reading).

Yes there are certain things I wouldn't read or write, but to only read the genres I write or what I am familiar with seems terribly limiting. To only write what I know seems boring, at least in my mind. I dare to stretch myself, challenge myself, and to try things. Sometimes I fall flat on my face. Sometimes I learn the hard way. Sometimes I learn something new about someone else, and in turn, learn something about myself. I often learn to know myself in the context of the other. Then something truly beautiful happens.

I found this has happened frequently in my writing. For example, when I first outlined my fantasy plot back in high school, I hadn't actually read a lot of fantasy. When I attempted sci fi, I didn't know a lot about it. When I first tried Sims stories, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and if I would succeed. Yet if I hadn't tried, if I hadn't given myself the opportunity to learn and grow, if I hadn't branched out, I wouldn't have gotten the results that I have. The learn as you go method doesn't work for everyone, but it has worked for me, and I think this definitely shows in my Sims stories and other stories respectively.

"sweetnightingale;14988471" wrote:
I find it very therapeutic to sometimes have my characters in situations I can identify with. For example, I belong to the Lions Club, which is a service club organization and they're all about helping people. In one of my stories, I have a couple characters doing volunteer work with orphaned kids. I find it very rewarding to write those chpaters because it's rewarding work for the characters and the kids (even if they are fictitious) benefit.

Spoiler

In one of my stories, I'll be dealing with fertility issues, which is going to be tough to write. Again, I'll have to examine a very painful part of my life and attempt to adequately translate all the deep-seated feelings and reactions into the story. That will be coming up very soon, and I hope I can convey everything I want and how I want where the reader can sympathize/empathize with the characters involved.

I love that you are daring to write about painful things and that you don't shy away from it because this demonstrates you have courage and you can extend hope and healing and peace to others through your courage.

I, too, find writing to be a therapeutic way of dealing with my emotions and experiences. I didn't speak to either of my parents at one point or another in my lifetime and this is something that shows up in my SimLit - Kass's character struggles with her father and my Lizzie character struggles with her mother and my Jess character struggles with both parental figures. Kass battles depression and anxiety, which I have and still do struggle with at times. Kass' mother also struggles with depression and has a hard time admitting it which is the scenario with one of my parents. I have a good friend who is bipolar and Gage, Kass' friend struggles with bipolar disorder also. In my offline life, I am passionate about helping young women cope with mental illness in their everyday lives and also with families and reconciliation.

"sweetnightingale;14988471" wrote:


As music has always been one of my biggest passions, I use it to gather inspiration. When I need to evoke a particular emotion to get me in the mood, I'll pick out certain songs or artists to listen to. I sit, listen, lose myself in the music, and just let my muse take over. Once my head is full of things I may or may not include at some point in the story, I'll do a "brain dump" in a notebook (my beloved fountain pens come in VERY handy for this). Then, I stew on it for a while and decide how I want to proceed. Another thing I like to do is keep a character diary/journal. This is basically where you take a character and write their journal for them. I'm doing that for my current gen in one of my stories and it really helps to get into the character's head.

I love this! I love music too and I think it's awesome how you utilize music as a way of inspiring or evoking emotion or writing. Music helps put me in the correct mood to write certain scenes, especially with an emotion I might struggle with or for a particularly difficult scene.

I think the character journal thing is a cool idea. I am sort-of doing that with my current main story, KFLL, as a way of helping one character understand another character. I have pages of notes elsewhere for each character and possibly an entire novella length collection of notes on Kass, my MC.

"sweetnightingale;14988471" wrote:


Although I am a bit of a sad-sack at times (hehe) and write angst, sorrow, grief, and such, I do enjoy writing happy things when called for. I write a LOT of romance, which some might find how I do it too mushy. For me and how I like to write, it's about a good balance. Life isn't all sunshine and roses and you need some bad times and such to make the characters grow and strengthen them. Plus, it would get boring if everything was all happy-happy-joy-joy. On the other hand, if everything is all doom and gloom, it gets a bit heavy and eventually puts me into a depressed mood.

I agree. I was reading/watching a video the other day about an author I follow/read/like. She was talking about what happens when your character becomes too unhappy and how you can write yourself into a corner because your character is too depressed and doesn't have a moment's reprieve. I was thinking about that in my current story about Kass and thinking I might need to include a down-time chapter where something pleasant or at least relaxing and less stressful happens. I don't want her to get so depressed that I get depressed and then the story starts to feel like an overwhelming burden and becomes off-putting to my readers. It's good to balance things out when the scales tip too far in one direction.

P.S. I was thinking the same thing, @MedleyMisty, and that @sweetnightingale would probably enjoy our discussions over at the Art of Storytelling thread.