You’re deep in a scene that asks you to sit with real pain—a character’s grief, a loss that cuts close to the bone—and you start to wonder how anyone writes dark material again and again without it wearing them down. Where does the creative energy come from, and how do you protect yourself from the very thing you’re putting on the page? In this video I share how I create a buffer between myself and the hard material, why I don’t think of my work as “dark” at all, the line I won’t cross no matter what, and the one question I keep in mind that makes emotionally difficult writing worth the effort.
How do you keep creative energy when dealing with dark material, emotionally upsetting material? I’m not sure I know what you mean by creative energy. Let me start there. If what you mean is how do I write them effectively, the answer would be, I put on my thick skin so that there is a buffer between me, the essence of me, and the material I’m working with.
And I put nose to grindstone and write. In terms of how do I feel inspired, if that’s what we mean by creative energy, I wouldn’t even go there. I don’t go there. I feel inspired by a whole different set of things. But I think I should mention that, in fact, I don’t write dark. I write things that may be a little challenging sometimes.
I write things that reveal emotional truth. But for example, I never write about animal abuse or child abuse. I don’t. I just will not. So that would be a challenge I would find impossible to meet.
But if we’re talking emotional truth, I think one other tip I could pass along is that I would keep in mind how it might resonate in important and meaningful ways with your readers. Maybe it will help them, guide them, illuminate something, let them look at the world in a slightly different way and help them cope with some of these darker things. Good luck with it.
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