Every experience is a learning experience

One of the oft-repeated pieces of advice for aspiring writers is “write what you know”. There have been multiple arguments about quite what that means. Does it mean you can’t write about life on a farm if you’re only ever lived in a city apartment? Does it mean you can’t write about spycraft if you aren’t trained for it? Does it mean a white middle-aged man can’t write from a black girl’s perspective?

Writers are always doing research. Not just formal research – deep in the reference sections of large libraries, or down the back of specialised book stores, or finding and buying obscure works off the ‘net – but also informal research. Watching people around them. Listening to stories and paying attention to their own experiences.

I got threatened with assault on the train yesterday afternoon. I know I don’t have any combat training and I rather doubt the pimply adolescent with more arrogance than sense did either. It was an intense experience corralling my reactions under the wash of adrenaline. There is a reason it’s called the “fight-or-flight response” because that’s the two options your body presents. It is calling for basic animal reactions. It is a difficult time for rational thought. Without any sort of training in the arts of hand-to-hand fighting, it was all I could do to not physically attack back and to go for diversions instead.

What did I learn out of this?  The immediate learning is that an untrained defender will not behave coherently. It is incredibly difficult to respond rather than react. This is why those who are expected to go into such a situation are trained so heavily. They need an instinctive response in that situation and that’s what training provides. Perfect information for writing a warrior in fiction. Especially one who is yet to undergo the necessary training.

I got out of this unharmed, of course. First step was to flee to the next carriage, then I called upon the train guard, who (to my considerable surprise) gave me a seat in his cabin to let me recover in a safe space. Because recovery is also needed from an intense adrenaline burst. This is also good information for writing. Once the emergency is over, your body pays the price: there is weariness, emotional vulnerability and in extreme cases even nausea as everything goes back to normal. I kind of suspect having a safe place and someone watching gives a reference point for ‘normal’ to aim for.

This is definitely not an experience I would normally want, let alone would want to repeat. And, sadly, it made me a bit more wary of which carriage I boarded on the journey home later that night. But I am aware of my own reactions enough to be able to learn from it. This is what makes me a writer.

 

Starts and Finishes

There are many lessons a writer must learn. How to create distinct characters. How to craft a narrative. How to throw away words. Where to start and where not to to. And when to finish.

To mutilate a sentiment that is often spoken to new writers, a story needs to be finished before it can be published. Or should be submitted. And figuring out how to wrap a multitude of story threads into a conclusion, satisfying or not, is a pleasant experience.

On the other hand, pick another project you might have started over the years. How many have you finished? I mean really? Still got boxes not-unpacked even though you’ve lived there for five years? Or that cross-stitch someone convinced you would be fun? How’s the garden? Full of plants thriving? Or is it mostly weeds? I could go on. That’s not to say that writing fiction is only ever going to be a fad for most people.

Maybe a closer example is song-writing. This is as tough as writing a story. I know this because I’ve tried it. I’ve heard from well-known song-writers that for every song they finish, there are easily ten they don’t. Ten songs unfinished! How does that stack up on your story-writing? Ten ideas or story starts for each one that went to completion?

It rather puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?