“Write a story no one else can write”: from an interview with Danielle Lazarin

Nicholas Cage in “Adaptation,” a film based on real events by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It’s about his attempts to write a screenplay based on a book that couldn’t be made into a screenplay. (Er, got that? Anyway, it was a hit.)

I encourage my students, whether they’re writing memoir or fiction, to tap into what’s real to them — vivid experiences, strong emotions, memorable characters, sensory details — to come up with specifics that will make their stories uniquely their own and believable to others. I would never go so far as to say “write (only) what you know.” In fiction especially, it’s important to let the imagination roam. But writing what you know — using memories that are part of who you are — isn’t a bad place to start.

Joe Bunting over at The Write Practice recently spoke to writer Danielle Lazarin and I enjoyed the entire interview, which you can read here. I was particularly interested in what Danielle had to say about writing from life.

“Write a story no one else can write.

I spoke of this some in my essay for Glimmer Train: I believe you have to claim your ter­ri­tory through spe­cific details, through a sense of own­er­ship of a kind of char­ac­ter or expe­ri­ence. You do this by tap­ping into your own his­tory, the places and char­ac­ters you know most intimately.

I took a work­shop with Julie Orringer some years ago and she asked us to write from an area of our own expertise — to draw on a nar­row expe­ri­ence, such as being a com­pet­i­tive piano player, or the daugh­ter of a mother in a wheel­chair, or spend­ing sum­mers in a par­tic­u­lar town or house.

When I teach, I use a vari­a­tion of that exer­cise, and it always gen­er­ates the most vivid, con­fi­dent sto­ries, far more inter­est­ing than stu­dents try­ing to think of a wacky or sur­real set of circumstances in an effort to stand out. Those sto­ries often read as inau­then­tic because it’s so out­side their expe­ri­ence that they look in at their char­ac­ters rather than see from inside of them.

If you feel con­nected to your work, if a char­ac­ter reminds you of a place or per­son you are con­nected to emo­tion­ally, that will come through and give you a sense of stake in your stories.”