Writing with Vulnerability

I like my stories intense. To me, intensity builds to extremes when the stories aren't just about plot. They're about character. The people are touchable and real and maybe someone I know. They might even be me.

Not only is this video not related to suspense, it's also not related to fiction. But the emotions and memories and leap of faith to another place and circumstance are definitely tools, as suspense novelists—or any novelists, for that matter—we need to employ.

When I write scenes requiring honesty, self-reflection, and vulnerability I always need to take a moment first. To say a prayer, or more often the case, groan one. Then I can sink a little deeper into myself and come up with something worthwhile. Something with impact that has that magic goo every single one of us shares. The stuff we don't talk about but all know about.

You know. That stuff.

Koren Zailckas looks like she's about seventeen, yet in this short interview, we get a sense she's lived however many years she's been on this planet with great depth.










CR: Skin Deep by Timothy Hallinan on my Kindle.

It's all better with friends.

The Art of Being Vulnerable

Anyone who creates something and allows another human being to experience it places themselves in a position of vulnerability.

For writers, it's part of the process of developing a thick skin. We seek honesty, not vacuous platitudes. If someone loves what we've created (and don't we live for that?) we want it to come from a position of knowledge of craft and the hard-knocks of personal experience. Only then does it count.

But today I discovered I can get de-conditioned to putting myself 'out there.' It's been long enough since I've submitted to my critique partners that my tummy did a little extra gurgling and I searched for reasons to delay.

I went from the need to find little things my tidy grandkids left behind after their weekend with us, to gardening, to dinner plans, to the great debate on whether or not I needed to apply mascara today (I didn't). I ended with the predicament of transitioning my proposed submission from Scrivener to Word. Not that it wasn't malleable. It just wasn't a flawless export. I mean, really. A few more hours and I think I could have figure it out.

CR: The Dead Whisper On by T.L. Hines

It's all better with friends.