Writing Beyond Ourselves

Today’s post is by novelist, columnist, and former police officer David Lane Williams.

For many years, I was a detective in a Special Investigations Unit. Our cases centered on violent and predatory crimes, most of which were perpetrated against women and children. Part of that mission included working with other professionals in a variety of disciplines to help people stuck in a violent lifestyle identify avenues of escape and paths to live their lives safely. It was always a touchdown moment when someone who had endured cruelty came to trust themselves and us enough to break free and, later, to thrive. Such courage became the catalyst for my debut novel, as well as a journey for me to discover how to write it in an authentic and compelling way, despite vast differences between my own experiences and those of the protagonist.

I was an English major before I was a cop (which meant I wrote good police reports—extra points if I could throw in a metaphor). I’d long wanted to write a novel, and while I always knew I’d someday tackle genre fiction based on stories from my career as a first responder and detective, I felt compelled to start with something outside the mainstream. Let’s call it a rite of passage for a Lit major.

The idea of paying homage to survivors and their courage in escaping toxic relationships through a fictionalized story became my new mission. Further, it was important to me that the tone of such a story be dark-“ish” comedy, because humor is how I’ve always managed my own fears and doubts.

One challenge of such an endeavor was that the novel I envisioned centered on the life of an amusement park owner who had been arguing with her emotionally abusive, long-dead father for the last thirty years, blinding her to the soulmate standing by her side the entire time. To be clear, I’ve never run an amusement park, never had an abusive father, and never been a woman. It was quite the puzzler.

How was a middle-aged male, a cop for that matter, supposed to write about a woman trying to make sense of her complicated life? More to the point, how do we write authentically when a character’s life experience is so different from our own? It’s a fair question, and I’ve experienced my share of imposter syndrome in coming up with an answer. Voice matters, and telling a story from the limited perspective of someone who has never lived the life being described can come off as contrived.

Part of the answer, at least for me, meant realizing that this was going to be a team effort. A few years ago, I asked an English teacher friend of mine to read a draft of the novel. My friend came back days later and said, “I never would have imagined you writing women’s fiction.”

That made two of us. I’d never heard the term “women’s fiction,” so I googled it, which led me to an illuminating conversation with the then-guiding scribe of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She assured me that I had, in fact, penned something that fell within that genre, and she invited me to join their organization. I let her in on the fact that I’m a guy. She welcomed me, anyway, and I’ve been a member ever since.

I was soon matched with a writer’s group, three outstanding novelists who have become lifelong friends. They made me a better writer, and in the case of my debut, they taught me how to write from the perspective of a woman who’d endured abuse, raised a daughter as a single parent, and found a way to forgive the old man, as well as herself for having put up with his shenanigans for so long.

Some things were simple remedies. I’d mixed up eyeliner and mascara, for example. Far more importantly, my team helped me analyze and fix much bigger issues. One critical scene involved the amusement park owner having a serious talk with her teenage daughter before her first date. I’d raised two sons, and I’d had those talks with them, but my critique group helped me find a nuance unique to the conversations between a mother and daughter. I literally could not have written that scene with any kind of quality had it not been for them.

Developing a team to support your creativity often requires admitting how little you know. That might mean riding out with police officers if you’re writing procedurals, arranging an online meeting with a nurse anesthetist for a medical thriller, or taking a class where you’re the oldest and least talented person in the room. Allowing ourselves to be a novice opens doors that a closed laptop never will.

Another facet of this path regarding writing outside my comfort zone involved accessing the empathy I’ve accumulated over my six decades as a human being. Yep, we’re all different, but love, dreams, grief, fear, and triumph are universal. Tapping into that shared wisdom and translating what it might feel like to be a specific person living through a specific challenge is at the core of what it means to be a writer.

And finally, I believe in the value of discipline-centered antagonism. We must be as vigilant in questioning our own written work as a jury is in weighing the facts presented at trial. Listening to our intuition, editing with near-obsessive focus beyond those first five perfect pages, and questioning our own logic and choices is how we must set our bars. Writing outside ourselves isn’t just about getting facts right. It’s also about being willing to learn who we are when we listen closely enough, allowing us to see the world through eyes not our own.

David Lane Williams

David Lane Williams is the author of Carousel Grift, a comedy about forgiveness. He teaches criminology at the University of Arkansas and writes a monthly column for Killer Nashville Magazine on authentic police practices for mystery and thriller writers. He and his family have settled in the Ozarks, where they offer a haven for rescued donkeys and horses. You can find him at www.davidlanewilliams.com.