In an earlier post called “A Marker Story,” I shared the before-and-after structure for an experience that changes everything, or causes one’s life to pivot over the fulcrum of the event. Trauma can radically shift one’s worldview, one’s attachment style, one’s physicality, and one’s overall health.
Before-and-after may be an over-simplified structure, though. I want to examine how the arc of events in lived experience imprints upon a person, and shapes the resulting story form. The fundamental premise is that there are no coincidences; the way we experience events directly influences the resulting story form.
The two books I’ve always referenced for story models along these lines are The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler, and Stealing Fire from the Gods, by James Bonnet.
Vogler says the hero’s journey flows more like a spider web than a linear string of events. However, he goes on to portray what looks like a linear form to me, with the ordeal, or crisis, positioned in the center. Modern memoirs are more likely to open with the ordeal (or an ordeal; a dramatic scene that hooks the reader) then deliver backstory, then jump forward to the ripple effects of the ordeal, and finally sum up the growth or evolution that occurred in the main character.
Does anyone else feel some discomfort referring to themselves as the Main Character?
(If you do, read this: “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character,” by Phillip Lopate.) Is there resistance to casting your trauma experience into story form, narrating as if the writer were a fly on the wall of her own life? Writing through tears, but portraying the main character as resilient with no meltdowns?
“What happens to the hero happens to us. We are encouraged to experience the brink-of-death moment with her. Our emotions are temporarily depressed so that they can be revived by the hero’s return from death. The result of this revival is a feeling of elation and exhilaration” (The Writer’s Journey, p. 22). There is a contradiction here, in that, if we have suffered, we want to prevent others from suffering; but memoirists have to reckon with the reality that the call to tell their story is a call to bring others into their suffering. Then they must become the readers’ shaman who’ll help with integration before the end of the book—or risk traumatizing others. The demand for healing inside the writing may be the mechanism by which a memoirist heals her real-life wounds. Undertaking to write a memoir places pressure on the writer to fulfill the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path: Right view, right intention, right speech, right action...
Thus memoir writing involves a voluntary, intentional determination to heal and be a change agent.
Is coming to the brink of death an exaggeration? What if the trauma was disempowering or shaming, and not physically threatening? What if our human apparatus perceives disempowerment, shaming, and the threat of being ostracized as a threat to life itself, akin to a physical threat? Theories that describe the nervous system started with the “fight or flight response,” and sometimes include “freeze” and “fawn.” Are our current models (both psych models and story models like The Hero’s Journey) reductive? For as many memoirs have been published there are responses to life experience, and they can’t all fall into archetypes, stereotypes, and story types.
In this post, I asked, “In what ways is your project an extension of your own life force?”
I’m a believer that “how we do one thing is how we do everything”—that we carry into every waking and dreaming moment our core personalities that were shaped by our experience from day one; that are hungrily seeking; that are eternally developing like Polaroid film.
I’m a believer that our birth stories shape our personalities. Infancy is inherently scary and overstimulating, and so much happens to us without our own agency. (As a gentle parenting advocate, I believe that through language and physical cues we can give a baby a sense of agency, and set the foundation for bodily autonomy, increasing personal freedom of choice as the child grows.) Early imprinting occurs, then comprehension comes later. I also said, in “Framing and Reframing Trauma,” that at every new stage of maturity we review and reinterpret our memories through the new lenses we’ve acquired, perpetually developing insight. As writers, an expression from our fluid inner world becomes a fixed artistic creation.
So, does the way an event unfolded determine the shape that storytelling will take? Are rape survivors likely to produce more memoirs than essays, or more essays than memoirs? What determines whether a writer will choose memoir, essay, or poem? What determines how flowery one writer’s language might be, and how another’s comes out as stark reportage? Can a poem fit into The Hero’s Journey model? It seems like a poem has more license to stab the reader in the heart and leave them bleeding; an essay could, too. But a memoir, it seems, is expected to use its length to bring stories full circle and include resolution, or calm the reader back down after heights of arousal. We might be left worrying more about the ongoing wellbeing of a poet or an essayist than a memoirist who fulfilled the expectation of a neat ending.
It seems like a poem has more license to stab the reader in the heart and leave them bleeding; an essay could, too. But a memoir, it seems, is expected to use its length to bring stories full circle and include resolution. We might be left worrying more about the ongoing wellbeing of a poet or an essayist than a memoirist who fulfilled the expectation of a neat ending.
Once you’ve answered the question, “In what ways is your project an extension of your own life force?” please go further into reflection and answer, “In what ways is your life force expressed in your unique voice?”
Here is where I go on a tangent about voice.
Establishing a direct correspondence between how events played out and the resulting story form (The Quest; Rags to Riches; Overcoming the Monster; Rebirth; Tragedy; Comedy; Voyage and Return) would seem simple, if it weren’t for the confounding factor of voice.
Our voice seeks a fitting outlet; the unique features of our voice determine which story form will be the best match for it.
How closely have you examined your own writing voice? I work with students using a template for deconstructing your writing “fingerprint.” We take a passage written by the student and reverse-engineer it, so to speak, to reveal what characteristics are unique to that writer—not just word choice. Most writers whom I do this with are surprised to see that they have habits; they think they’ve spontaneously generated words to express an idea, and they haven’t closely studied their own craft, even though throughout years in academia they’ve methodically analyzed the craft of famous writers.
It starts with a sentence inventory, recording the frequency with which the different parts of speech appear—a quantitative analysis. And the next step is understanding how sentence structure yields qualities like tone.
In the same way a singer first intends a tone and then sings it with her vocal chords to produce the desired sound, the writer needs to do a lot of practice and analysis to be able to produce the desired tone with her instrument, and to play with different tones, and to have the wisdom to know which tone is suitable for the story she ultimately wants the reader to come away remembering.
What are the features of written voice?
Tone
Rhythm
Questions vs. declarations
Grappling vs. concluding
Beginner’s mind vs. authoritative expert
Controversial, daring, provocative vs. affirming, affiliating, and bonding
Distant vs. close
Macro vs. micro
Emotional vs. stoic
Level of privilege
Concerned, worried, upset, or agitated vs. calm, confident, and hopeful
Tense vs. relaxed
Mythic, religious, or magical vs. real, secular, or evidence-based
Direct vs. indirect
Metaphorical or symbolic vs. literal
Which tropes do you employ? If you’ve never taken a course in rhetoric, here’s a primer, and I like this one because it goes beyond the five canons of rhetoric and offers clickable links to every corner of classical rhetoric ever catalogued (it seems).
Given that supporting characters act as a foil to the main character, when you design the distinct voices of supporting characters, are you intentional about toning their voices to further define and amplify the main character’s voice? In creative writing education, emphasis is placed on characters’ wants, needs, obstacles, social status, and psychology; but the most important lesson is how, both in life and in art, one’s unique life force is the motor driving them into situations and stories. If someone is troubled, how will they move and speak? If someone is jubilant, or cruel, or worried, or pensive… can you manipulate the dials of style to bring this forth? Click this link and explore more links within to go on an adventure in rhetorical style. I think this is fun and edifying. There’s a whole course here, and I’d love to teach it! But it could take months. If you’re going to work on craft, classical rhetoric is an excellent body of knowledge to familiarize yourself with, and experiment with.
…Back to how the arc of events in lived experience shapes the resulting story form
Dianne Hammer was sexually assaulted at age 51. Her experience seemed to her to be less common than early childhood sexual abuse and elder abuse, and she writes about hunting for connection with middle-aged women who’d empathize. Her story has taken the form of a Victim Impact Statement intended for court. (Note the detailed trigger warning that is provided, and see my earlier post on trigger warnings. There is a clear call for one in this instance.)
My Victim Impact Statement and Why I Hope Releasing It Will be Helpful to Others
Antuan Raimone was sexually abused at age 7 and again at age 15. He’s become an advocate and a keynote speaker and wrote a book—in addition to being a stellar Broadway performer. He writes about the courage to seek help in his book, Becoming Magic: A Path of Personal Reconstruction. I have been collecting stories from male survivors of sexual trauma who went on to become sex-positive thought leaders… and let me tell you, outspoken male trauma survivors are difficult to find. I had thought when the #metoo movement that empowered women went through a big wave, male trauma survivors might be emboldened to share their stories, too. I’m still trying to prove this.
This paper in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communication analyzes the fragmented narrative in literature that depicts trauma, using the writing of Amy Tan and Toni Morrison as examples. “As an essential subset of trauma studies, trauma literature acts as a testament to victims’ experiences. A narrative technique pivotal to this literature is the fragmented narrative, mirroring both the inherent nature of trauma and its external portrayal.”
Clinically analyzing trauma representation techniques is akin to the reverse-engineering approach I mentioned earlier. The paper confirms that the physiological process of encoding trauma in the brain and body is mirrored in the survivor’s personal expression; the occurrence dictates the story form.
From the paper: “In Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Cathy Caruth posited literature as a mirror where readers can engage with traumatic events in unconventional ways. The severity of traumatic events often renders the memories too distressing to be acknowledged as truth. These experiences highlight why traumatised individuals struggle to leverage their conscious understanding and memory. Psychoanalytic theory suggests that trauma results from a person’s inability to bear the mental aftermath of traumatic events. In the face of sudden violent, traumatic events, victims usually undergo a series of psychological reactions, manifesting as fear, denial, intrusion, and constant correction before the trauma finally resides. Following a similar trajectory, the narrative structure of trauma literature follows the process of experiencing, recalling, and recovering from trauma.”
And one more spot-on example from the paper, talking about Toni Morrison’s Beloved:
“This text breaks away from traditional historical conventions and instead adopts a fragment collage method. This is not just a mere word play by Morrison, but rather a way to accurately portray the psychological mechanism of traumatic memory reproduction and the process of depression and recovery experienced by the victim. Trauma experience is deeply rooted in a specific point in the past and cannot be accurately conveyed in a typical narrative context like normal memory. The alternating use of “past” and “present” in the story reflects how the protagonist is interpreting his damaged memory. The “past” sections depict flashbacks and the repetition of mental trauma, while the “present” narrative shows the effects of delayed mental trauma. Additionally, the protagonist uses this narrative technique to express his desire for recovery from his traumatic experiences. Morrison’s fragmented storytelling technique effectively portrays the unspeakable trauma of depression and the journey towards healing.”
PROMPTS: In what ways have your life experiences themselves dictated what format you choose for your stories?
Have you analyzed your writing thumbprint? Do you use figures of speech to indirectly draw readers into the traumatic story—or stoic reportage without stylistic tropes? When you’re writing auxiliary characters, do you consciously use a different set of tropes, so their character is distinct and contrasted with the main character?
My motivation for this side trip into craft talk (albeit brief, given the constraints of a Substack post) is to empower the trauma writer. Being self-aware, like a scholar of your own texts, knowing your style and how your core personality drives your writing, I believe, can help you brace for critique when you put your autobiographical writing before an editor’s eyes. When you are grounded in craft, then when you progress to publication, you have a certainty about your work that is unassailable. I want you to be confident in the format you chose, deliberate in the style of storytelling you chose, and self-assured in expressing your truth in your unique voice, so that when editors critique your writing, you can decide what to absorb and what to reject.
I want to prevent beta readers and editors from quashing a vulnerable storyteller’s voice. Protecting the trauma writer from harm is my why. There will be more tips for editors to come in future posts.