#approaching some thorny topics in good faith and just trying to figure it out...so i am not the most articulate

[marnz]

thoughts about writing and the moral project of art and my current project (valley book) below the cut, tw for mentions of abuse and violence

i think the key but under discussed thing about writing is how much empathy and compassion the author must have for each and every character. i think a lot about this amazing NYT essay by kaitlyn greenridge about who gets to write what, but especially the part where she discusses needing to love a monstrous character into existence. i don’t know if everyone agrees with this, when writing characters who are monstrous (using the word used in the essay) but i think the best art comes when we do afford each and every character full humanity while writing them even if the reader never gets their pov. when there’s care taken with a storyline even if the character is abhorrent. i’m writing a man who, caught in the cycle of abuse, does a terrible thing. i do love him. i am sad for him. i am sad that harm was enacted onto him and i am sad he enacts harm and i am sad for the character he harms. i am sad this happens to so many people and i am sad that these cycles are so difficult to break. i am taking care with his storyline, i am trying to think deeply, to research, to be as sensitive as possible.

but along with that i am also thinking about how much time and energy is spent thinking about men’s rage, and their set of circumstances, and how sometimes circumstances are misused--not to understand but to excuse. which feels very different to me. i find understanding circumstances quite useful in my personal life but also as a writer but i totally get that this is not true for anyone. but for me, i can’t really reckon with and understand an action without reckoning with and understanding other people. it’s more than a cycle for me it’s like a constellation, there’s always so much going on that we can never see or know, we can only guess at, but if you fill in what you can it’s easier to see the shape of it. easier to bear. anyway...in no way is this meant to be a post about sexism but the more i thought about this man’s backstory, and thought processes, and actions, the more i thought about how women are taught to take extraordinary rage and turn it inwards. i think maybe this is a gendered expectation but also an expectation of every marginalized community, to take rage and turn it against themselves because it’s the safest option. i am, again, thinking about Sharp Objects. i am thinking about this because we just do not spend as much time, culturally, dwelling on the rage of the marginalized. we find it very threatening. you see this with outrage over ppl speaking up over racism, transphobia, sexism, homophobia, you name it. this is so obvious but i could not stop thinking about this, possibly bc a lot of this project is about masculinity.

the character who is harmed is marie, the pov character, and the more i write her storyline the more rage i find! so i am thinking about it, generally, about how rage shapes an entire life, and how rage contributes to the cycle of abuse, and how a lot of anger is borne out of love--in this case, self love. how, for example, women or ppl assumed to be women, dealing with gendered expectations (marie, who in the present is a butch/gnc lesbian, was assumed to be straight and cis in high school) are taught to express rage. how members of marginalized communities are not allowed to express rage because they aren’t allowed to love themselves!

anyway. just thinking about it and articulating it poorly. i have been thinking about this more due to this excellent essay on Black Sabbath by Garth Greenwell and how having compassion for every character means knowing every character (and every person!) needs to have a ““good”“ reason for why they do things, even if they are abhorrent actions...everyone thinks the reason for their action is a good one, i think, they think it makes the most sense or feels right to them. but i think the thing about humanity is you can convince yourself any action is the right action, even if it’s abhorrent. so knowing that and gazing upon everyone with the same level of understanding and compassion is perhaps the job of an artist? just as greenwell argues the moral purpose of art IS to point this out. and to help us be better people, in the end, to know everyone is MORE than the worst thing they have ever done. to acknowledge the depth of their humanity. which is also the project of abolition! we cannot truly address harm without acknowledging humanity i think. it’s so difficult, i struggle with this so much, but that is the point, right? that it’s not supposed to be easy. i think treat others the way you want to be treated is such a grade school maxim but there is something to it, esp for the writer. see others the way you want to be seen.