Three Psychology Lessons for Writers
Hello, Fellow Humans! Today, I am excited to talk to you writer to writer. My experience has taught me that psychology and literature are remarkable bedfellows, each exploring the experience of consciousness from different yet compatible positions. I can say unequivocally that nothing has taught me as much about character, narrative, tension, obsessionality, healing — in other words, the beautiful mess that is being human — like sitting in a therapy room, talking deeply about what we typically do not say aloud. I have taken so many lessons from psychology to integrate into my writing and want to share three examples that I use almost every day.
Use “and” instead of “but” when possible
You may be familiar with the term cognitive dissonance, which describes the uncomfortable position of feeling two contradictory things at the same time. For example, you may have a poem that you are absolutely in love with and know is good work — and it has been rejected from every lit mag you’ve submitted to. You may find yourself with a narrative that looks something like this: “I know that this is a good poem but no one else seems to think so.” One common, simple way that we humans deal with cognitive dissonance is to choose a side, to make one of these contradictory things more true than the other. When we have the word “but” in a sentence, this language pushes us toward making a definitive choice, to pick this or that. You may find yourself managing the dissonance from our example above by deciding that your poem is amazing, and those lit mags are missing out (although who are we fooling, that level of self-confidence is rare among those of us who identify as writers!), or you may find yourself deciding that the poem might not be what you thought, that you are missing something, and that you really can’t be a judge of your own work. Now consider the same narrative with the word “and” substituted in: “I know that this is a good poem and no one else seems to think so.” Just this small language change opens up more possibilities. You don’t have to choose between one feeling or the other — there is now space for additional explanations. What other factors may be contributing? Perhaps your great poem has been sent to pubs that are not the best fit. Perhaps a reader just wasn’t the right set of eyes. Recognize the limiting nature of the word “but” and see how often your catch yourself using it, both in your internal narratives and in your writing itself. As a standard part of my editing process, I check each of my creative writing pieces for the word “but” and decide if I can replace it with the word “and” – most of the time I can and it opens up the sentence in helpful ways. And if I can’t, that “but” is really working in exactly the way it should for the piece.
Quick Tip: Be mindful that the word “but” is almost always limiting or prohibitive while “and” is additive and expansive. Play with substituting one word for the other in your writing (and your internal self-talk!) and see how it changes the tone and voice.
Stay curious
“Tell me more about that.” This may sound like a pithy, stereotyped therapist phrase, and I am totally comfortable with that. In therapy — and in writing — we get into trouble when we start making assumptions and stop being curious. As a therapist, I try to ask a clarifying question every time I recognize myself assuming I know what a client might say. Sometimes, the clarifying question produces an expected answer. Great, then I have confirmation. More often, though, the clarifying questions lead to unexpected answers that help me understand my client and my client understand their own motivations.
“When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.” This wisdom from James Baldwin is a lesson in maintaining curiosity (not to mention a solid example in the use of a well-placed “but” that commands you to go deeper!). The only way to explore those spaces of the unknown is to remain curious with yourself and your work, to keep asking “what else might explain this?” or “what would happen if I used this word or split this line?”
Quick Tip: Read through your works-in-progress with the sole purpose of getting more curious. At every possible point, ask yourself “why” questions (Why did she go there? Why did I choose this word and not another word?) Ask yourself where you or your characters are making assumptions. Notice where you may be asking the reader to make assumptions. This works for poetry as well as fiction, particularly when you get curious about word choices or style decisions as much as the content and meaning.
Use the frame to hold the hard stuff
At the release party and reading for her new book of sonnets, Frank, Diane Seuss was asked about her relationship with the sonnet after writing a book entirely composed in this form. Dianne was clear in her response: given the tough and autobiographical nature of many of her poems, the form of the sonnet provided the structure and the stability to hold such charged and wild material.
In psychotherapy, the “frame” refers to the structures of the therapy space: the room in which therapy occurs, the time-frame of the therapy hour, and the boundaries or rules of the therapy space (for example, agreements like no physical contact, or late cancelation fees). While the therapy frame can simply look like a set of rules, research has validated that these consistent structures and familiar expectations create the safety needed to get into the weeds. It can be easier to explore trauma, for example, when you know that work is contained within a specific hour, and there are grounding strategies to help you recalibrate before leaving the session.
How can this help your writing? Consider how well-placed rules or constraints can do some of the hard work of holding difficult content and ask formality to work with and for you.
Quick Tip: Consider a piece that you have written (or have felt too vulnerable to write) and what working within a form (or other formal constraint like a time limit or word count) may have to offer. Is there something that you feel is “too much” that you can try to fit into a haiku or flash fiction piece as a mode of containment? Are you stuck with a particular line or passage that may open up if you try to rephrase in meter?
Happy writing and stay eternally curious, friends. Until next time.
