I’ve been working on a wee craft essay on writing about trauma. It’s a strange piece that has been on and off my desk for about a year. I’ve done research and am shocked by how little has been written about how best to convey trauma. It would be a great topic for a creative writing class, and one I would really like to teach. (Anyone want to give me the gig?)
There is lots of writing about the therapeutic benefits of writing about trauma for the writer. We all know it can be a great relief to get it all down on the page. It is a clarifying experience. But that’s not what I’m interested in for this essay. There’s not much (any?) craft advice about writing techniques that can be used to convey trauma.
I’m developing a few theories. Here’s hoping I find an audience for the essay.
We are all the walking wounded. We are all traumatized. That’s why there is such a thing as a trigger warning. We know we can be set off again. How do we write about traumatic events and experiences in a way that does not spread the trauma around? If we agree that traumatizing or re-traumatizing others is not desirable, (and maybe we don’t agree) what can we do to convey the gravity of the traumatic situation without doing harm to the reader? Is it possible? Are the techniques we can use different if the trauma is recounted as part of real life in memoir or as part of the experience of a fictional character?
If you have thoughts, let me know in the comments. I’m getting back to the essay tomorrow.
Hi Jane, During my professional experience as a family therapist, I saw and treated a large number of people with a history of trauma. After awhile, the experience built up and took its toll. Writing and creativity helped me gain perspective and balance. I’ve written about the experience in a chapter titled: “Poetry: A Way to bear Witness.” It’s published in an edited book, “The Global Family Therapist,” by Gould and DeMuth.
If you are interested, I can try to locate the draft (pub in 1994)and send it to you. I’d love to chat or exchange ideas if that would be of help.
Terrific and important topic, especially today.
Warm regards,
Faye
That is so generous Faye. Thank you. I would love that.
Hi Jane, for context, my trauma is cancer, the repeated cycle of treatment and scan results and facing mortality. I’m not good with words and find it very helpful when I read someone’s experience and their words match my emotions. Kind of a “that’s it, that’s how I feel” moment. It helps to know someone else feels the same, and also to be able to describe my feelings to others. Sometimes these moments cause tears and a down time, but for me this is temporary whereas the benefit lasts. Thank you for your writing.
Phil
You’re welcome Phil, and thank you. I have had the same experience. So as writers, we need to give enough of the experience to be able to allow the reader to identify. And I think this requires details and specifics. But, for me, I don’t want to give so much that the reader experiences fully re-living the experience or a re-traumatization. It’s a fine line between healing and hurting. I appreciate your response and I am still thinking.
During the pandemic I have burrowed deep into Korean dramas on Netflix and have been thrilled to observe whole new toolchests of storytelling. A recurring device to show tenderness is gently pulling a cover or coat over a sleeping shoulder, meetings at urinals are common and truthtelling when drunk appears in almost every show.
As a mother, I love how they use flashbacks to childhood to connect us to characters. These flasbacks are often to tramatic or at least formative moments and relationships but they are not dwelt upon. It is interesting how it doesn’t feel so invasive because the scene is depicted by a child actor who is not our character, the character doesn’t know we have been given this insight, and the story quickly goes back to the present time with a release of tension.
Not sure how to translate the effectiveness of this cinematic device to writing but I would love to send you a list of my favourite Korean shows 🙂
Chris
I would love the list. The techniques you describe parallel the ones I am suggesting. May I have your permission to use a paraphrased version of your comments in the essay, and would you like to be attributed or referred to as a friend?
Of course Jane.
And personally, I really appreciate trigger warnings. There was a while there when I enjoyed good detective novels for the resolution at the end but I no longer want to have to experience the crime to get the resolution.
Violence, especially sexual violence – just don’t want it in my life. Like Trump – just don’t want to read about it any more. 🙂
Iteawon Class
Crash Landing on You (corney at first but a gem)
Signal
Stranger
Misaeng
Lies Within (strange violence)
Memories of Alhambra
Thank you!
My experience of writing about trauma is that the story my writing tells becomes reified, solidified in the writing. I’m very good, very practised, at talk therapy, and have found that I go deeper and to more meaningful, healing place through movement and art. Through those media, I find it easier to go to the place where the trauma lives in me, especially because my biggest trauma happened when I was very young, not quite ore-verbal, but close to it. Today words are a part of the art process for me, but they tend to come after I’ve told the truth through non-verbal means. The words that arrive once I’ve moved through the trauma memory are clearer, more precise. They tend to be few, just a phrase or two. It’s the experience of the process that comes before the words that helps me heal. For an essay about how to write about trauma, I’m sure this isn’t helpful, but it’s my truth. There’s a piece from one of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems that sums this up better than I can (because, as others have mentioned, poetry works too). Rilke says: “I am the rest between two notes, which are somehow always in discord because Death’s note wants to climb over—but in the dark interval, reconciled, they stay there trembling. And the song goes on, beautiful.”
So much to think about. Thank you.