I totally believe that stories exist pure, perfect, and polished in the ether somewhere until they are put into words and printed in book. I’m not sure if stories wait for the right person to receive them or if they are available to anyone who loves them and writes them. What I do know, though, is that they don’t come to us fully-formed and perfect like Pegasus from the bloodied head of Minerva. They drop down in jumbled images, clear or unfocused characters, memorable phrases, and indistinct scenes. I also believe in the Black Gang – the subconscious part of a writer that explores those things we don’t necessarily want to think or write about. Whether created by the Black Gang, or falling down from the ether, the pure unadulterated story is nevertheless all there, unpolished in an unsequential messy lump. Because I believe the unwritten story already exists, I understand that my part in this creative collaboration is to find, discern, and perfect these stories. I try to do my part: listen carefully, get the scene sequencing right, work those sentences, syntax, grammar and vocabulary.
But I’m also pretty aware that I am always in danger of adulterating my stories with my own agenda. I cannot tell you how many novels and short stories I have derailed from their perfect path because I had some personal agenda or dispute going on with a neighbor. (We non-argumentative types are experts at seething over some old issue.) My mother-in-law has attempted to appear in various guises in many of my stories. Luckily, I recognized her in time. I just wasn’t so good a writer that I could veer into spite territory.
The White Gang is supposedly the part of the writer that is conscious and sane and aware of what it is attempting to do in a story. Unfortunately, for me, the White Gang is also way too aware of past hurts. Okay, let’s face it: a novel is a great podium. If we are really good authors, and if we are peeved enough with an ex-friend or a nasty neighbor, well, we can get all our issues and pain into a novel and feel the healing joy that comes with finally having our say about the crappy incident. Heck, we can pick on our selfish father or our greedy sister who ran off with the family fortune. And, after all, isn’t healing ourselves and having our say one of the reasons we write? And sometimes the issue that has us so steamed is not really personal. Sometimes it affects an entire race, class, or ethnic group. Where would African-American literature be if we all silenced ourselves and avoided our hurts? Besides, every great story has personal echoes.
My stories, like the stories of many African-Americans, are full of issues. I want to talk about race. I want to talk about religion. But I have had to learn to separate the issues from the specific persons or incidents that caused them. It’s hard to do. But when I feel my story veering off from the main path and mirroring some past event in my life….well, I rein myself in and try to find the pure unadulterated story again.
Of course there are folks who go overboard on their definition of “pure story.” I once got so annoyed with a famous romance writer who stated that she didn’t think race should be discussed in stories. She went on to say that stories aren’t supposed to be about politics or religion either. Perhaps she lived in a world where these things were not important to her. But I’m still peeved at her very narrow definition of what makes a good story. I’m not going to let my annoyance at her affect my novel, however. The story I am presently pulling from the ether is too lovely for me to mess up with spite and hurt and anger. So…no, you won’t be seeing an ignorant writer character in any of my novels. At least not in the near future.
Carole McDonnell
Basics in Bible Study
Wind Follower, a Christian multicultural fantasy
