I started a new novel recently and found, even without expecting it, that the pandemic was part of my new story, so inextricably woven into the fabric of my life now that I can’t create a fictional world in which it doesn’t exist, or never happened. But oh, my God, once this pandemic is over is anyone really going to want to read a novel that takes us back to this time? I doubt it. So what to do?
What I realized is that the heart of this pandemic isn’t about what we’ve all been doing during these endless days of isolation and quarantine, how we’ve filled our time, who we’ve squabbled with or longed for or avoided. It’s about who we’ve become. The pandemic has deepened our understanding of what it means to be human in the most basic sense—vulnerable to illness and grief, dependent on social connection that’s suddenly been yanked away, fearful, courageous, grateful, lonely. These months and months have provided us an opportunity to understand essential, universal experiences in a way that can only enrich the characters and worlds we write. It’s one thing to imagine being lonely or afraid; it’s another to live it and know in your guts and bones what it means.
We are all different people than we were a year ago, scarred and strengthened and forged into something else. And all of it is a rich lode of understanding we can mine to create characters. Consider:
- Use the understanding of loneliness. Whether you’ve been living alone or in a house with seven roommates, we’ve all experienced a different kind of loneliness this year. What kind of loneliness have your characters experienced? What do they do with that? How has it changed them?
- Use the understanding of our need for connection. Before the pandemic, did it ever occur to you that you might miss chatting with the guy who makes your sandwich at the deli, smiling at a rambunctious toddler who smiles back, or even accidentally bumping into someone on a crowded sidewalk? Exactly. It’s not just the dinners with friends, the big holiday parties, the July Fourth parades and graduations and homecomings that we miss; every bit of social connection matters. Show the little connections as well as the big ones when you write.
- Use the understanding of how much it matters to be physically touched. I was out walking with a friend last week and he said something that poignant and instinctively I reached out to touch his arm—then I drew my hand back. When my adult daughters visit (six feet away, wearing masks, outside on our back porch) my longing to hug them is almost a physical pain. It had never occurred to me that empty arms could actually ache. How do your characters feel about physical touch? Do they shy from it, overdo it, fear it? What does the way they feel about touch show about who they are? Maybe one of your characters has to go a long time without touch for some reason. How does that affect them?
- Use the understanding of compassion. My mother died in December after a brief illness. For months I had worried she would die during the pandemic, that I’d be denied the comfort of a funeral and family and hugs from friends. What I found was that precisely because people couldn’t comfort me in person, they comforted me with everything they had to offer. Pots of soup appeared on the doorstep; homemade bread, still warm from the over, was left wrapped in a clean dishtowel. Bouquets of flowers, a peace lily in bloom, bottles of wine, cookies, heartfelt emails and hand-written notes, even a warm, fuzzy blanket—they all came pouring in. It felt to me as though people were even more thoughtful and supportive than they might have been in regular times, when we were all caught up in the busy-ness of our own lives. How do your characters show compassion? Why? Have they had experiences that have made them more empathetic, or hardened them?
- Use the understanding of loss. Everyone has lost something or someone over this last year. That loss unites us. Loss is the single most universal human experience. It can bring us to our knees, it can deepen our compassion, it can inspire us, but it doesn’t leave us unchanged. What losses have your characters gone through? How has it changed them?
- Use the understanding of gratitude. Seriously, a year ago did you ever think about how grateful you were for a hug from a friend, being on a crowded airplane to go someplace, sitting in a restaurant, or going to a movie theater? Right, neither did I. The pandemic has shown us what it means to be grateful, expanded our understanding of the things we might be grateful for. What do your characters take for granted? What do they appreciate?
- Use the understanding of fear. Who hasn’t been afraid this year? Fear of getting sick, of dying, of losing people we love, not to mention the very real fear of losing a job, a livelihood, a home, food security. This is some very scary shit, people. How many nights have you lain awake thinking, “Oh, my God. What if….?” Right. What do your characters fear? How do they handle their fears? What do they do if the things they fear are amorphous (pandemics) versus concrete (that snake is about to bite me)?
- Use the understanding of courage. Finally, the pandemic has shone a spotlight on heroism. It’s one thing to be a nurse and go to work every day knowing you will have to deal with illness and bodily fluids and sadness, etc. It’s another to be a nurse and go to work every day knowing you may catch a disease that kills you. Think about the courage you’ve witnessed this year. How can your characters show courage? How might they surprise themselves with their own courage?
How has the pandemic changed you? How can you use that in your fiction?
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About Kathleen McCleary
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (http://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she's not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
What a beautiful post! It captures so gloriously the way we can write FROM the pandemic, rather than ABOUT the pandemic. I’ve seen discussions on Facebook writer groups about whether we should, must, or even can include the pandemic as the context for the novels we’re currently writing. The way you put it is so much more profound than whether characters should be wearing masks … timely and timeless, as well. Thank you!
I love how you put that Barbara, to write FROM the pandemic instead of ABOUT it. Thanks so much for your comment.
Dear Kathleen, your post takes me back to some of the themes in HOUSE AND HOME, themes which I know you experienced to write that novel and your other two. Loss, gratitude, fear, courage–these rise up in my WIP, which now I can give more time to. We moved from California back to Chicago in August–a plan in place before the pandemic. Now I couldn’t have hugged my grandchildren, and now they are miles away. I feel the loss of so many friends and experiences, but need to create new ones, though we rarely leave the house. I did get an appointment, finally, for the vaccine 20 minutes ago. So it’s a good day and it will be a writing day, your ideas flowing onto my pages. Thank you.
Hi, Beth. I remember that you were going through a move, which is a profound change any time, but especially so these days. It’s good to hear you found some inspiration here. I’m glad you’ll have more time for your WIP, and congrats on getting signed up for the vaccine!
Oh, yes, alllll of this. You’ve hit all the points of new understanding we have and can use in our work, how everything we could have written at a more surface level has deepened over the past year.
I’ve already seen this show up in works-in-progress (things started before March 2020) and in the way something I had planned to start is reimagining and rearranging itself in my mind in a far more meaningful and personal way. The actual writing of it may end up rather painful as we mine our experiences and emotions, thinking of things we might rather forget or pretend didn’t happen. But the reward for our readers (and for us) will be that much richer.
Great post.
It’s fascinating to hear that you’re finding your work reimagining itself as a result of all the lived experiences of these last months, Erin. As you say, your writing will be richer for it. We’ve all been changed by the pandemic, that’s for sure. Thanks for the comment and good luck with your writing!
This is just so beautiful, Kathleen. I’m sorry for your loss of your mom, and also moved by the ways people found to connect with you. Times like the ones we’ve been living though bring out the worst and the best. But somehow, ttose bests shine all the brighter for the darkness. Bringing empathy (or the lack of it) to our characters in our work is a powerful way to hold up mirrors, maybe even change minds. There’s a scene in my first novel where the MC’s mom, after the death of her husband, accepts an envelope from her husband’s bartender, a man she’s long resented. She hated the bar and all her late husband’s friends. They all know it, too, only to them it doesn’t matter. They’ve taken up a collection. The moment, the gesture, puts a tiny crack in her steel-plated armor.
Thank you, Susan, and thanks for your condolences. I love the scene you relate from your first novel. What a wonderful way to show the complexities of character, as well as the complexities of grief. I agree that creating rich, multi-dimensional characters in our fiction is a powerful way to hold up mirrors–to readers and the author. Good luck!
Hello Kathleen.
By naming eight points of reaction/action, and thinking of them in relation to a unifying principle–the virus–you give us a template for imagining stories. It’s something to print out and keep close. Thank you.
Since January 6, though, I am finding it hard if not impossible to avoid what happened that day. I recently wrote a short post for Medium called “Memory Pollution.” That’s how I think of the persistent, all too vivid sights and sounds of that Wednesday. They go on being “current events” for me, and it is complicating my life as a writer. It makes me envious of those whose writing takes them on journeys in time and space.
But maybe your list will help: I’ll apply it not just to COVID, but to post-January 6. It actually might work as a vaccine for my problem.
Thanks again.
I’m happy to hear you found this useful, Barry, and agree that current events can be a huge intrusion on the creative process. I feel the same way. I love the idea of thinking through the events of Jan. 6 in terms of how it’s changed us, individually and as a country. Who are we now? Thanks for the insightful comment.
Kathy, thank you for this beautiful and insightful post.
The pandemic, for me, has created an opening to see who I am and who others are under this kind of stress, which can be useful too for novelists. When people are stressed/stretched, they’re less in control and therefore more apt to reveal things they perhaps didn’t know about themselves or hid (e.g. deep fears). It’s a good lesson for character building—stretch your people through conflict and peel back that onion-skin layer to reveal something central to who they are.
I’m so very sorry about your mother. ❤️
Hi, Therese. Wonderful point about how stress can reveal character, and I love the way you articulate it. Thanks for doing all you do to make WU such a lively place for all of us to share our thoughts and experiences. (And thanks for your sympathy about my mom, too)
Kathleen, wonderful post about incorporating the emotions from this time, the heightened sensitivity for the things we miss, the fear that’s driving people. It’s funny though, I’ve actually read some futuristic books that have the vibe of now. 1984 anyone?
I’m sorry about your mother’s death. May she rest in heavenly peace.
Thank you, Vijaya. I agree it’s eerie how present-day events mirror some of the worlds portrayed in futuristic fiction. I hope we all can use our heightened sensitivity to create unforgettable characters. I so appreciate your good thoughts, too.
I’m so sorry for your loss. There’s never a good time, but this past year has to qualify as one of the worst.
As Therese says above, this time has revealed qualities of others but also qualities of myself. While many have reached out, I have drawn inward. I am not happy about that. Then again, it was perhaps time to examine my life.
I am not a discontented man but I have lived as if I am. Driven. Needing to prove something. But to whom? Why? My life is enviable and yet I have pushed so hard that I began to resent the effort–when really no one has required that effort of me except for me.
I find myself, recently, beginning to accept things as they are, even me. There is no ideal life. There is no perfectible me, just me. This life isn’t “as good as it gets”, it’s perfectly good.
I’ve journeyed as if there is a destination but there isn’t. It’s just the journey. Kathleen, why is that so scary? What is frightening about being okay? The new story I’m developing is driven by a yearning for perfection. It needs to arrive at acceptance, hope and peace. But where am I to find those?
In myself? I suspect that’s your message today. Oh man, I so wish I could get together with all of you at WU, to feel like I’m not alone in this wilderness of self-searching. That’s not possible for now, so I turn to your stories.
Yes, I have been reading them. They’re not always perfect, but they do search, strive and yearn. Maybe that is the hope I’m seeking? Maybe that is beautiful enough? Maybe we only have to try?
Your words today tell me that the journey of this past year has had purpose, what we’ve learned is valuable, and where we are right now is okay. Together we understand. Thanks,, Kathleen.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Benjamin, and for your honesty. I think this year has been a time of soul-searching and learning for all of us, and I hope we all can pour it into our fiction. I like the idea of a story about a character who’s yearning for (impossible, elusive) perfection. Good luck with your writing!
Kathleen, thank you for so powerfully throwing light on how to take the tangles of this time and turn those threads into the fabric of fiction. Compassion, loss, gratitude, et al.—big reservoirs of feeling and emotion, sometimes leaving us drained, sometimes full.
I lost my mother this year, and there’s a hollowness there. My best to you in what I know is a hard time.
Thanks, Tom. I’m sorry for your loss, too, and appreciate your comments.
A new novel? Great, I can’t wait! The first three were terrific. And I love the idea of confronting the loneliness and loss head-on.
Thank you, Calvin! I love having a fan club (even a small one). I so appreciate your enthusiasm for my novels, and your comments here. Hope to see you soon!
I’m not sure I will know how it has changed me until I have to leave the house and be part of regular world again.
But these are great questions to consider in our writing. Thank you.
You’re right, Marta, I don’t think we will fully understand the impact of this time until we resume some semblance of “normal” life again. Happy writing!