Writing Inspired By Trauma
And there's so so so much trauma...
“How autobiographical is this script?”
It’s a question I ask in notes sessions with the writers who take my workshop, Write Your Pilot! The writer I was working with fought back tears and apologized.
“A lot of it.”
A lot of the scripts I’ve been reading lately have been people working through trauma. Family trauma. Childhood trauma. Friendship/Relationship trauma. Climate/Government trauma. Mental Health trauma. These are people writing half-hour comedies. I’ve been thinking about the courage of this writer since our session and what it’s like to use trauma as inspiration.
Before we get into any of this, writing isn’t a replacement for therapy.
I’m going to say that again, especially for the straight male-identifying writers out there who generally need more encouragement to pursue treatment for mental health.
Writing isn’t a replacement for therapy.
If you’ve been through something, big or small, before you think that turning it into art will be the cure to your pain, talk to a therapist. Think of it as emotional outlining, if that helps, though telling you to go to therapy because it helps your writing feels sociopathic to me. Go to therapy because it will help you, in general. Before you can accurately dramatize what you’ve been feeling, you have to understand what those emotions are.
If you want other people to get excited about your writing, you’re going to have to be emotionally vulnerable in some way. I have an emo streak that bleeds down my cheeks while I write this dramatically in the rain, so I love creating from this starting point. There are some things I end up saying to writers a lot as they work through this process:
Be kind to yourself while you’re writing. Creating something already takes a huge emotional toll. Add to that the research involved with an emotionally vulnerable project: reading old text messages/emails, looking at photographs, digging into memories, all of those things can be traumatic. You’re opening an old wound. Be mindful of how much time you’re spending in the past and the toll it is taking on your brain as you’re creating.
Sometimes the writer will stop working on the script because they’re afraid of what others will say when they read it. Not even that they’re worried people won’t like the story--they’re afraid people will judge them for telling the story at all. This draft is yours. It’s your story to tell. And nobody is going to see it unless you want them to once you’ve decided it’s ready. You’re writing this for you, don’t lose sight of that.
It’s okay to take a break from the project. I consider this to be one of the shortcomings of my workshop. The creative process isn’t cooperative. I don’t like the creation of the expectation that it’s normal to create something in five easy sessions. There’s a time for muscling through to a first draft and there’s a time for resting on a project because it’s damaging for you emotionally. Sometimes, what you need is more time, distance, and growth from the experience. You’ll get there.
Back to this writer.
They were working through very recent trauma. Like, very recent. Despite that, their dedication to the work and their determination to tell this story, watching them accomplish writing their script was inspiring. I don’t know if that script will be sold as a TV show or even if they’ll write another draft of it. That wasn’t the point of making it. Turning it into art was their way of processing it, and making it manageable. Working with them reminded me why I love writing, and hopefully it helps you too.