Today’s post is an incredibly interesting one. Most often, I’m on here talking and writing about stories, what has happened in them, how they made me feel and the impression that they leave. Yet, in all that time, a question I do not seem to ask nearly enough is, how did the writer feel while creating this story and these characters. A big debate in the literary world is whether the author’s intentions actually matters. Some say that the initial intentions should be dismissed, for once the book leaves their hands into that of the reader, it is no longer their property.
But we know from the way fans around the world cling onto the word of J. K. Rowling or George R. R. Martin for tidbits of information about the world that they have created that authors can occasionally still hold sway over their books and the worlds they have created.
Whatever the answer, the kind of the writer is an incredibly complex place I get a great desire to know more about.
Today’s post is a guest post from author Johanna Nield talking about her book New Beginnings and what it was like to write a character supporting someone else’s grief. Grieving characters are often central figures in novels and their sadness and grief the central aspect of the novel. We were intrigued about what it takes to support someone’s grief while going through issues in one’s own life simultaneously, and what the process of writing such a thing is like.
Thank you so much to Johanna Nield and Cranthorpe Millner Publishers who helped make this guest post happen as part of their Cranthorpe Millner Blog Tour.
Nield’s book is available to order now! Be sure to check it out!
~S~
Synopsis of New Beginnings
‘Natasha Arden loves music, food, sex, clothes (not necessarily in that order…) and her boss. Unable to tell anyone because he’s married, she pours her heart out in the only way she knows how: a private blog. Her feelings are tested when Jamie is suddenly widowed, and their relationship flips dramatically as he starts to lean on her for support. Once foot-loose and fancy-free, Tasha is now frantically striving to navigate a minefield of moral dilemmas and social taboos. Follow her story as she endeavours to understand grief, love, loss and most importantly: her own choices.’
Guest Post
The process of writing from the perspective of someone who’s supporting another’s grief while dealing with their own issues was, like most things, drawn from experience. I write organically rather than methodically: I allow the initial idea or inspiration to fuel my writing until I reach an awareness of where it’s going and what it is that I’m trying to say. At that stage, I formulate a rough outline for the plot and create brief character summaries, then go back to writing. The final story rarely adheres strictly to my outline and I believe this is because the characters ‘grow’ as the plot develops, and their actions and reactions must stay true to them rather than to whatever I’d originally thought they might do. For example, Jamie’s temper flares were not included in his character outline but became a product of his grief, anger and frustration.
“He said he’s never had a temper and it bothers him when he loses it like that, and I said not to worry about it because all this will pass and he’ll be back to his usual self and he sighed again like he didn’t really believe it.”
New Beginnings was inspired by a song and loosely based on my own experiences and on events that two sets of friends had lived through that year. When I began writing it, I was still grieving from the fairly recent death of my Dad and that grieving process made me realise that I had never properly grieved for my sister, who had died more than twenty years earlier. While exploring my own reactions to death and the impact I’d observed in myself and others, Tasha took my hand and showed me how she dealt with such devastating circumstances. As the younger of two siblings, she had relied on older sister Lucy for support after the death of their mother about six months before we met her at the start of New Beginnings, and she drew on that support when offering the same to Jamie.
Lucy represents my own role in the aftermath of losing my sister and my Dad: I was the strong one, the eldest of four siblings, and I saw it as my responsibility to ensure my family members were able to express their grief while I managed the administrative minutiae, especially following the death of my Dad. My younger sister in particular relied on me for emotional support, and still does; she and our younger brother frequently share their continuing sadness over our losses and receive my untutored counselling on how to manage day-to-day challenges that their emotional states make more difficult. The aftermath of my sister’s death was different from that of my Dad – although both were not unexpected, the death of a vibrant 25-year-old is by nature more of a shock than the demise of a previously fit and active 80-year-old. Both deaths were tortuously difficult to bear, but as a family we put on a brave face following my sister’s death and that misguided repression had emotional, mental and physical repercussions for all of us in later years. I drew on those repercussions – and those experienced by my friends – when taking Jamie through the deaths of his wife and daughter. As someone who has both experienced and witnessed the affects of traumatic deaths, I was able to give Tasha some insight and empathy for Jamie’s situation.
I had originally intended to write New Beginnings from Jamie’s point of view but quickly realised that, when grieving, a person becomes either too detached from or too engrossed in their own feelings, often a mix of both. Jamie would have been an unreliable narrator which, whilst not necessarily a bad thing, would have restricted the exploration of his and others’ reactions to the two harrowing events. Giving Tasha the narrative voice allowed her to explore and share her own grieving process while learning how that process might benefit Jamie.
“… he was a bit surprised at how upset he’d got, going into the house and especially into Beth’s room (which he said was a mess, thanks to Dougal not tidying up after himself). I said it’s to be expected, isn’t it? I still well up a bit when I go past Mum’s house, not that it’s very often, but it still has an effect on me. He agreed, but he’s obviously not too pleased with himself. I said I think he’s expecting a bit too much of himself if he thinks he’s not going to get upset – it’s only been a couple of weeks after all.”
It’s difficult to support a grieving friend or family member while you yourself are still feeling emotionally raw, but there’s no right or wrong way to grieve: everyone is different, and will grieve in their own way. Supporting someone in their hour of need is simply something that most of us would do, setting aside – or perhaps drawing strength from – our own feelings and experiences. Tasha gives Jamie a safe space to express his emotions without putting on a front, and she recognises that Jamie’s fragile emotional state is part of his grief.
“He threw his mug across the room and stood up, saying the counsellor wasn’t going to wave a magic wand and fix everything and he wasn’t so sure that the sessions would do any good anyway – there was a lot of effing and shouting and I missed a lot of it because his accent gets a lot stronger when he’s angry – and he just stood there in the middle of the kitchen, ranting on about all sorts of stuff, and I just sat there and let him get it off his chest.”
This freedom to express emotion in grief was something I had to learn, having repressed my feelings for a long time after the death of my younger sister. Through Tasha and Jamie, I hope to have shown that grief is not just about sadness: it brings anger and guilt and a myriad of unexpected feelings, and it’s okay to feel and to express them.
Featured Photo by João Silas on Unsplash
