The Voices in My Head: Author Guest Post

By Elaine Franklin

Whenever I pick up a book, I feel a sense of happy anticipation. It's the same sense of excitement I feel when the lights go down at a play, or the movie is just about to start. I know I'm in for an adventure of some kind, and no matter what genre it is, I know I'll be going on an emotional journey. I'll meet new people, find out about their families, or their fondest dreams, perhaps travel to remote lands, or go back into distant times and learn how they lived day to day. Imagine, in those times, No phones. No traffic. Hopefully, No bras!(Of course, the list has to include no medicines, no central heating, and no delivery services.)

Books, movies, and even some television shows are marvelous in the way they show us the inside workings of the characters. We find out that the crime boss's nerves force him to find a shrink, and you see that the sweet grandmother next door who always has freshly baked cookies for all the neighborhood children? She's involved in a crime syndicate, selling drugs, and will get sent away soon, and all the neighborhood children will stand there and cry and wonder what on earth is happening to sweet old granny.

The one thing excellent books, movies and television shows share is they seem to really go inside the characters' lives. We get more and more involved while we're spending time with them and learning about their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, and see how they handle some of the same things we might be facing. Sometimes we're screaming don't do that, don't go over there, or we're laughing, or we're crying. We care, deeply, about what happens to them. Sometimes we get so engrossed that we can't wait for the next chapter, or the next week to see what happened; that's an exciting part of being a reader, or a viewer. I have learned a lot about what to do, and even more importantly, what not to do.

Writers are inherently curious people; I don't think we'd be writers if we weren't. It's not that we're nosy; we are professionals and must practice this skill for work, right? We observe the odd way that man is holding his fork, the way that woman sitting near us tilts her head while she's listening, or that couple who argue all the way through dinner, (and we sit there wondering why they stay married); we observe all the little habits that combine to make up their personalities.

We listen to friends while they recount that great trip to another country, or that wonderful six course meal at a special restaurant, or conversely, how they felt when a family member had an accident – all this also goes into our memory catalog. When we see or hear something interesting or new, some of us write it down, others just mentally store it away for future use. (I surreptitiously write things down on my phone when I hear a fascinating story, or a funny saying. I don't trust my memory, and I want to get the exact words down.)

And then there are the voices in our heads. The ones who tell us what the characters should do and say. I have heard writers saying that they think they have people in their brain, typing furiously away. I don't know if they're in my brain; they are probably all happily stretched out in my stomach, where there's lots more room.

One of the imperative parts of writing, after we figure out the "What If" aspect of our story and start getting it down on paper or the computer, is getting the characters to spring to life in our books; sometimes, the characters in our heads don't want to spring to life, they can barely limp. They stagger around, helplessly. So, we sit at our desks, or wherever we write, and work diligently to imbue our characters with interesting, complicated personalities. We ask the voices in our heads for help. That's when the memory of that woman tilting her head, or that man slurping his coffee becomes invaluable. Even that couple who couldn't get along for even a few minutes. We idly wonder if they were even able to digest their food, or if they're still married, or gave up and got divorced. Maybe they could be in our book for something or another.

And of course, there's our own lives; sometimes we want to share something that happened to us or to someone in our family, changing it somewhat for the plot. I haven't written about this yet, but when the pandemic was still ruling the way we lived, my husband had major surgery; I was stunned to learn that I wouldn't be able to go to the hospital, (and I know a lot of people who had the same weird predicament.) I moved around the house with my phone in my hand all day, and kept looking at it, as if that would speed things along. I checked to make sure the sound was all the way up. I wouldn't call anyone, just in case. And I paced. And I paced. And I paced. At least I got some exercise!

One of the doctors would call me intermittently to let me know how the surgery was progressing, and then he called when it was over to let me know the surgery was over and all was well. For someone who had always stayed close when a loved one was in the hospital, it felt unreal. I mean even though I knew I couldn't do anything to help, it always felt reassuring when I could sit or pace in the hospital waiting room, and then go to my husband's room and see with my own eyes that he was ok. We could talk, hold hands, and I could kiss him. So only getting the information by phone was one of the oddest days of my life. This was an experience that will be in my memory bank forever and from which I'll draw on when a character needs to emit frustration and feeling a loss of control.

When we write about our own experiences, it's one thing, but when it comes to writing about people in our family, it can be tricky. I remember reading about the playwright Neil Simon, who wrote for television and movies and had a series of wonderful, successful plays running on Broadway for years. He decided to write about his own life and wrote a play that was based on his teenage years, and his own father. He felt conflicted about writing about him; basically, he was afraid of his father's reaction. But this was Neil Simon's play, and his remembrance about his memory of growing up. When the play opened, he saw him afterwards and waited to see how angry his father would be about the whole world knowing about him, and to his surprise and immense relief his father simply said, "I know people like that."

Hopefully, we'll have mountains of books, plays and television shows with fabulous characters to entertain us and keep us company for a long time to come! And the voices in our head will continue to dictate these stories!