Ted Gup gave me lots of great writing advice when I was in his creative nonfiction class in grad school. Write through to the end; don’t edit as you go. Don’t talk about what you’re writing because that steals the life from it. Be careful about parroting yourself.
But by far the best wisdom he ever shared with me was this, “Look for the story behind the story.”
Photo by Kevin Dooley
It’s a profoundly simple concept when I think about it. All of the stories we love—be they fiction, oral history, biography, or fable—have a truth that sits behind the action of the story itself. In some work—see Aesop and many children’s picture books as examples—the truth is right out there, a moral lesson blatantly painted.
But in other works—J.R.R. Tolkien’s great trilogy, JoAnn Beard’s powerful essay “The Fourth State of Matter,” the utter beauty of Charlotte’s Web—there is a purpose woven quietly into the language and scenes themselves.
Frodo must carry on in spite of profound fear.
Beard shows how grief can pound us in the most powerful ways even as we stand up in the midst of soul-wrenching tragedy.
Wilbur learns of sacrifice and friendship from a tiny creature.
The stories behind the stories.
How to Teach Moral Truth in Fiction
Without these greater truths, writing falls flat; it leaves us bored; or perhaps worse, we walk away from a work without questions or insights to consider later, we walk away unchanged. For work to stick with us, it has to have some larger point behind it.
Lest you think I am advocating that we all write fables, let me be clear: direct moral lessons, as I see it, belong in only three kinds of writing—children’s picture books, fairy tales and fables, and sermons. The rest of our writing needs to be more subtle, more driven by undercurrent, or else we run the risk of our readers feeling like we preach to them.
How to do this gets very tricky, but here are my best suggestions:
1. Don't Write What You Know
First, another bit of wisdom from Ted Gup—don’t write what you have already figured out. If we know what we’re going to say, if we know the lesson we want to impart, we need to leave the story behind. The life is gone from it.
Instead, we can write into the stories we don’t quite understand, the ones that make us sad or angry or puzzled. Write there and find our purpose as we write. That’s the second best advice he ever gave me.
2. Write What You Feel
Secondly, the “story behind the story” often lies in the emotional truth of what we’re writing, not in what we think about that story. It’s very easy for writers to jump to analysis rather than staying in the physical and emotional detail of a scene, but it’s in those details that the deeper truth often lies.
For example, I once wrote about a blown glass paperweight that my parents’ owned when I was a kid. I described the vibrant reds, yellows and greens imbedded in the nearly translucent crystal. I talked about how it sat on a washstand in our more formal living room by our piano and organ. I considered the weight of the piece and how it always felt cold when I picked it up.
Through these details, I reached into a visceral part of myself that was connected to my childhood home and found, there, that I was homesick for this place and this time that I could never visit again. The details . . . the truth really is in the details.
The story behind the story. It’s what drives us to keep reading—it’s where we find ourselves in the pages—it’s where we learn. Try it out. See what you find in your own work.
Do you write about the story behind the story? What's the story behind the story in the pieces you have written?
PRACTICE
Take a short piece of writing you love – a short story, an essay, even a chapter of a book. Read it through twice – the first time just for the sheer joy of it, the second time with a more critical eye. Study what the story is – the who, what, when, where, and why. Then, look for the story behind the story – focus on the larger idea behind what is said.
Hint: the “why” usually has to do with the larger purpose.
Then, look at a piece of your own work and do the same. See what you find.
Ted Gup’s website is asecretgiftbook.com
This is excellent advice. The “write what you know” rule always puzzled and amused me; I remember once commenting that in that case, if anyone asks I’m an evil demon faerie who kidnaps children and wants to kill Jesus. But “write what you FEEL” makes a lot more sense. I FEEL longing for magic and wonder in the world, a sense of justice and balance and knowing that things happen for a reason and the power of good will always be stronger than evil. And that’s what I tried to impart in my book.
The story behind my story is about choices. My male lead makes conscious moral choices instead of following the dogma of his religion. He does what’s right because it’s right, not because he’s been conditioned to it. And this is why he kicks all ass when he goes up against the forces of evil.
Just yesterday, I was thinking much the same thing as I saw some images of fairies . . . I long for that realization of the magical (if not exactly fairies) in my daily life. That feeling is so profound but not something I know how to express. I think you’ve sparked an essay for me. Thanks.
It’s funny this should be the topic today. I’m reading a book called “The Art of Subtext – Beyond Plot” but Charles Baxter. It talks about how a good story points to the unsayable the haunted undercurrent of life, the things that we really can’t explain in words. It’s an excellent book and it has already helped me understand why Charles Baxter and his ilk are excellent writers, why their stories “stay with me” for a long time after I close the book. I think they point at truths that they are just a little beyond our ability completely capture.
Truths just beyond capture – love that. I’ll have to add Baxter’s book to my list. I love his fiction, so I’m eager to see what he has to say about the practice of writing itself. Thanks.
He wrote another book on writing called “Burning down the house” that I haven’t read but want to. “The art of subtext” is very dense sort of like a textbook (in fact it may be used as a textbook), but it is full of stuff that I just never ever thought of before.
sounds intriguing….
Thank you for this. : )
You are most welcome, Shelley. 🙂
For me, I write what I am feeling at the moment, It is the moment that I try to describe and the emotions that are carried along side of it. I can write a million things I know, I can most likely write about what I have experienced, with great recall, but I find when I speak to the moment, a more confident and powerful emotion is framed and presented, displayed for a hopeful response from those who may have experienced this in their past or are presently in the moment. That is what feels most creative to me.
I love the idea of writing in the moment. We are not the same people we were yesterday or will be tomorrow – so the immediacy, that does seem key. Nicely said.
Excellent post. I can see exactly what you are talking about. I am actually working on a piece right now that “the story behind the story” is pretty obvious, based on the relationship between people and their electronics but it is set in a world where people have their pets installed with electronics now and when their electronics wear out, much like today, they throw the pet out and get a new one. After reading your post though I know I am going to have to go a little deeper than that. Thanks. Keep it up.
http://explanation-not-relevant.blogspot.com/
Thanks for reading, and I love the idea of your story. I can see the idea behind it just in your description. 🙂
A great and straightforward post. I actually have a problem with not writing what I really feel. It’s hard for me to say things out loud so I usually tend to write out stories on how I feel, and eventually I learn a lesson from my own writing. This post is a sort of reminder for me to take things deeper, and not just shallow feelings of happiness or sadness.
I read through a short story I wrote and I realized that I was more irritated than I thought I really was. I ended up covering up what I felt by writing out someone else’s story first and incorporating how I felt in the end. It was super obvious and now I have mixed emotions about what I wrote.
Unisse, I have the same challenge. I once wrote a piece that was supposed to be funny, but in workshop, my friend said, “Wow, you’re really angry. You should just own that.” She was right, and it helped me just be true to what I feel when I write. Then, if I don’t want to share it, I don’t. But I’d recommend taking that piece you’re having mixed emotions about and writing it again, without reference to your draft. See if you can write deeper. Maybe you’ll love it. 🙂
I’ll give it a shot 🙂
When I’m done, I’ll share it here too. Thanks for the encouragement Andrea! 😉
I agree with Andrea here, go back and work on it some more especially if you’re having mixed emotions. I think my best stuff came out when I was unsure about the story and kind of wanted to just give up but didn’t. Also I don’t think we always know what our own stories are about. Maybe it’s just me being dense, but I have often had someone say “oh this is about exclusion, or loss, or children being mislead” when I didn’t even see that as I worked on it. I think really good writers have to just bare their souls and be embarrassed or frightened sometimes in the public arena of literature. You are definitely an accomplished writer and I think you are going to have a lot to say if you keep writing deeper.
It’s funny you call blown glass cold to the touch because while completed pieces are, in my head, pieces are orange hot because that’s what they’re like when you make them. (Which I enjoy doing).
Katie
How intriguing, Katie. I love watching glass be blown, but I hadn’t thought about it being hot – but of course it is. Hmmm. . . changes how I see that paperweight now. Thanks.
Thank you for this challenging piece. I’m rewriting some things in preparation for submission. This is quite timely. Tina Hunt
– CHAPTER ONE –
The Record Keeper
Aden burst awake as if surfacing from a pool. When he saw his grandmother he threw himself forwards and wrapped himself around her middle.
“Was it the monsters chasing you again?”
He held onto her. “No, it was the other one…about the war.” The shadows in the corners of his room loomed jagged-edged. If he glanced at them even once they grew hands and faces, feet and hair, and worst of all eyes. He buried his head on his grandmother’s chest and started humming.
“Darling, it was just a dream. There is no war here.”
“Nana, I don’t want to be alone. You don’t understand — that’s the scariest part about it — it’s not the death but that…everyone dies except for me.”
She started singing, the old nursery songs she used to sing when Aden was tiny and first came to them. There had been in great danger then. They had had to leave the safety of the Lost Island behind them, perhaps forever, to take on their native form and learn to live as Chisai all over again. Their Chisai form was air-tribe, that of the dragonfly. Luckily Aden had only been two years old at the time so he had no conscious memory of their escape. Only in dreams did he say the memories haunted him.
This is the beginning of the first book in the series. The story behind the story is Aden’s search for himself, who he is, his ‘worth’, his value, his role in life. The whole story arc is your traditional ‘from zero to hero’. But within it is this deep loneliness and search for purpose.
For me, doing this exercise, I saw that that hidden story is revealed even within the first chapter. I must go through and check, as I edit, to make sure that hidden theme is continuous….
Andi, What a pleasure to read your blog/advice and I am delighted to know you are working on the book — from the first time you told me of the topic I was intrigued. My very best to you, Ted Gup