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"Tragedy renders us speechless. Without words." —Lenard-Cook
Tragedy renders us speechless. Without words. Struck dumb. Confronted with yet another mass shooting, we resort to cliché because such moments seem to demand that we express the ineffable—what can’t be expressed in words.
But poets are in the business of expressing the ineffable, and I would argue that if you call yourself a writer, you must also be a poet—someone who in the face of what leaves others speechless uses words to seek meaning.
Comprehending a tragedy that by its very nature seems senseless requires us to think about things most of us would prefer not to. That’s because in order to come to terms with horror, we must first face that horror—face it full-on, without flinching. But this is what writers do, when we’re digging deep into our psyches to create writing that connects with readers: We’re finding the dirty, messy guts of a thing and bringing it up into the light.
"Facing tragedy requires the obsessive nature that is every writer’s birthright." —Lenard-Cook
Facing tragedy requires the obsessive nature that is every writer’s birthright. When a writer can’t get something out of her head, she turns the thing this way and then that, pokes it and jabs it and then stares it down and asks it why. And, she expects an answer (although, as Chekhov noted, she’s more likely to find only another way to pose the question).
Adjectives aren’t going to work here—not that “speechless” with which I began, nor “senseless” nor “horrible” nor “tragic.” No, in order to comprehend a tragedy, we have to embrace it, empower it, make it our own. As writers, we have to crawl inside it and live it, whether from the point of view of a victim, a survivor, or the killer himself, because what arises from the symbiosis of seeing through another’s eyes is compassion, and from compassion arises forgiveness, and from forgiveness comes acceptance—and then, even though it may be hard to imagine now, the ability to move on.
"This is why writers write about tragedies—because we must understand in order to live." —Lenard-Cook
This is why writers write about tragedies—because we must understand in order to live. Embracing the ineffable, seeing it through the eyes of a character about whom we come to care deeply, forgiving that character, and then moving on are why books like Les Miserables and Anna Karenina and Atonement and Bel Canto are read and reread.
I’m often asked if writing a story about someone else’s tragedy is coopting that person’s right to that story. My answer is that when you feel compelled to write about something, it is because you have a need to understand it. Perhaps, in doing so, you will not only make it your own story, you may help others understand, and heal, as well.
PEN-short-listed author Lisa Lenard-Cook’s most recent book is The Mind of Your Story: Discover What Drives Your Fiction (Writer’s Digest), which originated in her columns for Authorlink. With Lynn C. Miller, she’s co-founder of ABQ Writers Co-op (abqwriterscoop.com), a creative community for New Mexico writers, and co-editor of the literary magazine Bosque. She’s on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference and the Board of Narrative Art Center in Santa Fe. Website: lisalenardcook.com
