Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Exposing Ourselves


WALKING NAKED – HOW MUCH DO WE EXPOSE OURSELVES IN OUR FICTION?

BY CHELLE CORDERO

It’s fiction… or is it?

Every time a reader picks up our writing we are allowing them deep, DEEP, insights into things that are personally meaningful to us. Everyone wonders how much of our story is true and how much of our main character is really the author.

How can we not influence our characters as we write? Every experience that we have colors our own view of right and wrong so it’s only natural that our heroes and heroines do the kind of things we think are good. Many of us are told to write what we know and by doing that we are literally undressing ourselves each time, no masks, no protective attire – just us. It’s those subjects we feel passionate about that give us foundation for the best stories.

In the long run we do insert ourselves into every tale. We wind up writing our biographies in bits and pieces Obviously we can’t write every story about “ourselves”, even if we do deny it. We research and listen to others, we allow our imaginations to wander, we combine people that we know into one. Our characters are pretend, fiction, not real. But in the long run our ideals, our desires and our fears infiltrate our writing.

Readers often ask authors if the people in our stories are real; they are real to us. Have we visited the sights we speak about in our books? Did we do the things our characters do? Did we overcome the same odds? Do we know people like the other characters? What they are really curious about is how much of our stories is autobiographical.

Which puts us into the uncomfortable position of feeling like we are standing naked in front of people, many of them strangers. We are forced to admit truths and tell people why things are important to us; everyone expects things to mean something. Saying “it sounded good to me” is not an acceptable reason for throwing an obstacle in our character’s path. We have to know WHY we saw that event as a conflict.

After we have poured our emotions into our writing – then comes an even harder challenge. People review our work, sometimes professionally, sometimes as an individual reader seeking enjoyment. And since so many of our “truisms” have been included we tend to view criticism quite personallly. After all if I’ve shared my ideology with my heroine and she’s not liked, then am I? Simple things like dressing my character up for a night on the town may be my idea of “lookin’ good” and if someone else doesn’t agree, it really gets personal

Once we get over the trauma of our first book, we learn to breathe once more and get ready to stand naked in front of our public all over again.

Bio – Chelle Cordero

Chelle was born in the Bronx, NYC to Marcy and Reva Cordero. The younger of two daughters, Chelle’s dad really wanted a son; he wanted to do father-son things and refused to be done out, so he taught his two daughters that they could do anything they wanted to do.

Chelle has multiple romantic suspense novels and one murder mystery published with Vanilla Heart Publishing and short stories in anthologies Forever Friend, With Arms Wide Open, Nature’s Gifts and Passionate Hearts. She also freelances for several newspapers and magazines. She’s currently working on her next novel, a murder mystery called Hyphema.

Chelle lives in the scenic Hudson Valley of NY with her family. In her spare time, Chelle volunteers as an EMT with her local ambulance corps where she is presently serving as President of the all volunteer corps.

Visit Chelle’s website at http://ChelleCordero.com


2 comments:

Malcolm R. Campbell said...

The good news is: most readers don't have any idea how much of a writer is in his/her books.

hotcha12 said...

GOOD FOR YOU CHELLE! I'M BOGGED DOWN WITH REVIEWS BUT I GET HERE WHEN I CAN!