Workshops in Breakups
I just got dumped, but here's some writing advice
So, no one really warned me just how much getting broken up with sucks. I’ve only ever been on the ‘dumping’ end of that equation.
Most definitely felt like that one scene from the Amazing World Of Gumball where Ms. Simian get’s slammed by a door, thrown out the window, and run over by the ambulance that was supposed to take her to the hospital.
Not fun. In the slightest.
The Gift That Kept on Giving
Y’know, I was originally going to write a post about my chronic people pleasing habits, but something that I’m realizing is my anxious attachment style is simply the whole reason I turn into a chronic people pleaser, and that didn’t really make a comeback until the tail end of my relationship.
For a while, I’ve felt like a hostage inside my own brain, piecing together all the different ways I could keep people from leaving me. And the craziest part about that feeling was that now that I’m no longer in a relationship, that feeling doesn’t scare me. The worst happened and I survived.
So anyway, as if my week couldn’t get any better the day after I got dumped I discovered I was scheduled to work my waitress job on Monday and Tuesday, which means I quite literally work ever day starting from the day I got dumped (Thursday) to Tuesday (The day I’m posting this). So, 6 days of trying not to shoot myself in the face. But, hey, at least I’m making that bag.
Then, I walked into my creative writing class Friday morning to learn we were workshopping dialogue. AKA: Building a whole scene around generic dialogue my professor wrote up for us to work around, keeping it the exact same.
“Where do you think you are going?”
”Nowhere. I was just thinking of leaving.”
”What time is it?”
”Let me check.”
”Stay. I mean, please stay.”
”Ok.”
”It helps when you are here. It feels better.”
”Yes. I know.”
So yeah, I’ve been awake for a whole 2 hours at this point, I spent my morning crying, and now I have the perfect analogy for what my actual breakup looked like that I get to work on and have peer reviewed. Another moment where I had to will away any wishes of shooting myself in the face.
I locked in, of course. I had no choice. I must say, the outcome was kind of fire.
I woke up to the immediate choking feeling of regret. An arm I knew too well wrapped around my waist. Why did I do it? It was so stupid. I thought I’d finally made it towards the other side of healing, but I was gonna have to put myself back together all over again.
As quietly as I could I tried to slip out of bed, but neither of us have ever been light sleepers when we share the same bed. Maybe if I just get ready as quickly as possible, she’ll understand.
I immediately pick my clothes up off the ground, and try to put them on with haste.
“Where do you think you are going?” She’s wrapped around the blankets. Gorgeous. Not mine anymore. She made sure of that months ago. She seemed confused, and despite the part of me that wanted to bolt out the door, I watched one of her hands rub the empty space that I’d taken up seconds ago, like she wanted me to come back. I start to stutter. I was going to just tell her I’m leaving but, ”Nowhere,” I say instead. Desperation clawed at my chest. “I was just thinking of leaving.”
My words hang in the air for a few seconds. She looks for her phone. ”What time is it?” Around 7 in the morning I want to say. ”Let me check,” is what comes out of my mouth instead. I walk towards her desk, picking up my phone so I can tell her and dash out of the dorm as quickly as I can.
”Stay. I mean, please stay.” I freeze. It makes me so angry that she gets to do that. How many times did I beg her to stay? But, I melt instead, because as much as I know it’s going to hurt when I have to leave, I crave her touch. Her voice. Her smell. I miss being engulfed in it ”Ok,” I whisper.
I crawl back into bed, but I can’t look at her. She resumes having an arm wrapped around my waist, and she pulls me closer.
”It helps when you are here,” I blurt out. Her head moves, I know she’s looking at me. I only look at her roommate's bed. “It feels better.” Everything comes out like a whisper. She sighs, and her breath tickles the back of my neck. ”Yes,” She says, “I know.” Silent tears pour from my eyes. Her lips kiss my neck. The back of my ears. I turn around, and I let her pull me close, kissing me and my tears into oblivion, even though I know it’s not forever.
Who knew all I needed was to get my heart actually broken to write like I knew what that felt like.
What Do You Know?
Of course this finally brings me to the actual advice that I wanted to discuss.
Writing is an art form inspired by life. To make good stories, you have to know good stories. To know good stories, you have to live them.
I’m a firm believer that everyone has a good story in them. Something that’s inspired by real life, and drawn together from the dots of the past and present. Not every story is based in reality, but there is a reality in every story. A reality that someone can connect to based off of a real experience.
People are not joking when they say write what you know. I used to be so against this idea. I already knew what I knew, I wanted to write about what I had barely any understanding of. In my mind writing about those things meant I’d have a better grasp on understanding them. Sure, there’s a lot to be said about an exercise in writing what you don’t know. I think it’s a great tool for understanding many things, not just your own creative endeavors, but psychologically. For the soul, y’know?
Writing what you know though, that’s how you level with an audience. That’s the crack that you lace into your sentences that keeps a reader engaged. You truly have to share pieces of yourself in the stories that you create.
Only you ever really know what you’re going through or what you’ve gone through. An audience doesn’t have to be keyed into the reason that you’re writing something. They don’t even have to know it’s based on a real experience. They just have to know it’s genuine. Raw.
I didn’t have to tell my friends that the reason I wrote the scene I wrote was cause I was dumped the night before. I mean, I did, because they know me and how happy I was in my relationship, so it would have caught them off guard for me to hand them some gut wrenching break-up sex moment with no context as to what was going on in my head. However, if I gave this to someone else, a stranger, I wouldn’t tell them. I wouldn’t have to. Maybe they feel I experienced this pain, maybe they’ll be too focused on the fact that they’ve felt the same feeling. Or went back to an ex three months after they broke up in a moment of weakness.
It’s scary to be vulnerable as a human, but as a writer, you have to be ok sharing that vulnerability because there might be someone out there who really needs to see it. I love that I can be the thing someone relates to. Even if it’s relating directly to my pain.
An Exercise
Writing is therapeutic. At least for me, it’s always been therapeutic. Pain needs an outlet, and this was always my outlet. Utilize this. It’s your weapon.
Tell me what happened. Word for word. Write about your experiences like they’re fictional. Give your friends their real names. Write their words into dialogue. Put your inner monologue in there. Build a world of your hopes, your wishes, your wants.
When I wrote that breakup scene, it wasn’t what had happened. I actually haven’t yet spoken to my ex since we broke up. All I knew is it was something I wanted. So badly. I wanted to be in her arms, in her bed, like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t woken up to an anchor on my chest, stealing my breath because that night felt like a movie, and I’d never experienced pain like that before.
I don’t feel dramatic when I say that. She was my everything. It’s hard lose something as big as everything.
I’m sad. I’m mad. I was scared that if I saw her I’d crumble. There’s a part of me that still doesn’t want to see her. The thought of being the one fleeing her felt almost like I was getting back at her for being the one to leave me.
So tell me what you know. Tell me a time that made you feel unbridled rage. Or made you cry so hard you broke the capillaries under your eyes. Write about the most real experience you’ve ever harbored. Write about you. Then, take yourself out of the equation.
Or don’t. That’s the beauty of this isn’t it?
Make a diary. Take the words, put them on a separate page, and give them a new name. A character. Multiple characters. Keep the essence of what you felt, and give it to someone else. Remember, they’re fictional. They’re yours. They can handle it.
It will always be up to you how real you want yours stories to be. How much of yourself you want to see in them. Sometimes, we need to write about what we’re not. What we don’t understand. Sometimes we need to write about something that’s completely opposite of who we are. It’s all connected though. Because how can we write about what we don’t know, if we don’t unpack what we do.
Let your words get to the essence of your mind. Let it all out. Pick up the pieces from there. It’s hard and it’s scary, but only because it’s human.
One more thing.
Good job. I’m proud of you.