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kate_nepveuThe Body (of Work) Keeps the Score: Writing as Therapy
"Kill your darlings" is a common bit of writing advice. But how about killing your demons? Writing effectively often requires channeling emotional responses and personal memories, so it can also liberate them and be a cathartic experience for the writer. This panel will discuss works where the author was definitely working through some stuff, as well as the experience of using writing to exorcise one's inner antagonists.
Barbara Krasnoff (moderator), Melissa Bobe, Noah Beit-Aharon, Scott Edelman, Sophia Babai
Barbara: start by talking about story you wrote where you were working through stuff Noah: in current WIP, working through feelings re: loved one in abusive relationship, what it's like to feel like seeing person love but hearing person they're with through their mouth, so writing dybbuk story Sophia: very rarely know what working through at time of writing. apologies for geopolitics but am Iranian, half of family is in Iran; writing story with ghosts djinn etc. but in real world in 2026. what I am experiencing now, protagonist did a year ago; helps empathize with protagonist who is kind of terrible, but also having future perspective really helps self Scott: wrote essay "7 Things My Mother Told Me She Later Denied Ever Having Said" after she died, then realized should be fiction instead. could better work out feelings that way because in reality too worried about accuracy, fiction focused on themes. resulting story is on submission, now titled (approximately) "Inheritance Nobody Wants But Everybody Gets." nonfiction did not bring closure or forgiveness, but fiction did, would have thought other way around Melissa: like that talking about form, because as thinking about this question, two books applicable are both short story collections, written in 2016 and 2020: something about ability to move through different places, settings, characters in one collection, allowed to explore complicated feelings Barbara: father had cancer, wrote funny story about cancer; after he died, wrote funny story about death. lot of stories working through changes & losses in family, some of most successful probably because felt them more than just wrote them. question: do you find it's different when writing to exorcise political versus personal demons? Sophia: personally, no, because have a lot of abstract rage/despair/disapproval, not writing fiction about those, writing threads on internet/news articles/having conversations. writing fiction is deeply personal things. don't really think possible to write compelling long fiction that is big and impersonal, really is about characters. regardless so much of politics is personal, people dying having debt etc., that's what makes a story Noah: would also say that can be very hard, if even try, to separate between personal and political. writing about abusive people in this, the year of abuse, isn't going to come out apolitical. writing fiction when working through traumas or other deeply felt things, as opposed to nonfiction, nobody can fact-check your fiction. kind of freedom, about your feelings. can say, I think sucks, but not I think you're lying Sophia: (well they can try to fact check) Scott: when I write about "relative has undiagnosed anxiety disorder and making my life hell" can give myself closure; but writing about bigger pictures, did not make feel better Melissa: thinking about some writers who say, want to write in space that's void of politics, because I need a break. do you stop existing as a person when you're writing, such that you don't have a political identity? Noah: lots of people who don't want to think about politics as such, doesn't mean that their work isn't political, just don't want to acknowledge politics of what doing. Barbara: if writing about specific person, how much feel need to disguise? Sophia: wrote recent-ish short story that agent really liked, nervous because when writing, thought was writing about vampires, turned out to very clearly be story about my ex (audience rueful laughter)—yeah, you just learned so much from that sentence. no amount of fictionalizing will disguise that I had been in an abusive relationship, or that people will assume that was autobiographical—almost more nervous about reverse, adding fictional details that people will think are true. Scott: even if not relatives, think average reader assumes actually happened because don't understand where ideas come from Sophia: I keep killing sisters, multiple critique partners assumed has one. no: have brother, nothing bad allowed to happen him ever, which is why only nonbinary siblings and sisters allowed to die in stories Melissa: semi-flippant response: people care about are so humble that wouldn't assume it's about them, and people mad at, are too self-absorbed to notice. discusses readers without boundaries stalking romance authors and something I missed Scott: my dad did not meet Donald Trump Noah: my WIP, any loved ones will instantly know what it's about. if and when finish, think I do plan to publish if can, because it's that level of important to me to express, but even if don't, I am doing as description and writing as own therapy, essential to write as honestly as feeling. cross bridge when come to if feelings change in future and edit story as story Barbara: wrote story once as revenge, did nasty things to character who was doctor mistreated father. had fun writing, looked at, lousy story. other examples? Melissa: yes, not usually throwaways because doesn't do that, but set aside for long time to get distance, find thread where went off from catharsis to become narrative, pick up from there Noah: more honest I am when writing, better it comes out for me Sophia: journals a lot, also first drafts run long. but never had experience of wrote from deep emotion and therefore resulting story not very good; rather, story is too vulnerable for me. sometimes frustrating, don't always want feel like presented heart on platter Scott: is this a story or just a primal scream that hasn't been transmuted yet? if reader can see that working issues out that clearly, not art yet, just 1:1 of what going through. pause, go to journal to work that out through circular nonfiction criticism of self Barbara: asking Sophia, is cathartic angle more successful not just for you with editors and readers Sophia: varies widely. sound like a brag but it's a thing: my prose comes out beautiful, never had to work at sentences; but structure is weaker. so then going to come down to how deeply do you feel the emotions of this. but sometimes anger etc. makes sentences sloppier. however don't go into thinking this is going to be cathartic, see it after Noah: worthwhile to separate between different kinds of catharsis: saying what really mean and killing stand-in character are not the same. latter not necessarily going to yield something interesting. not same kind of emotional writing which think we mostly mean, writing from deep honesty Scott: probably most cathartic writing session ever had, flying back from con, upset about bad actors in community, wrote almost whole thing in longhand. "Boiling Point," in anthology Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners. read it out loud at conventions, people come up and say, "I don't act like that," feel like story is calling them specifically out instead of being a general warning. goes back to what Melissa said about people not recognizing themselves Barbara: ever written more than one story about person/experience/personal demon/political thing, with each looking at it differently? Noah: multiple Orpheus/Eurydice. as kid story bothered me, some itch have to scratch by retelling many different ways. more recent days, started to feel more like Orpheus, find once again going back to Sophia: two answers, both answers are yes. am now writing third book in a row in which main character haunted by dead sister, again I don't have a dead sister. completely different every time, what she represents, relationship, but for some reason trope keep coming back to. second, swear do have traumas that aren't geopolitical, but family has survived three separate genocides, except for current book never set out to write about, but turned out to be. at certain point not that trying to process, but that only lens I've lived. personal, non-collective traumas, usually will write about one time and then I'm good, wrote what needed to write about that: not part of worldview, thing that had feelings about. suspect will figure out what dead sister thing about one day Barbara: was thinking about stories wrote about her/partner's grandmothers experiences, successful stories but sometimes wonder if should not have written because can't possibly imagine what was really like to have lived through that. are there stories that should be told because others not around to tell them, but how qualified am I just by virtue of listening to them? audience: ever written something in therapeutic mode and then realized something that completely surprised you? Melissa: feeding into processing Barbara's previous. can't stop writing about witches, think because am the friend you call in middle night to tell worst thing, that has to go somewhere and not comfortable with writing literally about. don't think realized until this conversation Scott: not him but others, author: "this is story that helped get over X." reader: "this? this is the most depressing thing ever read" Barbara: funniest stories ever written are about tragedies. partly because both are about father who was very funny man. Sophia: never done revenge catharsis story, realized that experiences have had with people who caused harm, always writing from their POV. healing from perspective of getting to walk in their shoes, sometimes compassion and understanding and sometimes how awful it must be to be them. sometimes surprised by depth of sympathy experienced. audience: anyone have safety tips or strategies for navigating writing a story that is kicking you in ancestral memory Sophia: yes! literally one of things I specialize in. really helps to have rituals before and after, to keep contained experience. closing ritual should help move emotions through body: if can, go outside and shake body. writing is just in your head, so didn't get to express in way that nervous system understands. when getting too much, as Scott said, pause and journal to self, you are feeling sad right now because (or from/to ancestor, like a letter)—in different way than fiction writing, handwriting if can. Noah: blessed to have number of people can talk to about writing, being able to do that is own kind of talk therapy, and talking about writing is enough removed from trauma itself, not waiting until work is perfectpanel notes
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
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Date: 2025-07-21 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-21 11:46 pm (UTC)it really was.
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Date: 2025-07-22 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-22 08:04 pm (UTC)I thought so!