Between the Lines – Part 2

Between the Lines – Part 1, (read that first if you haven’t) I wrote about how creative writing can uncover things we didn’t know were there. We begin with a memory, a moment or a story we think we understand, only to discover something else sitting between the lines.

But discovering it leaves the writer with another question.

What do you do with it once you’ve found it?

Knock! Knock! Knock!

If you grew up where I did, in the time I did, you probably don’t need me to explain that.

Police at the door.

There was something about the chap. Maybe they were trained in it. Maybe generations of Glasgow police officers passed down the secret technique. I don’t know. But you knew.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Before the door opened, before anyone looked through the window, before somebody shouted, “Who is it?”, the first thought was already there.

The polis.

I used that sound in Window Seat, in a chapter called 23 Knives. I was writing about being seventeen, running with Easterhouse Young Aggro, and carrying knives.

Not something I am proud of.

But that’s partly the point.

In Part 1 of Between the Lines, I wrote about something I have discovered through creative writing. Sometimes you begin writing about one thing and find something else sitting underneath it. You don’t always know what a memory contains until you try to put it into words.

But discovering something is only part of the problem.

Then you have to decide what you’re going to do with it.

What do I need to tell you?

One of the temptations when writing about your own past is to keep the reader onside.

We tell the difficult stories. We write about pain, shame and regret. We might even tell you some fairly terrible things we did.

But there’s still a temptation to provide an explanation that leaves the reader thinking:

Well, considering everything that happened to him…

I could have done that with Knives.

Easterhouse in the 1980s. Territorial gangs. Violence. Young men who could be attacked simply for walking into the wrong street.

All true.

And all capable of becoming an excuse.

So I wrote something else:

“The only reason I can give is this: we just did. Not for self-defence. Not out of fear. Just because that’s what we did.”

I didn’t particularly like what that said about me.

I still don’t.

But if I had rewritten seventeen-year-old me as a frightened young man carrying a knife because he needed protection, I might have produced a more sympathetic character.

I just wouldn’t have produced an honest one.

That’s one of the uncomfortable things I’ve learned about writing memoir.

Sometimes the line you most want to soften is the line the story needs.

Not because brutal honesty is some badge of honour. And certainly not because everyone who writes about their life needs to publicly punish themselves for who they used to be.

But because if I ask you to understand my story, I have some responsibility not to manipulate you into liking the person I’m telling you about.

Sometimes I wasn’t particularly likeable.

You need to know that.

What do I need to explain to you?

Then there is Knock! Knock! Knock!

When I originally wrote the scene, I knew exactly what those words meant.

So would plenty of people who grew up around me.

But writing eventually takes your story outside the place where it happened.

Someone reading in London, Dublin, America or somewhere else entirely might simply think:

Someone knocked on the door.

And that’s not quite it.

That chap carried information.

Police.

Trouble.

Who have they got?

What’s happened?

And, in our house that night, the particular humiliation that I’d brought the police to my mum and dad’s door.

So the writer has another decision to make.

How much do I explain?

Explain everything and the story stops while I provide a guided tour of 1980s Easterhouse.

Explain nothing and you might hear the words without hearing what I heard.

Creative writing lives somewhere between those two.

Sometimes you need to trust the reader.

Sometimes you need to give them just enough to enter a world they didn’t live in.

And sometimes three words can carry more of that world than three paragraphs ever could.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

I still hear it.

What am I allowed to keep for myself?

But there’s another line in Knives that interests me more now than it did when I wrote it.

Near the end of the chapter, I wrote:

“There were a couple of other incidents I’m still not ready to write about.”

I knew exactly what I meant.

I still do.

I’m not going to tell you what they were.

And that’s important.

When I wrote “I’m still not ready”, there was perhaps an assumption buried inside those words that one day I would be.

That eventually I would become brave enough, honest enough or sufficiently detached from the events to put them on the page.

I’ve changed my mind about that.

I’m not sure everything needs to be told.

There is a difference between hiding something because revealing it would change the story and deciding that something simply isn’t for public consumption.

I told you enough in Knives to know who I was.

I carried knives.

I wasn’t doing it because I was frightened.

I’ve used a knife.

I’ve been on the receiving end of weapons too.

I don’t think the unwritten incidents would fundamentally change what I’m telling you about that seventeen-year-old.

They would give you more detail.

But are you entitled to it?

That’s a different question.

And perhaps I’ve become more comfortable with the answer.

No.

Not because I’m ashamed to admit that those things happened. Shame may be somewhere in the mix; it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

But honesty and disclosure aren’t quite the same thing.

A memoir is not a witness statement.

The reader doesn’t automatically acquire a right to every memory simply because the writer has opened the door to some of them.

And there are other people inside our memories too.

Their stories don’t automatically become mine to expose because they happen to intersect with mine.

So those incidents remain unwritten.

Not waiting for Part 3.

Not being saved for another book.

Just unwritten.

Between the lines

Maybe that’s another thing creative writing has been teaching me.

There are at least three questions I have to ask when I write about my own life.

What do I need to tell you?

Enough that I don’t manipulate the story to make myself somebody I wasn’t.

What do I need to explain to you?

Enough that you can enter a world you didn’t inhabit and hear something closer to what I heard.

And:

What am I allowed to keep for myself?

More than I once thought.

In Part 1, I wrote about discovering things between the lines — memories and meanings that appeared through the process of writing.

But perhaps there is another kind of space between the lines.

The deliberate one.

The place where the writer knows there is more to say and chooses not to say it.

Not every silence is avoidance.

Not every omission is dishonesty.

And not everything between the lines is waiting to be written.

Some things are allowed to stay there.

Between the Lines will return — because, as I’m discovering, there’s usually more going on in our writing than the words we eventually leave on the page.

If this struck a chord…

You may also want to read:

Between the Lines – Part 1 — on what we sometimes discover about ourselves through the process of writing.

Why We Go Back — on familiar paths, old patterns, and why knowing where a road leads doesn’t always stop us taking it.

Both are available here on the blog.

Window Seat

The story behind Knives comes from my memoir, Window Seat — an honest account of addiction, family, faith and the long road that eventually led somewhere very different.

Window Seat is available on Amazon

Want to keep reading? Between the Lines will return with Part 3. To make sure you don’t miss it — or anything else I post — enter your email address in the “Join the fun!” box on the blog and hit the arrow to subscribe. New posts will then arrive straight in your inbox.