What do you think when you read this? Be honest.

I never went into the street, but I thought the people stood and laughed at me, and held me in contempt; and could hardly persuade myself, but that the voice of my conscience was loud enough for every one to hear it. They who knew me, seemed to avoid me; and if they spoke to me, seemed to do it in scorn. I bought a ballad of one who was singing it in the street, because I thought it was written on me.

William Cowper, Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq

You may be thinking, 'That man has a lot of problems.' And you'd be right. William Cowper (1731-1800) spent time in a mental hospital. He tried to commit suicide several times. He suffered intense mental agony. He was also considered one of the greatest poets in England. His hymns have been beloved by millions. He wrote a couple of my favourites, including the one that says, 'God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.' William Cowper has helped me in many an hour of personal trial.

What is remarkable about Cowper's memoir? He's so honest. He's open about his personal pain. This is a man who knew what suffering was all about. Do you know his poem about the cat stuck in a drawer? It's hilarious, and well-observed. Cowper loved cats. He would have been at home on the internet.

What Cowper can teach us – and I recommend his book – is how to write with complete openness. Cowper's story helps us get into his mind. We may recognise some of his feelings in ourselves. Writing like this speaks to our shared human experience.

We may not want to tell this much about ourselves. We may not be feeling particularly confessional, or we may want to preserve our own privacy. And that's fine. I respect that. It could be said that these days, we tend to be a bit too exhibitionist in our self-revelations, particularly online. I'm not advocating that sort of tell-all writing. But we can use this kind of openness in writing to another purpose: it can inform the way we write about others, or about our fictional characters.

A few weeks ago, Minorvogonpoet remarked:

I have wondered how to go about writing about the dark stuff: famine, war, concentration camps... the danger is not just being too fast moving, but also too much on one note. Writing needs light and shade, chiaroscuro.

That's a good point. Often, in factual and fiction writing both, we tend to gloss over the darker parts of human experience. This can come from a feeling of inadequacy on our part. Or it can come from a sense of reticence. But we will be doing our readers a good turn if we try to articulate the experiences we're describing in such a way that the reader can explore them, too. This can be the best thing we have to offer. And yes, I know how hard it is. Nobody said writing was easy. (Except people who don't do it.)

Where do we get this knowledge? Do we just 'make it up'? No. We dredge it up from our own experiences. That's the revelatory part of our writing. You can be revelatory without ever writing a single word about yourself. You do it by including your own emotions in the things you write about other people. Wait, I can find an example. . .

"Of course," said I platitudinously, "human nature is the same everywhere; but there is more color – er – more drama and movement and – er – romance in some cities than in others."


"On the surface," said Azalea Adair. "I have traveled many times around the world in a golden airship wafted on two wings – print and dreams. I have seen (on one of my imaginary tours) the Sultan of Turkey bowstring with his own hands one of his wives who had uncovered her face in public. I have seen a man in Nashville tear up his theatre tickets because his wife was going out with her face covered – with rice powder. In San Francisco's Chinatown I saw the slave girl Sing Yee dipped slowly, inch by inch, in boiling almond oil to make her swear she would never see her American lover again. She gave in when the boiling oil had reached three inches above her knee. At a euchre party in East Nashville the other night I saw Kitty Morgan cut dead by seven of her schoolmates and lifelong friends because she had married a house painter. The boiling oil was sizzling as high as her heart; but I wish you could have seen the fine little smile that she carried from table to table. Oh, yes, it is a humdrum town. Just a few miles of red brick houses and mud and lumber yards."

O Henry, 'A Municipal Report'

O Henry's story is about the drama concealed beneath the surface of Nashville, Tennessee, which in his day was a sleepy backwater in the ruined postwar society of what was essentially a failed state. A publisher's agent goes there to sign up a hot new author. Instead of the world-travelling man he expected to meet, he finds Azalea Adair, a frail-looking woman with no money but a lot of dignity. It's a surprising tale. Both Nashville and Azalea Adair turn out to be a lot more interesting than the New York publishing crowd thought.

But where did O Henry get that insight? Partly from his observation of people. He'd been around, and of course he knew the postbellum South, he grew up there. But O Henry was really an ex-con named William Sydney Porter. He'd been through a lot in his life, and it shows in his writing. He used every bit of his own personal suffering and hard-won insight in his stories. Just like Azalea Adair. That comparison between the exotic slave girl and Kitty Morgan comes directly from his own gift of transferring what he'd lived through into narratives the public could understand. And this was a man so private he didn't use his own name to write with. He was ashamed to do so, because he'd been in prison.

I'd recommend that we keep these writers in mind the next time the story gets 'dark' or personal. That we reach down inside, and find the words to describe human suffering and need out of our own hearts. We can do that without revealing any personal data. Who knows? Others may benefit.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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