I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Wednesday Writing, I consider my writing practice and skills and how to improve upon them.
[The] Inciting Incident first throws the protagonist’s life out of balance, then arouses in him the desire to restore that balance. Out of this need… the protagonist next conceives of an Object of Desire: something physical or situational or attitudinal that he feels he lacks or needs to put the ship of life on an even keel. Lastly, the Inciting Incident propels the protagonist into an active pursuit of this object or goal….
[For] those protagonists we tend to admire the most, the Inciting Incident arouses not only a conscious desire, but an unconscious one as well. These complex characters suffer intense inner battles because these two desires are in direct conflict with each other. No matter what the character consciously thinks he wants, the audience senses or realizes that deep inside he unconsciously wants the very opposite.
Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of Screenwriting
In the story that runs through Things Men Gave Me, my character’s conscious object of desire, or false goal to use author Lisa Cron’s terminology, is to get repartnered, live with that partner, and even get married.
But the unconscious desire, in direct conflict with the conscious desire, is to become an artist and live autonomously and confidently alone. Perhaps it’s also to find emotional sustenance and intellectual connection, but not necessarily in a marriage and live-in relationship. (I may need to sharpen this up a bit!)
As I write each essay I need to keep these twin desires in mind. It’s easy to remember that, throughout the story that weaves through the essays, I had the goal of becoming repartnered. It’s what I’m obviously going after again and again. It’s hard to remember to weave in the unconscious desire, as it’s unconscious to the Anne that was living through the events at that time.
Writing teacher Phillip Lopate says that memoirists and essayists need to use a double perspective, both a presentation of the experience as it was lived but also a retrospective evaluation of what was happening. I suspect I can show the unconscious desire via both perspectives. Even if Anne of that time was not conscious of her unconscious desire for creative and self reclamation, she sometimes acted in ways that showed it to readers. And of course as the author retrospecting, I can add in commentary that explains what she unconsciously wanted.
Let me take the essay I’m currently writing as an example, as I haven’t finished it yet, and I don’t think I’ve done much at all in it to show my unconscious desire.
I’m writing the story of a brief relationship that formed from a Match.com connection in fall of 2014. I met a law professor named Graham1 and we quickly started an intense relationship. It eventually surfaced that he was still pining over his ex-girlfriend and he broke up with me, because I wasn’t her.
I found him somewhat disappointing too, as he showed not just an obsession with an ex but also a rather limited intellectual range. That was really strange, since he was a professor. In relationship with him, I had this idea his was the superior intelligence to mine.
How, in that story, might I show that though I was consciously going after partnership and marriage, what I really wanted was to reclaim myself creatively, intellectually, autonomously?
ChatGPT offered me some great suggestions for this, showing what a great writer’s helper it can be when you already have a strong conception of what you’re doing:
- Foreshadow the unconscious desire in the section where I talk about E. Mavis Hetherington’s research on divorce, and how some people become Enhancers afterward. Now I’m recalling she also labeled another set of people Competent Loners, and I really hoped I wouldn’t become that (but that’s what I needed).
- Use a scene where Graham gives me a key to his condo to reflect on my need to find my own world. I remember when he gave it to me I wasn’t happy about it. I was just confused.
- Reframe a scene in which Graham and I argue about Obamacare, where he shows little interest or understanding of the details of the bill, but instead says something like, “well I’m sure if Obama’s behind it, it’s good.” Reflect on how I craved conversation that sparked intellectually, emotionally, and creatively.
- Use his ex-girlfriend’s keeping him at arm’s length as a mirror or role model for myself. Show her possibly as someone to emulate not judge and criticize (as Graham did).
- Close the essay with a hint at what I’m really looking for.
I am going to go through each essay I’ve already published as well and consider how to strengthen the theme of my unconscious desire for intellectual spark, creative reclamation, and living confidently alone.
- Not his name and not his actual field of research. ↩︎