Writing From the Heart

Writing from the mind can do you well if you’re looking to rationalise, to connect the dots and solve the mystery. I talk to my best friend when I need to understand a puzzle of a situation I just don’t get, and she perfectly places together the pieces for me as if she created it. We needs ways of solving problems, and either writing or talking to a friend will do wonders.

The mind can also inform you of techniques to include in your prose to either make the piece sound better, more poetic or put together. But what it doesn’t do is life the weight off your shoulders.

From one of my recent writers, I was given their manuscript to beta read. While I encourage all my writers, I do highlight what I feel is missing, and with this particular writer, I couldn’t help but notice their lack of heart. This, of course, goes without saying; my writer certainly has a heart. One that cares, one that worries, one that feels vulnerable revealing its creation to a stranger—and that heart is safe.

The heart I mention is that of the younger self, the teenage self, the adult self; the one that carries the burdens of fear, doubt, worry, but that also holds the ideas, truths and beliefs. The one that is scared for change but is also desperate for it.

Where is that in your writing?

I noticed this lack with this particular writer because there was nothing about the protagonist I could relate to. I couldn’t be the friend to listen to the tribulations of the character and sympathise; I could only help solve the puzzle because she wanted me to. I couldn’t understand the motivations because whatever weight the character held she kept to herself.

Storytelling is an entertaining medium, but even beyond that, throughout history, it was always something far greater: a moral teacher, an historian, a motivational speaker, a doctor and a friend. All of which are typically known as benefits for the reader, yet I would argue the writer gains the above and so much more.

Writing is a mirror for the soul. It can show you exactly how you choose to perceive yourself while also showing how you truly are. Do you have trouble with vulnerability? Why do you think that is?

Most will run, scared of the effects of vulnerability. Judgement, ridicule, perhaps indifference. But each time one reveals a piece of their heart, it drops a burden and it helps a person.

All of this is not to say to stop writing with your mind—on the contrary, there should be a dance between the two. However, my work and my studies have led me to believe that the key to good writing is the heart, and the only way to know if you’ve written well enough is when you feel completely weightless.

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Thank you for taking the time to read. Comment below if this post was useful to you, and let me know if you have any other topics or writing advice you’re seeking; I’d love to hear it.