ave you ever written a dark character or story and found yourself rolling in a sea of trauma?

It’s incredibly easy to let our writing topics inform our moods. Writing is an immersive experience. When we write a fight or chase scene, our heartbeat races. In moments of tension, we hold our breath. Our physiological reactions mirror what would happen if we lived through the experience. Because of this, when we write about dark events, it’s easy to find ourselves spiraling.

That’s what happened to writer Michelle McNamara, who wrote about the Golden State Killer in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark book and streaming series). At times she called her fascination “a murder habit” and a “clawing hunger.” She admitted to being obsessed. “It’s not healthy,” she said. She ultimately suffered anxiety and insomnia, as she spent her nights researching gruesome crimes. She died in her sleep at the age of forty-six. Her husband wasn’t aware of the mix of drugs that she’d taken to overcome the ugliness of her research.

In the spring of 2020, like millions of others, I became obsessed with true crime. If we weren’t watching Tiger King, we devoured serial killer documentaries and biopics. From Bundy to the unknown, they called to us.

And then I found McNamara’s miniseries, and my obsession—our collective lockdown obsessions—were laid bare because the story shows more than the Golden State Killer timeline and victimology. It shows the unhealthy side of our writing. McNamara’s empathy for the victims spiraled into unhealthy coping mechanisms that writers may be prone to experience.

The Link Between Depression and Creativity

Trauma fascinates me. I worked for a year developing and facilitating the Expressive Writing Workshop for military members, veterans, and family, using Dr. James Pennebaker’s Writing to Heal, about writing to recover from trauma. I teach writing and healing courses, and I recently completed a year in Ireland studying trauma in Irish literature. While these studies didn’t take me to a dark place, I realized in watching McNamara’s story that I was equally capable of rolling around in other people’s trauma, equally obsessed, equally prone to depression. Working on my memoir, reliving the past, negatively impacts my mental health. I relive a scene as I write about it, and while I take mental-health breaks, I never really “handle it.” McNamara’s story became a wake-up call. I couldn’t survive on a constant diet of serial killer documentaries, true crime podcasts, and my personal story without paying a cost.

Writers are not more capable of compartmentalizing than the average person. In fact, writers are more prone to depression and other mood disorders. A recent journal article notes “a clear association between creativity and mood” disorders “including depression, mania, panic attacks, generalized anxiety, and drug abuse.” Lucky us.

Like nature versus nurture, there are differing views on whether we choose art to deal with depression or if creating art is the cause. Writing about trauma, whether personally experienced or in a fictional situation, can cause an emotional deep dive; yet for some, creativity expression can improve mental health, which is the other theory as to why writers have higher rates of depression. We write seeking our own creative therapy. Either way, there are ways to buffer the impact of writing on our mental health.

Protect the Reader

Have you ever read a book that took you to a bad place, something that triggered you? Have you ever had a reader or critique partner say they couldn’t read a section or chapter of your work?

Sometimes, the explicit description of a traumatic event causes an unwelcome reader response. For example, when I wrote about opening chapters, I quoted selections of Colleen Hoover’s Verity. I included trigger warnings because the depictions of blood and gore might be too much for an unsuspecting reader. While it didn’t bother me, that’s because it’s not something that triggers a trauma response in me. That doesn’t mean that it would be okay for anyone and everyone.

When in doubt, consider hiring a sensitivity reader. Typically a sensitivity reader reviews a manuscript for potential bias, stereotypes, or offensive content, but other times, they can be trauma-informed readers who note places where the writing may cause some readers an issue. Consider their editorial suggestions an extension of being a compassionate human. Avoid putting the reader into a negative spiral.

Create Rhetorical Distance

Another way to protect the reader and the writer is to build rhetorical distance. As a fiction writer, I tend to write in third person close perspective, which puts the reader close to the action, feeling the sweat on the narrator’s back. There are some scenes, however, where that closeness might not be in anyone’s best interest.

The torture scenes from the television show Dexter fall under that category for me, although that rule probably doesn’t apply to horror readers. Dexter is an interesting case study, because it made a serial killer the hero. He killed prolifically, which is bad, but he only killed “bad” people. Because the audience has no sympathy for the perpetrators he eliminates, he remains a “hero.”

A maxim I’ve heard about horror writing that also applies to comedy is to take the reader right to the edge of their comfort level. And then grab their hand and take them across the line. While that might work in horror, most readers need distance from trauma in order to stick around for the rest of the story. What follows are several ways to build rhetorical distance.

Change Perspectives

When you get to a climactic, brutal, or traumatic experience, change the point of view character. Specifically, to a character who is not in pain or enduring something painful.

One of the reasons Dexter works is that it’s told from a clinical perspective of the killer. We have no empathy for his victims because they’re people who have done horrible things. Dexter became a kind of retribution for the victims. The audience is never put through the torture of seeing the scene from the victim’s perspective. We do not feel as if it’s happening to us.

If you’ve read Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story, you know that readers experience the world that they’re reading. Specifically, using functional MRIs, scientists observed readers’ brains in the act of reading. The MRIs showed that readers’ brains activated in the same locations as they would if they were living through the scene. This is more than empathy. We experience the story with the character, and because of that connection, challenging scenes from that character’s experience can feel overwhelming.

That’s the time to switch perspectives. Tell the story from the point of view of a dispassionate detective’s recitation of facts, a doctor, or a friend. They might care about the outcome, but they’re not experiencing the event firsthand.

An example of this is from the Harry Potter series. When Harry’s class learns to fly, Neville’s broom takes off, sending him for a few loops before unceremoniously dropping him. As members of the audience, we see this event from further away. It’s more humorous than frightening. That’s a safe rhetorical distance told from the perspective of an outsider (Harry), but later, Harry’s broom is taken over by a curse, and this time, the audience experiences the fear and chaos of his out-of-control broom from his perspective. As readers and viewers, our physiology responds to this disaster because of this closer perspective.

Change Narrative Point of View

For nonfiction and memoir writers, the challenge is greater because yours is the only experience you can write from, so what do you do when you get too close to trauma?

Change to second person “you” instead of first person “I.”

Shifting to second person perspective in memoir came up at an AWP conference in 2020. One of the panelists said that “you” is a narrator who doesn’t want to take responsibility. I disagree, mostly because I noticed that I inadvertently switched to the “you” narrator when an event or experience was still too close. The switch to “you” made it possible to keep writing. The switch gave me rhetorical distance to safely write the scene.

Another perspective shift is to write from the Voice of Innocence. This comes from the Sue William Silverman’s Fearless Confessions and her discussion of narrating a memoir. Silverman writes, “The Voice of Innocence describes the event. The Voice of Experience interprets and reflects upon it.”

The Voice of Innocence, then, gives the reader rhetorical distance because it is told through inexperienced eyes. Because of this, the event is shrouded in the mind of a child, trapped by lack of experience and vocabulary.

This is critical in a book like Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club. It opens with a scene of the local doctor and Karr, then seven, and he is “pulling at the hem of my favorite nightgown.” He asks her to show him the marks. “I won’t hurt you,” he says.

Told through the eyes of the child, the adult reader is tense, aware of the many implications of this opening scene, but nothing explicit is shared. This keeps our emotional reactions more mental than physical, as we make the connection to the unspoken, but we avoid the experience happening to us. The reader does not experience the event in its full horror, nor does the reader get into the mindset and physiological experiences of the narrator.

Another point to notice is that in Karr’s opening paragraphs, we experience the aftermath and not the event, which is another way of handling traumatic experiences. Give the reader the start, and then move to the aftermath, saving both the character and the reader from the full experience.

Protect the Writer

Remember the readers’ brains in the MRI studies mentioned in Cron’s book? I want to take her idea a step further. I posit that as writers, we experience a physiological reaction to the story as we’re writing, which explains why our emotional health is so affected by what we write. Changing perspectives, narrative point of view, and changing to a more innocent narrator saves us from too closely experiencing the events.

Another way to protect the writer is to practice self-care. Perhaps the first rule of writing self-care is to avoid retraumatizing yourself. One of Dr. Pennebaker’s directives is that if “you feel as though you cannot write about a particular event because it will ‘push you over the edge,’ don’t write about it.”

I know. For many memoir writers, writing about the past is cathartic. We write to bring it to the light of day, so not writing about it seems like a failure. But narrative control is not a failure. Remember that you can switch perspectives, change the narrative to second person, or write about the aftermath. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The same rules hold for fiction writers. Nothing says you must write explicit details.

Another aspect of self-care is giving yourself a break, both a break in time and a break from destructive self-talk.

With regards to your writing schedule, limit how much time you spend on the darker parts of your story. Write for twenty-five minutes and then take a break to gauge your emotional temperature. Should you push forward? Or would it be better to take a walk to shake off the effects of the previous scene?

Beyond that, when writing trauma, a daily writing practice may not serve you. Play with the timing that works best—starting with three days a week and adjusting up or down as needed for your emotional health.

Also, keep in mind that you cannot spend an entire book in the dark section of your personal history. Readers and writers need space to breathe and process the events portrayed. Create a bridge scene that moves the story forward while giving the reader an emotional break.

As for you, the writer, monitor your negative self-talk, find its cause, and then talk back.

When I finished my first masters, we presented our thesis project to a small table of complete strangers. It was exciting to have an audience and daunting to share my personal story. A woman at the table asked what I’m sure she thought was a clever question. She asked if I judged or hated myself for the person I was in those essays. I was new to creative nonfiction and inexperienced enough to be shocked at the victim-blaming tenor of the question. This woman I had never met before or seen since became the negative voice in my head. I didn’t have the experience or confidence to respond.

What I would tell her now is that I did what I could with what I had. I do not blame or judge past-me. She made me who I am. I have learned to defend myself. I’ve learned to take care of myself and write with care for my reader. My hope is that you can do the same.

A Golden State Conclusion

While McNamara is a warning to writers and our writerly obsessions, her story did not end with her death. The man she dubbed the Golden State Killer was found and convicted, thanks in large part to her years of hard work and a DNA profile submitted to a genealogy site. At 74, he was sentenced to life in prison.

McNamara once said that her interest was a desire for justice. The victims deserved to have their rapist and killer named and shamed. In that bold aim, she hit the mark.

Writing Prompts

One way to remember past events and to write cathartically is expressive writing which is detailed in Pennebaker’s book. Write stream of consciousness style. Do not judge the writing, the grammar, or anything else. No one says you must use proper punctuation or correct spelling. For each of these bullet point prompts below, write for twenty minutes. If you can’t think about what to write, it’s okay to put, “I don’t know what to write.” Trust me, your brain will get tired of that line.

Complete one of these prompts each day for four days in a row if you can, although I used this method with groups: one prompt once a week and had successful results. Do not try to complete them all in one sitting. The time away from the writing and reflection is good for you.

• Write about the event. Write about your thoughts and emotions around the event.
• Link the event to other areas in your life. How or where do you see the impacts of this event on your current life?
• Write about the event from a different perspective. Write as if you’re another character in the scene, or if there isn’t another person in the scene, write as if you’re a silent observer on the outside.
• Put it all together. How have these prompts changed your understanding of the experience? Can you write a more balanced version of the event?

***

Cindy Skaggs is a writer with a decade of experience teaching writing in higher education. She has ten published books, multiple journal publications, and a Pushcart nomination. She teaches classes in first-year writing, creative writing, writing to heal, and creative nonfiction. She has mentored more than sixty completed novels. Her latest book, Dear Someday Writer, guides writers who want to write a book someday to start today. In 2022, she quit her day job and moved to Ireland to study Irish Literature. It seemed like a good idea at the time.