I’m absolutely thrilled to be on the launch team for Emily Rooke’s debut, A SILENT NIGHT, being released today! Emily is a super active and supportive member of the Writing Community, and from the start I knew I wanted to get my hands on her writing!
A Silent Night is the hopeful, heart-warming tail we all need this Christmas. I genuinely didn’t want to stop reading, and put the book down with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. This is coming from a particularly unsoppy person.
The story follows Charlie. He’s is the epitome of down and out. His life has been a hell that few of us could truly relate to, and as he wanders the streets, cold and homeless he bumps into a young soldier, Vasco. The two hit it off, and Vasco takes Charlie in. But can Charlie open his heart to another, can he really give into the hope that not all people are out to hurt him?
For all it’s seasonal heart-warming, though, A Silent Night, has dark undertones. Charlie’s experiences from childhood and into adulthood are truly gut wrenching. His trauma is very real, and it affects his life, from how he thinks of himself, his turbulent moods and how he reacts to others, even if they are being genuinely kind.
Writing trauma is difficult, and if you get it wrong, it can come across as flippant and offensive. Emily gets it right, though, including the horror without making it gratuitous. So, I asked her whether she’d be willing to guest blog about writing trauma. I was delighted that she agreed, and think the following will be very helpful to writers who want to manage trauma in a sensitive and realistic way.
I can’t thank Emily enough. As she will mention below, she did not need to open up in the way she has done in this article – she does not owe us her story – but in doing so has produced an insightful and thought-provoking article.
Please be warned: the following article contains references to child sexual abuse
On writing trauma – Emily Rooke
When Kat invited me to write a guest article for her blog, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. I just didn’t know how I wanted to write it. For a while, I debated back and forth about whether this should be an informative piece, packed with facts and figures from reputable sources. But then I realised what I was doing. Namely, I was trying to prop up my sense of having the ‘right’ to write about this topic. I wanted to prove that, ‘Hey, I know a lot about this stuff, let me show you everything I’ve learnt, you’re really going to be impressed!’ without actually having to discuss anything below the surface level. As writers, I know how much work we put into our research, whatever subject that might involve. With that said, I am going to gently put down my natural impulse to guard myself with statistics and quotations, and try to share my heart with you instead.
My experience
As a survivor of child sexual abuse, I walk through life with my abuser’s words and actions burnt into me. Just from looking at me, I don’t think you would know. Survivors are good at pretending, staying unnoticed – surviving, basically. Anyone who has experienced bullying will know what it feels like to speak up when you’ve been trodden down for so long. When it comes to discussing this topic, shame rises up like an inferno inside me. I hear his words – decades old, yet vivid in my memory. I get the urge to erase everything I’ve written so far, delete myself off the internet, hurt myself, because … why? Well, what if you read this and you hate me, or are disgusted by me, or don’t believe me? It happens. When secrets are kept, shame festers, and those torn apart are left to pick up the pieces alone.
Children trust adults, and when that trust is betrayed, something bone-deep fractures. I can’t yet tell you if it ever fully heals. But I know that speaking the truth and reclaiming my voice is my power. When my throat closes up and I can’t get the words out, I can write them instead. My fingers keep tapping away on the keys of my laptop, unrestrained. Meanwhile, the rest of my body works its way out of the freeze response and gradually starts to thaw out. My breathing slows again, my pulse returns to normal. I cannot help but look over my shoulder, just to check – but no, he is not here. There is not a day that goes by when I don’t deal with this, in some form or another. A stranger looks at me on the street; a man gets too close to me in the grocery store aisle; a misplaced word here or an inadvertent reminder there. I feel numb a lot of the time, and tired. I am hyper-conscious of the children around me. I get told to lighten up a lot by people who don’t know anything about this. Do you think that encourages me to tell them? I am lucky enough to have had access to some therapy sessions (free, thanks to the NHS). This is only one experience of trauma, among countless others.
Recently, I came across a quotation (in an article on long COVID, of all things) that has stuck in my mind ever since: ‘Survivors do not owe you their story’. Those words go around and around in my head at night. I think that’s because they pierce at a truth that has underscored all of my writing up until this point. What has been my purpose in authoring these stories, about this particular character [Charlie from A Silent Night]? Sometimes I think it is about my own healing. Other times I wonder if it is about teasing out what happened to me in an attempt to understand it. Occasionally I believe it is an expression of a wider pain, driven by the mere fact of existing in this world, where terrible things happen every day and people just have to go on. Then I read something like this, and I think … am I still trying to justify myself, and my own existence? Ultimately, if my writing does that, I will cling to it, and maybe it will help me find a way through the fog.
Trying to cope with the legacy of trauma feels like standing on uneven ground. There is always something moving beneath you, but you don’t know what it is, or when it will trip you up next. Your faith in yourself having been ripped away, it takes a long time to process your experience. Even longer to begin trusting others enough to reach out for the hands they offer you. With that, come more cycles of shame and recovery. Am I worth it? Am I being selfish, unfair to them, impossible to deal with, a waste of their time? I hear the voice that tells me no one could ever love me after what happened I did he did, and I wonder, am I right or wrong to listen to it? This is what I mean when I say that trauma can utterly shatter one’s foundation, although I can now feel my strength taking root and growing stronger, a little more day by day.
The Ghost/Wound as trauma
You may have heard about the concept of the Ghost (or Wound), which for me is at the heart of creating character arcs. The Ghost is something in the character’s past that haunts them, and is intrinsically bound up with the Lie they believe about themselves (which will always be a damaging belief). While the Ghost does not necessarily have to be anything traumatic, it struck me while researching for this article how often it actually is a traumatic experience. If the Ghost caused the Lie, then the Ghost is responsible for what the character is lacking internally – for what is holding them back from being the person they need to become. The symptoms of the Lie can manifest in fear; extreme hurt; the inability to forgive; guilt; horrible secrets; and shame. Looking at this list, do you spot any of these in your character’s behaviour? If you would like to read more about this topic, I highly recommend K. M. Weiland’s articles on ‘How to write Character Arcs’, as well as The Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.
Research before writing trauma
Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions in media (and everyday life) concerning what trauma is, and what a traumatised individual looks like. Because of this, if you are planning to write a character who has been traumatised – whether they are in the process of coping with or healing from their experiences – there are some areas I would encourage you to focus your research on. Firstly, it is helpful to understand the impact of trauma on brain development, not least because this will ground your understanding of your character’s behaviour, decisions and choices in the story. The actions of characters struggling with the after-effects of trauma can often seem strange or even incomprehensible to readers who have not gone through similar experiences themselves. Therefore, I find it helpful to start from a place of awareness, so that you have confidence in your own plan for your character and their journey. This might also branch out into sub-topics such as abusive relationships or the impact of long-term neglect, for example. Educating oneself on the freeze response is (I would argue) crucial, since it is fundamental to the experience of many traumatised individuals, and still seems largely misunderstood or unknown. There are a number of excellent resources online to help with this, and on Instagram I would particularly recommend Emmy Marie’s posts (@bloomingwithemmy).
What does triggered really mean?
At the risk of becoming political, I would also like to touch on the issue of being ‘triggered’. Triggering is the recollection of a trauma. It occurs when a person experiences a sensory reminder of a similar experience from the time of the original trauma (it does not need to be frightening or dangerous in itself, e.g. a particular smell). It can lead to the fight, flight or freeze response, or even total shutdown. To be triggered is a genuinely terrifying experience, and a deeply frustrating one. If I could encourage you to do one thing in your day-to-day life, it would be either 1) To stop sneering at the concept, if you currently do so, or 2) To feel more confident to gently explain to others why it is such as serious issue. Unapologetically Surviving is a fantastic website to check out if you are looking for more information on this topic.
On using content warnings
And hey, while we’re being political, let’s go all out and discuss content warnings. To give you an example, it may well be the case that someone who has had a recent bereavement would prefer not to read a story where loved ones of the main character die on-page. Therefore, a simple bullet pointed list at the back of a book can work wonders for readers in vulnerable places. It’s important to remember that trauma is not a plot twist, so to argue that the story is being spoiled misses the point entirely. As with many things, content warnings are not there for people who do not need them, but for those who do. If you are someone who would never need to look at a content warning page, that’s wonderful, but it means they were not designed with you in mind. Traumatised individuals are all walking along different routes towards recovery, and are at different stages in their journey. It may be that someone is ready to read a book that contains a difficult topic, but would appreciate the forewarning, nonetheless. In my experience, content warning pages are something that readers genuinely appreciate. If I ever have to hear the word ‘snowflake’ again, it will be too soon. This world needs a little more compassion.
Look after yourself
Finally, writing about complex and upsetting topics can take a toll on you, regardless of whether you are writing about an experience you have personally lived through or not. For myself, I often had to take breaks whenever I was writing scenes between my main character and the antagonists in A Silent Night, The Dying Light and The Swallow’s Flight, because it all just became a little too much sometimes. I think it’s often hard to live in the mind of your main character when they are dealing with difficult things. But to also have to immerse yourself into the mind of the perpetrator, and then to jump back and forth between them constantly? It’s not easy. At times like that, I liked to imagine fun, light-hearted AUs for my main character. These were completely conflict-free, self-indulgent daydreams that had no place in the canonical world of my stories, but which gave me a break from what sometimes felt like the relentless cruelty being heaped upon him. Maybe for you it might be a hug, or an episode of a light-hearted comedy, or an upbeat playlist. The main thing is to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you will always reach out when you need to, because there will be someone reaching back for you, too.
A huge thank you again to Emily for this thoughtful and insightful piece. I really recommend giving her a follow on social media, and be sure to check out her website.
Website: www.emily-rooke.com
Instagram: @rooke_emily
Twitter: @rooke_emily
A Silent Night is now out in e-book format. Order it here. Not in the UK? You can order it here.