On Writing: Friendship
My book FRIENDS ARE FRIENDS, FOREVER is about identity, belonging, and—like the title says—friendship. So, for this post on writing, let’s look at how our friendships can help us connect to the characters we create.
My best friend Tanya and I met in high school when a teacher assigned us a tornado project. The night before it was due, we worked till 2am, and I slept at her house. After that, we spent a lot of time together. We’d walk her German Shepard at the park. We’d snack on her mother’s pickled vegetables, sitting on the kitchen counter. We’d orbit different social groups at school, but always we were best friends with each other.
In the last two decades, as we meandered through college, jobs, lives abroad, love partnerships, and now parenthood, we stayed best friends. Once or twice a year, we visited each other in different countries and terrible apartments, where I peeked into her life and she peeked into mine.
These days, we talk a lot less than we’d like to. Between work and motherhood on steroids during this pandemic, we have few moments to spare. Plus, there’s our 15-hour time difference. She lives in Amsterdam, and I’m on the West Coast. When I can talk in the evening, she is in the middle of her work day, and vice versa.
But I miss her. I miss her hugs, the kind that squeezes extra hard before letting go. I miss her laughter in that eyes-squeezed-shut kind of way. I miss her intensity about music and food. I miss eating our pickled vegetables and usually some kind of herring. I miss the real-life dimensions of her face (bright eyes + the scar by her nose), her voice (soft + raspy), and her smell (flowers + clean laundry).
So I find another way to connect. When I think about her, I turn on Spotify to see what she’s been listening to. Relaxing spa music and Cuban guitar, one day. Hotel Costes and Foxy Brown, another. Eve, Ashanti, and Nicolas Jaar. And, frequently, nursery lullabies. Song after song, I swim through her day. Dancing on the rug with her adorable kids. Swaying and simmering in the kitchen. Bath time bubbles with a lullaby. Then Missy Elliot, Mary J, Talib Kweli, and JPatterson… a dose of adult before bed. In this way, I slip into her life and feel it meld with mine.
This funny way of trying to connect with a loved one isn’t unique to me. My father-in-law does something similar. Every day, he checks the weather of the cities where his children live. So he can tap into our realities. Are we dressing warmly? Are we driving more attentively? Is that beautiful maple in our yard extra thirsty today?
As writers, we can borrow this idea as we try to step into the realities of our characters. What kind of music fits the characters in this scene? Perhaps nothing but their stifled breaths and deafening heartbeat. What kind of weather is on this day? What kinds of choices does the character make despite or because of it?
How do we create characters that feel as real as ourselves, our children, or our best friends?
How do we bridge the distance?
How can we slip into their shoes in this scene... and the next?
Happy writing.
