'Outgrowing' a Type of Narrative or Genre

[MajorKerina]

I had an interesting discussion with a close friend who had found they no longer had an interest in elements and sub topics of my narratives where characters are wrestling with their psychology and self identity because they found they have successfully gone through therapy and psychological concerns to become a better fuller person. That no longer connected with them and they had an interesting assertion that I would feel the same if I took the same path. They've been encouraging me to take similar therapy sessions for family traumas and other similar stuff.

A lot of my personal therapy tends to be with creating narratives on many levels of what writing means to me as a person. They think that I will "grow out of" some of my more overwrought choices and narratives and never touch them again like they did.

Of course, them making that assertion makes me want to be totally contrary to it. And if therapy and becoming a more complete, happier person was the end of writers stressing out about life and existence then a whole lot of writers would've given up writing when they dealt with stuff.

My theory instead is not that you give up a genre just because you're making life changes as a writer. What is important to you can shift with where you are in life and how you feel. But I think even overcoming personal issues just opens up new avenues to deepen the things you enjoy, creating and adding new styles and nuances to them.

But those are just my thoughts. I'm curious where and how often others may have had experiences where some change in life or perspective has changed what they choose to write and what genres they are interested in and if there are ever crossover commonalities like shifting into a particular sub genre or changing the subject but still having certain character quirks or expressions of their self, evident in the style of characters. I don't think any writer can ever escape creating characters that have touchstones linked to themselves.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

I had an interesting discussion with a close friend who had found they no longer had an interest in elements and sub topics of my narratives where characters are wrestling with their psychology and self identity because they found they have successfully gone through therapy and psychological concerns to become a better fuller person. That no longer connected with them and they had an interesting assertion that I would feel the same if I took the same path. They've been encouraging me to take similar therapy sessions for family traumas and other similar stuff.

A lot of my personal therapy tends to be with creating narratives on many levels of what writing means to me as a person. They think that I will "grow out of" some of my more overwrought choices and narratives and never touch them again like they did.

Of course, them making that assertion makes me want to be totally contrary to it. And if therapy and becoming a more complete, happier person was the end of writers stressing out about life and existence then a whole lot of writers would've given up writing when they dealt with stuff.

My theory instead is not that you give up a genre just because you're making life changes as a writer. What is important to you can shift with where you are in life and how you feel. But I think even overcoming personal issues just opens up new avenues to deepen the things you enjoy, creating and adding new styles and nuances to them.

But those are just my thoughts. I'm curious where and how often others may have had experiences where some change in life or perspective has changed what they choose to write and what genres they are interested in and if there are ever crossover commonalities like shifting into a particular sub genre or changing the subject but still having certain character quirks or expressions of their self, evident in the style of characters. I don't think any writer can ever escape creating characters that have touchstones linked to themselves.

I think this is very well said, and I agree. Just look at others who have been successful in the industry. The tones of their stories might change, but they will always have their own author voice. Many will even change genres, and still have a similar voice. Writing is so unique in that way. You can copy other's styles, but a part of you always gets left on the pages.

The only thing that I might disagree with is that you can grow out of narratives. An example I can give is tragedy. I find that when I am in a better mood I am less likely to want to consume tragedy, and perhaps if I became always happy I would never read tragedy. For anyone similar it would probably feel draining to read.

That being said, genres like tragedy are inherently more draining to read for most people. They could just be burnt out of it.

 

[Jemini]

It is also worth noting, there are certain life experiences that you don't outgrow. Rather, they are things that happen and afterward they eternally change your outlook on things.

One of those things is the death of a family member. It's something I've experienced a total of 4 times so far in my life. 3 of those were simply grandparents dying of old age, but 1 was my mother, and she was quite certainly not in a situation where it would have been expected for her to die at her age.

Experiences like that cause you to view areas in literature where the deaths of character loved-ones with a more critical eye. You come to appreciate the ones that handle the scenario with care and attention to the reality of what's happening and what it makes the character go through emotionally a lot more, meanwhile causing you to look at loved-one deaths that are handled poorly with a level of disgust other readers might be more forgiving of.

I'd dare say I can tell the difference at this point, having gone through the experience myself, whether a writer actually knows what death is really all about or not when they write it in their stories. You don't have to have experienced a close death in order to know what it's about, but those who haven't gone through that kind of experience really should do their homework, because people like me who have had first hand experience will know and we will hate you if you do it wrong.

 

[Tsuru]

I had an interesting discussion with a close friend who had found they no longer had an interest in elements and sub topics of my narratives where characters are wrestling with their psychology and self identity because they found they have successfully gone through therapy and psychological concerns to become a better fuller person. That no longer connected with them and they had an interesting assertion that I would feel the same if I took the same path. They've been encouraging me to take similar therapy sessions for family traumas and other similar stuff.

A lot of my personal therapy tends to be with creating narratives on many levels of what writing means to me as a person. They think that I will "grow out of" some of my more overwrought choices and narratives and never touch them again like they did.

Of course, them making that assertion makes me want to be totally contrary to it. And if therapy and becoming a more complete, happier person was the end of writers stressing out about life and existence then a whole lot of writers would've given up writing when they dealt with stuff.

My theory instead is not that you give up a genre just because you're making life changes as a writer. What is important to you can shift with where you are in life and how you feel. But I think even overcoming personal issues just opens up new avenues to deepen the things you enjoy, creating and adding new styles and nuances to them.

But those are just my thoughts. I'm curious where and how often others may have had experiences where some change in life or perspective has changed what they choose to write and what genres they are interested in and if there are ever crossover commonalities like shifting into a particular sub genre or changing the subject but still having certain character quirks or expressions of their self, evident in the style of characters. I don't think any writer can ever escape creating characters that have touchstones linked to themselves.

You made me curious to re-check on the situation of Tang San
the author of Douluo Dalu (Soul Land) (yes he got same name as the protag)

The legend-man the last time i heard of, he was in depression (and could be seen in his writing/latest chapters)
because his wife.............lost the fight against "you-know-what-disease".

If god exist, he is a fucking selfish man. Or maybe devil replaced god after he left after the 7days of creations at beginning.
Because whatever is up there, they love to make good people and geniuses suffer a lot. Or to make them hurry up to go "up".

 

[MajorKerina]

It is also worth noting, there are certain life experiences that you don't outgrow. Rather, they are things that happen and afterward they eternally change your outlook on things.

One of those things is the death of a family member. It's something I've experienced a total of 4 times so far in my life. 3 of those were simply grandparents dying of old age, but 1 was my mother, and she was quite certainly not in a situation where it would have been expected for her to die at her age.

Experiences like that cause you to appreciate areas in literature where the deaths of character loved-ones are viewed with a more critical eye. You come to appreciate the ones that handle the scenario with care and attention to the reality of what's happening and what it makes the character go through emotionally a lot more, meanwhile causing you to look at loved-one deaths that are handled poorly with a level of disgust other readers might be more forgiving of.

I'd dare say I can tell the difference at this point, having gone through the experience myself, whether a writer actually knows what death is really all about or not when they write it in their stories. You don't have to have experienced a close death in order to know what it's about, but those who haven't gone through that kind of experience really should do their homework, because people like me who have had first hand experience will know and we will hate you if you do it wrong.

Interesting example, because in one of my recent narratives, I actually worked through the death of one of my parents with the character dealing with the sudden death of their godfather in the absence of their father. I had maybe not the best mom and despite friends telling me I keep putting issues about that parent into writing, it's an important expression for me. They see repetitive themes but every time I try to translate those issues, I always work at coming at it from a different angle or different aspect.

Even though it's been a long time since I wrote it, I can still vividly remember the scenes where character parents die. The absolute sense of panic, helplessness, and emotional defeat has long been something I've worked to translate creatively. The character was at a hospital and they had all these nurses presenting different things they needed to urgently make a decision on such as life support. I actually made the character braver than me in understanding to let go much earlier in the process. The scene of them curling up in their parent's hospital bed as much as they can for one last moment of being close to their parent is what I vividly remember and desperately hope I translate it effectively.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Because whatever is up there, they love to make good people and geniuses suffer a lot. Or to make them hurry up to go "up".

No.

It is unfortunate that doing the "right" thing is often difficult, whereas doing the "wrong" thing is often easy. While everyone wants to aspire to greatness, you can only be as good as the universe allows. The problem is, the difficulty of being "good" is often logarithmic.

It is easy to share food when your belly is full and your bills are all paid. It is difficult to share food when you are trying to protect your family during a zombie apocalypse.

Good people suffer more because good people want to do good, therefore, they must do what is more difficult. This leads to suffering, but usually of a situational nature.

Geniuses suffer more, because the smarter you are, the more you understand. Understanding rarely brings happiness. Ignorance is bliss, so those who are smart have greater potential empathy and thus they suffer more from hypothetical knowledge that leads to dread.

A great example would be the Black Widow movie a few years back. The MC is breaking someone out of a prison. In the process, she causes an avalanche and buries the prison in snow. It is a Russian prison. Now, the sound track and reaction is all supposed to make us think this is a good thing. They are the heroes, after all.

Tell me, how many innocent people do you think get sent to prison in Russia?

They just buried an ENTIRE PRISON UNDER SNOW. They will suffocate at BEST. At worst, there will be riots, people trying to survive, the guards, who are just doing their goddamn job will have to deal with the prisoners. It would not surprise me if the whole place devolved into cannibalism within a week.

This was one of the most horrific acts I've seen a "hero" do in a movie, EVER.

Now, if you are a moron, you watched the movie, seal clapped, and moved on.
If you are smart, you thought about what happened and spent the next few nights having nightmares about being arrested in Russia for political reasons, then being buried alive and devoured by your fellow prisoners when they went feral.

The idiot will be happy. The Genius will suffer.

Such is the nature of life.

 

[Jemini]

Interesting example, because in one of my recent narratives, I actually worked through the death of one of my parents with the character dealing with the sudden death of their godfather in the absence of their father. I had maybe not the best mom and despite friends telling me I keep putting issues about that parent into writing, it's an important expression for me. They see repetitive themes but every time I try to translate those issues, I always work at coming at it from a different angle or different aspect.

Even though it's been a long time since I wrote it, I can still vividly remember the scenes where character parents die. The absolute sense of panic, helplessness, and emotional defeat has long been something I've worked to translate creatively. The character was at a hospital and they had all these nurses presenting different things they needed to urgently make a decision on such as life support. I actually made the character braver than me in understanding to let go much earlier in the process. The scene of them curling up in their parent's hospital bed as much as they can for one last moment of being close to their parent is what I vividly remember and desperately hope I translate it effectively.

In my case, it was me suddenly finding her in her bedroom, having died of opiate related causes. Like, her pain-killer opiates she was perscribed caused her death at the perscribed dose.

It is really hard to describe how that feels, being the one who finds the body of your dead parent. I worked with expressions of split personality for a while in my writings after that, which was a result of me pushing that dissociative state I was in at the time to a level further. It's really hard to express what a dissociative state is like in writing. It was like my mind was suddenly partitioned in two. The side of my mind that was doing the thinking seemed strangely calm and logical about the whole thing. I knew exactly what was going on and exactly what had to be done.

However, that calm and logical part of my brain was not the part that was in control of my body. An outsider looking in would have seen me behaving like an irrational mess. It was as though that rational part of my brain that was watching all of this had become a prisoner in my own body, and my body was acting out all the normal irrational behaviors you see characters on TV doing in response to loved-one deaths against my will, trying to shake her to wake her up in vain, and then when I finally got my body to listen to me and call 911, all I could do was just babble stuff until the dispatcher started prompting me on my home address and such.

In regards to how smoothly that 911 operator just started asking questions and went on without issue considering how incoherent the part of my brain controlling my mouth was, I imagine calls like mine are not all that out of the ordinary for them.

But, yeah. Dissociative states are very weird. I don't think I've ever seen them portrayed effectively in writing. It all comes off like split personality or out of body experience or something. I mean, actually, I think the only times I've ever seen it portrayed effectively is in manga. That would be because that's the only medium that even makes it possible to portray it accurately, because you'd need to be able to show the actions the person's body is taking are in complete disagreement with the thoughts coming up in the internal-monologue speech bubbles. There's no good way to portray that without a visual component, and in the case of live action or animation it's not as natural to portray the internal thoughts.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Of course. Taste and preference change with time. When I was younger, I prefer a more light-hearted and silly stuff (I still do), but now that I'm older, I want a bit more grit and realism. I'm also more interested in characters and relationships than world building and kiss kiss bang bang.

Seems you write as a therapeutic outlet. That's good. It's one of the many reasons why people write. My reason is pure passion. Storytelling has been something I love from a very young age, and now that I get to create my own, I'm more than happy.

Never compromise your taste, man. Just do what you wanna do.

 

[Agentt]

This reminds me of this thing I read about, Tarot Healing.

Basically one card is picked from the tarot deck, and that card is where you are stuck in life.

If the card if Fool, for example, that's you. You are the Fool.

You are now supposed to talk with the Fool, ask how he is feeling in this situation, what he would do and think about how to progress

 

[Absolution]

As people grow up and their concerns change, what they care to write about will naturally change with that. I wouldn't say its the same as growing out of something per say, but its true. Someone who's over 30 is unlikely to write "finding yourself in the world" type narratives because by the time you're about 36, you've already figured out who you are and what you're doing. There are also types of narratives, like a generic, unintelligent commentary on identity (e.g. most examples of ethnic conflict and slavery in generic isekai, or whatever "Bright" was trying to do), that people grow out of as they get smarter and wiser with age. But I do feel that each writer will have their own field of expertise and field of interest that will kinda steer their writing and approach to specific themes. Unless they are writing for a specific psych-related purpose.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

In Traditional Literature, this "outgrow" genre is a well-established genre in Modern English Literature, the name is "Bildungsroman." You can find these characteristics in James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", which is the first name which I always remember when I see this kind of thing in literature...

​

 

[QuercusMalus]

If god exist, he is a fucking selfish man.

God was the first Sadist.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

God was the first Sadist.

Why?

Let's go with the bible, shall we?

God offered perfection. There is only one perfection. Adam and Eve said, "We'd like free will." So, by definition, any choice Adam and Eve make will be less than perfect. In other words, suffering.

So, where's the sadist part? Either tell them, you have no free will and live in perfection, or you have free will and will suffer.

You might ask, "Why not help out, god?" He did help out. He offered perfection. Therefore, where is he supposed to draw the line? This level of suffering is okay, but that level isn't? You either have free will, or you don't.

Make up your mind.