Reconciling Writing and Real Life
Sometimes I wonder if it's more important to write something realistic, or to write something escapist.
I’ve had this debate before with a non-writer friend. We were both talking about what we had read and/or watched since we last talked, but we had both seemingly forgotten how drastically different our tastes were. She had watched the latest season of her favorite reality show (which is not-so-real reality-based), and I had read a book that was hard for me to get through because it was so beautiful but so painfully relatable to my own family struggles. Nevertheless, we both loved the content we’d consumed.
“Why do you like those silly reality shows?” I asked her, probably a bit too incredulously.
Her answer was something about how they help her escape from mundane, everyday life. At the same time, I like shows, movies, and books that are about the mundane of everyday life—even the painful parts—because they’re relatable.
While this conversation frequently comes up with my friend—it can make it tricky to watch, read, and discuss anything because our tastes are so extraordinarily varied—it also comes up in conversations I have with myself.
As a writer, where do I want to land? Do I want to write brutal, but beautiful, takes on real life, or escapism that allows for the reader to ignore the harshest parts of the world for a few chapters every day?
The truth is that I want to be somewhere in between. I want to provide an escape for readers, but with a healthy dose of real life. I don’t want to beat them down with characters who fight the underbelly of society and what it means to be human, but I also don’t want to provide a perfect journey from meet-cute to happy ending with no hiccups along the way.
Life and writing are about balance.
My exchange with my friend is a perfect example of this—she and I balance each other out. Sometimes, it means I wonder how and why we are friends, but when I take a step back, I realize that we’re the perfect friendship pairing.
I think my writing also needs to be balanced in this way. Some of it can be fluff, but some of it can be brutally real. I can balance a fairytale-style story with the honesty of what it’s really like to be navigating life in this year of our Lord 2025.
While I might say that my books are like Hallmark movies, they also address real challenges. They have characters grappling with grief, finding themselves, and navigating complex relationships. I don’t ever want to take the easy way out and make a book that is nowhere close to real, but I also don’t want to weigh down my characters and, therefore, readers, with too much harshness. I want to explore the light and the shadows, and find a balance of both—just like every day there’s a bit of light and a bit of darkness, and both are equally beautiful.
So that’s what I’m going to do, and I’m going to work to make the balance a beautiful and real thing, even when my characters are a fun way to escape real life.
What are some of your favorite books, shows, or movies that balance the happily ever after with the sometimes difficult journey to get there?
I’d love to find more of this type of media to consume and am always looking for recommendations! One of mine is below…
The final book in one of my favorite series came out last week, and I devoured it in only a few days! The Somerset Stories by Mimi Matthews was a series I didn’t anticipate loving as much as I did, but I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised (it is a novel by Mimi Matthews, after all, and I have quickly become one of her biggest fans). I started the series last fall, and devoured all five of the already published books in record time! Some of them are decidedly short, but still…
Number five in the series, A Lady of Conscience, was a five-star read for me, so I had high hopes for The Governess and the Rogue when I first learned it was coming out this month. Did it live up to those high hopes? I would say yes—while it wasn’t a five-star read, it was quite a lovely one and I did thoroughly enjoy it. Also, a very nice, sweet ending to the series, which focuses on the love stories of the various members of two families in Somerset during the Regency period (although this book sneaks up into the Victorian era). All this to say, I highly recommend the Somerset Stories series by Mimi Matthews if you’re a historical romance fan!
Now to the TV show I’ve been binging—Shrinking! I started watching Shrinking a while back, but it must not have been the right time for me to watch it because I only got an episode or two in and then proceeded to never watch it again—until now, that is. I’m so glad I gave the show another try, because I’m seriously loving it! If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it’s about Jimmy, a therapist reeling from the loss of his wife and trying to navigate his unconventional approach to work and still keep his life together.
It’s honestly such a good show—I find myself laughing and crying throughout. It’s a perfect example of what I wrote about in this very newsletter. I find that Shrinking does a great job of balancing the happy, perfect things with the messy, imperfect things in life. Another noteworthy piece of media that I would highly recommend!
Thanks for searching (and finding) the balance with me, and, of course,
