The Scene I Didn’t Write

Write about what you know is arguably the most famous, most repeated advice on writing known to human kind. Its sound advice; attributed to Mark Twain and in some cases Ernest Hemingway, both prolific writers. If you’re going to take writing advice, which I don’t always encourage for various reasons, it should be from people who at the very least got out there and did the thing we aspire too. 

Writing about what we know is good because when we tap into a place we have been, a situation we’ve watched unfold, we can lace broader descriptions with nuances that bring moments to life for readers. In the story-telling craft, nothing makes me happier than when a reader has a physical reaction, a laugh or sigh (possibly a good cry), from a scene that I penned. Not that I often get to sit with someone while they read, but it has happened and it was great. 

So, true to the old adage, I’m constantly tapping into the memory bank, asking myself crazy questions about things that I lived through. What did it smell like when I set the toaster on fire? What sound does a belt make right before it slips off a pulley and thunks against the hood of a car? How did it feel to find out I was wrong about him/her? 

You may not have ever sat with someone you thought you hated only to realize that they were pretty damn funny and maybe not that bad, but I have. Writing the opening chapters of Graham’s Law of Second Chances was less about the romance for me and more about the ah-ha moment. In my own past life, I felt relief, but I don’t think I realized it at the time. It’s disorienting when your relationship with someone is built around a falsehood that you can’t let go of. My favorite moment is when Lauren can’t handle Noah being nice to her at the end of Chapter 2:

Noah shakes his head, drawing my gaze up to him. His dopey smile is less obnoxious than usual as he says, “You really don’t owe me an apology. A little drywall, a little paint. The walls are as good as new.”

“Okay, you’re being way too nice right now. Can you just make some sleazy comment, so I feel better about myself?” 

Without missing a beat, Noah’s grin ticks up a notch. “Your ass looks great in that skirt.”

I asked for that. I press my fingers to my forehead. My shoulders shake as I suppress my laughter, but Noah chuckles, and I can’t hold back. 

Before any of you ask, my experience was not with the love of my life, Dave. It was a non-romantic relationship. Maybe I’ll share more about that another time… 

The point is, I feel like writing about what we know has worked well for Andrea and I in the Moore Love Series. Also proof of the validity of two heads are better than one. Things that I don’t know, she does, and vice versa. My husband works on skid steers for a living and I just couldn’t let that go until Sarah got in one in Rossi’s Cottage. So, write about what you know is at least decent advice. On the other hand, what about sci-fi? 

I could go off on a tangent about fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction, but I won’t. What I actually wanted to make this blog about was the scene I didn’t write… a scene I couldn’t write. 

Andrea and I have had great success collaborating. For more on our process, check out her post, “How Being Co-Authors Works for Us.” Part of our system includes Andrea drafting the plot and scenes out and sending me notes, snapshots of what and who should be included and what they’re doing. So far, there has only been one scene that I read, immediately started balling my eyes out and sent back. 

“I can’t write this,” I said in a rushed message, as I tried to undo the landslide of nerves and emotions that consumed me. Andrea and I chatted for a bit and the solution was simple: revise the scene. With the goal in mind, we came up with an alternative that accomplished the same experience for our characters without unraveling my nervous system. The thing was, I knew something. I had survived something. And while the outcome for our characters was much simpler, a happy ending, the set up sent me right back to that dark day. 

Writing about what I knew was the worst advice for me in that exact scenario. Not that it’s bad advice in general, but no advice is perfect. Between beta readers, editors, reviews on good reads, and in magazines, (If you subscribe, Rossi’s Cottage was reviewed in the August edition of the “MENSA Bulletin.”) there’s a point where you have to make a judgment call. No one else may get why we chose this adjective, this verb, or giggling over laughing, but we have to make choices. At the end of a full-length novel, that amounts to a lot of decisions, and a lot of advice both followed and ignored. 

We do our best. Andrea and I pour our hearts into our stories, and constantly strive to improve our skills as writers and story-tellers. When you pick up your copy of A Moore Once More, I think you’ll be able to see the growth and polish that four novels in print brings. We are exceptionally proud of this book and the series. Are they perfect? No. Did we write about what we know? Sometimes. Sometimes we researched and improvised. 

But we wrote. We took our shot. We didn’t give up. We revised until we were blurry-eyed. And, no, we didn’t take all the advice we were given. Not because it was bad advice, but because we are the authors. Our creative prerogative aside, we want you to love what we share in print, so we need to love it first. And we do. From cover to cover, book to book, I can honestly say I love the Moore Love Series. I hope you do too.