| Drama exists in each life. Even people who call | | | | subconsciously tapping into sources we may not |
| their lives dull cannot dodge the drama in them. | | | | be aware we possess. This type of writing can |
| Whether we are aware of our everyday lives or | | | | start with free-flow writing, journaling, |
| not, if we ever feel exhausted, elated, or | | | | brainstorming ideas, lists, letter writing, and even |
| emotional at any time, there has to be some | | | | advertisements and official petitions. Then, from |
| drama there. | | | | its small beginnings, our writing will find the means |
| In every life, some rain must fall. What is more, in | | | | to flow into brilliant fiction. |
| every life, there is some sunshine. Our awareness | | | | If a writer is intimidated by his own life and does |
| of these two facts, especially when they collide, | | | | not want to make a spectacle his privacy to |
| helps us to pinpoint our dramas, because what | | | | other eyes, he can always write in third person, |
| happens to us are events, but what turns events | | | | and he can rename the people and places in his |
| into dramas is our assessments of them and the | | | | life. Quite a few famous novelists write from their |
| way we react to them. | | | | own experiences, from their own dramas, from |
| We need our dramas to feel we are living. When | | | | their remembered roles, yet by renaming their |
| any writing springs from our life, we are showing | | | | characters. One such writer is Ernest Hemingway |
| we have lived and we have kept the account of | | | | ( For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Movable Feast ), |
| our dramas. In the words of the writer Chuck | | | | another is Pat Conroy ( The Great Santini, The |
| Palahniuk, "Nobody wants their problems solved. | | | | Water is Wide). |
| Their dramas... Because what would they have | | | | A favorite novelist Isabel Allende, in her latest |
| left? Just the big scary unknown." | | | | memoirs, refers to each life as a novel and says |
| When we find ourselves in any traumatic, hectic, | | | | that each one of us is the protagonist of his own |
| emotion-packed situation, we feel a certain type | | | | legend. In another section of the same book, she |
| of energy, or sometimes, a draining of energy. So | | | | quotes her husband telling her that she has at |
| why not use that energy or that energy-drain in | | | | least fifty different versions of the way they |
| our writing instead of staying angry, beating up on | | | | met. This shows a true dramatist's mind in action. |
| ourselves, or to the contrary, resorting to denial? | | | | Writing from personal experience is putting down |
| In a drama school in NYU, each student is asked | | | | the heart and soul on paper without any fear of |
| to write a one-act play of his own life. Through | | | | past hurts, hidden fantasies, dreams, or regrets. |
| this process, students gain insight and appreciation | | | | Once a writer can achieve this, he can also |
| into the drama in their lives. | | | | maneuver events, settings, characters, and plot |
| When we write in the context of the personal, | | | | twists to his liking, so what appears as fiction will |
| we get more involved with our plot, and | | | | feel real to his readers. |
| therefore, we may enhance our writing by | | | | |