Shame, as an emotion, can take on biblical proportions but in writing, shame can be the compass to a story.
At Short Story Fiction Writing at uni, my lecturer, Tegan Bennett Daylight, encouraged us to write about a point in our lives where we felt shame.
I chose two moments. One where I had pretended to be something I wasn’t and another where I told a big, fat lie.
Oh, such juicy stuff for a writer. But writing the words and re-living the secret moments in a fictional setting was exposing.
The first moment was one, where for two years, I hid my divorce from my parents.
I justified my decision because my father was ill — dying in fact.
What better excuse could I have?
The truth was — I was too scared to tell them.
I was caught up in their potential disapproval and the tut-tutting of my mother.
Whenever she mentioned someone who was divorced she would lower her voice — softer than a whisper and say the word very slow. D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
She would brag about how in our family we’d had never had a D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
My pretence extended to cleaning my ex’s house and having family meals with my parents when they visited. It was an elaborate facade, I’d even bring objects from my house so it looked like I still lived there.
This shameful lie has been turned into a short story called The Visit.
It was raw to write, even though the shame of that lie was at least four years ago.
My Dad died without ever knowing his youngest daughter was divorced and when I told my mother she assumed my ex had been terrible to me.
He hadn’t, we had simply come to an end of a 20-year marriage but remain friends and keep our family unit as tight as we can despite our separation.
My big lie — I’m not ready to write about that one. It is a lie of the heart. It is about love and those are the hardest stories to write.
More shame, more stories.
Pic taken at Sydney’s Luna Park. Now, who are they laughing at?
