I recently ran a creative writing workshop at Spring Gallery alongside our Edgeland Modern exhibition, Back of the Envelope. It was a great success, and so lovely to spend the afternoon drinking tea, making, talking, and writing. I organized the workshop to focus on the idea that each of us has an unwritten letter. I found my thoughts spotlighting the clash between what we say and what we mean and the implications this has on our characters. The unsaid (or even unspeakable) is often the engine inside of creative work. In the workshop, we used the envelope window as a visual to represent the words said and the internal to represent the words felt. An example is below. The window says, “Forty years went by.” When the envelope is closed, only those words are visible, yet with the envelope open, we sense how the words become loaded by the internal unsent letter. So, why is this helpful to novel writing?

Well, it’s a powerful tool for thinking about dialogue and storytelling because every storyline and conversation has two concurrent plots: what the characters do/say and what the characters mean/want. The most engaging stories are when those two plots contradict one another, which is why we fall in love with unlikely heroes. We’re just rooting for ourselves because to be alive is to feel the rub between the inner and outer worlds. 

In my experience, the initial humans we become are typically the result of our unwritten letter, meaning we’ve had little choice. Nothing imprints us more than the unsaid, and my life, not unusually, has followed a pathway that’s been determined by unspoken trauma. Autobiography of a Drone, my novel-in-progress, addresses this trauma disguised as fiction. As I get older, I realize that the process of maturing mirrors the process of editing, which is, essentially, rewriting your story to reflect the life you mean to live, the tale you mean to tell. 

I’m halfway through the first draft, and I’ve reached a point where the characters have their own volition. I’ve gone back and edited the beginning so that Margaret, my main character, can carry forward with her own voice. Margaret feels true to me now. In short, I now know the unsent letter Margaret would write, and, yes, it is very similar to mine, but it feels like hers alone. It’s a relief because it feels like permission. Ultimately, the unwritten remains so because we have not permitted ourselves to write it. I’ve struggled with this book until recently because I’ve felt pinned in and too close to my own history. Now, I have the remove necessary to see what I want it to become. Now, another woman, albeit of my own creation, is writing my letter for me and posting it with one of her own. Maybe that’s why they say that writers write different permeations of the same book repeatedly because we keep creating new circumstances to reveal different sections of our unsent letters. 

The takeaway to ponder – what would your character’s unwritten letter say?

Work example below- 1st page before and after edit. You’ll notice it’s subtle. However, the story shifts from what the plot is about (known/said) to what it’s really about (unsaid/unknown), so the reader knows the unsaid is driving the story.