Sometimes My Lies Are True
As part of our new interview series, Benjamin Frandsen has written the following creative nonfiction piece on the craft of his published essay, “Some Mother’s Darling” (Volume 66, issue 4).
Nonfiction can accurately depict a world surrounding you with lies. Fiction may be skillfully woven together with unbreakable strands of truth. But as a writer, far more important than the classifying genre of your work is knowing that the words are authentically you. I learned this lesson young.
I was five years old. My first “movie presentation” was about to begin. My parents beamed as the dinosaur blanket curtain opened. “And . . . action!” I chirped.
I knew precisely how many Star Wars action figures it took to defeat tonight’s antagonist, my gargantuan stuffed gorilla. Though my mise-en-scène would have inspired no envy from Peter Jackson, and the cheerful applause was probably more loyalty than admiration, I was hooked. I had witnessed the miracle: my inspired thought had been conveyed and then experienced by my audience. I had created a moment.
Lesson 1: Create Moments
You don’t have long to grab the reader’s attention. Think of the scene, story, or idea you want to convey. Can you think of an emotionally charged moment inside of your subject that will jump off the page and bring the piece to life? Pause now and write it down.
The medium you select to tell your story is not as important as transporting the reader into the scene. Though I’d grown up dragging my pen across the page, I’m not sure I truly became a writer until I thought I’d lost everything . . . and was forced to find it again at the tip of my pen.
CUT TO:
EXT. JAIL CELL – DAY
BENJAMIN (29), his eyes laser-focused, stands in his sepulchral cell, wearing LA County Jail blue scrubs. He’s scouring books that lie open: Screenplay, The Writer’s Journey, The Screenwriter’s Bible, The Book of the Samurai.
METALLIC CLANKING comes from all around him, but he ignores it. Separated into three acts, 100 homemade “scene cards” blanket his rusty metal bunk. He squints into the invisible distance, pencil tapping as his tongue pokes out the corner of his mouth.
Lesson 2: Set the Scene
Your reader’s awareness begins by floating through your words, trying to connect with something. Give them a setting their mind can inhabit. Give them surroundings they can see, feel, and touch, so they can settle in, take a seat, and allow you to narrate the rest of the journey.
There is a saying in screenwriting workshops that holds true for writers in any medium: “Point of view isn’t where the camera is. It’s where the heart is.” In the script excerpt above, the camera is on Benjamin, but where is his “heart”? Where is his attention, his passion? In the nearby texts on writing and Asian philosophy, and in the scenes he’s obviously spent countless hours scribbling onto cards. This tells you more than how he looks; it tells you what is important to him and, thus, what he loves.
If you want your readers to be truly engaged with your writing, give them a protagonist they can root for, relate to, and understand. In Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the protagonist is “Scout,” a little girl whose father is an attorney named Atticus Finch, appointed to represent a Black man accused of a horrific crime. As Scout struggles to understand why their racist neighbors are so furious with her father for preparing to give his client a vigorous defense, she expresses her frustration with them. Her father cautions her, saying, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” He’s right—and for you, the writer, keep in mind that your readers are unlikely to understand or relate to your protagonist unless you provide them with a window into their point of view.
Lesson 3: Transport the Reader Into Your Protagonist’s Point of View
Have you ever experienced a book or a film that failed to hold your interest because you found yourself thinking, I don’t really care about any of these characters? The cardinal rule for any scribe is: Never alienate your readers. They need to see, hear, feel, smell, and touch things with the character. They need to temporarily become them.
So, this week, as you think about yourself as a writer, remember that there is a story—powerful, engaging, whole, hovering over you like a comforting cloud. Don’t fight it. Let it settle on you, awaken your mind, and bring your words to life. You may be recounting yesterday, you may be dreaming up tomorrow. But I have learned that no matter what type of story finds you—poetry, screenplays, memoir, or fiction—the truth is in the telling.
And sometimes our lies are true.
Benjamin Frandsen is a writer, educator, public speaker, and the founder and executive director of the Ben Free Project. After spending eighteen years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Benjamin turned to writing and education as acts of survival and transformation. While inside, he earned nine associate’s degrees and served as a literacy tutor for students in college, GED, and ESL classes. Upon release, Ben began hosting his show, the Ben Free Pod-cast, and was accepted into UCLA, where he graduated with honors in English. His poetry has appeared in Iconoclast, PEN’s World Voices Festival, and on the TEDx stage. He is now pursuing his MFA in creative writing at San Diego State University, where he also serves as a teaching associate and mentor in the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program. His publications include work in Columbia University’s exCHANGE magazine, PEN America, Open Campus, UCLA Magazine, the Prison Journalism Project, and the Vera Institute of Justice.
