{"id":705,"date":"2011-09-28T11:41:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T18:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=705"},"modified":"2019-04-27T09:46:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T16:46:21","slug":"writing-about-yearning-in-fiction-and-memoirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/writing-about-yearning-in-fiction-and-memoirs\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing About Yearning In Fiction And Memoirs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone wants a book that keeps them glued to the page. The ones that <\/a>have me reading past bedtime are stories about family or some kind of skewed relationship or a character that\u2019s hungering for something\u2014whether it\u2019s love or revenge. The writers of these books created characters that are real in their heartache. Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was such a character. She wanted to get even for the hurts she experienced in life.\u00a0\u00a0Stieg Larsson<\/a> portrayed her bruised soul so well his trilogy shot up to the top of the best seller list.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A master of telling stories with characters full of anguish is Anne Tyler<\/a>. I first read Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant decades ago, and have been a fan of hers ever since. She writes better than anyone I know about yearning. Yearning for love, for appreciation, and for understanding. She writes about how families\u2014no matter how hard they try\u2014get it wrong. At the time I read Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant\u2014the book she says was her best\u2014I was a newly graduated social worker, and of course, interested in what made families tick. \u00a0Mine and others. No wonder her stories of broken families appealed to me.<\/p>\n

When I recently read Anne Tyler\u2019s book Ladder of Years, I was reminded again of her skill at painting lives that resonate with her readers. I was struck by how lost and confused her protagonist became as the years went by. Her yearning to be understood and loved was palpable. How so much that needed to be said was never said\u2014either by her or her family.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that same struggle that lit up the pages of the memoir \"\"<\/a>The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls<\/a>. We wept as the children suffered through their parents\u2019 missteps. We also cried for the boy in his alcoholic family, depicted brilliantly by author Frank McCourt<\/a>, in Angela\\’s Ashes<\/a>. But not every story about longing brings tears to the reader\u2019s eyes. Some authors pepper their tales of woe with humour, and I did laugh out loud a number of times in Ladder of Years. And I also laughed and felt some sadness for the author\u2019s struggles in that excellent memoir Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert<\/a>. I was also relieved when she began to find her way.<\/p>\n

And what about the old classics?\u00a0 Gone With The Wind<\/a> and Madame Bovary<\/a> are full of yearning.\u00a0 Strong female protagonists wishing for more.<\/p>\n

What better way to hook the reader than write about yearning? When you think about the books you love, wasn\u2019t it because you were intrigued by the characters\u2019 desire and their attempts to get what they want? I\u2019d love to hear what you think.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone wants a book that keeps them glued to the page. The ones that have me reading past bedtime are stories about family or some kind of skewed relationship or… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[178,181,24,176,180,19,177,175,65,179,174],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-angelas-ashes","tag-anne-tyler","tag-characters","tag-dinner-at-the-homesick-restaurant","tag-eat-pray-love","tag-fiction","tag-ladder-of-years","tag-memoirs","tag-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo","tag-the-glass-castle","tag-yearning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-bn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":140,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/more-on-the-novel\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":0},"title":"More on the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"25 \u041b\u044e\u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In\u00a0 discussing the Stieg Larsson's novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, with a friend yesterday, I was reminded about why I like reading this book so much. She mentioned the author's mingling of social commentary with his story. I've always regarded Sweden as this sexually liberal country that was\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/the-novel\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":1},"title":"The Novel: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"24 \u041b\u044e\u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am currently engrossed in reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. At first, I wasn't sure about starting it, as I heard the film was extremely violent. But films and books are so different. I've rarely found a film work well from a book I've liked.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/film-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":700,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/truth-and-fiction-in-the-writing-of-memoirs\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":2},"title":"Truth and Fiction in the Writing of Memoirs","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"23 \u0412\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0441\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My mother is a born storyteller. When I was young, I paid little attention; but when I became a mother myself, I began to jot down her anecdotes. I am so glad I did, as now when I visit, her memory at 96 isn\u2019t what it used to be. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/P1020115-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3418,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2017\/writing\/an-extraordinary-book-of-belonging\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":3},"title":"An Extraordinary Book of Belonging","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"7 \u0416\u043e\u0432\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"My husband, Rob, and I recently visited Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. It\u2019s our second time visiting Cavendish, the place that inspired the novelist Lucy Maude Montgomery in the writing of her children\u2019s classic, Anne of Green Gables. The home, Green Gables, is furnished with period furniture of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Anne of Green Gables","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/IMG_1090.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/IMG_1090.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/IMG_1090.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":493,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/the-battle-over-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":4},"title":"The Battle Over Words","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"14 \u041b\u0438\u043f\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Awhile ago, I wrote about Stieg Larsson's books, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and his sequels and how impressed I was with his ability to write a page turning novel. As many of his fans know, there's a battle now going on about who owns the words that were\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/film-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/the-wife-with-the-angry-memoir1-300x195.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/adapting-for-the-screen\/","url_meta":{"origin":705,"position":5},"title":"Adapting for the screen","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"27 \u041b\u044e\u0442\u043e\u0433\u043e, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd mentioned earlier that I rarely like an adaption of a book for the screen. The exception is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The film, although different from the book in a number of details, is brilliant. It's faithful to the story and beautifully cast and\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/film-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}