This Writer’s Life—The Hurtful Story

by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo

I wrote a little piece this week for a flash fiction contest. It flowed beautifully—the words came together effortlessly and I felt I’d captured a moment that encapsulated a much larger sentiment. It was something to which I believed people could relate. I loved the prose itself—it was spare yet poetic. The dialogue seemed natural yet compelling.

Photo: Renato Cardozo

But, I didn’t submit it.

It was inspired by a little something my mother said. She meant nothing by it and I didn’t take it to heart. In fact, inside it tickled me because it was a thing she is so likely to say as to be predictable in a comical way. But I took the little seed of it and pointed it in another direction. It took on a little life of its own, as stories will do, and drew a much more painful mother/daughter picture than that which is my own.

I told my sister (my mother’s only other child) about it and she said it was probably fine. She encouraged me to submit it.

Until she read it.

She hedged, which she never does. (If everyone who read my work reacted to it as my sister does, I would be famous and independently wealthy by now.) It wasn’t the quality of the story—it came too close to the bone, as I worried it did. Even though it did not represent my feelings about my own mother, the mother in the story shared too many characteristics, too much language, with my own mother. Although the portrayal is not overtly mean or over-the-top in any way, in fact, it is quite subtle, it is simply too much like my mother. And what transpires is too much like what goes on in real life. Where my sister and I find these traits to be endearing in our mother, it’s not quite how the daughter in the story feels and the depiction of the mother is not quite so flattering.

I worried I would hurt my mother. I worried that even if I didn’t, that people who read it might think this is how I see my mother. Especially people such as her friends. It is natural, albeit annoying for the writer, for friends and family to attempt to identify the characters in a writer’s work and inevitably deduce truths, whether they be accurate or not.

So, the question is, how do you write the potentially hurtful story?

I know for me, this time, I’ll just hold on to this one. I won’t shy away from questionably provocative topics—there are a few for me that I will write about until I work them out. I don’t doubt that sometimes these issues will make people I love bristle a bit. Maybe even a lot. But that feels okay to me. I think the difference is that it’s not personal; it’s not direct.

I think when writing the potentially hurtful story, you need to check in with your gut. Your intuition will tell you what to do.

I am disappointed because I feel strongly about this piece. Maybe the day will come when it’s okay to think about publishing it. But that’s not right now.

How do you know when a story has crossed the line?
Does that matter to you?

Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo is a writer, reader, yogini (when she can squeeze it in), mom, part-time Office Manager, a homemaker and the Coordinator and Writer for The Writer’s Life blog. She loves to cook and take long walks with her kids and is a woman who wants to meaningfully exchange and intersect with other women writers. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Currently she works at a web development company (because part-time Office Manager buys more groceries than Struggling Writer). She is at work on a novel and a short story collection. Melissa lives in North Central Massachusetts with her family.

Want to write for The Writer’s Life blog? Drop us an email at thewriterslife@hercircleezine.com.

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