The Cost of Writing Your Truth

When our characters show us who we are

Apr 30, 2025

If you’re new to The Rebel MFA Way, welcome! This is an essay in my ongoing “Writing Fiction to Heal in Real Time” series where I deep-dive into my writing fiction to heal method as field work and a case study. To begin, I will be working through my story, The Archive, which you can find more information on here.

[NOTE: Your email provider may truncate this essay, be sure to click on “keep reading” to read the entire piece.]

WAVES! Hi! I’m back after my two-week break and more excited than ever to continue Ari (and my) story. Thank you so much for following along!

Two weeks away from writing taught me something unexpected about truth-telling. Between moments of recharging and daydreaming, between conversations about my work and quiet hours of research, a question kept surfacing: What is the real cost of writing our heart's truth? When we transform our lived experiences into story, we pay what I've come to think of as a "life-tax" - the price of exposing not just our own vulnerabilities but the complex web of connections that bind us to others. I've been wrestling with this tax lately, particularly as I work on The Archive, trying to understand: What do we owe to truth? What do we owe to the people whose lives intersect with ours? And what happens when those obligations conflict?

For months, I've written Ari in isolation – surviving alone, remembering alone, carrying the weight of others' actions alone. I needed that solitude, not just for her but for myself. Every word I wrote was a conversation with my own shadows, letting me explore grief and survival through fiction without other voices drowning out the whispers of my deeper truths.

Then came Demi, stepping onto the page like a shadow I couldn't keep out any longer.

And suddenly, the careful walls I built – both around Ari's story and my own hidden selves – are crumbling.

Writing a character in isolation is like wearing a mask of your own design. But writing a relationship strips away that control. When characters interact - especially in ways rooted in real emotional truths and unspoken histories - you're forced to embody multiple roles, to dance with different aspects of yourself you might prefer to keep hidden. It's more vulnerable. More alive. And infinitely more dangerous.

This is where writing fiction to heal gets complicated.

Here's what I've learned about writing fiction to heal: our characters are both mirrors and shadows, emerging from our wounds like fever dreams. They wear the faces of people we've known - those we've loved and lost - but transformed through memory and myth into versions we can finally face. More dangerously, they wear our own face, reflecting back the multiple selves we carry within, the ones we've hidden away in the darkest corners of our psyche.

Sometimes I catch myself hoping certain people will read these pages and see themselves. The mother who might recognize her reflection in a character's fierce protectiveness. The friend who might understand, finally, why I pulled away. But I'm beginning to understand that this hope isn't just about them – it's about the dialogue I've been afraid to have with myself. Each character is a door I've been too scared to open, guarding conversations that need to happen not just with others, but with my own buried truths.

Nobody warns you that writing to heal isn't just about letting go of pain — sometimes it's about reaching through it, using it like a bridge to connect with someone on the other side.

But the risk is real.

Writing relationships into fiction is like casting stones into dark water – you can never quite predict what will surface in the ripples. Beyond the risk of being misunderstood by others lies a deeper danger: seeing too clearly the parts of yourself that have been hiding in the shadows. The parts that have hurt others. The parts that challenge the carefully constructed identity you've built. And once you've seen these truths clearly, you can't unsee them. You can only decide what to do with this new knowledge.

The thing about telling your truth is this: you can't just write it and walk away. Each character you create becomes a mirror you must face, a conversation you must have with yourself before you can have it with anyone else.

I learned this lesson through bitter experience. Years ago, raw with unprocessed grief, I wrote about my family. Every slight, every betrayal I'd ever felt poured onto the page like venom. For a brief, intoxicating moment after sharing it online, I felt powerful. Vindicated. Free.

The horror crept in slowly, then all at once.

What I'd really exposed wasn't their failures but my own desperate need to be heard, my willingness to wound the people I loved most just to make them feel a fraction of my pain. The story revealed far more about me than it ever did about them - about the ways trauma can turn truth into a weapon. That day carved something permanent into my understanding of writing:

When you write from truth, you're responsible not just for what that truth reveals about others, but for what it unveils about yourself — the ways it breaks open your carefully constructed identity and heals the fragments you've kept hidden.

The weight of that responsibility grows heavier with each new character who emerges from your psyche. The ones who love your protagonist despite her flaws. The ones who challenge her deepest beliefs. The ones who teach her lessons you're only beginning to learn yourself. These characters aren't just echoes of people you're trying to understand - they're aspects of your own soul rising up, demanding to be seen and heard.

That's who Demi is to Ari.

That's who Demi is to me.

But there's another layer to this truth-telling: Demi isn't just a mirror reflecting people I've known – she's reflecting back parts of myself I've been afraid to claim. When she challenges Ari's isolation, she's voicing the whispers of my own emerging strength. The part of me that's learning to tear down walls instead of building them higher. The part that finally understands that healing, like truth-telling, requires witnesses.

Maybe Demi represents the voice I wish I'd had years ago, the one brave enough to ask uncomfortable questions, to challenge the silence, to demand connection even when solitude feels safer. She's the part of me that knows survival isn't just about endurance, it's about reaching out, even when reaching hurts.

This is another cost of writing truth: sometimes the characters we create show us the parts of ourselves we've been too afraid to claim.

Here's what I've come to believe: when we write fiction to heal, we're performing a kind of alchemy with our shadows. Each character becomes an aspect of ourselves transformed through the crucible of narrative. Instead of seeking revenge, we reach for integration. But this magic isn't gentle. The most honest moments of self-recognition often come with their own kind of bleeding.

I have to own that reality. I do.

Because writing from truth isn't a solitary act – it's a dialogue between all the versions of ourselves we've been and are becoming. When we invite readers to witness our stories, we're also inviting the scattered pieces of ourselves to speak, to be heard, to leave their marks on the page. Even when those marks look like bruises.

I try to write with courage. But I'm learning that true bravery lies in listening — to others, yes, but also to the whispers of my shadow selves speaking through these characters.

And when someone asks, “Is that me?” I've learned to answer with the most honest thing I can say:

It's you and me both — the place where our shadows dance together, where memory transforms into myth, where the stories we tell become bridges between all our fragmented selves.

Next time…

I’ll be talking about what it’s like to live inside your fictional world for a time and what benefits (and drawbacks) come with that experience.

Don’t want to get these email notifications? Or maybe you want to make sure you get these notifications? Manage your notification settings here: