The Stories We Tell in the Gaps

There's a strange thing we do when we don't know something.

We fill in the blank.

Not with facts, usually.

With stories.

Someone's quieter than usual and we decide they're angry. An opportunity goes quiet and we assume we've failed. A room feels different and we wonder what we've done. Plans change. Communication shifts. Something doesn't quite add up.

And before we've gathered a single fact, our brains have written three acts and started casting the sequel.

I'm particularly talented at this.

I'm a writer.

Give me a gap in the narrative and apparently I'll bloody fill it.

Act One: Something happens.

Act Two: I notice something doesn't quite add up.

Act Three: Instead of asking a perfectly reasonable question, I write seventeen possible explanations for it.

Act Four: I analyse the evidence supporting each explanation.

Act Five: I become emotionally affected by events that, at this point, have mostly taken place inside my own head.

It's an excellent creative process.

It's a bloody terrible way to establish facts.

Because while I'm busy writing Acts Three, Four and Five, there's another character in this story who actually knows what happened.

And I could just ask them.

The difference between intuition and assumption

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

There's a difference between noticing that something feels different and deciding we know why it's different.

Intuition can be useful.

It might tell us something has shifted. That something doesn't feel right. That there's a question sitting underneath whatever we're experiencing.

But then assumption barges in, grabs the pen and starts writing the explanation.

And bloody hell, assumption is prolific.

It can produce an entire novel before reality has managed a paragraph.

The trouble is, once we've created the story, our emotions respond to it as though it's true.

We feel rejected by something nobody has actually said.

We become angry about a motivation we've attributed to somebody.

We worry we've done something wrong without knowing that anyone thinks we have.

We rehearse conversations that haven't happened.

We defend ourselves against accusations that haven't been made.

We can even start changing our own behaviour in response to a story we wrote ourselves.

And that's the bit I'm becoming much more interested in.

Why don't we just ask?

Sometimes, obviously, it's because we can't.

There isn't always a question that can be answered. Not everyone owes us an explanation, and sometimes sitting with uncertainty is simply part of being human.

But sometimes?

There's a perfectly reasonable question available to us and we still don't ask it.

Why?

Maybe we're frightened of the answer.

Maybe we're worried about appearing needy, difficult, dramatic or overly sensitive.

Maybe we don't want someone to know that we've noticed.

Maybe we've spent years learning that keeping quiet is safer than taking up space.

Or maybe we tell ourselves we're being chilled and unbothered while internally running a forensic investigation that would put a major crimes unit to shame.

Silence doesn't necessarily bring peace.

Sometimes it just gives anxiety an empty room to decorate.

Finding my voice

I've talked a lot lately about finding my voice.

And I've realised that doesn't only mean using it when I've got something profound to say.

Sometimes finding your voice is much less glamorous.

Sometimes it's simply:

“Can I ask you something?”

Because I'm allowed to ask.

I'm allowed to clarify.

I'm allowed to say when something doesn't make sense to me.

I'm allowed to be curious instead of pretending I don't care.

And I'm allowed to hear an answer I might not particularly like.

That's important.

Because the lesson here isn't ask the question and everything will turn out fine.

Sometimes it won't.

Sometimes the answer will hurt.

Sometimes the thing you feared will turn out to be true.

But I'd still rather deal with a difficult truth than be governed by seventeen imaginary ones.

A difficult truth gives you something real to respond to.

An imagined truth can multiply indefinitely.

Stop writing everybody else's lines

And perhaps this is another part of finding my voice:

recognising when I'm writing somebody else's lines for them.

I've decided what they think.

I've decided what they meant.

I've decided why they did something.

I've decided what they'll say if I ask.

I've written their motivation, dialogue and character arc without giving the poor bugger an audition.

Which is rather controlling when you think about it.

I'm a writer, yes.

But other people aren't my characters.

I don't get to decide their lines.

And sometimes the bravest thing isn't writing the next act.

It's handing them the pen and asking the question.

Then listening — properly listening — to what they actually say.

Maybe there's a better way

So perhaps my new rule isn't:

Never wait to ask the question.

Sometimes waiting is wise.

Instead, it's:

Know when you're waiting because patience is wise — and when you're waiting because you're frightened to use your voice.

I'm trying to get better at knowing the difference.

Notice the gap.

Resist the urge to immediately fill it.

Ask myself what I actually know, rather than what I've decided.

And if there's a reasonable question that could give me the truth?

Ask the bloody question.

Listen to the answer.

Believe people when they give me one.

And then — because I am still a writer, after all —

decide what my next act will be.