The Breakup Stories: Reflections Post-First Draft

Frankie Rowley // Blog Writer

At nineteen, I have completed my lifelong dream: becoming an author. Becoming an author has been anything but the euphoric process I thought it would be. If anything, it was an outlet for overcoming a lot of suppressed emotions and memories. The emotional toll of writing a book was something I wish I would have known before writing mine; ironic, considering my book is about mistakes I made because of all the things I didn’t know before I started dating. The Breakup Stories will come out sometime in 2022, but the recovery might come a little later.

Each page of this book is full of my tears, and I mean that quite literally. There were countless times when I was sitting at my desk, typing chapters away, and all of a sudden, I would feel the exact way I did at fifteen or sixteen, but I was nineteen, sitting in my bedroom. Being at home, in my adolescent bedroom, I was constantly surrounded by memories, as if the ghosts of my past were dancing around my room. I started noticing water rings on my bedside trunk that had lifted the ink from the fabric that I didn’t make, places that used to hold mementos of affection, and books that had worked their way onto my shelves from those who made me feel so small not too long ago. It was a weird place to be in, the duality of future and past. I knew all the pain I felt had been resolved long ago, yet writing the scenarios I went through and my friends went through hurt one thousand times more. I think it hurt more knowing that I was over it, but that version of me wasn’t.

I felt like an older sister, and felt the pain I imagine older siblings of the world go through seeing their little siblings make their mistakes that end up in heartbreak. I applaud all older sisters, brothers, siblings of the world for letting their younger siblings experience life and its mistakes. I cannot imagine how hard it must be.

I never expected to be placed in this position; no one had ever told me that writing a book about the hardest times of my life would cause me to feel immense pain. In their defense, it should have been self-explanatory. I realised two stories in that the pain I was feeling was different than the pain it used to be, and finally labeled it as the pain of reliving. This pain lasted from letter one to letter 39,769 (and counting, thank you revisions). I cannot describe to you the suffocating feeling of trying to stifle your cries and not let too many tears cloud your vision because you have 5,000 words to write and one day to write them. It’s a skill I have mastered over the course of this book because—let’s face it—no one enjoys reliving their breakups.

But, while that was unenjoyable, the worst pain I have ever experienced was writing my last story.

The last story in my book, which is currently named “Story 3: The One That Got Away”, was written not about a breakup I experienced, but about one I would have if I kept being, well a toxic piece of sh*t. I won’t spoil it but writing a metaphorical scenario about the love of my life leaving me is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Placing myself into that space allowed me to feel the greatest heartbreak I have ever experienced, which really helped push forward the emotions of my characters, but also came with placing myself in unrelenting pain.

There were many nights while writing my final story that I avoided writing chapters for days, almost missing my deadline for my first draft submission because they were simply too hard to write. When the words finally made their way from my brain and to the screen, I had to take a mental health day following to recoup. I say this not so the reader feels bad, but so the reader understands that writing a book goes beyond word counts, page numbers, and grammatical mistakes, it is an act of self-reflection in the most honest and brutal way.

I’d wish I had known that the best way to write characters is to become them.

I’m realizing that these are all things I could have guessed, but I wish I had been briefed on beforehand. The unique form of pain that comes from battling the past in future, and trying to both relive and be an outsider to your past all in an attempt to create the best possible story is one I shall never forget and am certain I have not felt for the last time. This pain taught me how to forgive my exes for all the pain they caused me, even brought up some good memories that had been overshadowed by a sea of negatives—I suppose my subconscious’ way of getting over things was to replace the good with the bad. Seeing the good again helped me remember how I felt in those moments a little better, allowing me to create more honest characters—more honest versions of myself. In trying to get out my deepest sadness, I relinquished feelings of guilt, despair, and suffocation past me had burdened present me with. I found myself walking away from simply retelling and into speaking directly to those who these stories were about. I knew I was healing the broken parts of me; I was at 15,16,17 and even 18, letting her let go of the pain she held.

The duality of past and present was no easy thing to learn, but something even harder to try and write in while learning to understand it. If anything, I learned who I was and who I am, and even got to say a few words I never got to say when these things were my present and not my past.