Laura Stanfill
On Harnessing the Urge for Artifice
Sitting in my living room, I wonder what the gold vintage sectional says about our family. It’s small, like the four of us, a just-right fit for our bodies, the nubby fabric loosened by our dog’s toenails. What about the overflowing bookshelves? Or the craft supplies waiting for a teenager’s complaint of boredom? Never fear—let’s practice some fancy lettering!
If I wanted to post a photo of this place, I might cut telling details out—the well-loved couch, the sagging bookshelves, the pretty pens—and focus on the cover of my forthcoming book. Or a closeup of my dog. Or a hand-lettered message I made with the pens I haven’t yet put away.
Trying to connect our reality to someone else’s moment of observation is an act of creativity. We choose what to share by imagining how others will perceive it. We—the content creators—get to place the frame. To cut out what’s awkward or messy. This process can be reassuring and empowering. Want to feel like a writer? Snap a selfie with your laptop and a latte, then you can sit down and write without wrangling doubt out of the way.
The quiet cabin writer’s life I yearned for as a child is absurd to me now. We need platforms! Newsletters! Bluesky! Besides, I would make a terrible cabin dweller. I am too afraid to light my own fires. I am jumpy. Alone in a cabin, I’d keep busy expecting catastrophe. A suddenly dry well, a fugitive loose. Fireworks igniting dry brush.
So how do I replace that cabin with something more realistic while acknowledging the artifice implicit in social media? By drawing perimeters around the life I have now. The kids stay outside the frame. My kooky hat: inside the frame. A book: inside. My dinner: outside. With time and intent, my social media feeds become a simplified, curated version of my life.
To build genuine artifice, if we can call it that, we must consider the feeling we want to achieve and then set the scene to achieve that effect. That kind of filtering is key to writing scenes, just as it is to creating an online presence that reflects our lives the way we intend. Once we know how we want to make the reader feel, then we can drop objects, actions, and dialogue into place to evoke that reality, even if it’s total fiction. Just like adjusting the frame of our selfie.
Grab a piece of paper. Draw a square to represent your scene. What subjects and characters fit inside? How does it look and smell and feel within the box (scene)? Is there enough detail? Texture? Emotion? Do your characters come to life within the parameters of a specific moment?
Then consider what’s outside the box, impacting the scene from a distance. This could be a flashback, an irrational fear, the previous scene, or a new character. Maybe it’s something your protagonist doesn’t want anyone to see.
What’s beyond the frame is often more revealing than what’s inside. You might find something unexpected if you play with those borders.
Laura Stanfill is the author of Imagine a Door: A Writer’s Guide to Unlocking Your Story, Choosing a Publishing Path, and Honoring the Creative Journey, published by Forest Avenue Press on April 1.
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Writing Tips.
