The extraordinary thing is as artists, as human beings, we do learn from pain. I once was having a very casual lunch with a couple of people, one of whom was an Episcopal bishop. In the conversation, I happened to say that all of my best work had come out of pain. He said, “Let’s hope something terrible happens to you soon.” I didn’t appreciate it. But that is how it is. We grow through our growing pains, through the things that hurt us, through people failing us, through friends betraying us.
The most poignant psalms are the ones where the psalmist is saying, “I could have stood it if it was an enemy who did this to me. But it was you my friend who broke bread with me. You have done this with me.” And then we have to ask ourselves who have we betrayed, who have we let down—maybe simply by being too tired to hear.
This is all part of the creating of character in fiction because all of this produces conflict between people. And conflict between people is an essential part of the writing of fiction, as it is an essential part of our own lives.