Does Pain and Suffering Make Us Better Writers?

This is how it happened for me. On a memoir-mentor's blog, a question was posed. I can't remember the exact wording because it was over a week ago . . .  or was it two weeks? . . . Perhaps a month?

Does Pain and Suffering Make Us Better Writers?

Anyway, her question prompted me to reply in the comment section of her blog. I wrote a lengthy response. The blog was the kind that comments have to be approved by the owner. An hour later it hadn't been approved yet.

I waited.  And I tweaked my response a bit. Editing is always a good thing.

A day passed.

My comment still had not been approved.

I wrote to the author.

She replied. (That's always encouraging.) No, my comment had not been banned or tossed aside, she reassured me. She would look into it.

Ten hours later my reply appeared on her blog.

So what was that question?
Oh, yes. Does Pain and Suffering Make Us Better Writers? Do you have to have gone through suffering in order to produce a believable story about suffering?

I wrote:
I know that the first part of my life was much easier than the last two decades have been. Before I think my writing showed stories of life on the “more happy, less sad” spectrum. Now my writing (fiction and non-fiction) reflects the suffering I have been through (death of a young son, bipolar alcoholic ex-husband, adult kids making a number of sad choices, etc.). I’d like to think that the longer I live, the more I’m able to incorporate suffering into my writing with it coming across as “reality” and not “woe is me”. I aim for being authentic. I don’t want to edge away from truth, which, I think is, that the world is a broken place with lots of hurting people carrying loads of baggage. I also believe it is a place where slices of beauty show up and where love abounds. I want to read the works of those who have lived through (or are living through) suffering and show the rest of us how it is done well. I don’t think someone who hasn’t suffered can write a story with hardships that will be believable. One of the reasons I feel this way is because I read a novel where a situation that was something I have been through was done wrong: A mother forgot the day her child died. She had to be reminded by a friend. That just doesn't happen. All the moms I know who have lost a child remember the death date. Always. I do. I think we need to be careful that we really know our subject, especially if we are writing about a suffering we have never experienced.

So now I ask you:  Does having experienced pain and suffering make us better writers?

How about better people?

Feel free to leave a reply in the comments below.  (And rest assured, your comment will appear immediately; no approval needed.)