Skeletons and imagination

Just a short post today. How has your imagination been lately?

My 5 year old nephew came over to my house for the weekend, and we played on the swings outside. He told me stories about his "Team Skeletons". Apparently, he has 5 skeletons that go with him wherever he goes, each with their own names and personaliteis. He reminded me that playing is a part of what I do, an esential part. You can't survive if you can't play in your own mind.

When was the last time you talked to YOUR imaginary friends? I'm trying to reconnect with my old pals. Maybe I'll develop my own team of skeletons. What do you think?

A Penitent Note and Building Characters

Okay, okay, I know. I haven't posted for a few days. I'm really sorry about that, but upkeeping a daily blog is more work than I thought it would be. I'm still adjusting to my new schedule and starting a new job at the same time.

Enough about me. Let's talk about YOU. Today you and I are going to do a little homework together. I promised you exercises, and exercises you shall have.

I think today's homework will be about...

Characters!

Characters are one of my favorite aspects of writing. You can meet anyone from anywhere and anywhen you want. Want to have lunch with an Astronaut on the moon? Go for it. Want to wrestle with Ghengis Khan? The mat awaits you. One of the great joys of writing is found in creating and discovering characters.

Coming up with new ideas, however, can be a real chore.

So for your homework tonight you're going to do something a little different. You're going to create a character, but you're not going to start with a name. You're not going to start with race. You're not even going to start with gender. Not location, not clothes, not history, not anything from the standard character "templates" everyone else will give you. You're going to start with...

What the character has in their pockets.

What's that? Am I nuts? Well, there's no "official" word on that yet, but most probably. I am, however, quite serious. Pick a few random objects, the more random and unrelated, the better. For mine, I chose a computer USB cable, an alarm clock, three marbles, and a stick of dynamite. You can use my list if you want, but it's more fun to come up with your own.

Now comes the fun part. Start asking questions. Who in the WORLD would have those kinds of things in their pockets? What would they do with them? What are they wearing? Why would they use those things? Start listing your ideas on paper. Just let them flow. They might seem silly at first, but most of the best ideas do. It's really a good way

It is going to feel pretty strange at first, like crossing your arms the wrong way. I think you'll find though, if you give it a good try, that you will create a character unlike anything you've ever made before. Besides, don't you deserve to have a little fun with your imagination every once in a while?

The Flames of Inspiration

Creative work is never an easy endeavor, and fiction is no exception. I don’t care if you’re writing a short story, a novel, or a limerick, eventually you’re going to hit the wall and nothing worth reading will come out of your efforts. It’s true of every great mind in every great endeavor. There will come a time when you just don’t know where to go. Characters won’t tell you what they want. Words don’t seem to rhyme even when they should. You’ll be ripping your hair out trying to find just one step in the right direction, but it seems like you’ve already tried every point on the compass.

So what do you do? Do you sit down with a notebook and force yourself to write? Do you build a bonfire and dance around it under the light of the full moon? It gets to the point where that last one will probably start to sound appealing if you think it would work, but I’m going to suggest a radical idea you can try. If that doesn’t work, you try the bonfire idea and email me how it turns out. Okay? Okay.

The answer to this problem, like most answers worth listening to, is sublimely simple. Are you reading closely? Because this trick might change your writing habits for the rest of your life. The answer, in a nutshell is…

STOP WRITING!

That’s right, I said it, stop writing. The answer is you’re probably too close to your work. You’ve lost that spark. That fire that got you started writing in the first place.

Listen up.

Have you ever been to a live concert somewhere and stood with jaw on the ground wondering how it’s possible for someone to do something so perfect? Have you ever been reading a favorite book and looked up, only to find tears in your eyes you didn’t even realize were there? That’s art. It’s real, honest to goodness, powerful, gut-wrenching art, and there’s no way to really describe it in words. It makes you want to be better, strive for more, and work harder.
If you find you just can’t write anymore, you’ve got to get off your butt, get away from the computer/typewriter/napkins in the coffee shop and find something that’s akin to an out of body experience. It shouldn’t be that hard, it’s really all around us. I have a writer friend who goes out camping for a weekend to regain his spirit, and goes back to work on his manuscript on Monday with more freshness and vitality than anyone I know (I’m convinced if I could bottle his secret, I could make a fortune).

Once you get that power back, you’ll know it. You’ll feel ready to start again. You might have no idea what you’re going to put on the page, and that’s okay, because now you’re going to put your heart and soul into it again. So happy traveling, and long live the journey.

Truck Tires Can Cure Brain Farts

It's happened to all of us at one time or another. You're talking to someone you know, maybe even quite well, and the words coming out of your mouth aren't the same as the ideas in your head. People get offended, you embarass yourself, you get that hole in the pit of your stomach. It feels AWFUL.

This tragic condition has come to be known as the "brain fart". It's akward when it happens in conversation, but even more frustrating when you're writing. Some days your mind is so ready to write, and there are ideas pounding in your head, and as soon as you read over what you've just written, you wonder who wrote it. It certainly isn't the mental narration you pictured when you started.

I went through a really annoying period where everything I wrote turned out to be NOTHING like what I imagined it to be. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I did what I always do when I can't figure something out. I took out the notebook I always keep in my pocket, (which you might consider doing too, by the way, and soon you'll go crazy if you're without it) and I started noting the things I was doing each day, and the results of my writing the day following. I found I most often have difficulties saying what I want to say after days I don't exercise.

In order to test my new theory, whenever I started writing and hit that annoying point where I wasn't saying things right, I went outside and tossed an old pair of truck tires around for a while. They were heavy, and I would come in sore, but without fail within a few minutes things were coming out right on the page.

So, in short, here's your mental Beano to relieve brain farts.

1. Find out what's causing them,
2. Remedy the situation.
3. Try, try again.

It's really that simple. As always, continual effort is what's necessary to succeed in writing or any endeavor. Just don't give up!

What makes a writer a writer?

So it's been almost two months since I last posted. My apologies to the one or two people who may have checked back here on occasion. Mostly what happened was I got swamped with some other projects, so this one fell into the corner. How am I going to remedy that situation so it doesn't happen again, you ask? Well, I'm going to make it a bigger priority. How, you ask again?

Simple.

I'm going to make this blog a DAILY blog.

From now on the entries will probably be shorter, more targeted, and as chock full of fiction factoids as I can fill it.

But that leads me to the subject of today's post. What makes a writer a writer? From the time I was a child, I wanted to "be a writer". I would go around telling people about it, carrying a notebook with me everywhere I went, and read how-to books by the master storytellers of the past.

Then, one day, when I was in High School, I got into a conversation with my friend Diana about writing, the creative process, and all the associated fun that comes with it. After talking for a while, she said "I'd love to read what you're writing right now."

It hit me like a ton of bricks in cement sauce. I didn't have a project I was working on. Not even a short story, and I had been sitting there talking like I was some master of the art. In short, I wasn't a writer. I was just a dreamer. Because, as it turns out, the only way to be a writer...

Is to Write!

So get started. Write something every day. It doesn't matter if it's a page of a novel, a short story, or a cookie recipe. Get started.

In her blog "Fiction Writing ~ The Passionate Journey!", Emily Hanlon has a fantastic article on this for her April 30, 2007 entry. Check it out.

http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/archives/blog.html

On Plot

In my experience beginning writers are usually stronger in one of two aspects of storytelling. The first is characters and character development. This is the kind of story driven by people, their choices, and what they do with their situations. While I love this story (and in honesty, this is probably my stronger side too), I also recognize the problems it can pose.
When writing a character driven story, it’s very easy to get lost. Sometimes the character won’t have any idea what they should do next, and you won’t know what you want to happen because “The character is supposed to tell me.” Sorry, Charlie, even characters get stumped sometimes. That’s why, as the creator of this world, you owe it to your characters to be a student of the second side of storytelling, which is plot.

A plot driven story is only a little bit different, but it’s amazing how much trouble it can cause some people. The plot driven story is about events that happen in your world, and how your characters respond to them.
Think about some of your favorite fictions. Usually the powerful stories, the ones that stick with us, are the results of impossible events. Whether it is an addictive ring of power and the war its owner starts, the imbalance of the force in the universe, or the bite of a radioactive spider, events happen and then drive the characters to their destiny.
So how do you write stories like this? The answer is a simple shift in mindset. It will feel awkward at first, as most new things do, but in the end it will increase your ability to write, character OR plot, with a new outlook.

Try this exercise. Sit down to write (which you should be doing every day and preferably around the same time) and make a list of major events. You can either make them up or just record actual ones. Make them disastrous, because disaster is ALWAYS easier to write. Once you’ve done that, think of a character that this event would affect deeply. Start out with a template, like a job or a relationship, and then build from there. Decide exactly what you want to happen with your disaster in detail. If it’s a building collapsing, figure out which floor goes first, where the pipes break, and whatever affect this will have on your character. After you’ve got the stages of trouble all set on paper, then and only then, start figuring out how your character will respond to it. Then start writing. Voila, you have a plot driven story. Congratulations, and be sure to save what you write.