Cartoon from Mimi and Eunice: http://mimiandeunice.com/category/advice/
It seems every question here at the Café is tricky lately, for one reason or another. This non-fiction question had me stumped at first—not because I couldn’t think of anything, but because we’re a bunch of writers, most of us writing in similar genres, so other people kept grabbing my answers.
My go-to answer was to say I’d write about depression. I was not alone in this response, so I moved on. I write urban fantasy. I read a lot of cryptozoology articles and know way more than I should about aliens, Bigfoot, and chupacabras.
Again, that subject got snatched up for this assignment pretty quick, too.
So, I had to dig a little deeper and be a bit more honest. I have to confess something a little weird about myself. (more…)
This week’s question is tough. Telling you what I do to keep readers turning the page assumes two things—first, that people do feel compelled to turn the pages of what I write, and second, that I actually do things intentionally to make that happen.
I don’t have a big enough ego (yet) to be sure of either of those things. All I can tell you is what I try to do:
Go for the unexpected. If the story seems to be travelling in a straight line, swerve to the left or right and throw in something bizarre. In my books, this often translates to a lovesick satyr on the doorstep, a unicorn with a skin rash and no virgins around to treat the wounds, or a gremlin waylaying my heroine and dragging her off to break up a fight between his brothers in the tool shed.
Drop a bomb at the end of the chapter. Blow something up. Have someone unexpected show up and say something weird, threatening, or ominous. Toss the main character over the side of a ship into shark-infested waters. Have the ex-husband show up and bang on the restaurant window while the main character is on a date. (more…)
My favorite writing advice comes from a writer whose work I don’t enjoy, oddly enough. Or at least he gets credit for it on the writing angel who graces my office wall with her charm. “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions,” states the angel, quoting James Michener, the writer of those gigantic historical fictions that were really popular in the 70s. This reminds me constantly to ask myself, why would my audience care? How are my words entangling with human emotion today? What part of human experience can I capture, what are my characters feeling right now, where is the human element? Answering these questions enlivens fiction and ennobles nonfiction.
However, the very common piece of advice, “Write what you know,” strikes me as the worst advice available. Here’s the problem: Writing what you know turns all writing into life writing, an exploration of the writer instead of an exploration of the world. Certainly life writing can be exciting, good work, work that exposes joys and injustices, that introduces incandescent personalities or unique experiences to a larger audience. But I am uninterested (mostly) in mining my rather dull life for stories. I use writing as a discovery process; I write what I want to know about.
Now, writing does require all my empathy and life knowledge to pull the human emotions into the words. And no one enjoys reading the product of ignorance. By the time a writing project emerges to the world, it should be saturated in knowledge, the product of its author’s learning, research, and imagination. But writing only what you know is an unreasonable limitation, one that asks too much of youth’s ignorance and too little of human capacity to learn and grow, and forces life to be the research for writing–rather than the other way around.
The best piece of advice I ever received wasn’t specifically about writing. It pretty much applies to everything in life, really, and came from Mr. Buchanan, an English teacher I had in high school.
I am a procrastinator. I have spent my life perfecting the art of procrastinating. Sometimes I have to take a deep, emergency lungful of air because, seriously, I’ve been sitting there not breathing enough. At least once a day I have to sprint to the bathroom because I’ve spent the previous hour (or more) ignoring the need to pee. So, it should come as no surprise that my homework in high school was rarely done on time.
When Mr. Buchanan asked me one day where my assignment was, I started to explain, “I’m gonna —”
He cut me off before I could finish the sentence with something brilliant on the fly. (more…)
Here’s what we do as writers. When we’re asked to write these blogs, about whatever the subject may be, we tell you what works for us.
We are not experts or authorities on some long-decided rule of law. We’re people with lots of opinions and varying levels of experience, and that’s about it. So when we’re asked to comment on whether or not writer’s block is a real thing, the only honest answer is we don’t know.
There are a lot of people out there who have no problem telling you writer’s block is a myth. Writer’s write, after all, and if you aren’t doing that, well . . . you’re not much a writer then. So stop making excuses already.
I’ve read a lot of posts like that, some of them by authors I admire. But here’s where I part ways with that line of thinking. If our minds can totally screw with us in every other aspect of our lives, why is it hard to believe it could prevent us from writing? What is so special about the written word that it is somehow inoculated against mental blockades?
There’s a voice I hear whenever a door opens. It tells me that this time I won’t see what I expect.
Every door is another possibility
Instead of seeing the second floor and the hallway leading to my office, I’ll see a park. Instead of shopping mall, I’ll be in a prison. Instead of a bathroom, I’ll find myself in a waiting room with people from the future.
People ask writers where they get their ideas. And I wonder what people who aren’t writers think about all day.
I’m constantly imagining other people and places. I think about names for stories, titles for novels. I pick up words the way a numismatist picks up coins, turning them over and examining them from every side.
Everything is a potential story, a character, or a setting. The problem is not in finding ideas, but in wading through the overwhelming possibilities to find ideas that are worth exploring.
But the best ideas come to me when I let my imagination cut loose. For me, this comes easiest when my editor is shut off — or shut out — so I can’t second guess myself. It shouldn’t be surprising that I get my best ideas when I’m dreaming.
A few months ago, I awoke from a dream about a female superhero. She was new to the business and she didn’t know her teammates very well. She kept referring to one of them as “the blue guy.” They worked together to save a large group of children from the evil rat king. It was all very odd.
It became the foundation for the novel I’m currently writing. Most of the details have changed, but the dream was still the starting point. Without the dream, I might never have considered writing in the superhero genre.
It doesn’t matter where you get your ideas from — whether you get inspired by long, hot showers or digging through trash. Inspiration comes to each person differently. The important thing is that you allow yourself a chance to be inspired.
Robert Penn Warren once said, “You must cultivate leisure.”
This is essential to being a writer. To be open to the story ideas around you, your mind must be ready to accept them. If you don’t allow your mind to relax, you’ll never be able to hear the still, small voice of your muse.
