The True Appeal of Fiction

Posted on Mar 24, 2009 in Writing | 0 comments

Does fiction hold more meaning than real life?

That’s a thought I’ve been trying to get a handle on for a while now. Fiction has a such a powerful pull, and it cuts across all cultures. Is the reason that fiction tries to bring order to to a universe of entropy? It’s not just idle philosophy that bring s the point to mind.

A while back, a friend asked me what I thought made lasting fiction. The question was meant as nothing more than a topic to pass a few minutes of conversation, but it stuck in the recesses of my mind and wouldn’t go away.

There is no one answer to the question. Catcher in the Rye is memorable for it’s protagonist, specifically the voice with which he speaks to us, but it’s no masterful plot. Fahrenheit 451 brings home an idea as well as any book ever has, but most of us would be hard pressed to name the protagonist.

So is it character? Plot? Idea? Writing?

While all these certainly help create a memorable work of fiction there is one element that I think is necessary to keep a story in our memory: Truth.

For fiction to seem real there must be truth hidden in it’s pages, tucked away in the folds of it’s characters, or even in the words of the narrative. Not real in the sense that we think it may have happened, but real in the tangible sense.

It may be something as simple as a villain whose flaws come back to destroy him, or a character who learns from her mistakes and is able to turn her life around. It may be nothing more than an narrator who can speak to us plainly with an occasional insightful observation.

But fiction has the ability to be less messy than life. It has a beginning. And it has an end. It’s characters have problems that lead inexorably to their defeats and their victories. The hero usually wins and the villain usually looses. And even when it doesn’t work out that way we’ll usually get a warning by the blurb on the back cover.

When you write, keep your work honest. Pick something about your work that will be too real for the reader to forget. Maybe it’s your character, who’s so true to life that they can’t be easily dismissed as a figment of imagination. Or give your narrator the freedom to talk to the reader without trying to be clever.

I guess the simplest way to say it is, don’t let your writing get in the way of the reason you’re writing.

This post was originally posted on Write Anything—
where six writers talk about the trials and
tribulations of their writing lives. And each
Tuesday the soapbox belongs to me.

Mere Possibilities

Posted on Mar 17, 2009 in Writing | 0 comments

I’m writing this post from a hospital room, in an uncomfortable chair that allegedly converts into a bed—although for the life of me I can’t figure out how to do it. The room is dark, and my page is a 2″ x 2″ lit screen on a phone with a full, albeit cramped, keyboard, and the ability to create and edit Word documents. The person in the hospital bed, isn’t even aware I’m writing.

It called Mobile Blogging—or for those with no literary soul, moblogging.

And it sucks. I mean it’s just a miserable way to write. Not only is it difficult to type, but the act of creating is so cramped and cumbersome that the mere act of composing a sentence can take minutes.

But…

…it is possible.

A decade ago the opening paragraph of this post would have been impossible. More to the point it would have been gibberish. But as technology pushes on everything seems to be dragged along in it’s wake.

A decade ago I carried a pen and a notebook, and I counted pennies and coveted one of the first generations of thumbdrives. Today I still carry the pen and the notebook, but I now have close to a dozen multiple GB thumbdrives, a notebook computer that is often with me, and a mobile phone that has more power and functionality than the computer that got me through college.

Has this changed the way I write? Well yes and no. This phone in my hand will never take the place of that pen and notebook—it can’t. It’s too difficult to type quickly, or to review what I have written more than a few lines earlier. But no matter how much I love the familiarity of that rollerball pen and spiral-bound paper there is no way for me to use those to instantly send my words to a friend, or post it to the web. But no longer it is necessary to make sure I’m always carrying a notebook, in case a good idea happens to crop up while out on the town.

How has the rapid evolution of technology changed the way you write? How had it changed the creative process for you?

This post was originally posted on Write Anything—
where six writers talk about the trials and
tribulations of their writing lives. And each
Tuesday the soapbox belongs to me.

Private Writing

Posted on Mar 10, 2009 in Writing | 2 comments

How much of your writing is meant for only yourself?

It may seem an odd concept for someone who want’s to call themselves a writer, but it’s important to make time to write just for yourself.

Private Writing is what I call writing that is intended for one one other than the writer. Not rough drafts, or morning pages, but polished writing. There are many different kins of private writing, and at least as many reasons for keeping the work to oneself.

The writing can be experimental, a way to test the concept of a story, or to see how a character will respond to a situation.

It may be therapeutic. While not all writers are introverts, to write well we must have a strong introvert streak in us. Often composing and polishing a work with a theme that is troubling us, can help work through a problem or tricky situation in our lives.

But what may be less well known is that private writing is a great way to get rid of an idea. Sometimes our subconscious gets hung up on a certain idea, theme character, line of dialogue, whatever. And even if we don’t want to nail down the idea, it may be nearly impossible to get your mind to move on. In these cases the only refuge may be to buckle down and write the story. Tracking the idea down and writing and editing it into submission may be the only way to exorcise the idea.

Do you ever write just for yourself?

This post was originally posted on Write Anything—
where six writers talk about the trials and
tribulations of their writing lives. And each
Tuesday the soapbox belongs to me.

Brainstorming Basics

Posted on Mar 3, 2009 in Writing | 0 comments

For writers always trying to squeak in a few extra minutes for writing it may seem counter-intuitive to say that the best way to develop an idea is to stop thinking about it. But at least for this author it’s true.

Very rarely has an idea that I truly loved come from the conscious act of trying to dream up something to write about. The majority of the time the ideas that are captivating come, not from out of nowhere, but from the periphery of my consciousness…an offshoot of another idea or a random combination of ideas that have rattled around, unused, in my head for months or even years.

Unfortunately, most writers have never been taught how to brainstorm. I graduated from college with a degree in advertising. I’ve never used the degree professionally, but it was the heavy instruction in different styles of writing that stoked my passion for writing.

And in the first week of Copywriting class we got instruction in how to brainstorm. It was drilled into our heads that there are no bad ideas…just ideas you may not want to pursue. But the act of writing down all your ideas, even the lesser ones, and keeping them close by allows your subconscious to keep things simmering.

So for all of you who never learned the proper way to brainstorm ideas, here are some tips:

• There are no bad ideas. You’ll get farther, faster if you stop telling yourself your ideas are bad.
• Write down ideas no matter how complete they are. Even if it’s just a sentence fragment.
• Write it all down. Or record it, or something similar.
• Every once in a while, review the bits and pieces you’ve jotted down.
• Use cluster diagrams to link similar ideas (write a main idea in the center of the page, then write related idea around it in a cluster, then connect things that go together with lines; you’ll quickly identify the parts that don’t quite fit).
• No idea is too small. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a story about the dual meaning of the word spell (the correct use of letters, and the use of magic).
• Don’t give up on ideas. What does keeping an idea around for a decade really cost you? A small scrap of paper, and the time it takes to reread it once a month?
• Steal freely and unashamedly from others. Both personal and famous. Of course you won’t be able to use their ideas directly, but combined with some of your ideas you never know what it may spark.
• Have fun with it. Who is going to see all this aside from you? There is no need for decorum.

So what about you? Do you have any advice to add?

This post was originally posted on Write Anything—
where six writers talk about the trials and
tribulations of their writing lives. And each
Tuesday the soapbox belongs to me.