Month: March 2022

The Writer as Alchemist

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

Most everyone has heard some version of the story of Rumpelstiltskin; where the miller bragged to the king that his daughter was so clever that she could spin straw into gold? The king of course, being the greedy sort of ruler that he was, had her immediately imprisoned in a cell filled with straw and a spinning wheel and commanded to spin the straw into gold before morning on pain of death. She can’t. She cries. A weird little man appears and says he’ll do it for her if she gives him her necklace. She gives it to him. He spins the straw into gold. The king wants more and the demand is made again and again, day after day, until the girl has nothing left to give but promises the little man her firstborn child. At this the little man spins so much gold that the king immediately makes the girl his queen and then they have a child and the weird little man reappears and demands his payment.

It is a strange story, full of disturbing issues such as, why would you agree to marry a man who imprisoned you and threatened you with death if you couldn’t live up to your father’s bragging about you? What did the weird little dude want with a human baby? How did the little guy actually turn the straw into gold? The last one is not so much disturbing as it is fascinating (at least to me) because it deals with the concept of alchemy.

It was once believed that when practiced, the art of alchemy could turn everyday materials, such as lead (or straw) into gold or could be used to find a universal elixir that would provide eternal (or extended) life. And isn’t that exactly what writers do every day?

The Alchemy of the Written Word

The practice of Alchemy can be traced back to Hellenistic Egypt and the city of Alexandria that was a center of alchemical learning in the first few centuries AD. The written word has been around far longer than that.

Creative writing is all about turning ideas into words. If done correctly, these words take an idea, a world, characters that only ever existed in your imagination and make them come to life. If you spin your words well, that story, those characters, that world, your idea will live forever. And if that isn’t real alchemy, I don’t know what is.

Think about it, we have an idea for a story; an inspiration if you will. It may grow in our minds over time or arrive completely intact, in one instant. In whatever way that it arrives, that idea then has to be spun in such a way that it becomes real to the reader and that entails finding the right words.

All the ideas in the world do you absolutely no good unless you know how to put those ideas down into words. You can sit there staring at your computer all day and will have nothing to show for it but a blank screen and a headache. So how do you bridge the gap? How do you get the ideas out of your head and down onto paper in such a way that they will actually make sense to someone else? It begins by collecting your thoughts.

Bridging the Gap between the Idea and the Reality

The bridge between the ideas that you have and the words that you write is actually quite simple.  It consists of learning how to collect your thoughts. Just as the miller’s daughter couldn’t make gold (or have her little visitor do it for her) without straw, so you cannot create a story worth remembering unless you are able to put your thoughts down in a coherent manner.

Many people believe that their thoughts and ideas are coherent; that they make sense. And in their minds those ideas may seem perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, there usually comes a time between having of the idea and getting it out on paper where something important gets lost. Somewhere you misplaced the nuances that made your topic so appealing when you first thought about it. The following five tips can help you in collecting your own thoughts in order to more easily bridge that gap.

  1. Keep a Writing Journal.  Not only should you keep a writing journal, it should stay with you at all times. This doesn’t have to be a large journal. It can be a small, pocket sized notebook if need be. And yes, it can be an annoyance to always carry a journal around with you.  However, being able to write down your thoughts as they occur can be a lifesaver, especially if you are in the middle of something else; like a meeting at work or a family activity.
  2. Write Down Everything. It isn’t enough to just have a writing journal; you have to get into the habit of writing everything down. I don’t care if it is just a fleeting thought; you need to write it down. You need to write everything down. Get used to putting your ideas into words and make sure that when you re-read what you have written that it makes sense to you as well. If you look back through your journal and find that you can’t understand what you were talking about, then you need to refine your note taking style.
  3. Re-Write Every Day. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but at the end of every day you need to go through that day’s pages of your writing journal and take those ideas that you have written down and copy them into a working notebook or even type them into your computer. This will not only help to keep your ideas fresh in your head, it will also help you to begin a working copy of your idea; one which you can adjust and adapt as need be.
  4. Be Your Own Worst Critic.  It is not enough to simply write your ideas down, nor even enough to re-write your ideas so that they flow smoothly. Sometimes you have to pull the entire structure apart and re-build it from the ground up.  Even though the idea may have sounded good the first time you wrote it down, it can always be better! Write and re-write your ideas out until they say exactly what you want them to; until you can see the picture that they paint in your mind.
  5. Use a Sounding Board. It helps to have a sounding board; someone who is willing to read your work and give you their unbiased opinion. It will not be this person’s job to edit your work. You simply want their reaction to how the words are written; what sort of picture that it paints in their head. If you do not have a friend or acquaintance who is willing to serve as a sounding board for you, there are other options, such as websites out there that allow you to post your work and have readers critique it for you or creative writing coaches that can help you work your idea into an actual completed project.  

Just as with any skill, successful getting your ideas down where you can see them and work with them takes time and practice. You may not immediately start turning straw into gold as a writer, but eventually you will see the alchemical process begin it’s magical work.

Will the Real Writer Please Stand Up?

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, The Word Wizard's Blog1 Comment

Just like the concept of working from home, creative writing gets a bad rap. I can’t count the number of times I have told people what I do for a living and watch as they fight to keep from smiling.  Some don’t even try to fight it but just flat out laugh. It’s a joke to them; a poor excuse for someone who just can’t find or keep a ‘real’ job. 

I still remember one lovely person who, when I told her that I was a writer said “are you serious?” and then laughed as if she had never heard anything so funny. When I asked her what it was that she thought Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts did for a living and she wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes as she said “but sweetie, those are real writers.”

Well, she’s wrong. I may not yet be a popular writer (note the use of the qualifying word “yet” as the key part of that last phrase). I may not have my books on the best seller list. But they are published and they do sell. I may currently make the bulk of my writing income by writing blogs, giving creative writing seminars, creating newsletters and informational eBooks or by providing creative writing coaching to those who find the written word challenging, but that does not make me any less of a writer than those who are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars per book contract or who are getting assignments that pay thousands of dollars a pop. 

Unfortunately, this is a concept that many aspiring writers find distinctly difficult to grasp, and, when confronted with those who would belittle or criticize their claim to be a writer they become depressed over their seeming lack of recognition and sometimes even give up writing altogether.

Perhaps they give up because, in the back of their heads they have the expectation that their talent will immediately be recognized and that they will go from being a total unknown and unpublished writer to an overnight success at the top of the New York Times best seller list. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is quite a bit different.

Yes, there are a few rare individuals who have extraordinary talent and who are in just the right place at the right time and get recognized immediately, but most writers have to work at their craft. Like any other talent or skill, writing has to be honed, practiced and refined and this means writing on a daily basis. 

Most writers start out by honing their writing skills while maintaining a day job. Those who are truly addicted will make a point of trying to find a way to work on improving their writing skills in whatever way they possibly can, writing on lunch breaks, weekends or late into the night.

Personally, I got started in writing for a living by helping fellow college students refine their papers. At first I would sit down with them for free and go over their reports and papers, helping them to tighten up their prose or making suggestions as to new ways to approach the subject. Then someone made the suggestion that I could actually make money by offering my services for a small fee. As your standard starving student, that sounded good to me! And sure enough, there were enough fellow students who were desperate to make suggestions for improvements to their papers that they were more than willing to pay a small fee to have me go over their work, especially when most times it resulted in a jump in letter grade.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a writer since I learned out to write. As a kid I scribbled stories in my spare time. I was on the newspaper staff in both high school and college. As a young adult, I submitted bits and pieces to local newspapers and local writing contests, but I didn’t realize that I could actually do this as a regular job until I actually was.

For years writing was just a second job; a secondary source of income that helped to ‘fill in the gaps’ so to speak; gaps left by my “bread and butter” day job. Now writing and helping others improve their writing is my bread and butter, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Do I still have my eye on the New York Times best seller list? Of course, I do! I have great hopes for my current in-process novel. Doesn’t every writer? But in the meantime, I write. I write because I can’t not write. And that need to write, to tell a story, that is what defines a real writer. By that definition, no matter what that long ago lady once said, I am very much a real writer, and if you love to write, you so are you!

Beware the Cyber Dog

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

As long as mankind has had writing we have been recording our ideas and thoughts in written form. From the temple priests of ancient Egypt to the philosophers of ancient Greece to the Victorian writers who took sixteen pages and a bottle of ink to describe a sunrise.

Indeed, there has always been a driving desire among writers to get their words out of their heads and down on paper, or vellum ,or parchment, or, in the case of the Mesopotamians, bricks. But only in the last two decades has the idea of putting words down in a non-tangible format actually become something that would seriously be considered.

In fact, there is something of a debate that is still going on regarding the need to save a hard copy of all of your online work or ideas that are stored in electronic format. Those against saving a hard copy point out that with so many backup systems available, the chances of losing your online work (or the work stored on your computer) is slim to none while those for it say that electronic documents are nothing more than an illusion and that, given the right set of circumstances, you could end up losing all of your work.

Oh, did you think that your online blog is the equivalent of hard copy journals? Let me ask you this, what would happen if your webhost had a complete system failure? Well, hopefully you would have backups on your hard drive (or thumb drive) right? Well, let’s hope, for your sake, that the webhost’s system failure wouldn’t go hand in hand with an electronics failure (such as could be expected in a major solar storm) or even just a system crash on your own computer due to a nasty computer virus.

The point is, while you can take multiple steps to safeguard your information on the Internet and even on your own hard drive, the fact is that you are recording your ideas in cyberspace, it may look as if you have a page of written words, but it is really an illusion, and if for some unforeseen reason you no longer had access to electricity (as I did one memorable summer when dealing with two hurricanes on top of each other) you also have no access to any of the work that you have done as well. And then there are the dangers of confronting the cyber-dog.

ATTACK OF THE CYBER DOG

Wait, what was that about a cyber-dog?

Well, you remember that old excuse that kids used to give to their teachers, the one about the dog eating their homework? Well, in today’s world of electronic communications the culprit is an electronic dog, one that eats bits instead of kibble and whose byte is annoying as it can take great chunks out of your stored information.

How many times have you sent an email, or uploaded a picture from your iPhone, only to never have it go through? That’s because the cyber-dog ate it. Of course sometimes it shows up hours (or even days) later maybe Fido was playing fetch. Ok, so it wasn’t the cyber-dog, it was actually it was because all the pieces or Packets of information that got sent out failed to get reassembled at their destination. While most online systems have safety features in place to help prevent this, sometimes it’s just impossible for the information you sent to get to where it’s going. Mind you it doesn’t happen often that all of your information completely disappears, but it can happen. This is another reason to always make copies of everything that you’ve written.

In fact, there are at least three layers of protective “clothing” you should be wearing to protect yourself from the bite of the cyber-dog:

1). Always save a copy of your work on a separate hard drive or thumb drive.  While this may seem like overkill, especially if your computer has a great deal of storage space on it, remember that accidents do and can happen.

2). Never write your blogs or written work directly on the website or in an email. If you write a regular blog or upload written material directly through an online uploading system, at least write it out (and save a copy of it) on your own computer. This will prevent needless re-writing should your document go missing in cyberspace.

3). Print out a hard copy of any work that you particularly value. Trust me, if something unforeseen happens, you’ll be kicking yourself if you don’t.

I’ll never forget the completed and corrected version of my book that I blithely sent off to the publisher via email (without printing it out) only to find that it never arrived. And when I went to retrieve it off of my computer I found that a worm virus had eaten through the bulk of my stored copy. I had a copy of the uncorrected manuscript on a thumb drive, but I had lost three months worth of editorial work and had to start from scratch. Try explaining that to your editor.

Of course then there was the time that I not only lost an article that I had emailed to the magazine I was writing for, but the thumb drive that I had the copy stored on literally broke in two and my IT dude was unable to retrieve any information off of it. I lost the commission from the article because I missed the deadline (the editor didn’t like the cyber-dog excuse). But I certainly learned my lesson. I now have stacks of hard copies of my completed work. They take up a whole corner of my den (and probably a small forest), but it certainly beats the alternative.

So yes, while computers, computer storage systems as well as online uploading and online blogs can be  marvelous tools for today’s writer, keep a wary eye out for the cyber-dog. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the cost of printing off a hard copy of your documents definitely beats the sinking sensation you get when you realize that it is gone for good and probably buried like a bone under some virtual reality shrub on a back street in Second Life.

A Life of Their Own

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

“This thing happens where the characters take over and you almost want to look behind you to see who’s writing your story.” -Joseph Wambaugh

It is one thing when, as a writer, you create a character so realistic and believable that they seem to come alive on the page. It is another thing altogether when the character that you have created takes on a life of their own, sometimes taking over the narrative all together until it feels as if you are dictating the story as it is told to you instead of writing an original piece. Worst of all is when a character becomes unruly, digs in its heels, and refuses to follow the plot line in any way shape or form and even finds ways to undermine your well-planned story.

Not all writers experience the process of characters becoming autonomous, but enough do that it is common to hear writers refer to characters who seem to take over the story line by either refusing to do what the author directs them to, or by taking actions other than those dictated by the author. There are also a good many authors who report that they can actually hear the voices of the characters they have created in their heads, some authors even claiming that they find themselves entering into dialogue with them.

Indeed, while there are some writers who claim that you can’t truly have a successful story unless your characters actually do become autonomous, there are others who claim that the entire idea of a character taking over the story is nothing but hogwash and an indication of a lazy mind on the part of the writer. 

But if you find that your characters do talk to you and that they sometimes seem to take over the story line, don’t be alarmed. Even some very famous writers have reported that their characters seemed very much alive. Take Alice Walker for example.

When Alice Walker was writing The Color Purple, she stated that not only did her characters seemingly choose their own actions, but sometimes they would visit her and even comment on her own life, and not always in a very complimentary or welcome manner.

There are some psychologists who say that the feeling of characters choosing their own actions, of characters taking over the plot line of a story is just a product of the writer’s imagination. They say that these characters have become so detailed in the writer’s brain that the mind is writing their story automatically, without conscious choice from the writer. Further, they suggest that when a writer runs into roadblocks thrown up by a particular character, it is really the writer’s subconscious indicating that it is the writer that is not yet ready to deal with this particular issue. Even if this is the case it doesn’t change the fact that the experience of having your characters write themselves can be disconcerting. Indeed, having them become unruly and destructive of the plot line can be downright frustrating.

Whether you believe that character autonomy is all in the writer’s head or that the characters actually do take on a life of their own, there are ways to deal with the ones who get out of hand.

Ways to Manage Unruly Characters

Dialogue With Them. One of the best ways to dialogue with your characters (both primary and secondary) is to have a sit down with your them as they are developed. Write out their back story, then imagine yourself sitting down with them over lates at a coffee shop or wherever you feel most comfortable with them. Tell them the story that you have in mind, why you want things to develop the way that you have planned and what your purpose for writing this story is. Most importantly, make sure they understand that even though unpleasant things may happen to them in the story, when it is over it is just that, a story, and that they will be free to go on and create their own story after you have written out the one you have planned.

Dialogue can also be done as the story progresses, especially if you find yourself with a character who is resisting your lead or who keeps finding ways to throw a wrench into your plot. Again, sit down with them, ask them why they are doing this, what they wish would happen instead, what it is that they want out of this story. Most importantly, listen to the answers that they give! You never know when something they have to say, some way that they would prefer things to be done just might end up being better than the original story line.

Bargain With Them. If a character is being particularly difficult, and if they will speak to you, then don’t be surprised if you find yourself bargaining with them. “Sure, I will find a way to write about this particular bit of your back story if you will work with me by sticking to the plot line.” Perhaps you find that they don’t want to marry or become romantically involved with a specific character you had in mind. If so, ask yourself if that relationship is necessary to the plot line. Perhaps the characters can be involved as business partners or as friends instead of romantic interests. Does the lead character’s dog/child/relative/friend really have to die, or can it just be badly injured or have a close call?

The most important part of bargaining is to listen to what the character has to say about the situation. What do they want? Why are they digging in their heels over this particular scene or sub-plot? What are they afraid of?

While you may not get everything you wanted to in the bargaining process, it can certainly make writing your story much smoother when direction-resistant characters are involved.

Ask Other Characters for Input. If your unruly character will not listen or speak to you, try sitting down with one of the other characters, preferably one who interacts in the story with your problem child on a regular basis. As them for input. Why do they think that the character is refusing to go with the story flow? What to they think that particular character wants out of the story or thinks that they will get by changing the narrative? Is there any way to give them what they want without ruining the plot line?

Write Them Out. Like a troublesome actor in a soap opera, there is always the option of writing your character out of the story plot. The most permanent way of doing this is, of course, by killing them off, but less permanent solutions can involve sending them off to a foreign country or setting them sort of quest that will take them out of your direct plot line. Then there are the old standbys of having them get married off, or choosing a line of work or a lifestyle that will take them out of the story’s telling range.

Keep in mind, however, that short of killing them off, the particularly troublesome souls will find a way to re-enter the story, usually when you least expect it. Sometimes even the dead ones find a way back. In fact, your best bet in managing a particularly unruly character is to be diplomatic and reserve writing the character out of your story as a last resort.

Try it Their Way. Finally, unless you are particularly attached to a specific story line, plot or ending, why not try it the character’s way? Even if you are attached, there is always the option of writing a second version of the story from the new point of view, then comparing it with my own original plot line. In doing this I have had some fascinating plot developments, some even better than I could have come up with myself.

At the End of the Day

At the end of the day, remember that you are the writer. You are the one who has control over the delete and save key. If worse comes to worst, don’t hesitate to close out of your story and work on something else. Even the unruliest character can be ignored, if need be, and even the most favored of stories can be left in computer storage as long as it takes for the character(s) in question to cool off and open themselves up to sticking with your plot or at least open up to talking to you about it.

Keep in mind that if the psychologists are right and autonomous characters are really products of our subconscious issues, then it might be you, the writer, who is not ready to walk down this particular road yet. Be patient with your characters; with yourself. Chances are that one day you will open that particular story back up and find that you are once more in the flow and that the story comes effortlessly.

BRING ME TO LIFE

On By Just StephIn The Word Wizard's BlogLeave a comment

Creating Believable Fictional Characters

Creating believable fictional characters is detrimental to creating a successful story. In truth, without a character that comes alive in the reader’s mind, you will find that your entire narrative may fall flat.

Have you ever read a piece of fiction where the characters seemed two dimensional? Perhaps the protagonist seems like a cliché, perhaps the conversations seem stilted, the decisions made by the characters are predictable, the plot itself is boring or the description of the character is done is such a way that you feel as if you were dealing with paper dolls and not living, breathing characters.

By learning to create believable people for your stories; believable people with believable personalities and voices, you can literally make your work come alive.

Below you will find some techniques to help you in creating believable characters. Each of these can be expounded upon in far more depth, but for now, consider this an overview of how to create story people who come alive in the mind of the reader.

Character Description

Chances are, you know what you want your character to look like; tall, short, petite, full-figured, stocky, specific hair and eye colors, skin textures, the works. In fact, the overall description of your characters may be a very important part of your story, but the way that you convey this to the reader is even more important.

Knowing what a character looks like, in detail, is important for you, the writer. But in story crafting it is better to let the reader create the full image of the character in their minds.

One of the biggest mistakes in story writing is to create a scene where the character is described in detail. Usually this is done as the person is introduced, or views themselves in a mirror, or is observed in detail by someone else. These approaches are predictable and often-times wordy to the point of ridiculousness (who considers their own lips to be “full and luscious” when looking in the mirror, or, upon meeting a new acquaintance, goes into raptures about their muscular body and likens their hair to the color of wheat?) Quite frankly, short of a classic romance, where the description is part of the appeal, this kind of description can be a put off to the reader.

It is better to let the reader create the full image of the character in their own head. Of course, you don’t want them to get entirely the wrong idea about a person, which is why referencing their description in more subtle ways can convey your view of the character without forcing the full description of them on the reader against their will. The best way to do this is in working bits of their description into the narrative. Instead of saying a character is short, you could say something like “Joan was startled to find that when she was toe to toe with Frank the top of his head came to her chin.” Indeed, by working in references like this throughout the story, you guide the reader to your view of the character without making them feel as if you are forcing the issue.

Create a Back Story

In order to write a good character, you have to not just know what your character looks and sounds like, how they dress and what they like to eat, you need to know why they do those things. The best way to do this is to create a back story.

A back story is the history of the character. While aspects of the back story may be mentioned or referred to in the narrative, it will usually not play a big part in the actual telling of the story. Its purpose is to flesh out your own personal understanding of the persona you have created and help you to make them relatable and find their unique voice.

A back story helps you to discover how they became who they are, why they do what they do. It explains what events impacted them and turned them into who they are today. This doesn’t have to be a book-length endeavor, just a paragraph or two can do wonders in helping you to understand who your character is and how they became that way.

Make Them Relatable

One of the most common mistakes in creating story people is to make them unrelatable. If your readers can not relate to the characters in your story, if they cannot see a bit of themselves in one or more of your characters, the chances are that they will lose interest in the story altogether.

One of the best ways to make a fictional person relatable is to give them a human failing, a fault or characteristic which, when it presents itself, makes people say to themselves, “ha! I know exactly how that feels!” Think of a private detective who has a problem with body image, or a clumsy personal assistant, a psychiatrist who has anxiety, or a music aficionado who can’t carry a tune in a handbasket.

 We are all human, making your characters human can go a long way towards endearing them to your readers.

Give Them a Voice

If you are an avid fiction reader, you will understand what I am referring to when I say that the way an actor verbalizes and brings to life a fictional character can make or break a movie that is based on a book. If the actor, producer and screen writers are worth their salt, the movie version of a well-loved book character will bring the written character to life on the big screen. If not done correctly, it can leave you feeling seriously disappointed, for the character that seemed to live and breathe on the page falls flat on the screen.

Giving your characters a unique voice of their own is one of the most important parts of creating a believable persona for your story. A living, breathing voice can make the difference between an “okay” and an “amazing” narrative.

Character voice can be defined as a fictional character’s unique way of expressing themselves both inwardly and outwardly. The voice is told through the character’s personality, their thoughts, their process of reasoning and evaluation, even the way they talk and the kinds of choices that they make.  

One of the best ways to create a truly unique voice is to ‘listen’ to your character as if they were a real person. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and close your eyes; imagine that the character as you see them based on their description and back story is sitting across from you. Now, ask them questions about their life, their needs and desires, friends, hobbies, anything. Write down the question and wait for them to answer, then write down the answer as you “hear” it in your head. Soon you will start to get a feel for your character’s unique voice.

Once you have the voice for your various characters, you will find that writing dialogue between them becomes easier and their decisions and actions within the story line become far easier to write. In fact, there may come a point where the characters become so well developed that they begin taking on a life all of their own.

But that is a topic for another day.