One of my principles is that writing should be fun. It is also, inevitably, frustrating, challenging, surprising, revelatory, therapeutic, disappointing, embarrassing, and rewarding. In short, like all human activities, a mix of the mundane and the marvelous. However, it’s a creative act, and therefore can be interfered with and even halted by negative emotions. In particular, writers are vulnerable to fear, so I’m taking on that emotion for a series of posts.
From idea development through to signing off on galleys, I've seen writers twisted out of shape by fear. Fear can cause them to look for distractions, including research, housework, and alcohol. Fear can become anger leading to battles with editors or agents or collaborators. Sometimes fear just leaves writers frozen, looking at a blank page with no idea (or too many ideas) on how to move forward.
Through my teaching, workshopping with writers, and my personal experiences, I put together a list of seven fears that can cut into productivity or quality for writers. These are:
Fear of performing — Performance anxiety doesn’t need an audience. All by yourself, when you face a blank screen or a fresh sheet of paper, you can be overwhelmed by an sense you won’t be able to put words together that make sense, change minds, or move readers. There are special instances of this, such as the inability to respond to a pressing deadline. Or to be funny on command.
Fear of commitment — Every decision (and there are many in writing (precludes other choices). To work on a short story is to not work on a feature film script. When you select a protagonist, a hundred characters in your head, vying for attention, are silenced. The direction of a story can be changed by a scene, a paragraph, a line of dialogue, or a single word.
Fear of qualifications — Who gave you permission to tell the story you’ve chosen? Are you the right author, the best author? Do you have the right education? Are you blinded by your own perspective or guilty of cultural appropriation? Hasn’t it already been done better by Shakespeare, Flannery O’Connor, or Mickey Spillane?
Fear of conflict — Will this upset people? Will you cause your character to suffer? Is your protagonist too mean? Could anyone love your flawed hero? Isn’t this going too far?
Fear for your reputation — What if your mom read this? Won’t people think this happened to you? How could you have such evil thoughts?
Fear of pain — Won’t this trigger a dormant trauma? Is the real story underneath this safe scene too much for you? Will writing this scene give you nightmares? Can you spend months or years living in a story that makes you feel awful? Can you handle the truth?
Fear of failure — What if no one understands this story? What if it bores them? What if it is misread? What if the story comes across as incompetent, foolish or trite? What if the story succeeds and changes your life?
Fear is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's a genuine warning that it's not time yet to move on with the story. Or it could be that a poor choice was made along the way, that needs to be corrected. I've had times when fear has been a good indicator that it was time to take a break or get some emotional distance from a scene or a sequence. It is even possible, in cases where someone else is involved in the creative work, that some sort of misunderstanding, incompatibility, or betrayal may be at hand.
Listening to fear can be smart at times. It's worthwhile when writers find themselves seeking distractions or blocked or bewildered by the possibilities in front of them or in conflict with others that they set aside time to calmly explore what's going on. For me, that usually means just writing down words about what I'm feeling and my concerns. Eventually this leads to articulating specifics and creating a clearer picture of what's happening and how I need to respond. Sometimes this validates the fear. More often, it directs me toward putting anxieties into a context that helps me move the writing forward.
For each the seven fears, I'll provide examples and descriptions aimed at recognizing the fears that can hamper your writing. In some cases, fear can hide behind other emotions, like anger, so I’ll discuss ways to trace back to the scary stuff and isolate what’s prompting fear and what risks it’s highlighting. With a clearer idea of what’s going on (not always simple, since some fears combine or show up in unexpected circumstances), I’ll offer some options, even possible solutions. Finally, for those who want to be resilient writers, I’ll point to exercises and habits that can help prevent fear from taking hold.
Writers talk a lot about fear. Symptoms include complaints about the doubt monster and blocks. The rewriting blues. Abandoned manuscripts. Carping about editors and unfair reviews. Jealousy. And escaping through distractions, addictions, and surrender. I think every writer needs the support of other people. It can be friends or relatives or other artists. It may be a therapist. But I think an essential element is fresh perspectives on fears writers face, and that’s what this series will offer.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Playing with Time - Putting story transitions to work
Handling time efficiently is a requirement for good writing.
Film and TV scripts compress time. An athlete wriggles into a jersey. Ties a shoe. Slams his locker shut. And the next thing we see is him running onto the field. The illusion of his preparing for the game is created with a few fragments.
Or, in older movies, time moves forward as the hands of a clock run fast or the pages of a calendar are blown off one-by-one, by a wind.
Novels and books have their own transitions, explicit (days later…) and implied (an blank line or ***). Lighting cues may do the job in stage plays.
These approaches lean heavily on conventions at times, and that’s acceptable in the name of clarity. Unless the device is very out of date, like 70s split screens, audiences and readers go along without a second thought. (And, if you have great skill, like the creators of the Fargo TV series, you can even get away with split screens.)
But… once clarity is achieved, it’s worth considering taking things further. In particular, including emotional content is the first place I look. As an example, scraping a name off a glass door was often a way to show the (often unseen) result of a power struggle and introduce a new regime. (Both The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown include this trope.) Recently, I saw a movie where that bit didn’t just show the change in power. The protagonist had presented himself as a nice guy, but his joy at the removal of the name revealed him as someone who could celebrate of the fall of a rival. The raw ambition and lack of empathy on the part of the character disturbed me and changed my attitude toward him.
Time may be shown by characters clearly aging. But such a sequence can also use change in attire to show increasing or decreasing wealth. Or, for a couple, going from holding hands to having physical distance between them lets an audience know their relationship is growing colder.
Before and after shots can extend to landscapes. It’s a common feature in online news stories to show wipe pictures of disasters. Such comparisons show change that is heartbreaking. In a reversal, The Biggest Little Farm presents before and after over and over again in ways that are joyful and life affirming.
Your story's requirements to show the passage of time are filled with opportunities to incorporate emotion, new perspectives, power shifts, and poignancy. Babies are born. People die. We say goodbye to winter by starting spring. People heal. Bakeries open or close.
What can you use to touch people or make a point? Include witnesses, winners, and losers. Find something common, like letting go of a child’s hand for the first day of school. And make the event specific. Imagine one image that tells it all. Or two images (before and after). Echo an earlier moment in the story, and add something.
In film, you can put in a title card that explicitly tells the date and place. And, of course, some prose works do this as well. It gets the job done, and it often adds to the tone. But it’s worth exploring less easy ways to show time that may reveal more about your characters and their stories.
Film and TV scripts compress time. An athlete wriggles into a jersey. Ties a shoe. Slams his locker shut. And the next thing we see is him running onto the field. The illusion of his preparing for the game is created with a few fragments.
Or, in older movies, time moves forward as the hands of a clock run fast or the pages of a calendar are blown off one-by-one, by a wind.
Novels and books have their own transitions, explicit (days later…) and implied (an blank line or ***). Lighting cues may do the job in stage plays.
These approaches lean heavily on conventions at times, and that’s acceptable in the name of clarity. Unless the device is very out of date, like 70s split screens, audiences and readers go along without a second thought. (And, if you have great skill, like the creators of the Fargo TV series, you can even get away with split screens.)
But… once clarity is achieved, it’s worth considering taking things further. In particular, including emotional content is the first place I look. As an example, scraping a name off a glass door was often a way to show the (often unseen) result of a power struggle and introduce a new regime. (Both The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown include this trope.) Recently, I saw a movie where that bit didn’t just show the change in power. The protagonist had presented himself as a nice guy, but his joy at the removal of the name revealed him as someone who could celebrate of the fall of a rival. The raw ambition and lack of empathy on the part of the character disturbed me and changed my attitude toward him.
Time may be shown by characters clearly aging. But such a sequence can also use change in attire to show increasing or decreasing wealth. Or, for a couple, going from holding hands to having physical distance between them lets an audience know their relationship is growing colder.
Before and after shots can extend to landscapes. It’s a common feature in online news stories to show wipe pictures of disasters. Such comparisons show change that is heartbreaking. In a reversal, The Biggest Little Farm presents before and after over and over again in ways that are joyful and life affirming.
Your story's requirements to show the passage of time are filled with opportunities to incorporate emotion, new perspectives, power shifts, and poignancy. Babies are born. People die. We say goodbye to winter by starting spring. People heal. Bakeries open or close.
What can you use to touch people or make a point? Include witnesses, winners, and losers. Find something common, like letting go of a child’s hand for the first day of school. And make the event specific. Imagine one image that tells it all. Or two images (before and after). Echo an earlier moment in the story, and add something.
In film, you can put in a title card that explicitly tells the date and place. And, of course, some prose works do this as well. It gets the job done, and it often adds to the tone. But it’s worth exploring less easy ways to show time that may reveal more about your characters and their stories.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Obituaries for Your Characters - A good way to keep the ensemble straight in your mind
How do you encapsulate the story of your character’s life in just a few words.? I found hints for this while exploring the topic of how to write an obituary. That led me to some intriguing (and sometimes heart-breaking) obituaries. The best bring more than facts. They stick in you memory. They bring a part of the person back to life.
To me, that seemed like a good way to lodge my characters in my mind in a different way. So I began writing obituaries of my characters. It was not a morbid exercise. It was a way to celebrate how real they were becoming for me. A way to share their travails, stumbling, successes, and happy endings. (Yes, I gave them ALL happy endings. Even the villains.) They were notes from my heart.
The payoff was that, even in an ensemble piece I was writing with eleven equally important people, I got hooks that helped with storytelling. My characters each have their own needs, perspectives, strategies, and voices. And I don’t need to look at references to keep them straight.
So here are the four elements of an obituary, as modified by my explorations into the best, most engaging ones. They provide a map you can follow (or digress from) for your own characters. And I’ve provided one I wrote for one story’s hero as an example.
Death Announcement
This includes the date (which sets the character in time), location (space), and cause of death (often skipped in real obituaries, but good to put into fictional ones).
Family
This orients the character in terms of relationships. It can provide a context that implies responsibilities (legal, financial, emotional), losses (predeceased) and choices (divorces). It can also be a place to include something about friends.
Biographical Details & Personal Observations
This is the big one. The goal is to illustrate who this person is in a few memorable words. There great thing is you always have a starting point, basic facts like where the character was born and something about employment. That can make it easier to come up with the observations, which are invaluable. I will write about 250 words and cut it down to 75-150. That’s brief enough to add clarity to the character.
When I get stuck, I give the job to another character — either one who would not want to offend the subject of the obituary or one who uses it for revenge. (The latter can have a lot of power.)
Funeral Arrangements
This can be dry, but this subject does point to beliefs, religion, and family obligations. The “in lieu of flowers” part may be the most revealing.
Sample (created to explore my character):
Bertolan Olah, 74, died of natural causes on Friday, May 6, 2022, at Reynards Assisted Living Center.
Though Bertolan often spoke of his brothers and other family members, no information about his relatives is available at this time.
Bertolan was born behind the Iron Curtain in Nádudvar, Hungary. Most of the men in his family fought in World War II. His uncle died in the unsuccessful Hungarian Revolution. His father emigrated at that time, and he and his brothers became adept at trading, ultimately founding an import-export firm that still exists today. He emigrated to Rockville, Maryland. to retire, having already made many US friends through his business endeavors. He was often seen at embassy functions, where he gravitated toward American politicians.
He said, “Accept favors when offered. Return them as you can." Having lost an arm during military service, Bertolan pushed himself to be independent when he could. He learned to type fifty words per minute with one hand. But he also found relying on others created lifelong bonds with others. While at Reynards, he became known as the one to talk to if you have a yen for fancy chocolate, herbal cigarettes, or hard-to-get publications.
His wake will be held on June 9 at Reynalds Funeral Home. His friends at Reynards Assisted Living plan to hold a memorial service later this year.
Note: It might be fun to try this first for a character from someone else’s work: Captain Ahab or Tom Sawyer or Molly Bloom. Also, while real obituaries are rigorously factual (used to train reporters), yours can be full of lies.
To me, that seemed like a good way to lodge my characters in my mind in a different way. So I began writing obituaries of my characters. It was not a morbid exercise. It was a way to celebrate how real they were becoming for me. A way to share their travails, stumbling, successes, and happy endings. (Yes, I gave them ALL happy endings. Even the villains.) They were notes from my heart.
The payoff was that, even in an ensemble piece I was writing with eleven equally important people, I got hooks that helped with storytelling. My characters each have their own needs, perspectives, strategies, and voices. And I don’t need to look at references to keep them straight.
So here are the four elements of an obituary, as modified by my explorations into the best, most engaging ones. They provide a map you can follow (or digress from) for your own characters. And I’ve provided one I wrote for one story’s hero as an example.
Death Announcement
This includes the date (which sets the character in time), location (space), and cause of death (often skipped in real obituaries, but good to put into fictional ones).
Family
This orients the character in terms of relationships. It can provide a context that implies responsibilities (legal, financial, emotional), losses (predeceased) and choices (divorces). It can also be a place to include something about friends.
Biographical Details & Personal Observations
This is the big one. The goal is to illustrate who this person is in a few memorable words. There great thing is you always have a starting point, basic facts like where the character was born and something about employment. That can make it easier to come up with the observations, which are invaluable. I will write about 250 words and cut it down to 75-150. That’s brief enough to add clarity to the character.
When I get stuck, I give the job to another character — either one who would not want to offend the subject of the obituary or one who uses it for revenge. (The latter can have a lot of power.)
Funeral Arrangements
This can be dry, but this subject does point to beliefs, religion, and family obligations. The “in lieu of flowers” part may be the most revealing.
Sample (created to explore my character):
Bertolan Olah, 74, died of natural causes on Friday, May 6, 2022, at Reynards Assisted Living Center.
Though Bertolan often spoke of his brothers and other family members, no information about his relatives is available at this time.
Bertolan was born behind the Iron Curtain in Nádudvar, Hungary. Most of the men in his family fought in World War II. His uncle died in the unsuccessful Hungarian Revolution. His father emigrated at that time, and he and his brothers became adept at trading, ultimately founding an import-export firm that still exists today. He emigrated to Rockville, Maryland. to retire, having already made many US friends through his business endeavors. He was often seen at embassy functions, where he gravitated toward American politicians.
He said, “Accept favors when offered. Return them as you can." Having lost an arm during military service, Bertolan pushed himself to be independent when he could. He learned to type fifty words per minute with one hand. But he also found relying on others created lifelong bonds with others. While at Reynards, he became known as the one to talk to if you have a yen for fancy chocolate, herbal cigarettes, or hard-to-get publications.
His wake will be held on June 9 at Reynalds Funeral Home. His friends at Reynards Assisted Living plan to hold a memorial service later this year.
Note: It might be fun to try this first for a character from someone else’s work: Captain Ahab or Tom Sawyer or Molly Bloom. Also, while real obituaries are rigorously factual (used to train reporters), yours can be full of lies.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Characters in Action - Revealing the inner person
I’m a big believer in getting to know characters by seeing them in motion. Ideally, these actions are dramatic:
• kissing,
• punching,
• breaking into a building,
• rescuing a drowning puppy,
• dancing on a rooftop,
• confessing to murder,
• escaping a fire,
• flirting with a stranger,
• eulogizing a parent,
• calming a baby.
(Go ahead and imagine your characters doing those things. It’s fun and it might surprise you.)
A step up from this list is imagining your character doing something you did that was dramatic. We all have times in our lives when we did something that mattered. If we did something that made a positive difference, it may be a resume item or a story you inevitably tell someone you care about or a boast. If we failed in some way, it may be an action we took that embarrassed us or reveal a flaw like cowardice or caused someone distress or pain. It may have been a action that ended a relationship forever. Seeing your character do these consequential things, things we hold onto for years, can bring real gold to a story.
It’s also possible to think of moments of trauma or compassion. When others acted upon us with impact, it often shaped our views, including concepts of what was possible. Trust and a sense of community can be formed by these moments. These also can be used to test our stories’s characters, but it’s a tricky choice. Putting moments of victimhood into stories carries the possibility of insight, but also the chance of self-indulgence or bids for sympathy or justification. Each of these is challenging to turn into art.
It’s best if the action you visualize for your character is one connected to the work in progress. From a practical standpoint, it can turn into a scene that writes itself. But even if it ends up being cut, it puts the character into a context. Characters are not real people (though I hope they feel that way to you). They exist in relation to the theme of the story as a way to personalize truths for your audience. Relevant actions reflect the selectivity that’s essential to every story. Discovering such actions help writers to focus and heighten moments in a story, and these are the building blocks that create beauty, insight, and passion for readers.
This action-based approach isn’t just for the protagonist or antagonist. For me, it helps in the development of every important character. I wouldn’t apply the ten actions above to a spear carrier, but they provide a quick and powerful approach to seeing secondary characters like best friends, partners in crime, confidants, and mentors.
• kissing,
• punching,
• breaking into a building,
• rescuing a drowning puppy,
• dancing on a rooftop,
• confessing to murder,
• escaping a fire,
• flirting with a stranger,
• eulogizing a parent,
• calming a baby.
(Go ahead and imagine your characters doing those things. It’s fun and it might surprise you.)
A step up from this list is imagining your character doing something you did that was dramatic. We all have times in our lives when we did something that mattered. If we did something that made a positive difference, it may be a resume item or a story you inevitably tell someone you care about or a boast. If we failed in some way, it may be an action we took that embarrassed us or reveal a flaw like cowardice or caused someone distress or pain. It may have been a action that ended a relationship forever. Seeing your character do these consequential things, things we hold onto for years, can bring real gold to a story.
It’s also possible to think of moments of trauma or compassion. When others acted upon us with impact, it often shaped our views, including concepts of what was possible. Trust and a sense of community can be formed by these moments. These also can be used to test our stories’s characters, but it’s a tricky choice. Putting moments of victimhood into stories carries the possibility of insight, but also the chance of self-indulgence or bids for sympathy or justification. Each of these is challenging to turn into art.
It’s best if the action you visualize for your character is one connected to the work in progress. From a practical standpoint, it can turn into a scene that writes itself. But even if it ends up being cut, it puts the character into a context. Characters are not real people (though I hope they feel that way to you). They exist in relation to the theme of the story as a way to personalize truths for your audience. Relevant actions reflect the selectivity that’s essential to every story. Discovering such actions help writers to focus and heighten moments in a story, and these are the building blocks that create beauty, insight, and passion for readers.
This action-based approach isn’t just for the protagonist or antagonist. For me, it helps in the development of every important character. I wouldn’t apply the ten actions above to a spear carrier, but they provide a quick and powerful approach to seeing secondary characters like best friends, partners in crime, confidants, and mentors.
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