Paint With Words

Now I didn’t write this, but it’s something i had to read for my feature writing class. It’s by John Hewitt, and I felt like it had a lot of good information for all writers.

The Idea Farm

Some writers know exactly what they want to say. They merely have to start typing and passion flows from them. This doesn’t necessarily mean they write well, but they don’t sit around wondering what to write about. Most writers, however, need a little prodding. Sometimes they have great ideas, and sometimes they stare at their computer screen waiting for something to come to them. If you fall into the second category, you can reduce your time spent staring at the screen by creating a log of your good ideas when they come to you. You can also spend those slow times looking at a few tried and true idea resources and seeing what ideas you can grow for the future.

What is an idea log?

Your idea log can be as simple or as fancy as you wish. Some people create file folders for their ideas. They fill them with notes, clippings, pictures and whatever else will assist them. When they pull out the folder, they have all they need to start work. This can be a great system, but it is a lot of work, especially if you never pursue that idea later.

Many people take advantage of their computers. They write quick notes, or even put them in the form of a query to an editor, and keep them in individual documents or add them to a database. This is an excellent system and one that can also get you going quickly once you decide to write because part of the document is already written. You just have to expand on it.

The third way that I propose is simpler and not as thorough. I use it myself, however, because of its ease and portability. I keep a stack of 3×5 cards in which I jot down my ideas. I put a title and description at the top then jot down the note below. I rarely fill up more than one side of one card. It isn’t as thorough as a file or as ready to roll as a computer note, but it keeps me from prattling on about what is just a single idea that I may or may not follow. Plus, when I have a stack of these cards, I can pull them out and thumb through them quickly, more quickly than going through a file folder or a computer database. I can also take these cards with me anywhere and jot down the ideas as they come. I am a big fan of computers, but for this task I really do prefer the simplicity of a 3×5 card.

What do you like? What do you hate?

A great place to start looking for ideas is to look at your likes and dislikes. What makes you happy and what makes you sad or angry. These are the things in your life that will provoke your most passionate writing. This can range from politics, entertainment, to a lump in your carpet that you’d like to get rid of. It all depends on what interests you enough to upset or please you.

Who do you know?

The people in your life can be one of your greatest sources of ideas. They have jobs, hobbies, interests and problems that make them experts hundreds of things. Your architect friend can now be interviewed about what makes for a good or bad home design. Your divorced friend with three kids probably has much to say about child support issues. With a little fictionalization, the annoying woman at work might make for a great short story. Look at the people around you. Evaluate them as article sources, interview topics and as story ideas.

Who would you like to know?

People often portray writing as a solitary task, but one of the great benefits of being a writer is that you can use it to meet people. Think about the respected or famous people you would like to talk to: writers you respect, experts in fields you are interested in, actors and politicians. Some of them will be difficult to meet, but many are easier than you think. While the ten most famous writers in the world may be hard to contact, most writers do not spend the majority of their time fending off interview requests. The same is true of experts in most areas. Politicians and actors are probably the hardest to get an interview with, but even then you might be surprised. Just remember that the top few in those fields are nearly impossible to interview without some clout behind you, but there are plenty of others in the field who would be happy to answer your questions.

Where have you been?

Travel is a great way to generate ideas. Look at the places you’ve gone and the things you’ve done there. Think also of the trips you would like to take. From travel guides to the settings for stories, your journeys can be a great source of ideas. Whenever you travel, it is a good idea to keep a journal and write down your thoughts and impressions. You never know where you might find your next idea.

What have you been doing?

Take a look at your areas of expertise. What jobs have you held? What hobbies have you had? What have you studied? These are your areas of knowledge. You may not be an expert, but in writing it is generally enough to be an intelligent amateur as long as you are willing to do the research for your story. Just as your friends are great sources of information, you are your greatest source. Not only do you know something about these things, but also you can rely on yourself, more than anyone else, to do the work required to find out more. Every job, from working in a warehouse to being a phone solicitor to managing a small office, has requirements and areas of interest. Think about how these things can become articles or stories.

What have you been reading?

If you are a writer, then chances are you are an avid reader, and it pays to keep a few notes while you read. The daily paper, magazines, the Internet and the books you read are great sources for ideas. My favorite example of this process is the movie The Player, in which a studio executive challenges anyone to read him a newspaper article and he’ll come up with a movie based on it. Over and over he turns the most mundane articles into feature film ideas. Ideas are everywhere.

What happened to you?

Beyond the jobs and hobbies you’ve had, there is plenty more to your life. There are hundreds of high points and low points in every person’s life: people found and lost, love shared and unrequited, accidents, plots, plans, choices and mistakes. Most of your memories are worthy of a story or article, because chances are you haven’t managed to remember the ordinary and mundane parts of your life, just the highs and the lows and the elements that contribute to who you are. Your life is an endless source of material if you have the talent to make it interesting to others.

Ideas are all around you. If you go through the items above, you will have plenty of ideas to work with, but beyond that, you just need to keep your eyes open and your other senses ready to back them up. Ideas will come to you if you are paying attention. Just remember to have some system to keep track of them, even if it is just a notebook for you to jot things down in. Your ideas are fuel for your writing. Keep plenty of fuel handy.

ok ok ok so I guess this isn’t too much of a problem (or i hope not) as I’m advertising myself, but I’m trying to post a story of mine via WEbook.com and hopefully get it published. Check it if you want.

www.webook.com/project/die-dirigentin

Only have a Prologue and chapter 1 posted as of now, but there’s about 11 chapters total done, but they need edited and overhauled. once I get through my (future) sister in law’s wedding this weekend then hopefully my fiance can get to helping me fine tune it.

Thanks all <3

One of the trickiest things about character creation is fitting the character’s personality into the plot, without compromising who you want them to be. Sometimes people feel that the characters are the most important part of the story, but to me, they’re only secondary. What they do depends on what happens to them, so that’s why I consider them secondary.

No matter how you view it, though,  your base for your character has to be strong. Admittedly, my characters end up being a lot like me (at least the main characters): strong, witty, unconventional, rough aroudn the edge kinds of girls who march to the beat of their own drums. Relationhips the characters have are based largely off of ones I have (my fiance has told me numerous times that conversations that happen in my stories sound like conversations he and I would have…which is true ;-)).  However, other people don’t want their characters to be anything like them. 

Your characters have to be flexible whether or not they reflect their author. If your characters don’t go with the flow, your plot suffers, and if the plot suffers, forget it. Besides, think of your story like life: if you don’t change and roll with the punches, life gets either erally hard, really boring, or you become really narrowminded. Now, who wants to read about characters like that (unless your story is about a person who refuses to change)?

 Good characters, just as good people, change as the story progresses. They learn, and evaluate their lives. Trying to devise perfect characters (go back to the Mary Sue references I made earlier) make the story boring. If everything about the characters is already completely formed and developed into what they should be to be ideal for their given situation, how can anything grow and develop? Where’s the story? That doesn’t mean your characters can’t be “good people”. Not at all. Even good people have imperfections. Think of the most noble, admirable person you know, and are they perfect? Doubt it. I bet even they have some quirk that gets on your nerves to no ends.

I know before I talked about how the plot in Nights in Rodanthe was a disappointment, at least to me. However, the characters went through a LOT of good change, and that was the redeeming quality to that book. In fact, Nicholas Sparks does a wonderful job of shaping and forming his characters, whether they just get older, or as the story grows their ideas and lifestyles are challenged.

 Even though good characters to me are second to a good plot, in my opinion, they still need each other for the story to work out. If one suffers, so does the other. However, if both are strong, you have nothing to worry about.

Isn’t that just the most wonderful thing to deal with? I’ve been struggling with it for the past few months. Either I’ve been lacking the drive, but have the emotions, or have the drive and lack the emotional connection. Not to mention school and my job are taking up all of my time. But we’re at the half way point in the semester, so we’ll have to wait and see how things unfold.

 Unfortunately, the only cure I happen to have for writer’s block is a good cup of joe. That, or walking around listening to a playlist I put together to represent one of my stories (in fact it’s for the only one I’m writing with the intentions of publishing). The playlist thing only works half the time though.

Sometimes though just day to day life gives me an idea. Everything is a story. maybe not an intersting one, but it’s a story. In a drama class I took, my teacher liked referencing a quote from Alfred Hitchcock, “Theatre is life with all the boring parts cut out.” I view writing as the same. You’re not going to read a story and hear every trip to the bathroom, every sneeze, every lazy Sunday, or every dilemma of deciding what to wear. While those ARE all part of life, it’s not anything we’re interested in reading. Those are just givens that everyone knows happens once in a while. The trip to the bathroom is only important if it’s because they’re escaping a conflict, or the sneeze if it gains the attention of a stranger that leads to a conversation, or the lazy Sunday follows up a Saturday of partying. And the wardrobe malfunction? The more important part is WHY they’re picky about their dress in the first place. But really, unless any of those reasons exists, I don’t really need to hear about every little detail.

Well I guess this is more stream of consciousness than I originally anticipated. Ah well.

 I just find the balance between the emotional drive and the will power to do any work interesting. Life can wear on one or both factors, and sometimes it’s hard to work when one of them was lacking. With a lack of emotion, writing becomes mechanical; Step 1, Step 2, Step 3. With a lack of drive, it’s simply a bunch of adjectives on a page describing nothing. While the words are pretty, they serve no purpose other than maximizing your word count.

All I can ever think to do is to keep going. It took Elizabeth Kostova 10 years to write “The Historian”. I’m sure she struggled with writer’s block, and researching historical facts so her stories about Dracula, while fictious, sound credible. Same with Dan Brown and “The Da Vinci Code”.  I don’t know if that book took him 10 years, but look at everything he would’ve had to have put together to all of a sudden, bam, he’s working with the only living descedent of Jesus Christ. It’s just one of those dirty facts of life. Sometimes you just have to walk away from the story for a while, come back, and then all of a sudden you have inspiration again. Sometimes you just keep writing until you break the block, then go back and edit.

I guess that’s really all I have to say about any of it. As I said it’s mostly stream of consciousness, so I hope this offered something.