Shrinking Violets
A while ago, a writer friend of mine was talking about her first query letter. She’d let me read it and I thought it was well done. This wasn’t a surprise. She’d spent a lot of time on it, she’d researched, revised, and sent it out to critique partners for their honest opinions. It was at a place where further effort was just spinning her wheels, at least until agents started to weigh in.
But she was frozen in place, terrified to send it out. She admitted that even though she knew the query and the manuscript were both in excellent shape, she couldn’t pull the trigger. “What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like…me?”
“They won’t,” I told her in my usual too-blunt way. “At least, most of them won’t. That’s just the way it works. But they don’t all have to like you. Only one has to like you.”
She laughed and said, “Can you imagine going out on stage in front of a large audience, singing a big emotional ballad that you wrote yourself, and when you’re done the audience is silent except for one person, slow clapping in the back row?”
She had a point.
It occurred to me that as writers, we really are true performers, and not so different than any other artist whose platform is a stage or a gallery wall. My friend couldn’t send out her query because she was suffering from good old-fashioned stage fright.
Based on my research, social anxiety and fear of public speaking/performance affect 22 million Americans and are two of the top-twelve most common phobias (along with fear of spiders, snakes, heights, flying, dogs, storms, needles/injections, germs, and both wide open and small spaces). These phobias are evolutionary and have been key to our survival—keeping us away from poisons or getting too close to a cliff edge and falling to our deaths. But now, with our day-to-day lives being lived in much safer environs, those evolutionary anxieties have less purpose while being no less present. Even when there’s no actual threat to our safety, our bodies often want to flee, or they just freeze up. Not surprisingly, these fears attack self-confidence and cause people to avoid stepping up to the podium even when doing so could lead to long-term success.
Getting back to my friend and her query letter, she’d admit that her stage fright comes from her need to be perfect and her fear that she never will be. Well (here’s me being blunt again), she’s right about that. She never will be perfect. None of us will. Check out this 1-star review for the King James Bible:
“I would have given it 5 stars if not for the 2 typographical errors that I’ve found (so far).”
For some, simply acknowledging that perfection is not attainable may be all it takes to gather the courage needed to put their writing out there for others to see, to judge, to love, or to hate.
But if that’s easier said than done for you, here are 6 techniques you can try to help you step out into the spotlight:
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Some of us run into it right from the beginning, when we first begin to put words to paper. Others are luckier and don’t encounter it until later on their journey. But either way, if you’re a writer, at some time or another you are bound to run into Self Doubt.
Self doubt hits all of us differently. It can be an uncomfortable itch between our shoulders or a paralyzing force that prevents us from getting any words down on the page. Whatever form it takes it can be, if not conquered, at least managed.
There are three distinct branches of the self-doubt tree.
Competence is about craft and skill. Do I have the writing chops to pull this story off?
Permission is about judgment and authenticity. Who do I think I am trying to tell THIS story?
Worthiness is about self worth, agency, and voice. Who do I think I am trying to tell ANY story?
Competence
Of all the causes of self doubt, competence is the most easily fixed. It’s about rolling up our sleeves, digging in, and committing the time and energy necessary to get better.
But of course, if merely proving our competency were all that was involved, no published writer would ever have self doubts and I am here to assure you that is most definitely NOT the case. Many published writers find their doubts grow stronger the further they move into their career. Their initial doubts are compounded by a sense of expectations they must meet, or new milestones or metrics they must achieve. Which brings us to head games and hard truths, essential tools in any writers’ backpack.
We’ll start with the hard truths first.
Our story will never be as sparkling and fabulous on the page as the idea of it in our heads. In the act of trying to capture it, in choosing specific actions and details, it loses some of the glorious sense of infinite potential, which is always a part of a new idea’s magic.
Knowing and accepting that helps us adjust our expectations. We won’t be writing a perfect book, but we very well might be writing a terrific book, and that’s good enough.
Another hard truth: Your journey to publication will likely take longer than you think. The industry average is 10 years. Knowing and accepting that helps us give ourselves the time and permission to improve our writing skills. With patience and persistence, all of us can improve and draw closer to mastery.
Now for the promised head game regarding competence:
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Depending on the writer you talk to, writer’s block seems to be either:
(A) Something writers’ dread
(B) Something they run into without warning
(C) Something they don’t believe in–an easy excuse people use to avoid doing the hard work. A way of letting fear get to you.
It can be easy to discount something you’ve never experienced. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. A number of years ago, there was a well known child behavior expert who confessed to not understanding why so many people had so such difficulty in applying proven child rearing philosophies to their kids. He had a system that worked and genuinely thought people were making it far more complicated than it needed to be. Until the day he was blessed with A Difficult Child. Then all of his proven systems went flying out the window and he had to scramble to come up with new ones. He was forced to admit that those parents hadn’t been wrong after all. There really was such a thing as a difficult child. It’s not a bad idea to keep that story in mind when declaring there’s no such thing as writer’s block. It is quite possible that you simply haven’t run into it YET. Life’s journey is long and you may still find yourself on a road you blissfully thought didn’t exist.
It doesn’t help that the term writer’s block acts as a general catch all, covering a huge variety of very real, frustrating, energy-depleting and wildly different set of problems. So today, I thought we could unpack writer’s block and examine eleven reasons people find themselves stuck, then talk about ways to get unstuck.
1. Nothing you write works and you’re getting nowhere.
This isn’t being blocked, it’s being stymied. You’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere in the story and need to find your way back. In this case, step back and take a look at the big picture. Pull out your trusty plotting tools if you use them. Return to the last place where words were flowing. Look at the actions the characters take, the decisions they make. Were they forced? Cliche? What if they made a different decision? Experiment with a few different choices they could make and see if that opens up new possibilities.
2. Your characters aren’t cooperating and won’t DO anything.
In this situation, you’re often lacking the emotional fuel for the story. Go deeper into your character and do some journaling or writing prompts to discover their deepest feelings, motivations, and concerns. If you already know those, look for tangential ones—feelings and motivations that might even be hidden from the character. Another approach is to do a stream of consciousness journaling as to what they’re thinking/feeling immediately after the last scene you wrote. Or before the one you’re planning to write. You should find some breadcrumbs and ideas there.
3. You don’t know what happens next.
Usually the techniques in #1 or #2 will provide answers here, but if not, there are a couple of additional approaches. Do some worldbuilding to see if the environment will provide clues/plot ideas. Or research. Oftentimes plot solutions, surprising twists, unexpected angles can be found through research. Or consider doing some journaling from the antagonist’s POV. Map out the actions they’re […]
Whether we like it or not, recent world events have forced most of us to hit the pause button. For some, that pause comes at a relatively decent place where we can stop and see it as an opportunity (if we can set aside our anxiety long enough.) For others, the pause has us teetered on the brink of a freefall that we cannot even begin to see the end of or how we will land.
No matter where we are, all we can do at this point is wait. Wait and stay home and see if that will be enough to flatten the curve.
It’s the ultimate dichotomy, isn’t it? We’ve been given this great chunk of time where the best thing we can do is stay home and tend to ourselves (surely a writer’s dream!) and yet we are so filled with uncertainty and stress and anxiety that we can barely focus on anything but the news and the horror of it all as it unfolds.
Waiting is often a passive state where we feel out of control. But waiting does not have to be passive. It’s possible, even healthy, to take this waiting period that we have been given and use it to do something proactive, life affirming.
When the world is on fire around us, there can be nothing more helpful for our mental health than to lose ourselves in the flow of something, whether it be a hobby, a craft, a passion, or a calling. It might seem an awful lot like fiddling while Rome burns, but once you’ve ensured that your fire alarm battery is working and watered your roof, really, what else is there to do?
Start a garden. Adopt a house plant. Sewing, knitting, origami, drawing, painting, book art, collaging with found things in your home, yoga. YouTube videos abound on an incredibly vast array of new skills—some we’ve longed to try for ages. Now is the time to do that, to lose yourself in that kind of being. Allowing yourself to find a way to create in a chaotic world—to enter a flow state of being—is the biggest gift you can give yourself. It gives your ravenous brain something healthy to chew on rather than junk food.
I want to be clear that I’m not talking about advancing our careers or hitting word counts or being productive. For most of us, this experience is a little too traumatic for that. I am talking about finding a path to escape, just for a little while, the unremittingly heavy burden of the time we’re living in, by losing ourselves in the act of creation. No pressure or strings attached.
Since most of us here are writers, that seems the obvious thing. For many of us, our ability to lose ourselves in deep focused work and the flow of creativity will offer a welcome respite. But how you might ask. How are we to do that with all the news events swirling around us and all the ugly news piling up?
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photo courtesy Alice Popkorn
As the year draws to a close, it is inevitable that our minds turn toward the passing of seasons, the ebb and flow of life, and the inevitability of change. This is particularly true for me this year as I stand poised, once again, on life’s Ferris wheel. But here’s the funny thing about Fortune’s wheel—because so much of the ride is beyond our vantage point, we can never really know if the arc we’re on is poised for an upswing, or the stomach clenching dip of a down turn.
My first post here at Writer Unboxed was on how a writer’s life was full of second chances. It was written from a place where I could clearly see the direction fortune’s wheel was taking me. And while I know that down always follows up—it’s science, after all—I was a bit unprepared for the sheer variety of downs there were. The truth is, the Shadowlands of Success are heavily populated with all manner of obstacles: swamps, impossibly high mountain ranges, impenetrable mists, mazes, and terrifyingly deep caverns.
And now for my own confession. Dear reader, I lied. Back in February of 2015, just after I crested life’s Ferris wheel, I fell—long and hard and far—into the Shadowlands. It was not a professional fall, but a personal one. It was not ergonomics that forced my hiatus. Or rather, not simply ergonomics but my body finally screaming at me—enough!—and forcing an intervention.
Because the thing about the body is, it remembers. It remembers and stores all the things that we’d rather forget. That we work so hard to forget. The truth is, I have spent my entire life avoiding the shadowlands, which probably ensured my visit was a long and painful one.
But my body knew. And remembered.
All of our experiences—physical and emotional—are stored deep within our muscles, sinew, bones, and even cells. While our minds are very adept at denial and disassociation, our bodies keeps track of it all.
In an essay entitled Infinite Exchange, David Maisel offers this stunning and startling truth:
In a 2011 paper on the medical effects of scurvy, author Jason C. Anthony offers a remarkable detail about human bodies and the long-term presence of wounds. “Without vitamin C,” Anthony writes, “we cannot produce collagen, an essential component of bones, cartilage, tendons and other connective tissues. Collagen binds our wounds, but that binding is replaced continually throughout our lives. Thus in advanced scurvy”—reached when the body has gone too long without vitamin C—“old wounds long thought healed will magically, painfully reappear.”1
Given the right—or, as it were, exactly wrong—nutritional circumstances, even a person’s oldest injuries never really go away. In a sense, there is no such thing as healing. From paper cuts to surgical scars, our bodies are mere catalogs of wounds: imperfectly locked doors quietly waiting, sooner or later, to spring back open.
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Banksy in Boston: FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS CANCELLED, Essex St, Chinatown, Boston, photo by Chris Devers
My husband and I have been watching Project Runway this season. We have our favorite designers and our least favorite ones. Near the beginning of the season, the one we were betting against the most was this young man named Brandon who designed only menswear before the show.
In the first challenge, he’d been assigned a beautiful plus-sized model and tasked with creating a red carpet look for her, and he was very nervous about doing the look right. He decided to make an outfit with a cropped camouflage top and a pink bottom with an athletic stripe.
Throughout the episode, the young man expressed doubts about his ability. His model was worried. Some of the other designers thought his work was hideous. We pretty much agreed with them.
At the end, as you probably know, the designers with the highest and lowest scores stay onstage to be judged. Brandon was among them. We of course thought he had a low score, and would immediately be eliminated.
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Reading that title might have you scratching your head. What is tricky about perfection? What could possibly be wrong with it? Surely it’s a good thing to try our best and strive to improve. And indeed, conventional wisdom tells us that if we write the perfect book, have the perfect social media presence, and conduct the perfect marketing campaign—success will be ours!
But perfection isn’t that simple and there is a difference between striving for excellence as a way to do our best versus chasing the illusion that any human creative endeavor can be perfect. Striving for your best work is vastly different from holding yourself to impossibly perfect standards.
Perfection is the trickster god of virtues because it fools you into thinking it IS a virtue. That it’s an indicator of how much you care, how hard you work, how dedicated you are. But in reality, perfection is often not about any of those things. It is an unattainable, unreachable illusion and in pursuing it, we often kill or destroy some of the most human and joyous experiences available to us.
Perfection insists that we perform our lives rather than live them. That we allow external measures to shape and control our happiness rather than our own lived experiences, and therein lies its peril.
Some hints you might be a perfectionist are:
But wait! Even if you got through that list and didn’t see yourself, you’re not free yet because overachieving is a form of perfection. (Remember that Trickster God of Virtues, thing.) So you might also be a perfectionist if:
This kind of perfectionism is often rooted in a need to exceed expectations and be above reproach. It is one, I might add, that writers are especially vulnerable to because there is such a degree of luck in any writer’s success and we feel we must do everything in our power to earn and justify it.
So what’s a perfectionist to do??
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Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.
I’ve got some bad news: It’s only a matter of time before everybody finds out you’re a fraud. Those publications of yours? A fluke. Your story that got a good review? The reviewer was drunk. That time your crush blew you a kiss? Totally meant for the person standing behind you.
And the good news? I never promised good news. Have fun circling the drain!
Ha ha! Just kidding! That was all a delightful jape! You’re not a phony, you’ve got a raging case of impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome is the sense of dread you feel that all of your success, achievements, and accomplishments were acquired through luck, nepotism, and pity. It has hamstrung the careers of many writers whose names I’m too lazy to look up. But it doesn’t have to ruin yours. There are many ways to beat impostor syndrome. Some folks will tell you impostor syndrome is merely the result of leveling up, or will reassure you that you really have earned all those accolades. That’s easy for a bunch of famous, successful authors to say from atop their ivory towers. Well, Famous Author Bill Ferris is offering you some different strategies from atop his throne of skulls:
This is not the way I planned to do this. My idea was to simply slink quietly away for a few months, then just as quietly return to my monthly posting. But the Blog Mama decided a different approach was in order, and so here I am, announcing that I will be taking a temporary leave of absence from Writer Unboxed. Talking about it like this feels a wee bit personal, like I am oversharing or burdening you with TMI. But perhaps, instead, it can be a cautionary tale that will help keep you from following down a similar path. Let’s call it that, shall we? Or else I’ll never be able to hit the post button…
The truth is, it has been an amazing three years since I first posted on WU. They have been richer and fuller and brought more exhilarating experiences than I could ever have imagined. But they have also been demanding and exhausting in ways I never anticipated. I have talked before about how, although I consider myself a prolific writer, the deadlines for the assassin trilogy have been hard for me. It has been one grueling deadline after another for the last three years. Coupled with the fact that I had been on deadline nearly continuously for the three years PRIOR to that as I juggled two middle grade series. And while all of that has been hard on my muse, it has been even harder on my physical self. The truth is, all that butt-in-chair has driven my body into the ground and I have a number of ergonomic issues that are demanding my attention. They go far beyond remembering to wear my wrist guards to bed and do a few sets of crunches each morning.
This is not something I’m proud of. It makes me feel weak and stupid—weak for my body not holding up under the demands I made of it, and stupid for not having foreseen this and headed it off.
I know there are many, many writers who struggle with ergonomic issues and other physical hardships daily and still manage to produce lots of words and great work. But apparently I am not one of those writers. And maybe, just maybe, that’s part of this whole acquiring wisdom thing—learning where one’s own limits are and how to accept them.
I also suspect it is more than simply ergonomics at this point.
Read MoreThis is a tricky conversation we’re about to have. For years we’ve encouraged you to dig deep and tell your most personal, individual stories using your unique voice. But once you’ve honed your skills and excavated your most powerful voice—then what? What if you build it and nobody comes? What if the stories you’re driven to tell are quiet ones? Or don’t hit the current market sweet spot? Or have already been done a hundred times before?
Because sometimes the inescapable fact is, the things we love to write don’t sell. So then what?
Well, you can quit—which while a perfectly reasonable, legitimate life choice, is obviously not one we here at WU hope you make.
You can also self publish. And while this post isn’t about self publishing, the truth is, with the advent of self publishing you have the option—the luxury—of being able to tell your stories your way and still have them published and available to readers. Of course, the big question is—available to how many readers and how exactly will they discover your work? But that entire topic is the subject of a different post. I just wanted to acknowledge that was a very viable option once you have honed your craft.
Lastly, you can rework your stories to try and create a larger welcome mat, or you can polish your craft and skills so that your writing shines so brightly people will simply have to pay attention to it.
So this conversation we’re having is not about selling out your artistic vision to get a contract. Nor is it about watering down your artistic integrity in order to find readers. It’s about finding the largest, widest doorway into your story so that you can to draw in as many readers as possible, and then tell them exactly the core story you’re driven to tell.
A while back, Julia Baggott wrote a terrific piece about writing books of the heart versus more commercial books and pointed out that was a false dichotomy. Her point is a critical one (and if you haven’t read the piece take a moment and do so now)—we don’t have to choose one or the other. We can find ways to put pieces of our heart in more commercial ideas as well as find ways to make the books of our heart have a broader appeal.
There are a variety of things that allow a book to stand out and find a wide audience:
gripping plot
stunning reversals and sleight of hand
compelling characters
unique original voice
exquisite language
exploring the vulnerabilities and universal truths of the human heart
And of course, the best of the best often incorporate more than one of those elements.
If you write quiet books or books that go against current market conventions, that doesn’t mean all is lost. It simply means that some of these other aspects of your work will act as the wider doormat for your potential readers. And the good news is that widening that doormat does not have to radically alter the story you are hungry to tell.
Read MoreRecently, as I was preparing for my Mortal Heart book tour, I found myself in a logistical flurry trying to pack ten days’ worth of clothes and personal items into one carry on. There was the big, obvious stuff; four pairs of pants, eight shirts, ten pairs of socks, under duds, toiletries, iPad, reading material, pens, etc. However, there were also some rather unique items. Like the veritable cobbler’s bench worth of extra insoles, arch supports, moleskin and shoe enhancers that I might need for the two pairs of shoes I was taking—both brand new since my feet had suddenly grown half a size well past the time I expected my feet to do anymore growing. Or the old black t-shirt I’ve grown accustomed to draping over my eyes instead of an eye mask.
While those were admittedly odd, they weren’t nearly as discomfiting as the small medicine chest of ‘tools’ I was bringing along to ensure I could endure the strange, torture devices that the modern plane seat has evolved into; Advil, Aleve, arnica, muscle relaxants (in case things got really hairy) and maybe even a half a Xanax or two, in case it all got to be too much.
As I struggled to fit everything into that one piece of luggage, I was struck by the enormous load of invisible baggage I was carrying with me on this trip. My worries—about travel, my feet, whether or not anyone would show up at the events. My fears—of travel delays, wickedly uncomfortable plane seats, lost luggage, public speaking (mostly gone at this stage of my life but reappearing just often enough to keep me off balance.) My hopes—that I would meet reader expectations, book sales, and my own performance. And lastly, my conditioning, if you will—from my earliest, most damaging beliefs that I did not have a right to a voice, or was allowed to speak into the public conversation at large, to my more recent attempts to rewrite that programming—helped in large part by wildly enthusiastic and generous readers, booksellers, friends and family.
The thing is, my experience is not unique. Whenever any of us set out on a journey of any length, we not only have the physical supplies we carry with us, but an invisible backpack or suitcase packed full of our hopes and fears, expectations and programming.
These invisible backpacks are one of the most intimate, rich, unique and authentic things about us. They accompany us on a trip of ten days or a ten minute jaunt to the grocery store and everything in-between. Yes, even to work, and yes, even when we work in a home office.
As a writer, these invisible backpacks are one of our most powerful tools.
The thing is, if every story is about a character going on a journey, whether a physical or metaphorical one, then they, too, should have one of these invisible backpacks. If they don’t, the journey often feels flat and unimportant, uncompelling and lacking in urgency.
Unlike a regular suitcase, the weight of the invisible one is always there. It weighs down on even our most simple actions and decisions. It’s what turns a simple act—say reaching for a cup […]
Read MoreRobin LaFevers writes: One of the hardest things about being a writer can be the sense of isolation we experience–the sense that we are the only ones to feel a certain way. Especially when those feelings are not happy or joyful ones. That’s why fellow writers’ honesty is such a gift. Today I am honored to share with you such a gift–a guest post by YA author Myra McEntire. It is a raw, honest look at some of the hardships of being a writer, and the unexpected places where we can find healing connections.
Myra is the author of the Hourglass trilogy, which was a RITA nominee as well as a nominee for the YALSA Teen Top Ten. She is also a contributor to MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME, a collection of holiday short stories which has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly.
For more of Myra’s humor and honesty, connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, or her blog.
Pantaphobia: THAT’S IT!
I was diagnosed with major clinical depression last January. Big time med changes, counseling, the whole churro. With the help of family and friends, including Stephanie Perkins (who held me accountable for daily tasks like eating, showering, and teeth brushing), the extreme low only lasted for a couple of months.
But even the regular low is a real pain in the ass.
I spent a lot of time attempting to escape my pit of despair. I sat in front of my computer, trying to turn words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs. I tried, and tried, and tried, but never made it to scenes or chapters. There were distractions – we moved, our kids changed schools, and then summer break rolled around. Summer break at our house is like a three-month Coachella Festival. My focus is solely on crowd control and keeping everyone alive. Next year I’m ordering myself a t-shirt that says “SECURITY” in hot pink, sequined letters. I’ve not ruled out a low voltage tazer, but there are some … legality issues I need to look into.
When I wasn’t serving as the family bouncer, I decorated, painted, gardened, and crafted, until there was nothing left to decorate, paint, garden, or craft. (Y’all, I Mod Podged so many things my cats got nervous. I think they thought they were next.) Finally, once school started. I could breathe. I had quiet time to be still and get honest with myself. I evaluated life, and what I wanted from it. I didn’t know if I could write for publication anymore.
I had multiple conversations with my husband – who understands chasing dreams, as he’s a former minor league baseball player. “Should I get a part time job? Finish my masters? Keep the house really clean and serve a home-cooked meal every night? Go to the gym regularly?” (THE GYM. REGULARLY.)
Thankfully, my husband is wise. “You won’t be happy,” he said. “That’s not you or your life.” The man turned down home cooked meals, and I’m a mighty fine cook, so he was not. messing. around. He gave me the courage I needed to keep questioning myself.
I talked to dear […]
Read MoreFor those of you attending the Writer Unboxed Un-Con – especially the newbies among us – it may be useful to give some thought to how to get the most out of your upcoming writers conference experience. For those of you not attending UnCon, it may be useful to store these tips in a cool, dry place, against the day when you next wander down the conference trail. And for those of you with long experience of writers conferences, it might be useful to ignore everything that follows – but chip in with your own tips at the end.
First and foremost, campers, SET THE RIGHT GOAL. If you head into UnCon (or any con) with the goal of hitting some prized target (like landing an agent or a book deal, or whatever your ticket to heaven might be), you risk disappointment if that doesn’t happen. Worse, you’ll put all this stress on yourself to make it happen. Instead try this: Have fun. That’s a goal you can easily achieve, just by showing up and hanging out. I’m not saying don’t make the most of your networking opportunities. I’m just saying don’t obsess about it. As they say in poker (whence, let’s face it, all wisdom springs), “Let the game come to you.” What this is really about is setting your expectations. High expectations = buzz kill. Low expectations = fun!
Next order of business, SITUATE YOUR EGO. Take a few minutes to think about yourself, your sense of self, and where your insecurities lie. Then take all that self-consciousness, box it up, wrap it neatly with a bow – and leave it at home. A con is supposed to be a place to relax, meet friends, make friends, learn shit, renew your passion, and soak up energy like a sponge. It’s not a place to fret about whether you’re shining in others’ eyes. That’ll just make you try too hard. News flash: you don’t have to be momentous; you just have to be you. And if you’re really worried that people are judging you in some sense or any sense, remember this sardonic observation that Dr. Phil takes credit for, but really it’s from Eleanor Roosevelt, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
[pullquote]It usually works to buy drinks.[/pullquote]
With that in mind, MEET EVERYONE (which you now can easily do, since you’ve A) lowered your expectations and 2) left your ego at home). If you have trouble breaking the ice, here’s time-tested wisdom handed down from Ascended Stairmasters of yore: “It usually works to buy drinks.” Alternatively, reference this column. Just say to anyone you meet, “You know, that wannabe Stairmaster John Vorhaus recommends meeting everyone I can at these things, so this is me meeting you now.” (Especially use that line if you and I meet; we will find it hilarious.) And here’s an inner-game tip for you whose memory is as bad as mine. If you collect a lot of business cards and then can’t remember who gave them to you, just have them hold it and take their picture. It’s a little mug-shotty, but a reliable way to put names to […]
Read MoreI know a lot of you out there are gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and while you’re not allowed to begin your story until November 1, you are allowed to do pre-writing on your project, and frankly, I think pre-writing is highly undervalued, so I thought I’d talk about it this month.
The reason I’m a big believer in pre-writing is because until I have a glimmer of understanding of my character’s emotional landscape and internal settings, I don’t know what sorts of story events will challenge them. I don’t understand what sorts of interaction will push them to their limits, make them question everything, make them dig deep or lay them bare.
In the pre-writing stage, we’re gathering the materials and ingredients we will use to build our story. Pre-writing is where we discover the character’s juiciness and crunch, their texture and heft.
I get that some people do this in early drafts, and I use to be one of them, but more and more I have begun to take the time to learn this in pre-writing and thus save myself a number of unfruitful drafts. The other thing that can happen is that if we don’t have enough knowledge of our characters so we can truly challenge them, we run the risk of the story petering out. My archives at home are full of stories that simply ran out of gas. One of the biggest reasons stories peter out is due to not enough conflict or depth. If you dig deep enough, there is conflict to be found in the recesses of your character’s psyche. Pre-writing can help figure that out early on to help avoid dead ends and running out of juice.
If the question is Why should the reader care? the answer is often hidden in the backstory.
Pre-writing is all about backstory, which informs the characters and story taking place just as surely as the contours of the earth’s crust influences its landscape.
The backstory is what clues the reader in to why THIS event is so cataclysmic for THIS character. Why this hurdle has the potential to flatten her. Why this relationship is so critical to her well being. Why this situation she finds herself in will force her to grow or change in terrifying new ways.
Of course, the challenging part is once we know all this backstory, how do we weave it into the unfolding story as seamlessly as possible. The key to this is through the way the characters view the world—if they are optimistic or pessimistic, trusting or cynical, driven or lazy. It shows up in how they react to and interact with others. It informs and colors all their relationships—both with the people and the world around them. For example, some people relish interpersonal conflict, others avoid it, while some placate or respond in a passive aggressive manner. Do you know how your character responds to interpersonal conflict? Do you know why she responds that way?
In the pre-writing stage, we’re getting to know the intimate contours of our characters and hauling up the ingredients we will use to build our story. Knowing these sorts of things can really help you avoid floundering as […]
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