So whether I succeed or fail, no matter how afraid or fraudulent I feel at the task set before me – I am going forward and I will see just what happens. Whatever it is, it may well be extraordinary.
Some of the people I most admire talk about fear. How they felt it during their work. How during a new endeavour, that later became such a defining moment in their career, at the beginning, terrified them. Many of them felt like a fraud about to be caught out. And it’s not the people you would expect. It’s people you look at now and say – wow, he or she really knew their path. But they didn’t. It was a gamble. But instead of running from their fear, they put forth extraordinary effort, stood steady in the trembling wind. And what I’ve learned from this is that you can’t fail without trying. And that failure is in itself a reward for trying. Therefore failure is not a negative thing. It is a leap. A badge proving you went forward. That you are more than the ones who turned away when the terrifying task was set upon the table. And do not forget that alongside failure is success – which you also do not gain without attempt.
So whether I succeed or fail, no matter how afraid or fraudulent I feel at the task set before me – I am going forward and I will see just what happens. Whatever it is, it may well be extraordinary.
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Two truths and a lie – ever played it? It’s a game where you say two things that are true about yourself and one thing that isn’t and the people you are with try to pick out the lie. The more detail the lie has, the more it tends to be believable. It’s like that in writingThe more details you add, the more senses you use, the more you know about your subject – the more your writing sounds real.
I was writing a creepy scene where my main character walked through a rather rundown neighborhood in London, England. I had never been to this neighborhood in my life. The last time I was in England, I was twelve and nowhere near this place. So to research I found a walking tour on the internet. It was just visuals, but it gave me a good impression of things. Then I read articles about the neighborhood, just a couple, for flavor. I found out about how the police handled things and what was socially acceptable. After that I picked one image for each of my senses to work into my scene. Then I plotted the whole thing out. I think the resulting scene is one of my best works. One of the people in my critique group said, “I can really tell you’ve been there.” That made me happy. So bring the techniques of two truths and a lie into your work and see just what it can do. I can't recommend the WordsWorth program enough. If you are a youth writer, go to this retreat. It will change your life.
Drink the Wild Air Come join us at the WordsWorth Winter Retreat! March 1-3 at Camp Chief Hector. Why there, you ask? “Nature has no outline. Imagination has” William Blake March 1-3 we’re heading to the mountains for another Creative Writing Re-treat and of course, we hope you’ll be there! But why do we keep bringing our writing to the outdoors?William Carlos Williams said things close to the nose aren’t proper subjects. Not all writing can be direct self-expression. Looking inward can keep poets and writ-ers from looking outward. And so we’re taking you outdoors this time to Camp Chief Hector to partner with the outdoor staff to notice evocative new images and to have fresh adventure. And then we’ll create time to take these new images and experiences ...and collaborate them with language. So even if you already have a relationship with the natural world, this one will be new.The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it novelist Elizabeth Brown observed. So join us and DRINK THE WILD AIR March 1 – 3, 2013 at Camp Chief Hector YMCA in Kananaskis, Alberta. Thaw your brainfreeze with warm words and we hope you will find an unexpected connection between the outdoors and words. To register or click here: http://drinkthewildair2013.eventbrite.ca/ We will be outdoors, indoors writing, up late writing under the stars, sleeping late -ish. There will be campfire, music, parlour games, Exquisite Corpse Games... the fun will never end. Oh, yes it will. On Sunday just after lunch. But in true Words-worth fashion, we will pack the fun in. We’re even offering a bus out from Calgary on the Friday night. My February Trilogy hasn’t been picked up by an agent yet. My readers are complaining. I have to get it sold. But, there’s something wrong. It’s just not – I don’t know – exciting enough. I mean, sure there are gun fights and poisonings and grenades, but something’s still not right. I just can’t put my finger on it.
Then I talked to my daughter. She asked me what exactly was wrong and the more we talked the more I realized – the stakes aren’t high enough. They are in the second and third book. But the first one, it kind of falls flat. So come November – I’m going to dive into February and pump it up. Make all those things she does life or death, because really, being a secret agent, her life is against the wall most of the time. Now I feel better about things. Now I can fix this and finally get an agent. Did I mention my daughter is super smart. First draft – A Rubik’s Cube found under the bed. Dirty black sock stuck to one side with dried root beer. Half a decal torn off. Cheese Doodle dust stinking of underarms and stale closets giving a fuzzy orange appearance.
Editing – Pull off that sock. It just complicated the plot. A side character that, while funny, didn’t do much for the overall story line. Wipe off the gooey brown root beer. The words were sweet but cloying. They weren’t original, finding their prose in the cliché and over used. Chip off those decals. Brilliant red, orange, yellow, blue, green. Put in place curry in a bed of rice, sweaty camel’s back, desert sand under moonlight, silk snapping in the wind. Paint careful pictures on each black square. Sand away hard edges. Be subtle and clever in your plotting. Sharpness is only left for chases and hard words spoken between lovers. Pull away a cube or two. Show the heart of the story. Sprinkle gems of plot – a path to follow. End with a gentle, short, swoop leaving the reader crying more, again. The first draft – you cannot fix what is not there. Editing –words must be written to be rewritten. Be patient with yourself writer. Never expect more than a Rubik’s Cube found under the bed for your first draft. Write what you know is an often repeated statement to young authors. But in the world of Speculative Fiction where we create other worlds, step into the future or change the past, writing what you know is harder than a simple phrase. However, the teachers of this philosophy are correct. You must know your environment before you can write about it.
So how does one get to know a space station on a distant, impoverished and forgotten asteroid? Senses and research. Our character’s senses are what connects our story to our readers. A derelict old space station will smell oily and musty. Head out to your uncle (the car fanatic’s) beat up garage to get to know that one. The space station will creak as things clatter and break. A trip down to the metal recyclers or into an old metal building that shifts with the wind can give you good sounds. How does stale, over-breathed air taste? Think of your school or an office building. Run your hand over some rusty, dusty, greasy metal to get the walls and floors of your spaceport. The look of your space station can come from what you’ve seen in your travels, your research from looking at real and imagined space stations and your own sketches. To make a place that readers from here and now can imagine, we must use things they can relate to. We must take things from this world and place them in our imagined place. This will allow our readers to understand and walk within our story. Right where we want them. I've been madly editing my latest draft of Boiled Cat. This book was originally written in the 90's. I've grown a lot as a writer since then. One of the things I've noticed is back then I would write scenes I thought were funny, cool, or just sad. What I failed to do was tie them into the overall plot or theme of the book.
Every scene that goes into your book has to do something. There is no point in putting in a scene if it doesn't either push the plot forward or explore the main character(s). Make your writing work for you. Don't let it just hang out and watch TV. Push each scene to do as much as it can for whatever you are writing. Make every scene count. Goal: What your character wants.
Motive: Why your character wants it. Conflict: What or who is stopping your character from getting it. External: The goal, motive, and conflict that is more apparent to other characters in your story. Internal: The goal, motive, and conflict that has to do with the more emotional part of your character. As a writer you need to be aware of both internal and external goal, motive, and conflicts of your main characters. Even with minor characters, goal, motive, and conflict are important to the story. Being aware of these beyond the surface - the bad guy is just killing people to be bad - gives more depth to your story. It can weave characters and plot lines together. It makes the reader relate with your characters. If you are getting stuck knowing just what your characters are supposed to do next - it might be because you are not completely in tune with your goal, motive, and conflict. Starting a story? Had it bouncing around in your head for a while? Think you know all your characters? Maybe not.
Now, I’ve encountered some resistance when telling authors this. They don’t like to hear that they don’t know their own characters as intimately as they think they do. But calm down everyone! It’s not such bad news – and it’s an easy fix. First – if you haven’t already done it. Write a character sketch. Those of you who play role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons you’ll already know what this is. It’s where you write out a kind of dating chart: Pets, favourite colour, weaknesses, strengths, family, race, loves, hates, etc. Basically whatever you want. There are some good ones on the internet, though I usually just make up my own specific to my project. Next – give your character a … well… characteristic. A facial tick or special movement like sighing through clenched teeth every time something doesn’t go his way. A word or phrase. An object that the character is never without (if you take it away it’s going to be a big time plot twist). Do this for every big character (or even EVERY character) in your story). It adds dimension and makes the character easy to spot in a crowd. Now – take your character out for a walk or a cup of coffee. Get to know them and their views on the world. Ask questions that aren’t even in your story – “How do you feel about the politics in Egypt?” “Do you like Fall or Spring?” You don’t have to write these out either. Just play it out in your mind as you’re taking a stroll or sitting in a café staring out the window. Ask yourself how your character would react to the different people you see and why. Finally – write a short scene (and I mean SHORT, after all you need to get on with writing your original story) detailing an average day for your character. The kind of day they have before you, the writer, screw it all up. And there you have it. Do this and you will know your character like a best friend. You may even miss them when you are done writing the story. I recommend doing this for ALL major characters: heroes, villains and secondary characters that stick around for any length of time. Although you may not use all you have written in your preparation, the readers will feel your work and it will make your story deeper and more convincing. So give it a try and see if this technique works for you! My daughter is getting ready for her grade six PATs in English. The cool thing is, she's in grade five. Do my teaching methods work? Oh yes. Of course this doesn't relieve any nerves she has. But the same thing I teach the kids in all my writing classes is the same thing I keep going over with my daughter. Pick your main character. Give him or her a Goal, Motive, and Conflict. Build your plot using a try/fail cycle where whatever your character does makes things worse or complicates things in some way. Make the climax so dire even the reader can't figure out a solution. Then be really clever and end with some kind of change in your character. Of course there's a lot more to it than that. But it's a great place to start for any young writer. Basically, writing 101.
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Kim FirmstonWriter, Teacher, Mutant. What more could you want? Archives
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