Why You Don't Want to be a Perfect Writer

Ray Bradbury teaches me to focus on detail.

I've come across writers dismissing writing classes as a waste of time.

I'm wondering if those people are attending the right workshops, or if they're attending with the best attitude? Being a course junkie, I've seen the usual personality types that come to courses and there's always a few people that are terrified of 'failing' the activities. They're certain they'll be the worst in the class and humiliate themselves. Often they won't read out their work, or participate in discussions. They'll sit up the back and build an invisible forcefield around themselves and it works. But it doesn't just stop humiliation getting through, it prevents feedback, encouragement and growth in their craft.

At the other end of the spectrum are the students who need to come first at everything. They're incredibly competitive and can sometimes be harsh with critiques (both receiving and giving). They'll sign up for a beginners cooking class, even if they're a seasoned chef because they want to come home after every class and say, 'I really wowed them tonight, I'm way better than the teacher'. They walk away reassured, but haven't pushed themselves outside their comfort zone, as a result their writing hasn't had a chance for growth.

I don't want to be the best writer, and I'm not afraid of being the worst. I've written a lot of crappy stuff. In fact, in writing workshops, on the spur of the moment, all my writing is clunky and crappy. But I'm learning and improving. I don't want to be the best writer, I want to be the most-improved. I don't believe the sum is greater than the parts (well okay I do, 'cause the maths people insist but only if by greater they mean more). More is not better, it's just more. I don't want to be the best writer, I want to be the best writer I can be today. And I want that level to be way lower than it will be next month. 

I read authors' works and acknowledge how much better they are at sentence structure, description, dialogue, weaving themes. Then I put aside my jealousy and celebrate their skill. Talent you're born with, but skill can only be acquired by working at it. So, I work at it.

I'm using short fiction to tighten my writing style and I've been studying Ray Bradbury's stories. Simple, approachable, magical. I'm practicing zooming in on a small detail, to make the story come alive, the way Bradbury does. I've also challenged myself to write in second person, because he pulled it off so beautifully in one of his stories.

I hope as writers you can feel proud of your progress and excited about the lessons to come. Embrace the learning. You don't have to take on writing classes to learn, there are many ways, but writing classes can still be a good source of information.

What challenges are you going to tackle to push your writing?

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Build Characters with Jung

J is for Join 

Have you joined the Wagging Tales book giveaway yet? if not click on the link to enter:

http://clancytales.blogspot.com/2010/04/e-is-for-enter-book-giveaway.html

J is for Jung.

Carl Gustav Jung is well known in literature for his creation of archetypes in his studies of psychology. The archetypes he describes are not types of people, but rather categories of characteristics, so one character could host several archetypes. These archetypes have been embraced by writers as a type of mould to begin with to build your characters and story. Christopher Vogler refers to these archetypes in many of his books and talks on using myth to structure your story.

Below is a chart I found at http://www.bethbarany.com (if you click on it you will get the full sized picture that you can print). I think this is great if you get stuck for characters, or more importantly a character's needs or desires. 

In the How To Think Sideways writing course I do, I am constantly asked, what does your character WANT? This is the drive for your story, they are after something, and an antagonist, the setting and circumstances will make it difficult for the MC to achieve what they want. By using the chart, you can work out what your character would want and how to make it hard on him/her.

You could also have a character arc from one archetype to another for example the 'Regular Guy' who wants to belong thinks he needs to connect with others, but when events force him to become an outcast, he may start to see his so called friends were not true at all, and he evolves to become the 'Sage' who would rather have honesty than popularity.

My protagonist in The Warracknabeal Kids will evolve from Outlaw/Jester to Hero/Caregiver. Can you see combinations that apply to your characters? Which ones would you use?

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Changing Characters

I've been checking out Scrivener. At first I was disappointed when I realised my program Plot Builder wouldn't work on my new Mac. I begrudgingly downloaded Scrivener and promptly declared it 'too hard to figure out'. There were tutorials available but... pfft. who has time for tutorials?

Of course once I gave in and watched some of the tutorial clips and played around, I've found that it's now my top pick for fiction writing. I can even make onscreen plot cards to use in the How to Review Your Novel course. I've a lot to learn, but I'm loving Scrivener.

With the edits of Dog Show Detective coming along, I have now attacked my characters. Viciously. I've gone over when they first enter, how important they appear, and the big one: WHY are they even in the story? Some characters needed to be given more important roles - or get axed. Holly Lisle has a good system for these revisions, she uses a points system in her course (How to Review Your Novel). 

For example: The character name; 'Tommy' vs 'little Tommy snot-nosed Williams' - using the first suggests a smaller role in the narrative. There are other methods of weighing your characters in this course and making sure you don't put too much emphasis on characters you won't be using much, but make important characters stand out enough.

Another thing to consider about your supporting characters is what do they have invested in this story? What's their motivation for helping or hindering the protagonist? What do they hope to gain? You don't want hanger-ons or submissive personas just taking up space. Every single character counts. You might think because you have a young protagonist then you need to include parents, possibly, but they still need a role in the protagonists journey. Either they make the goal harder to reach or they have their own reasons for helping.

I've also been revisiting my audiobook version of Chris Vogler's Using Myth to Power The Story. This looks at traditional storytelling of the journey of the hero. There are a pool of traditional roles for characters, such as Mentor, Trickster, Hero etc. You can find out a little more about these archetypes at: Using Archetypes to Write Meaningful Characters. Using archetypes as guidelines for your character list can help make sure you don't end up with characters that are too similar. And don't forget every character needs flaws, you can read more about that in a previous blog post: Creating Character Flaws. I wouldn't take the archetypes too far, you don't want a story that seems too formulated or it might end up like this movie trailer:

(not as raunchy as the image looks)

To Write Is To Know (Gabriele Rico) is my most recent audiobook download and I've found it filled with creative writing exercises to get you making new connections. I'm going to try some of these exercises to get some new material for The Warracknabeal Kids and will report back the results soon!

Do you have a favourite book, podcast or course to help you through editing? I'm always looking for more!

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