Archives for posts with tag: creativity
« Older Entries

How to get story ideas in fiction-writing

October 22, 2009 //
1

There’s a couple of questions you hear often when people find out you write fiction, one of which is, “where do you get your ideas from?”. People, especially people who do not consider themselves creative, seem thrown by the very thought of making things up.

There’s two parts to the mystical Getting of Ideas: one is the initial story-spark, and the second is the plot ideas to turn an initial premise into an actual story with characters, events and outcomes. Many writers are great at that first part – the original story idea – and not so good at sticking with it and generating the ideas needed to write a rounded story. Others struggle with generating story ideas, but are better at coming up with plot directions once they have eventually come up with a solid premise.

Too many ideas in either area requires a special sort of ruthless discipline to finish a manuscript, but what about when you can’t come up with anything? For those who are feeling the dearth in one or both areas, the good news is that creativity can be trained and developed.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , ,
Categories Writing tips and techniques

Little idea of the point of what you’re writing today?

October 15, 2009 //
2

I had little idea what the point of it was, but it was a trick that I could do.”

Flash Forward cover image

So John Sulston writes in his book, co-written by Georgina Ferry, The Common Thread, about the international scientific effort to map the human genome (and how private interests sought to sabotage the government-funded collaboration for their own gain; if anyone thinks the private company Celera in any way lived up to their hype that they would do it cheaper and faster, and wouldn’t try to patent genes or hold back information for profit, they need to read this book for the insider view).

Sulston is talking about the Baconian approach to science: gathering data without a hypothesis. He came up with a technique based on a new technology or method, and applied it just for the sake of it, with no preconceived notions in mind. In his case, it led fairly directly to sequencing the genome, quite the payoff.

Payoffs come in writing, too, when we are prepared to follow leads without worrying about other people’s expectations, what we thought we were writing when we started out, how commercial or mainstream the work is, and so on: when we write for the sake of writing, not to meet our preconceived ideas.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags ,
Categories The philosophy of writing, Writing tips and techniques

Writing round

August 24, 2009 //
1

In my ever-present quest to bring you the absolute most-cutting-edge news, Slate discusses ebook pricing and where pirates come into it…one month ago. Whoo, this news is so hot, it burns.

The International Digital Publishing Forum collects quarterly US trade retail eBook sales. The June 2009 stats shows big increase – and it’s only a handful of trade publishers. This might be a side benefit of the so-called global financial blah-blah-sick-of-hearing-about-it, or it could just be that the greater ease of use of ebooks is beginning to pay off.

District 9 shows that good old-fashioned storytelling still works when you pay attention to old rules about creating suspense, trimming the fat, and focusing on characters over gimmick. (and also: this movie rocks!)

The Guardian has an interesting article about creativity and hypochrondria (both the workings of the imagination).

Context 22 (love their tag: ‘we loved the movie, but the book was better’) is the annual convention focused on speculative fiction literature, and it’s on next weekend in Ohio.

The world writes a book. A ‘global’ collaborative effect being worked through Twitter. Now, this is interesting, as just a few days, independently, I considered the possibility of releasing my new book, The Frog Prince’s Daughters through Twitter, to wit:

  • Project: summarise my 200 page novel The Frog Prince’s Daughters in a series of tweets so that it still makes sense. And is still good.
  • Blurb: Anura is a fairytale princess whose prince won’t come. Her cousin Rana decides it’s time to stop waiting and go seeking. YA fantasy.
  • Prologue: remember the princess who kissed a frog? He turned into a prince and they lived happily ever after. And had children…
  • Ch1. Golden-haired Princess Anura turned sixteen, and the castle waited for her prince to come. But he did not and he did not and he did not
  • Rana took herself off the gazebo to avoid her cousin’s moping and to read the Book, the fairytale histories, for mention of late princes
  • Rana had to bite her tongue to stop from pointing out that someday Anura’s prince would come…but it didn’t have to be today
  • Anura caught her reading the Book: if you would let me near a spindle, or an apple, or even my own stepmother…my prince would come.
  • Rana, tartly: I’d rather not be ensorcelled into one hundred years of sleep just so you can have a wake-up kiss.
  • Anura smiled, then grew pensive: There’s a very pretty scullery maid working in the kitchen.
  • A scullery maid should not have worried her. But she was at the very zenith of her fairytale potential, and her prince had not yet come.
  • Rana, scoffing: It’s your turn, Anura. That’s how the Domain works. But Anura would only be appeased when she saw a frog – an omen.
  • Rana: you don’t need an omen. You just need to be patient.

More on this topic on Thursday… (by the way, if you want to compare my tweet efforts with the actual book, check out the excerpt).

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Writing news

Story takes over: new path or blind alley?

April 30, 2009 //
2

In my post on honesty in storytelling, a reader commented on the feeling of the story taking over the writer. I think many writers, especially those who don’t outline, have experienced this, where the plot goes off in an unexpected direction, a major character turns out to have an interesting backstory, or a minor character suddenly shoves his or her way to centre stage (characters are damn troublesome sometimes), and so on.

I’ll give you an example from my work last year, that I mentioned in my reply to the comment on that post – a character (Hal) turned out to be gay. This was entirely unplanned and it happened like this: early on, Simon makes a comment along the lines that Hal has a crush on him. I thought, huh, is Hal gay, or is Simon just being his usual obnoxious self?

(Non-writers will find this weird, I’m sure, because they’re thinking, hang on, you wrote Simon’s dialogue, didn’t you know what he intended? But there it is – actually, I didn’t know, and it’s what makes writing so damn good when it’s working well.)

Pretty shortly afterwards, Simon out and out specifies that Hal prefers men (with rather more explicit language than that…), and I thought, oh, OK, so I wonder if Hal really does have a crush on him then, and it put a whole different spin on their relationship, promoted Hal into a major character, and incidentally made it much easier to justify why Augusta, who isn’t crazy, falls for thug Simon rather than sweetheart Hal.

Now, some writers love this kind of thing. I do, because for me, when unexpected things start happening, it means the story – which I make up as I go along since outlines bore me to tears – is working for me at some fundamental level. Other writers don’t, and these are often the professional writers who outline and whose deadlines are thrown off by sudden urgent messages from the subconscious.

The question is, should the unexpected development be allowed? The answer depends on the type of writer you are. Strict outlines and tight deadlines mean that you might be able to accept minor variations that work within your existing structure, but big creativity outpours might be better off put aside and saved for another book – you can always use characters and scenes in other books.

On the other hand, writers like me, who use a first draft instead of an outline, unexpected turns can be a boon. As I said above, Hal being gay added complexity and solved a problem. It would have been a different book without that little twist from my subconscious.

And now we need that third hand again. Because the danger of not outlining and following your instincis the risk of getting sidetracked, adding confusion rather than complexity, and muddying your themes.

So how do you know when you should leave in, and follow up, an unexpected line of dialogue, an unanticipated turn of action, an unforeseen development?

Well, here’s another example, from someone doing the NaNoWriMo back in 2003. Their paraphrased comment about their WIP was: there was a bit of unexpected incestuous overtone between my brother and sister leads, it didn’t go anywhere, but I’ll just leave it in because publishers love that sort of thing.

Can you maybe see when it’s best not to leave an unexpected development in?

Right. Leave it in if 1) it solves a problem or fleshes out a character, 2) you have the time and inclination to follow up on it, or 3) it has purpose and hangs logically (or can be made to hang logically) with the rest of the story. Take it out if 1) you don’t know why it’s in there, 2) you leave it dangling and do nothing with it, or 3) it contradicts or otherwise messes with the message of your book.

The other time you might not want to use an unexpected story direction is when it happens really late in the piece, and has such implications that it means you’ll have to re-write a lot of the story to get it to work. That may be achievable on a first draft, or where it’s more tweaking (eg altering the number of siblings a character has or similar) than re-writing, but you have to carefully consider your goals and deadlines where it means you’ll have to scrap substantial portions. Perhaps the new story idea will work for a new story or even a sequel.

One last note: even if you already recognise that a new character or plot development won’t fit into your current story, it’s often worth letting it run and seeing where it goes anyway, to see if it gives you other ideas for the current WIP or for a later one, to exercise your creative muscle and get a fresh perspective, to develop backstory or worldbuilding that won’t necessarily make it into the story itself, and so on. These non-essential words might feel like a waste of time and energy, but it gives your subconscious a chance to play.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Writing tips and techniques

New writers and trends in the arts

February 26, 2009 //
1

With the release of the list of finalists for the 2009 Archibald Prize (annual Australian portraiture art competition), The Australian‘s Christopher Allen has commented that “the painters are driven by the irresistible force of the struggle to survive, and nature, or the Archibald judges, will ruthlessly select in favour of the best-adapted.” In other words, because big heads tend to win the Archibald, entrants paint the portraits bigger and bigger to try and please the judges in this particular art ‘microclimate’.

Writers trying to find favour with publishers and editors will follow the same logic. If Dan Brown-style historical-puzzle-thrillers are in and selling like hot cakes, writers will try to produce something similar – and why not, since publishers will be desperately looking for something similar: these big hits pay for all the losses.

However, if you’re sitting down to write your first novel, I wouldn’t recommend this approach, for two generalised reasons.

The first is purely practical/logistical and has to do with lead time. If you’ve only just realised Twilight is the next big thing and your most likely path to publication is to write a knock-off, you’re already a few years too late. By the time you’ve written the thing, got it out to agents or editors, had it accepted and edited and laid out and produced and printed and finally to the bookstores, the world’s moved on from sparkly crazy-stalker vampires to chocolate-addicted flying werewolves or invisible shape-changing unicorns (Oh yes. You heard it here first). You need to be lucky enough to already have a suitable book under the eyes of agents etc when a new trend makes itself known (or be the reliable go-to author a publisher will hire to turn out a book meeting a new trend).

A related part of this logistic reasoning is that you’re not the only person who has noticed the trend: by the time you’ve got your book ready to send out, so have hundreds of others, and all at once, editors are swimming in vampire stories and primed to reject them all (no matter how much better yours is than everyone else’s). You won’t stand out if you swim with the other little fishies: which is fine when you’re avoiding sharks but not good if you want to get…the…hook…that analogy went awry but you see where I’m going.

The other big reason has to do with motivation and creativity. When you’re first coming to writing, the writing itself can be hard enough – creating the habit and finding the words, controlling a plot and managing characters – having to do all that for a story that you yourself aren’t all that invested in anyway is a sure recipe for failure. On those days when things are going badly for me, I can still force myself to sit and write…but I couldn’t imagine maintaining that willpower if it was something I was churning out because I thought it would sell well rather than because I genuinely loved the underlying story. Write what you love, love what you write.

Of course, if what you’re really into right now happens to be vampires, don’t let the current popularity of sparkly vampires put you off either. It’s not a genre that’s going away, and there’s always rooms for more, if you make it original and compelling.

And lastly, there is a place for observing trends in writing – those fashions like the rise of first person narrators over third-person POV, or the more modern styles of fantasy and so on, which are likely to last a while – changes in style or ongoing developments in your genre, as opposed to temporary fads. That’s why you read widely and pay attention what seems to be working well – not to copy, but to learn.

Caveat: this advice comes courtesy of a self-proclaimed niche writer who is not mainstream, never will be, and has no desire to be. If your aim is to be a bestselling bookstore author, then, actually, yes, you should be monitoring and researching trends and sales and trying to catch the next wave, and you’re perfectly welcome to think this entry is the dumbest advice you’ve ever heard…

Tags , , , ,
Categories The philosophy of writing, Writing tips and techniques

Writing round

February 1, 2009 //
4

The full Perth Writers Festival programme is now available online. You can search events by date, genre, or author, or just download the whole programme brochure as a pdf. There’s writing workshops, talks, readings, and debates by fiction and non-fiction writers, and a bunch of free sessions. I personally think this festival is misnamed – it should be the Perth Readers Festival. It’s a great weekend for anyone who loves reading and talking about books, writing, and ideas. It’s held at UWA from Sat 28 Feb – Mon 1 March.

Congratulations to Neil Gaiman, who has won the John Newbery Medal for “the year’s most outstanding contribution to children’s literature” for his The Graveyard Book. Congratulations too to Terry Pratchett – or Sir Terry, as I should say. He’s been made a Knight of the Realm. He’s “chuffed”.

Courtesy of Malaysia Airlines Magazine January 2009 issue: “According to a survey, you are at your most creative at 10.04pm, the most likely time for a brainwave. The least creative time…is 4.33pm…” Writers, you must instantly rearrange your working schedule on the basis of this impeachable scientific evidence. But wait, there’s more! “The research also shows that 58 percent of people forget their best ideas by failing to record it down immediately.” All right, this bit is valuable – keep that little notebook handy for those evening-unwind ideas.

What else does this insightful inflight magazine have to say? “In a test by the University of Colorado, volunteers were asked to hold a cup of coffee while reading about a fictional character and then give their impression of them. Psychologists found that volunteers thought more warmly of their characters after holding a hot drink [compared to holding a cold drink].” New marketing idea: give away coffee vouchers with your book, or put sample chapters in cafes – but only for people ordering hot drinks…

And finally, the World Book Capital City for 2009 is Beirut, Lebanon (taking over from last year’s Amsterdam). UNESCO gives out this title to symbolically honour the city’s dedication to the promotion of books and reading. Ljubljana has already been named for 2010 and applications are open now for 2011. More about the history and aims of the programme can be found here.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Writing news

Writing round

December 7, 2008 //
0

Malcolm Gladwell, of The Tipping Point and Blink fame, has released a new book, Outliers: The Story of Success which discusses the (obvious) idea of genius as a mix of an initial attraction plus a hell of a lot of hard work. The excerpts I have read raise the idea of the ’10,000 hours’ of practice that are required to truly excel at something (anything), using the examples of musicians and computer programmers. What’s interesting is the intermingling of having an aptitude or passion for something, working at it obsessively – but who could commit themselves to 10,000 hours of effort (10 years at three hours a day) without some level of aptitude or passion in the first place? – plus a dose of luck, which together translate into what we call talent or success – including in fiction writing. Read more about it here and here.

I think all writers can use a reminder now and again that no one gets a free ride with the talent – everyone has to work hard. Of course, then there’s Stephen King’s opinion, from On Writing:

…while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.

…which I suppose saves all the trouble of those 10,000 hours, if you were aiming for great…

More news on everybody’s favourite ebook reader, Stanza: the Little iPhone/Touch App That Could has now done a deal with Fictionwise to overcome format/DRM issues. I think you’ll still need wi-fi for file transfer though.

Speaking of ereaders for the iPhone/iPod Touch, last week I mentioned BeamItDown; this week, it’s Bookshelf. Unlike Stanza, it costs to get this ereader application. I’m not sure what advantage it has over the free Stanza app; it may read more formats. Meanwhile, these guys are publishing comic books – search for Uclick in the iTunes store, or browse App Store – Books.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Writing news

The writer’s little notebook

October 16, 2008 //
4

You will have heard this before: it is useful to carry a notebook or other note-taking device around with you to jot down edits and changes, ideas, lines of dialogue (overheard or between characters in your head), descriptions, interesting words or expressions, phrases or facts from books, and so on. This should also be kept by the bed at night for sleeping inspiration and dream snatches.

Perhaps you already do this, or perhaps you have tried and don’t see the usefulness. Here’s some ways to make it a more useful writing tool.

When I first started doing it, I myself did not see the usefulness. I hardly ever found things to write down. But like the writing muscle, the observation muscle – for that is what you are doing, learning to open your eyes and observe your world – needs to be exercised to work well. Persevere, and even if at first you don’t jot much, eventually you will wonder how you got by without your notebook.

So first, persevere. And second, be clear. Remember that sometimes it will be a while before you get back to that scrap you’ve scribbled down. Something like ‘Simon calls it a knife’ is not exactly helpful two weeks later…calls what a knife? When? Why? What was I thinking when I wrote that note to myself? Even if you’ve woken up in the middle of the night and are still half-asleep, train yourself to be a little more detailed than I was in this instance.

If your notes are related to your current work in progress, find a way to link it. I do it like this. Let’s say I note down a needed edit while out running an errand. It’s something that I won’t be implementing until the next draft (once I give in the temptation to tinker, it’ll be tinkering all the way and I’ll never fall over the finish line), for example, ‘Add that bit in about the father’. There’s three important father figures in the book, so this note would not be helpful when I get back to adding ‘that bit’ in. But in the actual manuscript, as soon as possible – while it’s still in my mind – I add a note to the relevant scene: [add in the exchange about Augusta's father from the first draft here]. I put it in square brackets because later I can then do a search for [ to find all those little notes to myself.

In this way, the notebook note is dealt with in a way that does not break the writing flow. Other, more general, notes go into my ‘scraps’ file for that particular work in progress, to be picked over later.

Jottings unrelated to the current work – new ideas, place settings or character sketches – go into a general ‘ideas’ file. It is important that you do find a way to make your notebook scribbles more permanent or easier to access, as they can get lost otherwise – especially if you wrote it on a napkin or other loose bit of paper because your notebooks wasn’t to hand. While my notebook is still literally paper (I like the texture of the little handmade Fair Trade notebooks from Oxfam), electronic tools like a PDA or voice recorder makes this transcribing/record-keeping somewhat easier.

Lastly, don’t limit yourself to words. My ‘notebook’ also includes a folder of pictures of people, clothing, buildings, antique devices from my chosen time period, postcards and prints of artwork, ticket stubs and so on: little scraps that, along with my travel photos, remind me of places I’ve been and things I’ve seen that may spark an idea or give me a setting. The notebook goes everywhere with me; the folder sits on my desk and like a magpie I bring glittery things home to it.

Tags , ,
Categories Writing tips and techniques

Motivations for writing: “It’s about the gear”

September 11, 2008 //
3

Recently, on Triple J’s Hack programme, there was a segment on the transformation in photography from film-based to digital-based.

First they interviewed the die-hard devotees of film, then a professional photographer who’d happily made the transition to digital about six years ago. He had this to say [note: self-transcribed; all errors mine own] about using film instead of digital:

There is an element of luck about it, that people do enjoy that certain amount of uncertainty…there’s two kinds of photographers; there’s photographers who are focussed on the final result, and there’s photographers who actually like the process of being a photographer…being a photographer for them, I think, it’s about the gear. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know, they like the mechanics of winding the film on, they like getting in the darkroom, they tend to be process-driven rather than results-driven.

He divides photographers into results-driven and process-driven. Writers can be divided the same way. For some, arguably most professional/successful/profligate writers, it’s about the love of the result. They develop out their characters and plot and they write the scenes and get the book done quickly, with lots of planning and minimal revision.

Then there’s those writers who love falling into the process, letting the story develop as they go along, being carried along. Can be lots of false starts and deadends but also can be some wonderful a-ha moment. For this sort of writer, if they want to get a result in the end, there’s lot of drafts and revisions over the process.

Of course, for most long-term writers (and I’m sure for photographers), it’s enjoying a mix of the process and the result that’s important and which draws them back to the keyboard time and time again.

I’m obviously process-driven, as anyone who has followed this blog can tell, but if I didn’t want a damn decent result at the end of all this drafting, I wouldn’t keep going; I certainly wouldn’t have gone ahead with a second draft once the ‘process’ was over and the ‘result’ (the first draft) was in. Most writers like both. As the photographer says, there’s nothing wrong with where their emphasis lies (a longer process does not a better result make).

Okay, with me so far? There’s a third type of writer. For them, it really is just about the “gear” – the gloss of ‘being a writer’ (oh yes, it’s glamorous, all right).

They’d like to have written: they want the result (ie money and fame, not really a book) without going through the process at all. This can be a great motivator, of course, if somewhat unrealistic, but it does not necessarily translate into discipline. Props do not equal a process, wishing for it does not produce a result.

If you recognise elements of yourself in this, I’m not telling you to give it up. I am suggesting that your initial motivation for money and fame and glamour may get you started, but you’re going to need the motivation of absolutely loving what you do to keep going with it. It’s a great career, but all great careers are also hard work.

Tags , , ,
Categories The philosophy of writing, Writing tips and techniques

Writer’s block vs procrastination

July 31, 2008 //
5

To many writers, writer’s block doesn’t exist: it’s either just plain old procrastination or it’s bad planning or a sign that the scene’s gone wrong and you need to start over, but the idea of this ‘disease’ crippling a writer’s creativity and ability to write does not ring true to them.

I do think writer’s block does exist as a separate entity to procrastination – procrastination, for me, being a definite symptom of writer’s block, but not the same thing. But then, I have most often found my blocks occur when, yes, things have gone wrong and I need to delete a few pages and try again.

The ABC Radio National Book Show has recently had a great discussion on writer’s block, procrastination, hypergraphia and creativity, and you can read the transcript or listen to the program here.

One of the interviewees says this about the relationship between writer’s block and procrastination: “I think they overlap a lot, of course. One difference with procrastination, you’re doing something else while you’re not writing. Writer’s block is in a way a more furious and painful enterprise because you just sit there and drops of blood form on your forehead and fall on to the paper. Whereas a procrastinator in a way is more productive, because he decides he has to get up and clean the curtains or he’s going to go off on safari.”

The difference can be summed at as avoiding writing on purpose vs really wanting to write and not being able to get the words out (a “constipatory metaphor” as is said in that interview).

I do see procrastinating as potentially productive, when I am using it to avoid facing a block rather than avoiding doing something I don’t want to do. This is because while I am off cleaning the microwave or filing or other busywork that all of a sudden must be done right now this instant, I am turning over ideas and snatches of dialogues and character motivations in my head, either on purpose or because my mind is working away at trying to get past the sticking point. This creative energy will eventually be used, so it’s not entirely wasted time.

The discussion also touches on how emotion can affect writer’s block, in that depression can stop writing dead, not surprisingly. I think this is when writer’s block does become a real ‘physical’ problem, a symptom of actual chemical changes in the brain. That’s more serious than just not being sure what to write next. So maybe when we say ‘I’ve got writer’s block’ in the offhand way writers tend to use it, we’re as guilty of over-stating things as when people claim the flu instead of just a cold, or a migraine instead of just a headache.

In the next few weeks, I will post some tips for tackling procrastination and for tackling writer’s block.

Tags , , , ,
Categories The philosophy of writing
« Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 25 other followers