You are currently browsing the archives for the “Writing Wednesday” category.


WRITING WEDNESDAY: USING PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

February 20th, 2013

Hi, everyone! It’s Writing Wednesday again and this week I’m writing about using personal experience in your stories. I decided to talk about this because it’s something I struggle with. I’ve tried many times and I haven’t really had much success with it. This is one of the reasons that I tend to stay away from writing non-fiction about my own personal experiences. Actually, it’s part of why I was hesitant to start a blog.

Right now, I’m working on a novel that requires me to dig deep into my own life. It’s fiction but I’m drawing a lot from my life. Certain people, places, and situations are inspired by things I was involved in or witnessed a few years ago. However, the story as a whole is fiction and I’ll label it as such. The title of fiction allows me to take creative license with dialogue and situations.

My difficulty with pulling from personal experience usually comes from being too close to the subject matter. Being too close to the subject matter can go in a lot of directions, so today I think I’ll focus on writing about a relationship or friendship. This is what I’m pulling from right now so I can discuss some of the challenges I’ve faced.

The difficulty with writing about something like a relationship is creating tension that brings in the reader. A common mistake when beginning to write a non-fiction piece (or pulling from personal experience for fiction) is something I’ll call “assumed importance.” The subject is important. Why? Because it happened to you. Well, that’s great but it needs to be important to the reader as well. The significance of this moment, day, month, or year needs to be shared with the reader in a way they can make their own.

I’ve worked through this issue a few different ways. The most useful technique has been to write out a whole scene or argument that I can remember. Then I let it sit for a day. When I come back, I put on my fiction glasses (they have googley eye lenses, a miner’s light, and horned, glittered, brimstone rims) and I alter things. I add things to make a point clearer but mostly I cut things. I cut the uninteresting things people tend to say but keep the stuff that sounds natural, as well as interesting. If this is near the beginning of a story, or introducing a new character, I then write down why it’s important. Not why it was important to me, but why it’s important to the narrative as a whole. Then I try to work that in near the beginning as well as I can.

To be honest, working in personal experience, especially relationship troubles with family, friends, or a significant other, takes a lot of work. It can be harder than just making it up because there’s personal attachment. Everything feels important but, in truth, not everything is important. Why do it? Well, I’ve seen people produce some really potent writing when bringing in personal experience. If you can distance yourself from the subject and treat it like a story, you’ll find that you can do the same thing.

By the way, if you’re in a fiction workshop but secretly write a non-fiction story, brace yourself for a difficult workshop. In non-fiction workshops, I’ve encountered a strong sense of respect among writers and certain subject matter. It’s non-fiction, we’re all aware that the things mentioned usually happened near the people writing about it. If you disguise your non-fiction as fiction, people won’t react the same way in a fiction workshop because they assume you’re making it all up. So, for example, if you’re writing about a relative that passed away, your classmates won’t hesitate to tell you that the character may not be relatable or likable. They’re not doing this to be mean (I hope), they’re doing it because they assume the story fiction. I’ve seen this, and things like this, happen many times over the years. It’s always heartbreaking to see someone break down over a situation like that. So that’s my warning, since I’m already talking about personal experience, fiction, and non-fiction.

Also, I should mention something else near the end here. We all drop in personal experience from our lives. Whether it’s internal struggle over doing the right thing, or a fight with a significant other, these things have a way of coming out. What I’ve written today is just about trying to consciously work in large chunks of personal experience into your writing.

Now it’s your turn, do you work personal experience into your own writing? What challenges have you encountered and what techniques do you use to overcome difficulties?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Writing Wednesday | Comments Off on WRITING WEDNESDAY: USING PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Writing Wednesday: Establishing Characters

February 13th, 2013

Last month I wrote about reader expectations and how failing to meet such expectations can result in the loss of a reader. Right now, I want to talk about how to establish a character quickly within your own writing. Introducing a character and trying to convey something meaningful about can be a tough balancing act sometimes.

When you describe someone, maybe a friend or character, you probably strive to say the most with as few words as possible. If you’re writing a novel, short story, poem, etc., this is very true.

During residency I was asked about one of my former professors from undergrad. I had mentioned that, while he didn’t know anything about fantasy, he taught a few genre writers and genuinely helped them. Well, this prodded someone to ask what I meant by “he didn’t know anything about fantasy.” A fair question, so I told her…

He’s a great writer, his readings are amazing, and he has a gift when it comes to teaching. However, when I mentioned the word “werewolf,” his only point of reference was Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox. When I mentioned “elves,” his only point of reference was Keebler.

Not only did I make my point pretty clearly but what I said was absolutely true. When I use that description, I’m usually making the point that someone can help a beginner with their writing, even if they lack knowledge of the genre. It’s always meant as a complimentary statement because he’s an incredible professor and friend.

My example was to establish the person with a specific purpose. When first introducing a character, you want to portray a dominant feature about them. You want the reader to feel like they know something about the character other than just physical traits. Let’s take a look at an example from John Cheever’s story, The Swimmer.

“He was a slender man— he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth— and while he was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room.”

So this guy, an older man, slender, slides down a banister and slaps the backside of a statue. To me, it says that while he’s not young, he has a young and potentially immature personality. He’s also jogging in the morning, so he’s probably a morning person. The reader knows that this man, young or not, has a lot of energy. All of this is done while creating an image for the reader to enjoy. We can see the man doing this while simultaneously picking up on what it says about his character.

Sometimes, I like to think of type of introduction as answering two questions. What do you want to convey about the character? How can the character interact with immediate surroundings so deliver that message? This isn’t the only way to introduce a character but this is one useful way to think about it. This method is extremely useful for minor characters because the reader spends less time with them. Therefore, you as an author have less time to establish who they are, what they want, and why the reader should pay attention to them.

So now it’s your turn, what kind of introductions do you like to read or write? What other elements can an introduction employ to be impactful? Can you think of any memorable character introductions in stories you’ve read?

While this isn’t an official citation, I do like to give sources for things I use on the blog.

Cheever, John (2010-07-23). The Stories of John Cheever (Kindle Locations 12280-12281). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Writing Wednesday | 2 Comments »

Writing Wednesday: The Walking Dead: Leadership Roles

February 6th, 2013

Hey, everyone! It’s Writing Wednesday again and this week’s theme is The Walking Dead! This week, I’ll be sticking close to what we’ve seen in the show. It’s possible that later in the year I’ll talk about the comic. Today I’ll be focusing on the character of Rick as a protagonist that becomes darker and darker as the show goes on. This post may contain mild spoilers.

If you’ve been watching the show, you know that Rick is pretty much the leader of the survivors right now. This has been true since season one but the position becomes more prevalent and defined as the show goes on. Rick once ruled through democracy but an inability to make certain decisions has forced Rick into the role of leader.

The role of leader is a tricky one. I think many writers are inclined to make their leaders fearless, doubtless, and correct in their decisions. The trick to keeping Rick interesting is that the group is often split on his decisions. Because the group is split, the audience is likely to be split on what Rick should do. This tactic keeps the audience engaged in the decisions being made. It also keeps Rick from being a constant do-good hero without flaws.

Each decision, from killing outsiders to killing insiders, pushes Rick a little further from being “good” by his own definition. In season three, the audience is introduced to the character of The Governor. He’s the leader of a town, an actual working town in the apocalypse. On the surface, he seems like a good guy. Underneath, not so much. He goes to great lengths, killing, experimentation, and an iron fist, to keep his own town safe. Like Rick, he’s a leader who has had to make hard decisions to survive. His group is quite a bit larger than Rick’s, so we can only assume that he’s also made difficult decisions to survive.

However, it’s not to be mistaken, The Governor is a bad guy. He’s portrayed as such, even though the water is murky when it comes to the difference between him and Rick.

What separates Rick from The Governor?

The lines are blurry on this one. Earlier in season three, The Governor had his men kill a bunch of military survivors. The reasoning, according to The Governor, was that those men could overthrow their town. Would Rick do that? Right now, I don’t think he would. However, with each passing episode I believe he’s moving closer and closer to being that kind of person.

So, when the lines are this blurred, the audience needs something to latch on to. Here’s where The Governor’s treatment of Maggie comes in. The Governor forces her to strip down in front of him. If you’ve read the comics, you know he’s even worse. This is something the audience probably can’t imagine Rick ever doing. For all the terrible things Rick might be willing to do, they all revolve around protecting the group. They do not revolve around power. The Governor’s traits are centered around personal power and it’s apparent in this scene.

How does the show keep Rick and The Governor relatable and humanized?

Rick has a family, so this is easy. He has children, a wife, and people that he cares about. These are people he can lose, and so these are people he needs to protect. People and attachments help to keep Rick somewhat grounded during these difficult times.

I don’t think it’s out of place to say that The Governor might be Rick’s potential future. The Governor has lost his wife and seen his daughter turned into a walker. Because of this, The Governor is the protector of a group but has few grounding emotional attachments. In fact, his largest attachment is his zombie daughter. If Rick went through the same thing with Carl, I wonder if he truly would break and become nearly indistinguishable from The Governor.

Now it’s your turn, what do you think? Do you see Rick becoming more and more like The Governor? Do you think the writers have done a good job drawing both similarities and differences between these two leaders? Have you seen other leader portrayed the same way Rick has been portrayed over the three seasons?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Writing Wednesday | Comments Off on Writing Wednesday: The Walking Dead: Leadership Roles

WRITING WEDNESDAY: A RIFT AMONG WRITERS!

January 30th, 2013

Hey, everyone, it’s Writing Wednesday again! This week won’t be talking about writing advice. Instead, I want to focus on something I’ve heard a lot about lately. During my residency at SHU, the topic of literary vs. genre fiction came up pretty often. However, the focus wasn’t on what people enjoyed reading. The focus was on how genre writers have been treated in various academic settings. Other students brought up this issue everyday while I was there and I quickly realized that my own experience didn’t match the majority.

If you’re taking part in Seton Hill’s MFA program, you probably came from a school where you received (at least) an undergraduate degree. If you’re like me, your undergraduate experience was probably where you experienced some of your first writing workshops. Now, I know this isn’t true for all SHU students but that was my experience. I enrolled in seventeen writing workshops during my undergraduate career. My background covers fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and screenplay writing, pretty much in that order. When you go to graduate school, you bring your own set of experiences. This doesn’t just mean how many workshops you’ve taken or what your degree is in, but also how your work has been received in the past.

My undergraduate school, Stetson University, was a great place to write. Their creative writing program was relatively small but I never felt boxed in because the professors were incredibly open-minded about writing. I felt encouraged to write literary fiction as well as genre fiction. Their goal focused on writing well, not writing to a specific audience.

Various students shared their experiences with me and I was shocked by what I heard. Apparently, a lot of undergraduate professors won’t even accept genre work. They won’t teach it, they won’t accept it, and they try to stamp it out wherever it appears. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience. There’s a pretty big problem with this approach. I’m in a program full of genre writers. I’m in a program with people who have been published and people who will be published in the future. Well, genre writers who feel slighted by their former literary professors may carry those feeling over to literary writers in general. These feelings (on both sides) create an unnecessary rift in the writing community.

My own experience was very different. I wrote what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and everything was received equally. I’m still friends with literary writers and I have nothing bad to say about my undergraduate professors or their creative writing department. A woman in one of my undergraduate workshops went on to get a three book deal shortly after graduation. She wrote, and still writes, genre fiction. Other students in the class went on to publish literary short stories. They had the same peers, the same professors, and the same encouragement from people in the department.

Let’s take a quick look at Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In short, this is a story about a man and his child trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic setting. Now, I love The Road and spent quite a bit of time studying it for a research paper. During my research I came across various critics arguing about whether or not The Road is genre fiction. Well, it’s post-apocalyptic and that sounds a lot like science fiction to me and other seemed to think so as well. However, many critics claimed that there was a lack of other science fiction elements. They also argued that the writing style belonged to literary fiction. Everyone is right. The Road is literary science fiction and I think it’s an absolutely great piece of writing. Obviously, I’m not the only one.

The simple truth is that genre fiction and literary fiction aren’t going anywhere. Creating animosity, holding onto animosity, and poking each other with sticks won’t actually accomplish anything. If someone keeps a talented writer out of their classroom, they’ve only succeeded in telling me that they like to put personal preference above creative productivity. Let’s not do that. Instead, let’s write, write well, and give each other a pat on the back when we accomplish that goal.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Writing Wednesday | 2 Comments »

WRITING WEDNESDAY: HOW WE INTRODUCE PEOPLE/CHARACTERS

January 23rd, 2013

Hey, everyone, it’s Writing Wednesday! Today, I’m actually responding to a great blog post by R² Writes that really made me think.

Check out her blog, it’s great. For the purpose of this post, I’ll go ahead and provide my own example.

When we describe someone, real or fictional, we bring them into the room before they’ve actually arrived. In doing this, we establish a set of expectations with our audience. Let me give you an example from my own life.

I have this friend, let’s call him Galad. Well, Galad has a crazy sense of humor. I’ve described him as crazy, hilarious, outrageous, and generally insane with a knack for humor. So, here’s a little story to accompany my claim. One night, my friends (including Galad) and I were joking around and drinking at a mutual friend’s house. Well, mutual friend’s fiance says, “I’m going to invite over some of my girlfriends. Is that okay?” Now, I don’t think anyone was going to object but Galad took things a step further. He slowly nodded his head, jumped from his seat, and scream “yeah.” Then he proceeded to rip the front of his t-shirt like a wrestler rallying the crowd. Oh, I should probably add “impulsive” to my description of Galad, because it was a decent shirt.

So, if I said that I wanted to introduce you to Galad, I think you would have some firm expectations. Okay, fast forward about four months. A Christmas party is taking place at the same mutual friend’s house. This time, it’s more of an office party for mutual friend’s fiance. Well, one of her co-workers, we’ll call him Billy Joe Strokes, happens to be a good friend of mine. Now, over the years, I’ve supplied Billy Joe Strokes with a lot of these outrageous stories/descriptions. When I told him that Galad was coming, his face lit up. He would finally meet the legend from so many outrageous tales. On top of that, he would probably witness one himself. Unfortunately, Billy Joe Strokes was destined to be disappointed. We were all attending a Christmas party. Furthermore, it was an office party with people Galad doesn’t really know. To put it simply, Galad wasn’t in his natural habitat. Oh, and drinking would probably be casual at most.

After the party, Billy Joe Strokes looked at me and said, “that was the guy?” Yeah, it was him. It was the real him. Every time I see Galad, he’s not swinging from a chandelier or ripping open his shirt. The man would have a clothing bill a mile long. In that moment, I realized that I hadn’t really done Galad justice with my descriptions. When he’s not being the life of the party, he’s pretty quiet. Galad is intelligent and he’s incredibly observant. I’ve had a lot of great conversations with this guy about serious topics. However, when I describe him to another friend, I highlight his outrageous characteristics.  In turn, Billy Joe Strokes was destined to be disappointed.

What does this have to do with writing? Everything. If your characters are heavily intertwined, they probably talk about one another. If they don’t talk about one another, main characters may reference minor characters that show up periodically. A great example of this is Gregor Clegane in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. If you’ve read the series, you know that he’s referenced to as “the mountain that rides.” It’s quite a nickname and it sets up the reader’s expectations. When Gregor enters a scene, his stature and reputation bring a certain weight and tone to the situation. A situation will seem more dangerous if Gregor is on the opposing side. The reason it works in Martin’s series is because he backs up these reader expectations with events. If characters throughout the novels referred to Gregor as the strongest man alive, a terror, and a mountain, only to have him die in the first fight the reader sees, the characters don’t seem credible. Instead, Gregor is given victories in war. The reader sees Gregor’s strength at a tournament. Other characters may reference Gregor and keep his reputation alive, but the reader has seen that the reputation is deserved. Now, in the case of Billy Joe Strokes, it didn’t matter that Galad didn’t live up to the expectations I established. He’ll meet Galad again, or maybe he won’t, but the situation won’t make of break our relationship. In a novel, however, a situation like that could break the reader’s expectations and their willingness to keep reading.

Have you ever read a synopsis of a character? Or maybe had a friend describe a character from a novel to you? Were you ever disappointed when you actually opened the book and turned the pages? When writing a short description of a book, sometimes a publisher will choose to highlight amazing qualities of the protagonist. However, if protagonist is fully fleshed out, there’s probably a lot more to them. That’s a good thing, it’s a great thing, except for the part where you’ve been handed a set of expectations that might not line up with the character right away. In a story, audience expectations are everything and you rarely want to set up expectations your reader won’t actually experience.


Posted in Writing Wednesday | 1 Comment »


« Older Entries
Newer Entries »