Writing as Act of Discovery

All---

One of the questions that is frequently posed to authors is, "Why do you write the stories you write?"  If you dig into past posts on this blog, you'll see that this is a question that I've wrestled with a lot.  I often deal with darkness that makes me uncomfortable.  I struggle with finding the balance between exploring evil and celebrating it as a form of entertainment.  I question the appropriate use of profanity, violence, or psychological torment as part of my literature.  I often write things that the people I care about most not only would rather not read but might be negatively impacted by if they were to read them.

So, why?

A friend who has only recently begun reading some of my writing recently asked me that question.  Because she was a friend, who understands my own psychology more than general readers would, I knew that she was asking more than just a variation, "How do you come up with the stories you come up, and why do you choose to write the ones you do?"  She was asking why, given the afore-mentioned struggles and challenges, I so often push ahead into writing the dark, twisted fiction that I do.

The answer I gave her on the spot was essentially a longer version of this, and I still think it's true:

I write about the kind of people that I encounter in life and that I cannot understand, and the kind of experiences that I brush up against and cannot comprehend.

She then asked a spot-on follow-up question: "Does it work?"

After laughing, rolling my eyes at myself, and pursing my lips thoughtfully, I gave an answer that can be boiled down to this:

Sometimes.  It's getting there.  It's a long process.  But sometimes, yes.  At least a little bit.

I could tell that this dissembling answer cut some of the credibility out of my first answer.  My friend didn't press it too much, but I could tell she noticed that too.  So I've been pondering this again, even as I work on my novel and write some minor flash fiction.

A more full, if philosophically arch, answer came to me today as I was working on some critical revisions to my novel Sublimation.  Without getting into too many details, I'm trying to ensure that my main characters aren't too elusive.  It was a criticism that I could not refute, and I've been making great headway in reinforcing the early character development to eliminate that elusiveness.

While working on that, though, it struck me that I like elusive main characters, because for me the moment a character is understood, the story is over.

Seeing this clearly was a new realization for me. My interest as a writer and a reader is less about character development, per se, than it is about character realization.  Perhaps they work out similarly much of the time, but I am less drawn to a traditional character development arc where Tom starts out as A and progresses through a stage of B to become C at the end of the third act. I am for more drawn to an arc of discovery, in which Tom's essential core character is revealed through a spiral-like process of interpersonal articulations  brought about my active plot points.

In other words, it's like a facial reconstruction.   When you start out with a skull and you end up with a sculpture, you are not creating a new person; you are revealing the person that was there all along.

At first, I thought this was the new answer to the question, but it didn't seem complete.  As I thought about it, I realized that when I write, what's happening is something the action of Hegelian Spirit. It's self-discovery by  discovering the other and realizing that I am not that.

In other words...

Why do you write what you do?

In large part, I write what I write so that I can reveal a character and know, when it is done, that I am not that character.

I'll leave the further psychological analysis of that to others.

.Nevets.

Finding Your Strengths as A Writer

All---

If you remember, last week I blogged about a lesson I learned about writing from my old Aikido instructor, and part of that lesson entailed leading with your strengths.  Writer friend and person who lives in Wyoming, the lucky bum, Summer Ross commented that she wished she knew what her strengths as a writer are.

I think this is a common predicament that writers have.  I know I really struggled with understanding that for a long time myself.  These days, I feel much more confident in knowing my strengths and more secure in embracing those and working from them as my base.  I thought I might share my own experience in case something in my own path helps others.

There are two key components to learning your strength in any endeavor, including writing: (1) self-awareness, (2) trusted appraisers.

Trusted appraisers do not need to be critique partners.  They need to people who understand your writing, understand what you want to accomplish with your writing, and give you honest feedback about the craft itself.  In my case, most of the influential, trusted appraisers didn't even necessarily know that's what they were doing -- and I think that's part of why I trusted them.

Sometimes it's really simple and casual.  If good readers laugh when you want them to laugh and cry when you want them to cry, you know you're hitting a strong point.  In my case, barely a handful of people laugh when I want them to.  Some people cry when I want them to laugh.  But a lot of people cried when I wanted them to cry, including some quality readers.  That was an early clue, especially during college, about the kind of content and presentation that I excelled at.  Using language to make people weep.

Awesome.

I for years, though, without getting any further help.  There were odds and ends of feedback, but not the same thing.  It was really a handful of experiences brought about by the internet that really helped me start to understand -- some of them recently.

I began posting regularly at Flashy Fiction.  Met a lot of great people there, and got plenty of good feedback, but Deb Markanton was especially helpful in helping me embrace my strengths.  She gave me plenty of general, positive feedback, but her most enthusiastic feedback was also for things that showed me she got what I was trying to do, and felt what I wanted her to feel.  When your best reception is in-line with your intentions: that's a strong point.

Not all your strengths are going to be obvious, but that doesn't make them any less of strengths.  Most of my writing has, for a while, begun with a  really abstract philosophical question or conundrum.  Both stories that were published in Genre Wars began with very intentionally existentialist philosophy.  My current book, Sublimation, is based on a Hegelian dialectic.  Another short story of mine that I'm submitting for publication is based on a different Hegelian dialectic.  A different short story revolves around the idea of rationalization-by-Divine-affirmation.  My next book, Ennui and Malaise, will deal with with the philosophical and psychological question of boredom.  So philosophy runneth amok.  But, in large part, it's obscured by scary stuff and richly voiced crazy people.  Imagine how shocked I was when author Domey Malasarn actually commented to me one day that part of what he liked about my stories in Genre Wars was the philosophical digressions.

Woah, he got it!  And he liked it!

The point is: pay attention to your feedback.  Look for patterns in specific comments.  Look for how your responses line up with what you wanted your responses to be.  Watch what specific elements trigger the most passionate responses.

But none of that is helpful without the first ingredient: self-awareness.  You have to know what it is you're trying to do.  You have to be aware of what you like to write.  What you want your readers to feel or think or do in response to your writing.  What writing flows and what writing is labored.  You have to learn to pay attention to yourself.

And that, my friends, takes little more than practice.  Writing.  A lot.  And doing so with open eyes.  Do a ton of flash writing prompts if you can.  Free write pages that you never do anything with.  Just write.  And learn how you write and what your expectations are.  Sometimes, your strengths are what you write most quickly, but sometimes they're what gives me the most satisfaction to struggle through.

All you can do is pay attention.

Be intentional.

Walk by putting one foot in front of the other, and remember to breath.

When you want to turn?  Turn head, body follows. :)

.Nevets.

Starting MC from Strength

All---

I've been planning this post for just about a week now, reflecting on a challenge I'm facing in the introduction of my MC in Sublimation, but in the mean time Anne R. Allen posting up a concise list of important points about introducing your protagonist. While I don't think developed writers (even unpublished ones) need necessarily adhere to this list religiously, it's a great starting point for writers who are still in the early stages of learning their craft and a good place to start thinking about some important questions.

I'd like to focus on something that doesn't figure on Allen's list: the importance of starting your MC out from a position of strength.

This has been a huge struggle for me with Sublimation, but it is a challenge that can apply to stories of many different genres. In my case, it's not divulging any big secret to say that one character focus of Sublimation is the struggle of Alec Smith, consummate man-in-control-of-every-situation, as he gets caught up in situation over which he finds himself powerless. It's a universal human story, and I'll keep the details mostly to myself for now.

Here's the challenge. This arc develops from position A (Alec in control) to position B (Alec powerless) to position C (however the plot resolves). The problems is that position A is really not very interesting and really doesn't figure into the story much at all. After much struggling, I ended up starting with the slope down to position B, with flashbacks and implications covering position A. That way the story starts off where things are interesting but the character development can still be understood.

Sounds reasonable, and it doesn't read that badly.

Unfortunately, I've realized that the reader has no emotional investment in position A. They don't see a strong character become weak. They see a weak character remembering when he was once strong. For some stories, that can be okay -- but those are different stories, and typically only take place in the advanced stages of position B.

I'm working out a way to correct this in Sublimation, but I'm sharing this not so much to talk about my book as to call attention to this challenge for other writers. In most cases, especially if you want sympathy or empathy with your characters, you need to start them out in a position of strength, and then tear them down. It does not need to occupy a large percentage of words or pages, but it does need to be fully realized.

Remember the classic check mark picture of plot action, where you start off high, fall quickly, and then climb your way even higher? Ideally, in most situations, you to mimic that with your character development. Start strong, fall, then work to get back up.

Anybody else have any examples from their own work of grappling with this question? Where did you end up? Any good examples of published work that exemplifies success with starting from a position of weakness?

.Nevets.