Hi, I am back again with the second article in my series about how to write, how to become an author. In the first article, I talked about the physical parts of writing - you know, desk setup and computers and room and those types of things - right? Because the physical environment that you're writing in has a lot to do with your ability to focus and concentrate and write.
So the next thing in this article that I wanted to go through and talk about are some of the more philosophical things, the attitude things about writing. And we're going to have a little bit of fun with this. I'm going to give you some homework if you really want to and if you want to kind of play along with this a little bit.
So the first thing that I want to share with you is: let the process do the work. Be willing to commit to writing just right. Because what you're going to find is that yes, you probably have an outline and you probably have some plot lines in your head, or maybe you've actually gone to the point of... and some authors get really detailed with all of their outlining. In that process, I write on the computer but then I find myself that I'm pretty soon up in the living room and I've got a piece of paper and a pencil. So pads - a pad of paper - is a very helpful thing, at least for me, because sometimes I just need to get away from the computer and I need to just jot down some notes and kind of think about things and I need to organize them graphically in that way.
Now, let your work create itself. And I know that this sounds weird, but I literally sometimes when I was writing Operation Austin would get to a point and something would happen and I would start laughing and saying, "Gee, I didn't see that coming," or "I didn't know that's who that was." It's like I was reading it, not writing it. But it takes on its own kind of life, and pretty soon things are coming out of you, or it takes a turn. You might actually even start a book going in one direction and find out that it takes you someplace very different. I experienced that. So it was a revelation to me about writing. So be willing to trust the process. That's what I'm saying.
Now, use momentum. If I was going to sit down and write for 20 minutes every day, I think it would be difficult. I'm not saying you can't do it - you have to do what you have to do. If you're a writer, you're going to write. But if I'm just going to write for 20 minutes, I don't... for me, I just barely am getting going. The longer I write after about an hour, the ideas just start streaming and coming to me. I think if I was just trying to write in 20-minute chunks, I think that would be more difficult. So yes, sometimes I sit for a few minutes and I throw something in, but that's usually if I've thought about it and prepared something and then I know where I'm going with it. Then I'm going to sit down and throw it in and then I'll walk away for a little while.
But for the most part, I'm segregating out time on the weekends perhaps, or I spend the entire day locked away writing. And through the week, I've kind of developed some of my thoughts, maybe made some notes, and then I find myself waking up in the middle of the night creating dialogue. I'm driving down the street to a meeting and I'm creating. Pretty soon I'm laughing, "Oh, that would be really funny if Paige said this," or "Oh, Gary could do this - that's a funny thing," you know, back and forth. You're creating this stuff as you're thinking about it, or perhaps as you even see something or hear something someone says and you go, "Oh, I could do that in this situation." Okay, get the point. Let it create. But you've got to block out some time, right? To me, I think that's the case.
Now, this next point's a kind of a tough one for some people. 95% is fantastic, all right? That 5% that's going to get you from really great to perfection - that's your enemy. That 5% is going to rob you of a lot of your creativity. It's going to create stress and it's going to keep you from finishing your work. And I promise you that people are going to fall in love with your characters. They're going to fall in love with the excitement of your story. They aren't going to focus on the fact that you misplaced a comma on page 63. Anybody who's going to pick up on that and dwell on that... you know, tell them to go read something else, all right? And you're in here... you're always going to have critics. Don't worry about that. I'm just glad that somebody took the time to read the book to criticize the fact that I missed a comma or I used a period where I should have used a comma. Okay, forget that.
So now, here's your first assignment in writing class. I would like you to sit down and write something - just spend 20 or 30 minutes writing something really bad. I want you to intentionally write something horrible - badly crafted, misspelled words, punctuation in the wrong place. Write some just really piece of trashy junk and get it out of the way. And send it to me, please. Go into our Facebook page - Gary Booker Novels - and send me a message and send me your junk, right? The point being is now you've got the bad stuff behind you. Everything from here on is going to be better than that, and you've taken control of that demon inside of you that's going to whisper in your ear saying, "Well, you know, maybe you're not that good. You know, you're not going to be Hemingway or Faulkner. Why are you even bothering?" No. You have a story that needs to be told. You need to get that story out of you or it will eat at you. It's just... it's a live being. It's a parasite inside there that's going to eat on you until you get it out and make it great. Be willing to be great. Spend some time building your craft and becoming a wordsmith, but don't worry about being perfect, right? Now, perfection sterilizes your art. You don't want that.
Next, you must fall in love with your characters. You have a story. You have an idea. But that idea and that story are going to get told through your characters, and if you don't fall in love with them or if you don't hate them, how is your audience going to feel the same way? So I found myself loathing certain people in the book. I mean, I literally wanted them dead. And I found myself passionately falling in love with some other characters. And I don't apologize for that. It's like, "Oh my gosh, this is the most amazing person I've never met." Right? That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, "Oh, I want to meet that person. I want to go spend time with her or him. I want to go do that thing with them. Wouldn't it be fun to go someplace?" Right? That's what you're looking for. But if you don't develop that, if you don't develop and invest yourself emotionally in these people, how's your audience going to do that? So that's where your strength is going to lie as a writer.
You want your audience to love your characters, laugh with them, cry with them, and be turned on by them. Okay? If you're writing... if there's a romantic element to your book, you want to involve as much of their senses and their passion as possible. Go ahead, let them get turned on. Put some scenes in there that really touch the essence of their humanity, their carnal nature. Okay? Because that's pretty base for people. I'm just going to encourage you to play with that a little bit and have some fun with it because if people love your characters, if they laugh and cry with them, and if those characters turn them on... yeah, you probably got something there, right?
Next, understand tropes. Tropes are themes of books. Now, there is a very popular television channel that every story, every movie there has the same trope, and they're all the same movie. Two people meet, they're attracted, they kind of start to fall in love, they get crossed up with each other, they go apart, they come back together, they live happily ever after. Those are tropes. And just consider the fact that this entire television channel with millions and tens of millions of viewers tells the same story in every movie. The face changes, the city changes, the town changes, the jobs they do change. The story never changes. So some of these things are tried and true. They are basic to our DNA that we invest ourselves emotionally in those tropes. But I'm going to encourage you to not let your work become cliché. And that's where some of the movies and some of these stories, some of these novels go wrong is that you read it and it just becomes a cliché. And I don't want to get into some of the specifics of those views - you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. If it's a... you know, any... I won't go there anyway.
Understand tropes. Understand what motivates people to read and get invested in work, but try and avoid becoming one more cliché.
Next, people want to laugh and cry and be captivated. People want to invest themselves. They're going to live through your work. A book is like a painting. If you can look at a painting and become emotionally connected to the scene, then you've done good. If you can write that book and touch something inside of those people that maybe they forgot or they set aside or they experienced once and now you allow them to experience that again - whether it be laughter or passion or hatred - something visceral. I've talked about that before, but I'm going to bring this up again. That's what people are looking for.
Next and final for this article (and we'll get into some things on the next one - we'll start getting into more the technicalities of writing), the final thing I want to leave you with here today is: I want you to leave them grieving. When you get done with your book, I want you to leave your audience grieving that the characters aren't continuing. You want to know what happens next. Your story's never done. You want them to love these people so much that it's almost like they've experienced a death because the book is over. It's like, "Oh my lord, I just want it to go on and on and on forever. It's so good. That author is so good. It touched... he or she touched me."
You know, sometimes I find myself with somebody that's a really good author, and I'll read their work and I think, "How on earth can they develop words in such a way that they literally touch me? They emotionally touch me." And that's what I'm going to encourage you to do. Spend the time developing your craft so that your story will touch people.
This is Val Campbell. I will see you on the next article. We're going to start getting into the technicality of the writing process, which is kind of fun actually. I'll try to Show you some of the things that I learned and some of the tools and some of the skills and techniques that I use. Okay? See you on the next post.
