I've finally gotten to the point in my current WIP that the words are flowing, the plot is moving, and the characters are doing their own thing. It's not an easy thing to do, and on the drive home from work this morning, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to help other aspiring writers get to the easy part of writing.
Now for the part where I shock people (in cased you missed the big hint). If you look around in the Writing Novels section, probably on the first three pages, you'll find a thread started by James D. Macdonald titled something like Learn Writing with Uncle Jim. He started by posting his qualifications which prove that he is a successful, and more importantly, published author. Guess what? I can't do that.
If you want, you can discard everything I say in this post as novice advice, but if what I've said helps at least one person, just one, and they use it in conjunction with advice given by experienced authors to get published, I won't be complaining one bit.
I think that Hillary said it best in another thread:
Someone else said something along those lines as well -- a well known artist and sculptor named Michelangelo. He said something to the effect that he wasn't really sculpting, he was 'liberating the figures' souls from their marble prison'. (Forgive me for not being able to provide a quote -- I don't remember where I read this, but I'm 99.5% certain that these were his words, and if you google 'Michelangelo sculpture prison' (no quote marks), you'll find several references.)
Using this mindset with writing has proven to be my greatest tool. Without it, I couldn't imagine being able to tell a fictitious story, much less, write a novel. Getting to the point where my characters take over, and show me how the story goes is, for me at least, the most difficult task.
How you get inside your characters' heads may or may not be different, but I'll tell you how I do it, and hopefully it will help.
Begin by forcing the story out. It doesn't matter what you write, as long as you're using your characters, and have them doing things (including talking). At first, all of the characters will more than likely speak in the same tone, have the same attitude, and basically be the same person with a different name, and sometimes gender. Force yourself to go on, and at around 6,000 words, you will start to realize that, "Hey, he wouldn't say that!" or, "She would act totally different in that situation!"
Getting to this point may require a bit of imagination. If you lack a good imagination, you should probably consider another line of work.
It's not as simple as, "Put yourself in their shoes," because if you did that, all of your characters would be the same, and more than likely, this is where you are when you begin writing. This is where being a good observer of your world comes in. Think of past experiences with people in similar situations, and how they reacted. The more people you know with these experiences, the more characters you can create.
If you have a difficult time seeing things from others' perspective, I've put together a small exercise (I may be remembering this from somewhere), which will require writing anywhere from 1,000 - 2,500 words, depending on how descriptive you are. 1,000 words may be overkill, but focus the overkill on what the character is thinking, how they act and react, and definitely how they talk. You should keep your physical descriptions to an absolute minimum. Faces, hair color, and the make and model of the character's car are completely irrelevant (unless they are important to the scene). Hell, try to keep even the action to a minimum. The point of this exercise is to get in your characters' heads.
The exercise:
You work at a restaurant as a waiter/waitress. You have just finished tallying your tips, clock out, and head for the door after saying goodbye to the manager and cooks, who are still closing. When you unlock the door to leave, a masked man, at least twice your size slams into the door, sending you skittering several feet backwards. Oh, and he has a mean looking shotgun.
Now, for the fun part. If you are a man, you are now writing as a female character. If you're a woman, you're now writing as a male character. If you personally have never gotten into a fight in your life, you will somehow disarm the bandit, and subdue him. If you're a scrapper, and know how to throw a punch, you will resolve this situation without violence, but still nab the bad guy.
When you're done, write the whole thing over from the robber's perspective.
Now for the part where I shock people (in cased you missed the big hint). If you look around in the Writing Novels section, probably on the first three pages, you'll find a thread started by James D. Macdonald titled something like Learn Writing with Uncle Jim. He started by posting his qualifications which prove that he is a successful, and more importantly, published author. Guess what? I can't do that.
If you want, you can discard everything I say in this post as novice advice, but if what I've said helps at least one person, just one, and they use it in conjunction with advice given by experienced authors to get published, I won't be complaining one bit.
I think that Hillary said it best in another thread:
Someone else said something along those lines as well -- a well known artist and sculptor named Michelangelo. He said something to the effect that he wasn't really sculpting, he was 'liberating the figures' souls from their marble prison'. (Forgive me for not being able to provide a quote -- I don't remember where I read this, but I'm 99.5% certain that these were his words, and if you google 'Michelangelo sculpture prison' (no quote marks), you'll find several references.)
Using this mindset with writing has proven to be my greatest tool. Without it, I couldn't imagine being able to tell a fictitious story, much less, write a novel. Getting to the point where my characters take over, and show me how the story goes is, for me at least, the most difficult task.
How you get inside your characters' heads may or may not be different, but I'll tell you how I do it, and hopefully it will help.
Begin by forcing the story out. It doesn't matter what you write, as long as you're using your characters, and have them doing things (including talking). At first, all of the characters will more than likely speak in the same tone, have the same attitude, and basically be the same person with a different name, and sometimes gender. Force yourself to go on, and at around 6,000 words, you will start to realize that, "Hey, he wouldn't say that!" or, "She would act totally different in that situation!"
Getting to this point may require a bit of imagination. If you lack a good imagination, you should probably consider another line of work.
It's not as simple as, "Put yourself in their shoes," because if you did that, all of your characters would be the same, and more than likely, this is where you are when you begin writing. This is where being a good observer of your world comes in. Think of past experiences with people in similar situations, and how they reacted. The more people you know with these experiences, the more characters you can create.
If you have a difficult time seeing things from others' perspective, I've put together a small exercise (I may be remembering this from somewhere), which will require writing anywhere from 1,000 - 2,500 words, depending on how descriptive you are. 1,000 words may be overkill, but focus the overkill on what the character is thinking, how they act and react, and definitely how they talk. You should keep your physical descriptions to an absolute minimum. Faces, hair color, and the make and model of the character's car are completely irrelevant (unless they are important to the scene). Hell, try to keep even the action to a minimum. The point of this exercise is to get in your characters' heads.
The exercise:
You work at a restaurant as a waiter/waitress. You have just finished tallying your tips, clock out, and head for the door after saying goodbye to the manager and cooks, who are still closing. When you unlock the door to leave, a masked man, at least twice your size slams into the door, sending you skittering several feet backwards. Oh, and he has a mean looking shotgun.
Now, for the fun part. If you are a man, you are now writing as a female character. If you're a woman, you're now writing as a male character. If you personally have never gotten into a fight in your life, you will somehow disarm the bandit, and subdue him. If you're a scrapper, and know how to throw a punch, you will resolve this situation without violence, but still nab the bad guy.
When you're done, write the whole thing over from the robber's perspective.
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