Getting To The Middle of It

I just finished reading "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman. It's a wonderfully imaginative work but I had to read quite a few pages before the really interesting parts began.

The book clearly delineates Coraline, her parents and the characters of the new neighbors before the real drama begins. Similarly, a lot of really great books take the time to set up the situation, the characters and their relations before they plunge into the conflict and take off into the weirdosphere.

I find it hard to read such books sometimes, wanting the book to get to the main conflict sooner or be exciting from the moment I open its pages. But it's only once we've been acquainted with the book's normal world, that the dangers or anomalies that take place later have any real effect on us, right? 

A similar impatience affects my writing. I immediately get to the points I really want to write about and the buildup suffers as a result. I need to work on the establishment of the day-to-day occurrences that lead up to the wild, bizarre and outrageous scenes I really want to get to.

The daily scenes require constraint, patience and temperance to create. But the rewards of a piece with these plateau areas are much more than a piece without them.

After all, it's the slow climb to the top that makes the rush downwards that much more exciting, isn't it?

The Joy of Writing With Somebody Else

Confession time! I have an awesome friend at my workplace, who I write stories with during the free time we can make. Our backs will face each other when we write, but once we're done, we immediately turn and give each other feedback or help.

More than this, we will make sure the other takes the time to write, whether it's during office hours, or during the weekend at home. It's great to have a buddy, who asks you what you have written and suggests what you can write next.

We each have our writer goals and we know the other's goals as well as we do our own, so it becomes easier to make suggestions.

Right now, we're working on creating entries for writing contests and sending them across. Since I have somebody behind my back, I'm finally meeting deadlines and it feels good!

Do you have a writer buddy too?

What's Your Writer Persona?

The Myers-Briggs personality types are used by psychologists all over the world to judge a person's traits. It can help you understand how you deal with relationships or how you approach work, and to a similar extent, how you approach writing.

For e.g., I oscillate between being an INFP and an ENFP, which means my ideas can often represent a Gordian knot, I need to feel strongly about the topic in order to write about it and I tend to drown myself in information while writing.

The various personality types with their characteristic writing patterns have been listed here.

You can discover your personality type by taking this test:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

 Whatever I have mentioned here is based on information available from:

http://www19.homepage.villanova.edu/karyn.hollis/prof_academic/Courses/common_files/personality_types/The%20Keirsey%20TempermentTest.html

http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html

 

The ISTP Writer

The ISTJ Writer

The ISFJ Writer

The INTJ Writer

The INFJ Writer

The ESTP Writer

The ESTJ Writer

The ESFJ Writer

The ENTJ Writer

The ENFJ Writer

The ENTP Writer

The INTP Writer

The ESFP Writer

The ISFP Writer

The ENFP Writer

The INFP Writer

The Dreaded Feedback

I hate receiving feedback. I have put my work out there to be judged, and I feel all exposed, and I hate knowing that somebody hasn’t liked something about it! After all, my writing is me. I’m in my writing! I feel like I’m standing naked in a public square, being flogged for a mortal sin against humanity. 

I don’t know why I feel so bad or why I take it so personally. Somebody wise said somewhere on the internet:

"When a person criticizes your writing; they’re not criticizing you, they’re criticizing your work."

Additionally, feedback is a writer's tool. I have many friends who, being more open to criticism than I am, have actually improved a lot more than I have. I wish I could do the same. 

I wish I didn’t build up my story in my mind as the best story I’ve ever written, one that the world will take notice of. Of course, that’s why I write and without that feeling half of the fun of writing my own story is taken away. So, I don’t want to do away with that feeling either. 

I guess I just want to find a balance between feeling crazily obsessed about my writing while being able to detach from it when it comes to the revision stage-- no arrogance, no forced sentiment, just a need to create outstanding work. 

Writing is a subjective field. People may like it or people may not. I can’t please everyone with my writing, but then again, pleasing no one is obviously a pointless waste of talent. 

So, what do I do? I just take a deep breath, and plunge into the words of the criticism, then take a deep breath and see my story, again look at the criticism, again see my story, somewhere in that process, my emotions about my beloved piece settle down and I am able to think about my piece objectively. 

That's what I'm going to do again tonight. Hopefully, I won’t feel like I need a very big pit to sink into.

Here goes!

How do I know which story to save?

There are a million stories to write about in one’s lifetime, and about ten of those every day. It only takes the question ‘what if?’ to turn the simplest idea into a full-fledged story. Similarly, if a certain character grips my attention and I want my world to contain someone just like him; I’ll probably get all excited and find a way to make it happen.

The question is which story should I decide to pursue?

At this point, I normally ask myself what I really want to write. Is it a short story or a novel?

Some ideas lend themselves very well to short stories- that sudden twist, the fast movement of the characters, the possible unity of time and place and the revolving of the story around very few characters who adequately share the space you give to them in the short story.

Some ideas are meant for novels- where characters need to be developed slowly to reveal complex motives and the story takes place in multiple locations with multiple characters having different stakes in the various events of the narrative.

If an idea really gets me excited but is meant for a novel that I don’t see myself taking the time out to write, then I have to discard it. If the idea for a short story really excites me, I have to focus on the fact that it’s going to be a short story and not go overboard writing it.

The story I choose to write depends on the time I have and the sort of project I want to get involved in. Certain ideas suit certain forms and trying to bend the rules will lead to a dehydrated and condensed novel or a short story with false extensions.

How Do I Pause Writing When Life Comes Calling?

One of the most painful things to do when I’ve begun to write is to stop. The flow of thoughts is so incessant that I think to stop them must surely be a sin.

I have to remind myself that I have a life outside of the story that I’m creating and if that doesn’t work, remind myself that in all probability, the story will definitely have rough edges that have to be worked out in the light of day. 

Many a time, have I ignored this advice, ignored that I have a life and gone on writing anyway.

So do I deliver a killer story that way?

No. I mostly have to discard the pieces immediately after, or discard the very parts I’ve forced myself to write after giving myself that warning. 

When I immerse myself into my imaginary world, then take a breather and come back again, I find the world I’ve created lacking. Then I can infuse those elements the real world has inspired me with into my writing.

But after I get back, how do I know I will have the same connection with the story, the insanely strong connection I felt the previous day? I don’t. Just like I don’t know if that guy I had the one amazing date with is going to call me or not.

If I do find that connect, then it’s awesome, I can continue writing immediately. If not, I see if changing anything about it will make it work for me. Maybe an idea is buried in the gibberish. Maybe changing a character or a character’s decision can help. Maybe changing the plot elements will do the trick.

But if I try all of that and it still doesn’t work, then it’s time to move on without looking back. After all a good story like a great love, affair simply can’t be forced.

I Think I have Writer's Block. What Should I Do?

Writing good, original stuff all the time seems impossible to do sometimes. Then again, if you force yourself to write that way, the pressure it creates may keep you from writing anything at all.

Whether writing is viewed as a simple process of putting word after word on paper, or whether you lower your expectations during writing to raise them during editing, you have to see what works for you, so that you can go on writing.

Different brains thrive in different environments. Some use the pressure to churn out their best work while some hate any kind of pressure and develop a mental block when faced with it. Whatever your reaction to pressure and whatever your reason for developing a block, the simple way to avoid it may just be to know how your brain works and study your writing process in and out. For example, whenever my mom says something to me and breaks the flow of my writing (like right now), I have to struggle to get back the flow of my thoughts.

I guess either my expectations of myself have always been low or I typically write for myself, but I have never been unable to put word after word on paper and create a story from the words so combined, even with my mother's interruptions (I love her a lot, don't get me wrong).

But what about the originality? What about the quality of what I've written? Now, that is something that I need to work on. That is something that I plan to work on through this blog. What I've learnt so far is that discussing my thoughts with someone else really helps. With that in mind, I give you my e-mail address, so that you can contact me with your problems and we can find a way to work through writer's block together.     

I'll dedicate myself to understanding how you work as a writer and find a way to help you come out of it. You can share your story with me and I can help you make it the best it can be.

Hopefully, we will find a way to get writer's block out of our systems, once and for all.

You can email me at boottheblock@gmail.com.