The Writing Life

I find myself this morning, once again, at Starbucks. Rather than dithering on about characters and such, I've decided to talk about what keeps bringing me back to my favorite big, red chair across from the bar.

Alice knows why.

If other aspiring writers are anything like me, they have trouble finding time to write. Besides writing, I have things like college, work, and significant others competing for my time. Not surprisingly, writing does not always sit highest on my list of priorities, and as a result, I don't always get much writing done. This cannot always be blamed on my other commitments, however. Sometimes, I find myself sitting in front of the computer at home with a blank open office document, (yes, I use OpenOffice, don't hate.) unable or unwilling to write anything clever or coherent.

A cheapskate's best friend.

I came to the conclusion that writing at home wasn't for me. I just couldn't get in the write mindset [har har, I know, I'm a wriot (ha, did it again!)] Therefore, I decided to try out "working at the office." Maybe getting out of the home would be just the kick in the pants my muse needed. So, unwilling to resist a good cliche, I drove to the Starbucks nearest my house. It's also nice that my significant other happens to work here. See, never say I can't kill multiple birds with single stones ;).

In short, my coffeehouse writing experiment was an unparalleled success. In all my time at home, I managed to complete one short story. Conversely, during my short time working at Starbucks, I've completed one full short story and made significant progress on two others. Plus, I've outlined the beginning half of my first novel -- and, as you've likely gathered, I do most of my blogging here as well. You might think all of the motion and noise common at Starbucks would distract me from my work, but, quite contrarily, the constant hubbub caused me to focus even harder, upping my efficiency. Starbucks, it turns out, is the perfect place for this particular aspiring writer. I guess all cliches start somewhere.

 

 

More than meets the eye. Or is that Transformers?

Not all writers are like me. There are countless approaches to the writing life, only one of them being working away from home. Many writers, including several that I admire, prefer the big red chair in front of their fireplace versus the one in the coffeehouse with the chaos and commotion. But hey, it works for me.

So, I know many of you have dreams and extracurricular pursuits outside of your day jobs. I would love to hear about your secret projects and the strategies you use to work on them in the comments below. Also, I'm looking for a free, outside html-based music player program to embed in this blog. If you have any ideas or information, feel free to shoot me an email at baileyjjwriter@gmail.com. Until next time...

Happy writing,  rhyming, and reminiscing,

J

In Living Color

So, Star Trek wins this week? Good. Mr. Spock approves.

Indeed.

I'm sitting here at Starbucks trying to decide what I want to say this week. I know, I can hear what y'all are thinking:  

Really guy, you're writing at Starbucks? Could you get any more hackneyed?

Well, that's not exactly what I thought, but hey, don't judge. Being in public is good pressure to write, plus there's this pretty girl who works here that I'm kinda crushing on, so in the name of coffeehouse stalkers everywhere, I'm darn well gonna be a walking (or perhaps sitting) cliche.

Like these guys

So where was I?  Right, Starbucks. People-watching is one of my favorite activities since I've started writing creatively, as it allows me to passively observe the human animal in it's natural, over-caffeinated environment. A busy chain cafe like this one, it turns out, is a great place to learn about writing characters.

Whether we realize it or not, when we observe the people around us, we from personal constructs; which my old communications textbook defines as "a mental yardstick by which we make initial judgments about eachother." Many of these constructs conform to societal stereotypes. For example, one might look at the guy standing at the register right now wearing track pants and a tank top and think "fitness nut." Therefore, he will order soy milk in his latte. Most new writers, again whether or not they realize it, use personal constructs when they create their characters. This is especially true for speculative fiction writers like myself.

Like members of the non-literary population, we form our personal constructs from what we observe around us; what we perceive as norms. Unlike everyone else though, we form most of our constructs from the media we consume, or what we see, hear and read. For fantasy writers, these tends to be greats like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and (nowadays) J.K. Rowling. I know my first fantasy world formed around a bunch of characters loosely a bit too closely molded after Rowling's heroes and heroines. More traditionally, Fantasy writers fall into modeling their characters after Tolkien's characters, creating eternal archetypes (or, if you prefer, cliches): The wise wizard (Gandalf), the jaded warrior/lost heir (Aragorn), the stubborn dwarf (Gimli), the unlikely hero and the trustworthy friend (Frodo and Sam).

"The Unlikely Hero," Tolkien's one archetype that has survived mostly intact into modern fantasy.

New writers, it's time to take notice! What is your favorite book, movie, or TV show? Now take a look at your fledgling novel and look closely at your characters. You'll notice it too. I did. But take heart, there is hope.

A good way to learn to write believable characters is to first examine your own. Not your main character in your novel: yourself, your mind, you. After all, most define characters as simulations of real people, so how better to learn how to write good characters than to examine the real person you hopefully know best? Look deep down at yourself, and notice all the things you do or think. You may see yourself as a writer, but hopefully you are so much more. Maybe you like to run, or play an instrument. Are you married, or maybe you feel you are unlucky in love? While you may define yourself as a writer or academic, your personality shows shades of many different and changing things, like a living watercolor painting. Your characters should be the same way.

All masterpieces begin with a single color.

The good news is that most writers start with archetypes, and build on them with details and quirks to make them feel alive. This is fairly simple, and is a practice that improves with time. For example, let's take another look at the soy milk fitness nut.


So, there is a fitness nut at the counter. The uncreative writer might make him look impatiently at his watch as he waits for his soy latte. You could look at this another way, however. Maybe he's impatient because he's getting whole milk in his latte, due to the fact that his newlywed fitness nut wife won't let him have it at home. Perhaps he pulled ahead of her to get to the cafe first, so he could secretly enjoy his indulgence before she arrives. Maybe he's wearing track pants in the summer because he is the rare male anorexic, who despite working out constantly feels that his legs are too unsightly for running shorts. You get the idea. :)

There is another, surefire way to write great, real characters. Become them. That's right, I'm not crazy or delusional. Whenever you write a character, try to feel their motivations. Feel their pain and triumphs. Use the basic empathy you have for other humans, and put yourself in your character's shoes. I promise your writing will be more passionate and your characters will feel that much more real because of it. Great actors do the same thing with the characters they play. Here is a link to one of my all time favorite videos, Sir Ian McKellen describing how to do just that.

Well, this has been an extremely lengthy post. Sorry if I took up too much of you all's time, but hopefully y'all learned a bit. Remember, you want characters, not caricatures or cliches.

Best,

J