Writing 101: Simple Tips on Becoming a Better Writer
A lot of writer’s blogs today talk about marketing your work. There are so many books out there you must work constantly on the marketing side to get your work noticed and achieve success. But the question I get asked the most by readers is, “How do you come up with your stories?” Some people think every character I create is an exact portrait of a real person in my life and every scene is something that actually happened to me. If they know me they try to guess which character represents what real person. That is not really how it works. A lot of what happens in fiction comes from a mixture of life experience, direct observation and the writer’s imagination and usually characters contain a mix of real attributes the writer has encountered in people and fictional ones. A good writer has to utilize all of those and come up with a compelling plot and follow a story arc similar to a play’s three acts, moving toward a climactic and satisfying conclusion. Ack! Yes, it is hard work. (I add that caveat because I’ve had other people say, “Oh, you are so lucky to be born with talent like that,” as if the ability to write a full length novel was handed to me like my naturally curly hair or my brown eyes!)
Being a Writer is Like Being Crazy
The best advice I would give to writers is to try to write every day, even if it is just for five minutes. This is something I still aspire to and do not always achieve. Before the Christmas holidays I was working on my new novel, Three O’clock Moon. I had momentum and I was working on it nearly every day. Have you ever thought of Christmas as an interruption? If so, you may be a writer. Sometimes, as much as I love Christmas, I do feel that way. Or, I have considered daily life, I.e., cooking, performing household duties, in essence, reality as an interruption into a story I am working on. The fictional world I have created is extremely real to me. When I am working on a story or a novel, the characters I’ve created are rattling around in my head having conversations whether I am sitting at my computer working or driving to the post office or grocery store. Sometimes my characters talk out loud through my mouth. It’s true! I hear voices and talk to imaginary people. Being a writer is exactly like being a crazy person! Only instead of sending you to an asylum, people send you money! (Ha-if you successfully market and sell your books, that is!)
Seriously, I do try to remind myself to pay more attention to reality and whatever is happening in my life at any given time. Whenever I go into a restaurant I listen to conversations from nearby tables. I don’t listen so much to what people are saying as the way they are speaking. This gives me an instinct for dialog. Actors frequently do this. Standing in line is another good way to observe people. As writers we must not only be good observers but good listeners, as well. Whether you are at the grocery store or the DMV watch, listen, smell. Let’s take the grocery and use it as an example of how a writer might turn an ordinary every day experience into fiction.
As I stood in line at the grocery the other day I smelled cinnamon from a Christmas display near the checkout. There was a very old man in front of me who had a couple of cans of generic chili and a box of saltines and some generic canned fruit in his basket and a lady behind me who was talking on her mobile phone. Here is an example of how a writer could use this real life experience and turn it into a fictional scene to perhaps illustrate a character’s mood or give the character depth.
A Christmas display was set up next to the fast lane line at the grocery. As usual she was running late getting to her sister’s house. She was in a sour mood, didn’t really enjoy going over there- it seemed like all they cared about was showing off their latest fancy acquisition. Her sister had already told her she had bought her husband a three thousand dollar grill for Christmas. Hmph! She could buy Harold a new riding lawn mower for that. As she waited in line she perused the display. There were Christmas curios from snowmen to Santas to snow globes. There were holiday-themed napkins and plates; a bin filled with cinnamon scented pine cones. The spice permeated the air throughout the check line. The smell of cinnamon always made her smile. Growing up cinnamon always meant Mama’s cinnamon sugar crumbled coffee cake was in the oven and that meant it was Christmas morning. She glanced into her basket at her store-bought pies nobody in her family ever ate- a pumpkin and a cherry. Her sister always made some gourmet dessert like chocolate mousse or cherries jubilee to set upon her shiny chrome and glass dining table. One year she spent three hours making chocolate and lemon meringue pies and nobody even tried a taste of them. She swore to never go to the trouble again. How she missed those normal turkey dinners her mother used to make with pumpkin and pecan pies for dessert!
Suddenly she noticed the arthritic old man in front of her. His lanky arms were all nobs and angles. He stood slightly stooped over, his spine in the shape of a question mark, with the lower part curving inward and the upper part bowing outward. He had a few cans of generic chili, a box of saltines and a couple of cans of generic peaches. She felt like an awful ass, complaining about having to go and eat a gourmet Christmas dinner! He shuffled forward a few steps and placed his items on the conveyor belt to check out. She put her pies on the conveyor and impulsively pushed them against his cans of chili.
“Put this all together,” she said to the cashier, a wrinkle-faced old woman with curly gray hair and kind brown eyes.
The old man turned his whole body around to look at her.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, looking into his rheumy eyes, which sparkled like Christmas twinkle lights when he smiled.
“Well, Merry Christmas,” he said tentatively, as if he wasn’t accustomed to talking much. Then, a little more boldly he exclaimed, “Merry Christmas, young lady! Merry Christmas!”
After she swiped her credit card and paid, she slipped the pies into one of his bags. He hadn’t even noticed.
“Merry Christmas,” the cashier called after her as she hurried out of the store with a smile on her face, feeling the spirit of Christmas for the first time in a long while.
If you want to be a good writer, keep observing, keep listening and write, write, write!