Writing about Writing

I’ve talked about what we write about and why we write, but I’ve skated around actually writing. However, since I said in the opening that I would write about writing, it’s only right that I write about writing, right now.

I don’t know how others write. I’ve heard some of them talk about doing gobs of research before they start to write. I’ve also heard that some writers get blocked from writing and can’t go on without some sort of mantra, or time out at a spa with mud treatment. That’s not the way I work. For me it’s more like taking dictation from the characters, on how the story should go. They even call me out when I deviate from the original story they’ve told me.

I don’t think I’m nuts, but once I start to write a story it’s a downhill race to finish the tale. Let me tell you how it goes for me and the stories I write. Well at least most of them. I will admit that sometimes I write about something that actually happened in the real world. Not often though.

On with the telling of the tale. For me it’s like going into a giant airplane hangar. You know, one of those old Quonset huts that you see in all of the World War II movies. When I go in the hangar is empty. I can see where I came in and where at the other end I can go out. Basically that’s the story the first time I see it. There’s the beginning and the end. (Side Note #1: I know that some of you are asking why a Quonset hut? Why not a tunnel, like all the rest of those allegorical writers. Well for me tunnels always seem dark and damp, and who wants a soggy story. Why not a house then? Well houses have too many things in them that are a part of the house and not a part of the story. That means that I would have to sift through everything I see, to find out if it’s a part of the house or part of the story. Basically I’m too lazy to make that kind of effort.)

As I get used to the lighting in the place and look around, I start to see more and more detail. Usually the first things that I can make out are the characters. Not all of them right away, just the main players, and where they will be in the hangar, or the story. As I look around at the door I just came through I find out how the story will start. That’s when I’ll start to write the story.

Sometimes I’ll look all the way down the hangar and see the faint traces of the entire story and I’ll write it down so that I can remember it once the main typing starts. (Side Note #2: In case you haven’t guessed by now, I type everything on a computer. First of all my handwriting is atrocious. I know this for a fact since Sister Mary You’ll-Never-Amount-to-Much told me so in sixth grade. She said “Your handwriting is atrocious and no one will ever know what you’re trying to say. ((Internal Side Note #1: They didn’t let the nuns have machines or other sharp objects in those days, so she had never heard of a typewriter. If she had she would have told me that my spelling was also wanting.)) So that means you’ll fail at everything you try to do.” Lucky for me she didn’t have the gift of fore-sight. Second of all I really spell badly, and without the computer’s “Spell-check” I’d be doomed.) Meanwhile back to the telling of the telling.

At other times I just start to look around at the opening very carefully and type what I see. When I finish a story, I rarely have to change much of what I wrote in those first days. Somehow the beginning I saw, always remains the correct beginning for the story. In those cases, I’ll just go a little further into the hangar each time I get back to the story and write down what comes next in the same amount of detail as the beginning. I know that the story is finished when I see that I’m at the far end of the hangar.

As I go along, one character or another will tell me that someone new is needed to complete the scene. Every so often I will close out a scene and one of the characters will jump up and say, “Hey you forgot to leave the knife in the bushes outside of the library window.” Then I’ll have to go back and add the knife to the description of the murder scene. (Side Note #3: I really don’t write murder mysteries, although people do die in my stories. See my earlier discussion on why I think that immortality might be boring.)

If I read what I’ve written and it seems a little pale or thin, I just look back on that part of the hangar and with a little more focus I can see the details that are needed to make the tale more complete. It’s all there for me to see as long as I’m looking in the right places at the right time in the story.

So that’s the truth. I haven’t the creativity to make up what I write. I’m just good at taking dictation from the characters in my stories. (Side Note #4: Please don’t tell any of the characters in my stories that I’ve told you this. It’s not that they’d disagree, it’s just that they don’t want to be held accountable for the bad writing.)