There are basic details I need before I start any project. They determine how I begin and how I set up the piece. It also sets up my process, which I will discuss next week.
These are the top seven things I need before the first word is written:
I know a lot of writers who excel when pressured by the clock. There’s something about crunching a deadline that spurs the creative juices.
The best writing transports us to another world, another life, another experience. The only way to reach this level of writing is to change the way you interact with the existing world.
So often we go through life focused on facts, our phones and our to-do lists and not the moments as they pass. We’re too busy looking ahead or behind to see what is. The sad fact is few of us are truly engaged in our lives. It’s one reason we are so often surprised by how quickly time has passed. Where did the summer go? It’s Christmas already?
Setting is key in any story, whether you’re talking novels or films. Setting is what gives a story a sense of place, ambience, mood and texture, so picking the right location is everything. Stories set in New Orleans are vastly different than those set in New York or Hong Kong. Even neighborhoods have different nuances—think Chinatown versus Greektown or Queens versus the Bronx.
This blog had a variety of titles: Be you. Follow your heart, not trends. Write for more than the money. My problem picking one was because they all fit and boil down to the same thing: write what moves you. Write the story that keeps you up at night and won’t let go. Write the character who whispers in your ear. Write what intrigues you.
You could argue that three is the most powerful number in the world. It is found throughout literature, music, and movies. It is the reason Mozart’s music, filled with major and minor thirds, soars. It is what governs photographic composition. And it forms the basis for most story structures.
I spoke to my son’s school recently about writing and the thing that excited the kids most was when I talked about plot bunnies. True, the photos of cute bunnies helped. A lot. Because who doesn’t like bunnies?
Here is what I told them:
Life is distracting. There is no doubt about that. Texts ding. Calls ring. Cats need petting. Children want food. There are so many distractions. Even ideas can be distractions.
There is something about the new and shiny that demands attention. Even new ideas. They are exciting and the urge to drop everything and follow where they lead is a strong one. Unfortunately, it is also a great way to end up with a hundred unfinished manuscripts.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to embrace who you are, faults and flaws included, although we may try to avoid being that truthful with ourselves. We love to tell ourselves lies—calories don’t count on Sunday, I’ll make up for it tomorrow. In the end, though, we are ourselves whether we own up to it or not. These lies hamper us and our writing.
I work in the film and video industry, when I am not writing speeches, social media content, articles or a novel. Although the novel thing is rather new.
(Okay, it’s not really new, but it’s been recently that have I written the first draft of the only novel I want to edit. So that’s new.)
As I am transitioning from film to fiction, I have run into a host of problems: the biggest being a serious lack of B-roll.
I was a double major in college–Creative Writing and Music. While my parents were not thrilled with my choices, I was, even though it happened by accident.
I wanted to be a singer. It was my goal from an early age. I was that child who would hold her hairbrush and sing for hours, dancing around the basement or my room pretending I was performing in front of crowds. The only odd thing was that I always envisioned myself on USO tours instead of huge stadiums. I wanted to live that iconic image of the Bob Hope show for the troops in war zones, otherwise the touring did not appeal to me.
So off I went to college with the hope of someday cutting a platinum album and going off to war to sing. I was young. It is my only defense. That and being a military brat.
Writing is more than a collection of words strewn across the page. It has life and voice. We hear it when we read to ourselves. It speaks to us and takes on a life of its own depending on the author.
The voice of a story is what makes it come alive in the reading and it is the most important skill a writer can have. It’s what sets one writer apart from another—a Hemingway (short, short sentences) versus a Faulkner (who goes on and on), a Gaiman from a Melville. These are not the same voices. They sound different in our heads. The way these authors string words and sentences together creates different rhythms and cadences as we read along. They pull at us differently.
Below are a few examples of voice in writing. The first example is from one of my favorite authors.