Sometimes, when I’m having a terrible, horrible, no good, really bad day, I’ll look up from the blank word document on the computer screen in front of me, glance over at the neat, colorful row of Harry Potter books on the shelf, and collapse into a black hole of despair over the fact that I’m not J.K. Rowling.
This is not healthy behavior, I know.
Photo by conejoazul
Over time, I’ve learned a way to defeat this kind of thinking. One of the most oft-repeated pieces of writing advice is, after all, to read as much as possible. Why do we do this? To get an idea of what we like, the types of stories that appeal to us, the kinds of cadences that sound right in our ears.
It’s far too easy, though, to let these other writers (better writers, published writers, et cetera) become ghosts at the funeral of your career, sometimes before it even begins. Don’t do it. Instead, use this vast wellspring of self-flagellation as an excuse to make your writing better.
Try the following:
- Ask yourself what you like so much about your favorite book?
- Are the words comfortable?
- Are the characters lovable?
- Is the story amazing?
- Pick one of your favorite scenes—the type you tend to read over and over—and analyze what’s so great about it. Then sit down and try to mimic that using your own angle.
- Later, compare. How did you do? What techniques did you learn?
Don't Be Afraid To Borrow
Often times we are afraid of borrowing at all from other writers, for fear that we’ll be seen as borrowing far too heavily. Don’t be. If you write something and later realize you’ve just produced 80,000 words worth of Stephen King ripoff, well then, first of all you’ve written 80,000 words. Second of all, there’s almost certainly a story in there, and you’ve spent all that time honing your own voice.
It might need massive editing, but it’s far from worthless.
Beyond getting over your intimidation, your favorite writers can be a source of great inspiration. Finding a specific character impossible to paint? Need a great example of showing, not telling? Want to figure out why that love triangle is soooo gooood? It’s all written down somewhere, and the world’s literary collection is your encyclopedia, mentor, and shining example all at once. Why ignore it?
So the next time you find yourself blocked beyond belief, whether trying to bang out another chapter of your soon-to-be bestseller or just dealing with the daily grind, turn to your favorites for help. After all, they caught your attention. They’ve obviously got something to say.
PRACTICE
Spend fifteen minutes consciously trying to write like one of your favorite authors. Don't copy their specific word choices, themes, characters or anything that would be cheap or disingenuous. Instead, let yourself be inspired by the spirit of their writing, and try to pour that same spirit into your own practice.”
Thanks
Thanks for the insightful idea! It combines “copying,” which helps develop clarity, with honing your own voice. Brilliant.
I really enjoyed this post. What came to mind were all the interviews I have read or heard of musicians who said they were influenced by another musician. Of course each were successful with their careers. I guess the lesson would be to mimic good behavior but put your own
twist on it.
Exactly. In music it seems socially acceptable to share your influencers. In writing, not so much. I wonder why that is?
Exactly. That’s what I like to believe.
You make me want to go back and study my all-time favorite
book, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes. I’ll
analyze both the pathos and the humor and try to figure it out how he did it so
masterfully.
Here’s my trick; I always write with two or three fave books within reaching distance. At times when I start to slow down, I simply pick up a book, flick through it and somehow even speed-reading the beloved words will always prompt ideas to keep me going. 🙂
Great idea! Think I might use that for nanowrimo…
That’s a great trick, Yvette! I always say a good book is one that gets me writing.
I TOTALLY do this. I think being able to do it with intent is the real secret … if you own it, instead of feeling like wanting to be someone else is owning you, then you get the power from the action.
Somebody had hung the legs of a rooster on the front door. They were long and the skin looked scaly and reptilian like the legs of a small dragon might have looked.
Estee yelled “I’m here.” She didn’t touch the brass doorknob.
The legs looked like they were securely attached to the door but she didn’t want them to move. The spurs looked to be almost three inches long. Estee wondered which rooster had been beheaded. She was thinking that usually people didn’t eat roosters when her cousin came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron, the dogs trailing behind. Their tails smacked against the furniture, and their nails clicked on the floor.
“Whose legs?” Estee patted the pointer on the head.
“Johnny Cock-a-roo. We ate him.”
“Poor old Johnny. Who cleaned him?”
“Me.”
“No way”
“Yeah, the directions are in the Farm Living Catalogue.”
“Poor guy. How could you do that. It must have tasted terrible.”
“Well he was crowing at night, waking John up. He tasted good, better than the ones from the store. I stewed him because roosters are supposed to be tough.”
“Why would he do that, crow at night I mean?”
“I don’t know. I wish it hadn’t happened. I’m not doing it again. John is getting to be a pain in the ass anyway.”
While Dale fixed coffee and sweet rolls, Estee sat at the kitchen table and flipped though the local newspaper which had a story on the front page about buzzards tearing up the cars in the parking lot at Winn Dixie.
Estee found Dale hard to talk to, because she changed her position every few minutes it seemed like, but maybe she just saw more than one side of an argument. Maybe she could be glad the rooster was dead but wish she hadn’t killed him at the same time. Dale’s flexible thought made Estee’s side of the conversation hard to manage.
“So are you going to keep Swizzle and Bobby?”
“Yeah, Swizzle is so old he would be nothing but tough and Bobby does tricks. You want to go see them after we finish this coffee? He can find a penny under a can and bring it to you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Well, this is fantastic. I love how she tries to make excuses for Dale. So much detail here.
Thanks Marla. I’ve decided there really isn’t a good excuse for the eating of that rooster, but maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet.
For some reason, my husbands father always has Cockerel for Christmas dinner. I thought it tasted ok, but really it’s just a chicken, isnt it? I’d rather have turkey.
I’m not sure what that is.
A cockerel is a rooster, sorry!
I love the descriptions of Swizzle and Bobby. I’d love to see Bobby fetch the penny from under the can!
Thanks Kate.
(I love T.R. Pearson, but my writing doesn’t come close to his. Here’s my practice.)
It was the statue of Jesus that made us stop. Sixty-seven feet tall, sixty-five feet from
fingertip to fingertip if you measured across his outstretched arms, and white
as a cloud against the still, blue sky.
Pace wanted to stop more than me. He’d never seen it before. I had, well, sure I had. Once when I was seventeen I kissed a boy while
standing at the foot of the thing, the arms of Jesus high above us, the arms of
the boy wandering plenty. But I don’t
tell Pace this. I don’t tell him that or
that the locals call this statue Milk Carton Jesus, because of Jesus’ boxy
dimensions, the white robe making him look almost as wide as he is tall.
When they unveiled the thing in 1966, they hung two Pontiacs
from the Savior’s arms, let ‘em dangle there for the crowd that gasped and
snapped photos and probably prayed for an intervention, lest the metal and
glass fall from the cables and tumble down atop them.
It didn’t seem spiritual at all, my daddy told me. It seemed like a carnival trick, he said, like
a downright offense to the Almighty. He
told me I couldn’t go see it, so the first thing I did was plan a daytrip
there, me and my best friend, where we snuck in a bar on Spring Street, both of
us sixteen and daring, and ordered wine spritzers, and flirted with men older
than our fathers.
The sun was just going down when we reached Jesus, high up on
Magnetic Hill, and we each bought a red rose at the gift shop and we laid them
at his, well, not feet, because the robe came all the way to the ground, but we
laid them there nonetheless, at the hem of his robe and we tried to feel something
supernatural.
Kissing in the shadow of Jesus was better than laying down roses. I can’t say this to Pace because his mama teaches
Sunday school and he won’t get it.
When we pull onto the gravel road there’s a church bus pulling
out and we have to stop to let them by.
We park, wait in line, behind a German couple who tell us they see the
Passion Play every year. “God is good,”
the man says, and nods like he expects me to nod back. So I do.
Pace hugs the guy, which seems excessive, but the statue makes
you do things you wouldn’t otherwise. I
agreed to marry a man while sitting cross-legged on a hotel balcony and looking
across the hills where this same Jesus rose up, his arms stiff and
unyielding. It was the first time I’d
gone away with a man and spent the night.
We signed the register Mr. and Mrs. Ray Zorback, an inside joke if you
follow the Arkansas Razorbacks, and we fornicated in a bed placed beneath a
mirrored ceiling.
Of course, I didn’t marry him.
He turned out to be a man not even Jesus could stand.
Pace is walking ahead of me.
He stops when we round the bend.
In this spot it looks as if the Son of God is looking skyward, like he
can’t be bothered to look down and see his own creation. Pace squeezes my hand. “I love you,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s
talking to me or the statue.
I imagine the Pontiacs, both red, hanging from Jesus’ elbows,
and I feel the way you do if you happen to laugh at a funeral, all vulnerable
and emotional and filled with shame.
Pace puts his hand on my back and we continue the trek. We stop at the place where you can get the
money shot. There’s Jesus, the oak and
maple and pine rising on the hills behind him.
Above him, five hawks circle.
“My god,” Pace says.
Once when I was here, I gave in to the statue. It was near midnight, and I was alone. The
statue was awash in the flood lights that surround it. I’d been dating Braxton, who broke up with me
when he walked in on me with his best friend.
The things he called me, though I suppose I deserved it. I left that early morning, and I headed to
these hills, and I ended up here, and I said this to Jesus. “I am wicked and unsettled and I crave men
the way a fat kid in a candy store craves chocolate. Get a little liquor in me, and there goes the
ballgame. I’ll go home with just about anybody.
I used to blame my daddy, who was mean and my mama, who lost her mind
when she went through the change but I’m getting a little old to be the victim. If you can forgive me, then I’ll do my
darndest to change.”
I expected to feel my darkness lift. I expected to hear music, or see angels, or for
my heart to break in two and then be mended back together. You know what I felt? Nothing.
Nada. Not a thing. So I got up, angry and unforgiven and went
back into town and had a drink, and got into a fight that got me kicked out of
the seediest bar in Eureka.
Three years ago, I met Pace.
He doesn’t thrill me, no he does not, but he’s steady, and cautious and
a little sad, which is an endearing thing.
So I stay out of bars, and I don’t troll for men anymore, and I’ll go to
church with him on Christmas and Easter, unless I get a migraine, which I often
do.
I look at Pace. He’s
crying now. There’s some piped-in music
playing. The song is “At The Cross.”
Pace drops to his knees and it’s embarrassing is what it is, but I put my hand
on his shoulder anyway. He reaches up and
grabs me and pulls me down with him and I skin my knee on the concrete when I
land, and I know I’m bleeding, I just know I am, but I don’t lift my knee to
see.
Jesus is a white box rising above me. Pace is a white mess crying beside me. The German couple, I swear to God, are
snapping pictures of us with a camera the size of a cat, so I bow my head and
close my eyes and clasp my hands together.
I feel as irreverent as two Pontiacs hanging from the arms of Jesus, but
I can’t stop myself. I think about the
time I had to take my dog, Izzy, to the vet and have her put down. I think about it until a little tear escapes
me and then another. But then something
turns inside me and just like that I start to feel light and lifted up, and it
feels like a current is shooting through every part of me. I look up at Jesus, and he is still staring
into the heavens, and I am still on Earth but it doesn’t matter. We have been reconciled, I think, Jesus and
me, without my ever asking. I’m crying
for real now, big sloppy tears, and Pace is hugging me, and the Germans are
catching it all, like a record that can’t be denied, like a bonafide, come down
from Heaven miracle.
This is hilarious, and the ending when she tries to cry by thinking about her dead dog and then is carried away is wonderful. I thought that you were talking about the Jesus statue in Rio at first but then I realized there must really be huge Jesus statue in Arkansas, looked it up and there he was, Jesus of the Ozarks. Amazing! Pontiacs handing from his arms I can see it now. Wow.
Oh Marla this is great! Your writing seems effortless – is it?
Juliana,
That’s so nice of you to say. I just walk away when I can’t think of what to write and come back when I have an idea. I explained it a little more in my answer to Kate. It’s the best way I’ve found to handle not knowing what to write. It really helps me.
Marla
Ahhh, Marla….I have no idea who TR Pearson is, but if his writing is anything like yours, I will love it.
I love the way you talk about relationships and love. I also LOVE the way you say something without really explaining as such, but leaving it to the imagination of the reader, such as “He turned out to be a man not even Jesus could stand”, or the fact that Pace’s mother used to teach sunday school, and so he wouldn’t get it. It’s genius.
I agree with Juliana, your writing seems effortless.
Kate,
You’re so sweet to say that. Some days I can write easily, and some days I can’t make anything work. What I do when I’m stuck is something I learned from a course I took. Our instructions were NOT to write a word about the short story we would work on for an entire week. We were only supposed to THINK about it. When I finally wrote, I wrote straight through. Now, when I get stuck I walk away and I just think.
Yesterday, I read the prompt and had nothing. Instead of writing I drove north for about an hour, went to the natural foods store (we don’t have one where I live) and just looked at the mountains. The trees are yellow and red and orange right now. I started thinking about Eureka Springs, which is even farther north, and Christ of the Ozarks, the big, square Jesus statue that rises over the town that’s called “Little Switzerland” here.
When I got home, I started to write. When I re-read I see all the flaws, but I suppose everyone feels that way. It is a great way to get something on paper, though.
I LOVE your story.
Marla
Awww, thanks Marla, and thanks for the writing tip – I will try that out!
You know, the more I think about this idea, the more I like it. Maybe you should write a guest blog post for The Write Practice on thinking before you write?
This is my first comment to this community.
Sometimes a word, for instance: unquenchable, will press for my attention, make me want to use it, slant it, and bend it until it fits just so.
“Mauve Desert” by Nicole Brossard has a magnificent vocabulary, and often flies me to just the right place in my work. Alice Munro’s skill can send me to efforts I have yet to hone.
Thank you for this blog post.
I love the way you wrote “unquenchable, will press for my attention, make me want to use it, slant it, and bend it until it fits just so. ” – ha. Now I need to look up “Mauve Dessert”…
Have you been able to poke your nose into “Mauve Desert?”
I read the synopsis – it looks really interesting! Hopefully I will read it at some point…it is joining a long queue of books waiting for me to read them! I take it that it’s a favourite of yours?
Welcome, Ruby!
What a fabulous and very useful practice! I am also a HUGE JK Rowling fan, and I always try to write like her, so for this exercise I decided to try and write in the style of another of my favorites: Terry Pratchett.
Lila stood in the circle of wild mushrooms, and took the
items she had acquired from the school room out of her pocket. As she did so,
the piece of dried up chewing gum that Boltoph had given her fell to the
ground. She decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed this. She didn’t think it was
likely that the chewing gum had belonged to Miss Sharp anyway, even if it WAS
stuck to the underside of the teacher’s desk.
And what she had needed were things that really belonged to
Miss Sharp, if the spell was going to be a success.
It wasn’t that Lila was a particularly vindictive girl. It
was more that Miss Sharp was a particularly vindictive teacher. Adults were
supposed to be wise and learned; they were supposed to guide you kindly, and
teach you the sorts of things you needed to know to survive being a grown-up.
Miss Sharp didn’t even really teach literacy and numeracy very well.
And she most especially did not like Lila.
As she sorted through the things she had taken from her
teacher’s desk, Lila’s subconscious told her that her hands still smarted from
being slapped with the wooden metre ruler until they almost bled. But Lila
ignored her subconscious. She needed her hands to work, and they couldn’t do
that if they were just moping and feeling sorry for themselves.
She had a small blouse button, a hair pin, one of Miss
Sharps over sharpened pencils, a small stub of white chalk and a shoe lace. The
shoe lace had been a bit of a risk; it was new and unused, and wrapped neatly
in brown paper, stored away in Miss Sharp’s desk. Lila was hoping that Miss
Sharp wouldn’t be returning to school in the same state she had left that day,
and wouldn’t notice the absence of spare shoe string. Plus she needed something
to tie the other items together, and had it would have been a much greater risk
to have tried to purloin a hair from Miss Sharps head.
Lila carefully tied the items together and put them on the
ground, still ignoring the chewing gum that lay just a few inches away. She
took the candle and matches from her pocket.
She knew she was supposed to tell the candle what she wanted
it to do. Should she tell the match as well? And what about the match box that
she would strike the match against to light it? Lila wished she had read the
spell instructions a little more carefully.
Just to be on the safe side, she told EVERYTHING what it’s
job was, struck the match, lit the candle and then after a few moments, poured
melted wax onto the shoe lace. Then she held the flame against it and watched
the little pile of objects burn. The flame didn’t last long, and the items were
more singed than burnt, but it would do. Then she took the items outside the
circle of mushrooms, put them in the hole she had dug in readiness and filled
the hole with dirt again.
“Take THAT, Miss Sharp!” she muttered.
Kate,
I love dropping into this world. Lila is wonderful, and I love her attempts against Miss Sharp. I love this line: Miss
Sharps over sharpened pencils. It says so much about the teacher.
Thank you Marla!
This is so funny but so true to form for a schoolgirl who is mistreated by her teacher. I like the way you combine action, description and Lila’s thoughts. It kept my attention and I felt like I was watching the casting of the spell. I wonder what it did to Miss Sharp (love that name).
Thanks Marianne! Terry Prachett often chooses names that sound like the person’s personality, so that is what I did with Miss Sharp – glad you liked it!
“Afternoon Lisa, how can I help?”
I paused … it was difficult to look at him in the eye so I didn’t. It was easier to stare at the floor but I wanted to be polite so I looked straight through him.
“I’ve been… feeling very suicidal lately… I’ve had, quite a long history of depression. I’ve had it, sort of on and off, for three years.”
His voice softened. His eyes grew wide with sympathy and concern. I felt guilty – guilty to make him feel that way, guilty to suck him into my vortex of negativity. But his voice coaxed me into telling him more, telling him the truth, not covering things up or leaving out the details.
“Do you know what triggered these thoughts?”
“Everybody hates me at work. I got promoted… they’re jealous and I’m not proud of it. They know how much I get paid, they all think that I’m a suck up, that I’ve slept with my boss, THEIR boss, and it’s not true. My friend also died last week. I had no idea that was going to happen. I had lunch with her earlier in the week and then she died on Friday.”
He nodded. “Stress and loss can trigger depressive episodes. I’m sorry about your friend. Are you taking any medication? Have you ever seen a specialist, a psychiatrist?”
“I’m taking Zoloft 100mg. I’ve seen a psychiatrist, but that was years ago.”
“How would you feel about seeing a specialist?”
He seemed to shy away from the word ‘psychiatrist’ and this sort of mystified me. I never use that word … nobody ever knows about my depressed self. My tendency to go insane, to have urges to jump off a bridge, my visits to the psychiatrist and the medication – they were all things that the world new nothing about. They were my secrets. I feel naked whenever I tell anybody my big secret. I often find myself feeling exposed especially when I tell a doctor who I have never met. I feel as though I am there naked and exposed, being interrogated by a complete stranger.
I love the way you describe vulnerability as feeling the same as being naked.
Thanks a lot Marla, glad you saw the vulnerability.
Rebecca, I wasn’t quite sure the setting for this scene. A doctor’s office?
Rebecca, I wasn’t quite sure the setting for this scene. A doctor’s office?
Yes, it is a doctor’s office. I probably should have described the office so that you’d have it clear in your mind. Thanks for the feedback
Sometimes we get so into writing and seeing the scene in our heads that we forget to share it with the reader, or at least I do. Writing about the setting is one of the hardest things for me.
(Favorite writer: Rick Riordan. Favorite book: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. There we go. A short story of a half-blood girl in Camp Half-Blood. Fanfictions and middleschoolers go together like that, sorry.)
I looked around the campfire. I guess I’ve been noticing lately that almost everyone in camp had their significant other to cuddle with during our regular singalongs.
Everyone but me.
Percy and Annabeth. Marina and Jaeb. Clarisse and Chris. Travis and Katie. Even Ventus and Mary were getting comfy with each other, which was a total shock to me.
I know I’m not supposed to be fussing about something as complicated as love, but I have to admit, I was kinda envious of my friends and their boyfriends.
“Hey,” I heard a mutter beside me. It was Nico.
“If you ever pop beside me again, I swear I’ll die of a heart attack, Nico di Angelo.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve gotten so used to it, Ann Platter,” he said, grinning at me.
I couldn’t help smiling myself. There was something about hanging out with Nico that made me feel good. Which was strange, considering he’s a son of Hades and was supposed to make you feel intimidated and scared.
“Heard the rumors?” Nico asked casually, impaling a marshmallow with a stick.
“What rumors?”
“Well…” He started blushing. “Well, there’s a rumor going around camp that you and I…uh…you and I are sort of, um…going together.”
My gods. I knew that talking to the Aphrodite girls wasn’t a good idea.
I mean, sure, he visited my house a couple times. And I went to the Underworld with him sometime in Valentine’s Day. And we talk a lot. That doesn’t mean we were dating or something…
“Ridiculous, right?” I said, taking a bite of my burnt marshmallow.
“Yeah. Totally insane,” he agreed.
There was an awkward silence between us.
“This is probably a bad time to say this,” Nico said finally, “But I’ve been waiting to watch Hotel Transylvania all week and I want to bring a friend with me.”
“Oh my gods, Nico,” I laughed, “You DO know what my friends would think if I go, right? They’d think the rumors are true, and they’ll never stop bugging me until I die.”
“Okay then. I’ll have you all to myself in the Underworld. Just you and me.”
“DUDE. That’s like the cheesiest thing ever!”
I suddenly became aware of everyone’s eyes on us. Apparently they stopped singing and snuggling to just watch me and Nico laugh together. Some were giving me the “I knew it, you WERE going with Nico” look.
And it absolutely didn’t help that he and I were red as tomatoes.
Sigh. Now I’m proving once again that love is too complicated for my taste.
I can’t agree with you any more.
I would like to write about devils bible, what you think? Is it new? How can i start?