Every day you come here to The Write Practice for writing tips and advice. We are grateful for that. We couldn't do what we do without you.
But today we've got something a little different for you because there's more to life than writing and there's more to writing than just crafting clever sentences.
Being a good writer also being means a good character in your life story.
Photo by Cia de Foto
1. Live
We are all storytellers. The question is: are you living a story worth telling?
Writing is a solitary activity. Finding writing material is not.
Call is research. Call it life. Call it good.
Venture outside of your writing cavern and live stories worth telling so you can tell stories worth hearing.
This could be something as simple as a trip to the grocery store. Or it could be a year-long journey around the world.
Pick something. Do it. And write about it.
2. Steal
We all do it. Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes it's not.
We eavesdrop, we borrow without permission, we outright steal ideas we've found. We stretch the truth. We make things up completely.
We're writers. It's what we're paid to do for the sake of a good story.
It's ok.
3. Run
Apparently running and writing release the same kind of endorphins in your brain. I don't have any idea if that's true. All I know is I love writing and loathe running.
Yet there's a discipline to running. And that same discipline is needed in writing.
It's about showing up. Continuing even when it's hard. Pushing through the pain. Celebrating the victory of a completed marathon.
Build a writing routine and stick to it. Find what works for you and protect it diligently.
4. Think
There's something freeing about giving your imagination free reign of your story. You don't have to use everything you dream of but you do have to explore it.
Let your imagination run wild.
Every time your character reaches an impasse (or a boring scene), ask, “What if?”
What if unicorns fell from the sky? What if his car fell off the bridge? What if she ate the last cookie? What if he pulled the trigger?
Don't worry about if it makes sense or not. Just roll with it. You can always edit later.
What does your writing routine look like?
PRACTICE
Use one of the what if questions in #4 and write about it for fifteen minutes. When you're done, post it in the comments and comment on a few other practices.
Running is interesting. I’ve been an off and on runner. I ran a lot in 2009 and 2010. In 2011 I started writing a lot. I wonder if there’s a connection. I need to run some more.
Do let me know if you find one. I keep trying to pick up running and can’t seem to do it.
I’m a runner, and know what you mean by the discipline of it. It does give you an incredible natural high—and when you hit it, you feel like you can go forever. Writing is like that too.
(Other forms of exercise work too though, depending on what you prefer.)
Now, about “stealing.” I must respectfully disagree! It is not “ok” to steal. In its simplest form, that’s plagiarism. You don’t want to take another writer’s specific expressions or words and claim them as your own. We’re not paid to steal just for the sake of a good story—especially not if you’re a journalist. Yet, not all of what you include in this second section, is actually stealing so I wonder if perhaps a different section title might work better.
Stretching the truth and making things up is part of creating fictional narratives. That’s not “stealing.” Ideas are also not something that’s usually “stolen” — it depends on how complete or comprehensive an idea is, and what you do with it. Often people have the same or similar idea; one idea inspires another; or two writers can write two completely different stories based on the same source idea. Is that what you meant?
Every writer “steals” subject matter from other writers. Vampires, Werewolves, Gods from Beyond, Faries, Centaurs, or any other mythical creature all came from the mind of another storyteller (aka a writer). Nothing any author writes is truly written in a vaccum. Our work is a compilation of everything we have read, heard, or seen. We just chang.up the plots and characters, and rearrange the words.
This may be different in journalism where you are working with real people and events.
With all due respect, absolutes may work for the laws of physics, but not for the arts. When one writer speaks for how s/he works, that does not necessarily apply to others. Like Katie says in this same blog post, there is the imagination, which still stands outside the realm of what a writer may have read, heard, or seen—and thankfully so!
While I agree that literature and writing are for the most part created within the rich pool of collective artistic consciousness, it is MUCH more than a mere matter of changing “plots and characters” and “rearranging words,” if you seek to master your craft, that is. For if that were true, you wouldn’t need the infinite creativity and depth of the human mind.
To quote Ecclesiastes 1.9: “The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.”
I’m certainly not usually one to quote the Bible, and this is not a religious issue. I do want to use this quote in it’s historical perspective. For thousands of years writers have acknowledged that all fiction is tightly interwoven with all other fiction and built upon the platform of everything that was written previously. Even the Bard himself, Shakespeare, wrote a sonnet about this issue.
Well said, Vicki. I like to think of that compilation as a braid. Some influencers have bigger strands in the braid that is “Katie Axelson” and others have smaller but everyone I’ve interacted with, read, and seen gets a strand in my life-braid.
Hey, Brigitte, I usually include a disclaimer about stealing vs. plagiarism whenever I write about it. This time I didn’t but I did add a link to a post I did a few months ago about stealing. We agree; we’re just using different words to talk about it.
See my reply to Mirel’s comment above… 😉
I take experiences from other people’s lives and turn them into fiction. If that is what Katie Axelson means by “stealing,” then I have done it. I use the experience but change the locations, the genders, the outcome.
I think “steal” for what most writers do is not the corect word. Perhaps it takes two words–get inspriation–from other authors and the people we meet.
Adelaide
Hi..I went on your site but read that its activities are private. I am curious to know why you chose to go that route?
Hi Carol,
i checked my settings on my blog, write,write,write and the setting is Public. I don’t understand why you were given the message that it is private. I’ll look into this with Google.
I’m sorrry you couldn’t read it.
Adelaide
I do wish there was a better word for it but I can’t seem to find one.
The teenager reached for the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate. Her slightly pudgy hand shook slightly. In the background, she could hear the raucous play of her two siblings. From the living room came the low drone of Sunday Football punctuated by the low snoring of her father. Noone would see her take it. Her mouth watered in anticipation as she captured the cookie in her hand. Holding it protectively against her chest, she slunk quickly into her smallbedroom and quietly.shut her door. That was a second offense. Her Mother insisted that her door remain open at all times. Mother wasnt there to see. Mother was gone for the afternoon.
Quickly she ate her prize, not taking time to savor the rare treat. She was hungry, not only for sweet treats, but for any food. Mother’s new 600 calorie diet left her feeling a gnawing hunger all of the time. She woke up hungry and went to bed hungry. During the day she tired easily. At night she dreamed about food.
.
She curled up on her twin bed, and slipped an Edgar Rice Burroughs “John Carter of Mars” book from under her thin mattress. Science Fiction was another taboo in her home. Her Mother wasn’t so much against Science Fiction, as she was against her daughter having anything in her life to enjoy. The teenager rebelled by reading every Science Fiction book she could obtain.
It was only a bit past noon, but her hungry body was already tired. She managed to read a few pages before she drifted off to sleep, her book still clutched in her hands.
Hours later she startled awake as her Mother jerked the book roughly out of her hands. She bolted upright in her bed. Her Mother began to methodically rip the pages from the book, as she watched agast. It was a library book. If she couldnt return it, or pay for it, she wouldnt be allowed to check out another book. Her Mother never allowed her to have any money. By tearing the book up, she was effectively preventing her daughter from obtaining books to read.
Once the issue of the book was dealt with, her Mother moved on to her other crimes, the cookie and the closed door.
For eating the cookie, Mother sentenced her to a week of eating only cookies. The catch was that she was still required to maintain a calorie count below 600 calories. She would be alloted roughly six cookies a day.
As a punishment for closing her bedroom door, Mother installed a lock on the exterior of the door. From the moment she returned home from school in the afternoon, until she left for school in the morning, she would be locked in her room. She would be permitted to visit the bathroom twice in the evening before bedtime, and once each morning.
Later that evening the teenager sat on her twin bed staring at the pale puce wall. The small room contained no.television and no radio. Her book was in the kitchen trash. Sitting next to her on a small nightstand was her supper, a cookie and a glass of water.
She hung her head and sobbed gently. Crying was also forbidden.
Great story, but that mother is mentally unbalanced big time! A 600 -calorie a day diet is murderous, literally; you need at least 1000 to survive.
P.S.: No one is two words.
We all write what we know, to some extent. Usually we take what we have seen, done, heard, and observed and weave our imagination into the mix.
This little exercise was more personal than that. It actually happened to me. That was my mother, and that was my life. The biggest struggle I had as I wrote it was to de-personalise the characters enough to put them down on paper. I tried to write using actions, not descriptions. So, I didn’t describe or name either the child or the Mother. I haven’t healed quite enough, even at the age of 60, to do that as yet.
I don’t know how you managed to keep your sanity as a teenager. I hope that writing about your experiences helps in the healing.
Adelaide
That day was pivotal in my life. It was the day I began ‘living in my head.” This seems to be a quality all writers/storytellers have in common.
I write the opposite way—I write mostly about what I haven’t directly experienced, seen, or heard. There is no end to imagination. (See my note about “stealing” below.)
Your story grates the heart; to know it’s modeled on a real life, yours, is still more chilling. As a mother I could never treat my child this way—but then there is always a reason why people act the way they do, that sometimes we cannot possibly imagine. People who themselves go through trauma, be it war, abuse of whatever kind, violence, discrimination, etc., tend to repeat the cycle within their own families unless and until they have the psychological strength to see it, and then break it.
They say forgiveness heals all wounds, not time. As this is a public forum I won’t ask you questions, Vicki, but please know you now have a different family here in this community, and it’s all about support and nourishment—at least for your writing and your mind!
Well, that was a creative twist I never envisioned when I wrote the sentence. Well done!
What if he did pull the trigger? Would it really matter that much to me? I doubted it. Where would I be 100 years from now anyway?
Still, I could feel something of the survival instinct kicking in. Can’t say I cared for it much. I was likely to make me do something rather stupid like run. Where was there to go and how far would I get in the fraction of a second it would take him to pull the trigger.
On the other hand, maybe it would trigger my fight mechanism. I could lunge at him. It might make it easier for him to hit my heart if I didn’t make it in time. That would have things over much more quickly than taking the chance that he would hit me in the gut and leave me on the damp sticky floor of the old warehouse to die in a drawn out agony of groans and stabbing pains. Would I lose control of my bowels and thus be found in my own disgrace. A sad old man. Just another John Doe.
No one would ever guess that the disgust old drunk lying on a slab at the morgue had once been the rich founder and CEO of one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capital firms. A patron of the arts who shared his wealth with street artist as readily and the symphony or opera. A man who had been to busy making his billions to ever find that someone who would have loved him for who he was before the wealth made him doubt the attentions of every woman he ever met.
And then it hadn’t mattered. For ‘she’ was worth the risk. The risk of his fortune. The risk of the only friend that still remained from the childhood they had both shared in the poorest neighborhood of New York before heading west as young men to make their fortune in The Golden State.
No it was all gone. Maybe it would be better if he did pull the trigger for surely the agony of his own folly, the embarrassment of his fall was worth then slipping away into the darkness.
This excerpt brings a lot of questions, which would be answered by reading the whole sad story — at least it sounds like there’s no “happy ever after.”
You switched from “I” to “he” referring to the narrator, thus ending up with two he’s in the last paragraph. You’d have to correct that.
Thank you for that. I just let it rip and then copy and pasted with no editing. Thank you for reading it and taking the time to comment.
Hey, Jim, I wanted to know more about what was happening in the beginning. I couldn’t envision the scene.
I appreciate you taking the time to read it and give me your input. I guess it was a stream of consciousness thing maybe. Something to do for a few minutes to see if I could do more with it later.
Again, many thanks.
I loved how you compared writing to running. It does take a certain discipline to write even when you don’t feel like it. That’s why some writers find ways to make it fun by listening to music, having the t.v. playing in the background or doing drugs… kidding? Emphasis on the question mark. http://www.andrecruz.net
Ok, Kerouac, I’m to your secret. 😉
What if it rained minutes from heaven?
Can you imagine the delight if one day it would shower extra minutes – or better yet, if every day it would rain ten minutes’ worth of extra time? How we’d all race out to grab up those extra minutes we need to finish our various projects! I’d be out there scooping them into every available container. Wouldn’t you?
We all complain about the lack of time. If it rained minutes even once a week, would we be able to gather enough to lengthen our lives by a few days or even a few years? And then would we use these minutes productively? Would you and I get the things done we think we’d get done “IF I only had a few extra minutes”? Maybe I’d get a few more books read – or written!
Would we be selfish with the newly gained minutes? If I went out with a huge basket–and I assure you I would! – and later discovered that a shut-in had been unable to gather even an extra hour, would I share? Would I give up the precious minutes I’d gleaned to help another, or would I hoard each one for my own use?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it rained minutes? If you’re like me you’d rather see them trickling down from the sky than trickling away into that huge drain we call YESTERDAY, like they do now.
You may gather as you read this that I have a major problem with time management – and you’re right. I haven’t yet learned to put into practice the words of that old hymn, “Give every passing minute something to keep in store. Work for the night is coming when man works no more.”
It may be wise to begin with the question, “Would more minutes help – or am I just fooling myself?”
Ok, I love this. I’m moving to the place where it rains minutes once a week. You can be the mayor.
Thank you. I’d be delighted.
Time management – yes, don’t we all? lol
I liked the concept of giving minutes up to someone who needed them more than you; that shows a generous spirit.
What if he pulled the trigger? That was the first thought that ran through my head. Is he as psychotic as he looks right now? That was the second. Between the two, other sensations ran helter-skelter, but they could hardly be called thoughts. They were more like impulses, such as the one to hit the floor, which I did. The one to yell, which came out as more of a grunt of surprise. Or the one to reach for the gun, which I did NOT do.
Looking up at him, I had a few scant seconds to form an opinion, and my opinion was that he didn’t want to shoot. I could sense he had his own demons, but that his was the face of a ‘good’ boy, a son and maybe a brother. No one wants to be a murderer, do they? Certainly not this boy, I didn’t think. As a security officer, I’d been trained to look for certain signs, but in reality no amount of training could prepare someone for this. There were never any ‘signs’, I realized. He held the gun straight out, not limply as if undecided. And yet, that first shot went into the wall, not anywhere near the other kids. His eyes were not focused on anyone, least of all me, here on the floor.
On impulse, I rose. “Son,” I spoke, and he seemed to flinch. That was the second moment of fear for me, when I thought he might shoot on pure impulse, rather than out of hatred or any real intent.
He didn’t. Instead, his eyes followed me upward, until I was standing over his 14-year old frame. It was then that the gun dropped, as if it was suddenly too heavy for him to hold any longer. I put my hand out and he dropped the gun into it, then his face crumbled and I heard a sob begin in his throat.
Later, holding him in my arms as the SWAT team approached, I cried along with him, for the senseless act he had tried to emulate, for that thing called peer pressure, and for all the children in all the other schools that had paid the ultimate price for what we call someone’s “right” to keep and bear arms, regardless of the unintended consequences.
NOTE: Sorry if I seemed to get on the soapbox, but I have to say some things, whether it’s PC or not. 🙂
I really like how you brought us right into the scene. I was on the edge of my seat.
Awww, thank you, Katie! There’s no messing around, as far as I’m concerned. My aim is to use as few words as possible to set the scene and bring the reader in. I hope I succeeded here.
I really enjoyed the build up, and the detail of the main character reading aspects of the shooters body language.
Thanks, Emily!
Hi Katie!
Thanks for another interesting post. I like points 1, 3, and 4, but I’m gonna join Birgitte in taking objection to #2, stealing, I agree with what you say, but the choice of word makes me squirm. If I see something, and it inspires me to write something, then I haven’t “stolen” unless I’ve copied someone’s work. Arthur Laurents may have based the script for West Side Story on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but he didn’t “steal.’ He used a lot of “what if’s” to come up with a novel presentation of the theme.
In trying to live a moral life, I tend to shy from recommending “stealing” or justifying it in any form. And I don’t think you really meant to do that either. Or maybe it’s just that as a writer, I like to try to have words say what they mean…
I think that as writers, we always have to keep our kindling ready, so that any sparks can ignite our imagination and emerge as a story.
Almost 2:30 a.m. here, so I hope this made sense. Still another hour of work (not writing, unfortunately) till I can go to bed 🙁
Hey, Mirel, it does make sense and I agree. I don’t like the idea of stealing in “real life” either but it seems to be the accepted word among writers for the intentional and unintentional borrowings of others’ kindling.
I sort of figured that you’d feel the same way. Maybe we should search for a new word to replace it….
Oh, fun! I like words. We could call it derivation or extraction (like I extract a plot from Jane Austen and use it in my story. Shadowing? Absorption? Osmosis? They all sound better than theft. 🙂
I actually like extraction. We extract a grain or the essence of something and build on it. Nice!
I think we can all be up front and direct here. 🙂 Just because something is “accepted” in a given society or community does not necessarily make it right. I could name countless examples of what used to be considered acceptable… including owning wives as property, in supposedly civilized Europe. Slavery is another.
It is precisely because we are writers, that we need to respect and honor the meanings and connotations of words, the very tools of our craft. Stealing has all of the negative connotations I do not want to associate my work with, in any way. I bristle at the idea that a writer’s work would in essence be placed on par with that of a thief.
After all, if you really “steal” from another writer, how would you then feel if a reader “stole” your book instead of paying for it? That’s called piracy. What’s the difference between the two cases? And how do you differentiate between drawing on another’s idea and plagiarism, if you use the same word to describe both?
Let us do choose another word or phrase. Call it mutual or collective inspiration, sourcing, something along those lines.
drawing inspiration, delayed collaboration, extension, emulation, not reinventing the wheel.
Michael, I got a kick out of delayed collaboration. But Christine’s extraction gets my vote…
Extraction works for me. Reading is a bit like mining for ideas and if you put those ideas into a useable form it would be extracting.
I had slammed the door, kicked the milk bottles on the doorstep, punched the topiary lion in the mouth and stormed down the road. By the time I started to relax I was a few streets away. I felt how tight my chest was and my jaw locked and teeth clenched. I stopped to look around. A small white cottage stood at the end of the road. it was glowing. the edges smearing into the neighbouring buildings. In fact it wasn’t just the building. A man stood by his car, his white shirt beamed at me. Like reflective clothing in headlights but it was daylight. The man pointed and yelled something that I couldn’t hear. The screech of tires and I turned to see a large white van. The white was blinding. I had to hold my hand in front of my eyes. Stumbling I found the pavement. Sitting on the curb I tried to breath. I heard the bustle, but took no notice. My head in my hands I needed to breath. A car alarm started, then another. A man swore, a small child squealed, before long there was the sound of hail thumping metal and cars howling. Something hit me in the shoulder. Slowly I lowered my hands to see what was happening. The thumping died down. I stood up to see more clearly. A young girl shouted: “Unicorns!”
The street was covered in them. Their white bodies wedged in windscreen wipers, their blonde tails flowing from the hedgerows, beady blue eyes peering from the gutter. I nudged one off the pavement and it bounced into the road its single horn pointing home. I suppose it was time to go and apologise. I should probably pick some milk up on the way.
What a fun little story! I liked the way you didn’t lose the track of the earlier argument, and the way all the white affected you. I was thinking: Migraine all the way!
Thanks, just sign up.
First words I heard when I woke up that morning, “She ate my last damn doughnut.” This came from the mouth of a three year old. I laid in bed, for I don’t know how long, just laughing.
This happened about 17 years ago. My grandson is now 20, but I still find myself cracking up at times when I think of it.
That’s hilarious!
Martin pulled the trigger as the car swerved into the guardrail crashing through and fell toward the water. The bullet lodged in the headrest behind the unknown driver. Martin was already unrolling his window as the car hit the bay. Fwoom! Martin forced himself through the oncoming surge, out the window and into the icy water as the car continued into the gloom pointed down. He could see the lights on the bridge above him as he came up through surface.
Where had that gun come from and who the hell was driving the car, and why was he wearing a dress? The pressing cold of the water shoved the questions to the side. He had to start swimming or die of hypothermia.
I keep hearing Scooby Doo’s voice, “Like why am I wearin’ a dress?” (it’s a very quoted line here in my house).
Good piece, Michael. I want to know more about how this situation unfolded.
The fallen tree lay on its side, rotted and hollowed. Damp darkness oozed from its heart, but somehow fertile and inviting. Desmond like to sit next to opening and smell the fecund mix of cool air as it brushed his cheek. The darkness terrified and drew him at the same time.
One day he ventured to sit in the mouth of old tree and feel the darkness on the back of his neck prickling the hairs into standing. The next day he slid a little back and let his feet stick out in the light while the cool dampness enveloped his body. Finally, the next day, he faced the darkness and crept in. How far did it go? He was sure it went forever, but he was going to find out.
Oooh, fun, I want to find out too.
What if he pulled the trigger? Suppose he missed? He only had 6 shots to get the job done and even at close range, he was a terrible shot. On the other hand what if it was a bullseye? Would he die instantly? Woulld his brains go scattering everywhere leaving a big mess for someon to clean up when they found his body? maybe the bullet would just lodge in his brain leaving him a vegetable for the rest of his life.
That would be Clark’s luck – to be confined to a hospital bed the rest of his life cursed to have all of his basic needs such as eating, bathing, and going to the bathroom perfromed by someone else. Clark wondered if he would even know what was happening. Would he be a prisoner in his own mind; helpless to do even the simplest task?
No. The gun was too imprecise. If Clark was going to kill himself, he needed to find a more certain means of ending it all. He couldn’t take the chance of surviving.
Clark had already ruled out hanging himself. He had visions of the rope breaking or his neck breaking, but him somehow surviving. Clark didn’t want to suffocate to death, so that ruled out drowning himself as well.
He considered jumping off the edge of the Grand Canyon. He’d heard of people who fell to their deaths. That wasn’t any good for Clark, because he was terrified of heights. He’d never be able to get close enough to the edge; though, falling to his death would surely get the job done.
Clark blanched at the thought of slicing his wrists. He didn’t like the sight of blood, plus if he survived he’d have to wear the stigmata of his failure for the rest of his life. It would be a constant reminder that he had failed at everything including killing himself.
One by one, Clark crossed means of self-termination off his list. Why couldn’t it be like McDonalds? You know just go into a Suicide Store and order a #1 and have done with it. Why did killing yourself have to be so difficult?
The story is sad, but I find myself hoping that, since it was so difficult, that he didn’t do it. Interesting story that makes you think and hope. You root for Clark to live.
She did it. She took the last cookie. She proudly bites the treat with a crunch echoing to all saying, this is mine, and it is good. The half melted chocolate chips melt on her tongue. Her taste buds dance with pleasurable sweetness. She nibbles in tiny increments, savoring every flavor. The last crumbs lay in her wrinkled palm calling out for her to finish them off. She does. She licks her hand and fingers without caring about etiquette. This was her choice. Her last one. Her dying wish. She finally gave in after a life of denying herself these fattening delights. She is happy with her last decision. She can rest peacefully. She lays her down on the soft pillow with a smile on her face.
She did it. She took the last cookie. She proudly bites the treat with a crunch echoing to all saying, this is mine, and it is good. The half melted chocolate chips melt on her tongue. Her taste buds dance with pleasurable sweetness. She nibbles in tiny increments, savoring every flavor. The last crumbs lay in her wrinkled palm calling out for her to finish them off. She does. She licks her hand and fingers without caring about etiquette. This was her choice. Her last one. Her dying wish. She finally gave in after a life of denying herself these fattening delights. She is happy with her last decision. She can rest peacefully. She lays her down on the soft pillow with a smile on her face.
I have roommates in a three room flat in Eastern Europe. They are always there. I can hear in the morning as I am trying to get some last moments of peaceful rest, and when I trying to fall blissfully into silent dreams. Throughout the day we live by avoiding each other. We barely say hello, or good morning before escaping into separate rooms.
Then there is this other side to me. I yearn for conversation, to be seen and heard. I want to know what the strange words they say mean, and for them to completely understand me. I no longer want to be the invisible visible. The foreigner in the strange world, who dresses and looks different. I never know the right things to say or do. I feel as though I am a red dot in a bowl full of white rectangles.
Who am I? People can take a lifetime trying to solve this question but I will try figure me out in this short amount of time.
I was a creation by God, sharing the womb with my twin brother.
I was a little girl, exploring and sharing the world with my sibling.
I was a daughter, family member, and friend.
I was an actor, choir member, believer, and and average student with a love for English class.
I was a new graduate ready to discover the ‘real world’.
I was a young girl in love with an exotic man.
I was an American foreigner.
I was married a few years ago.
I was pregnant.
I was all of these things and still am. All of my ‘was’ make me who I am.
I am now trying to share the couch with a my husband who’s blacked socked feet are crowding my area.
I am still in love with him.
I am a woman with a song stuck in her head after writing this. (Who am I? Two-four-six-oh-one!)
Sorry for the random posts. I wanted them on my profile. Thanks for bearing with me as I am new to this site.