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A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT
by
KIM L. COLE
You’ve done everything right. You’ve cleaned up a corner of your
office just for writing, with plenty of space for your creative
endeavors. You have an ergonomic keyboard to save your wrists,
and a great selection of music to stimulate your brain. You’ve
blocked off time for writing, which is not to be interrupted upon pain
of death. You are totally ready to write.
So why
aren’t there any words on the page?
Sometimes the mechanics around writing are a lot easier than the
writing itself. Just because you know you have something
interesting to say doesn’t mean the words will come quickly or
easily. Sometimes the blank screen (or page) can kill any ideas
that might have been running around in your brain. It’s not
surprising for really good ideas to develop agoraphobia and refuse to
ever venture forth.
Conquering the Page
The key to conquering the blank page is, of course, to put something on
it. It doesn’t have to be intellectual, or funny, or even make
all that much sense. The important thing isn’t the quality of the
words you put down. It’s the fact that you’re putting them down
at all. Once you get your brain limbered up and used to throwing
out words upon that no-longer-blank page, you can move into the idea
you really wanted to write about.
This isn’t new advice. Experts have often said "Write anything,no
matter how good or bad." The writer’s response is sometimes
somewhat predictable, but also very understandable. "I still
don’t know what to write!"
There are several good tricks that I’ve used to get myself
writing. Some of them are my ideas; others are well-known pieces
of advice. When you find yourself stuck, try one of them.
If that doesn’t work, try another. The same trick won’t work for
everyone, so the best thing to do is try a little bit of
everything. Eventually you’ll find the way to make your mind
sparkle on the page.
The First Line
The first line is often the hardest, but it can also be used to free
yourself from the problem with blank pages. Keep a notebook
within easy reach all the time. Whenever you hear someone say
something that strikes you, or you think of an interesting line, write
it down. These can be interesting things, funny things,
clichés, or just bizarre strings of words.
When you find yourself staring at the vast fields of white on your
computer screen, pull out your notebook. Pick a line (any line,
don't think too much about it) and type it in. Look at it for a
moment, but don't treat it like a story. Don't try to plan
characters or plotlines. Just look at the sentence and see what
it makes you think of.
All you need is one more sentence. Type that in. Then type
in another. Keep it up until you both love what you wrote and
want to turn it into a story, or you laugh at what you've done and
giggle at the strange turns your mind can take. Enjoy this
exercise, as it is supposed to be fun. Sometimes the more
incoherent the results are, the more fun it can be. With any luck
this will free you to work on something you really have wanted to do.
The Way It Should
Have Been
This one can be a lot of fun. Think back over your life and
remember all the times you wished that you were one of your
characters. Or the times that you needed a rewind button, or just
some time to stop and revise your responses. I'm sure we've all
had occasions when the perfect quip rose to our lips just a few minutes
late (or hours, or days).
Bring one of those scenes to mind, and write it down. Describe
yourself and your thoughts, and describe the other person. After
you've got the basic set up written, depart from reality. Write
the scene the way you wish it had happened, with all the stinging barbs
and witty repartee that's so hard to achieve in real life. Or, if
you prefer, change a bitter fight to a sweet reunion, with all the
apologies you know you should have uttered.
This serves two purposes. One is that it allows you to get a
painful or annoying scene out of your head. The second is that it
just might provide you with a powerful scene that could someday grow
into a beautiful story, or maybe even fit into a work in
progress. And of course, it puts words down on the page.
Worth a Thousand
Words
We've all heard the saying, so I won't belabor the point. If
you're having trouble with the tricks above, which all rely on the
imagination flowing, this might be the one that works for you.
Look at an image. It doesn't really matter if it's your favorite
painting, your favorite family photo, or the semi-comprehensible
drawing your child brought home from school.
Look at the picture and really study all the details. Write down
a description of it. Not just a list of facts, but real
description as if it were a setting in a novel. Get down at least
two or three paragraphs. When you've finished describing the
image, describe things like the people in it. What are they
thinking? Even better, what might they be thinking if their world
were a little different from our own? Get into at least one head
and follow it along. You may find yourself beyond the picture
itself.
This is easier to start than the other two because you are beginning
with concrete details. Once you slip into the scene you're
describing you may find that you don't want to leave. Stories can
be built from paintings (my personal favorite is Van Gogh's Starry
Night) or from pictures of your grandparents when they were
young. No matter the subject of the picture, you could easily
grow its world into something strange and new.
Get It? Got
It? Good!
So there we are. Three long-term use-them-anywhere tips and
tricks for getting the words to flow. Use one of them, use them
all, or alternate between them. Find whatever works for
you. Each writer is different and we all need different ways to
get past that fear of the blank page.
The important thing to remember is that the page stops being blank the
minute you hit your first key. Also remember that, should you
really be unhappy with what you produce, delete is a very useful
function. However, try not to be too judgmental about what you
produce during these practice sessions. They are only exercises,
after all. While they may lead to something great, they may
not. They don't have to. Their only purpose is to get your
fingers moving and your mind ticking along.
Free yourself to say whatever strikes you at the time. Allow the
words to come. You can fight with them until they are perfect, if
that works for you, or throw them down any which way. Keep
trying, and keep working, and keep learning. I hope that these
ideas will help to spark even bigger and better ideas in your writing.
Originally
published in Holly Lisle's
Vision, Issue # 13, January/February, 2003
Copyright © 2003, Kim L. Cole.
All rights reserved.
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