August 3rd, 2010%
Characters get their personality and motivation from strange places. Many people or one person can inspire us to create something worth walking through a few scenes.
When I need to intensify a character or figure out how they might react to another character, I start reading horoscopes for archetypes. I don’t think, oh, this one is definately an Aries, but I do look through a few of the horoscope descriptions to match up basic attitudes.
Eric Frances is great for getting a sense of individual sign motivations. For relationship ideas, I look at Sun Sign Compatability from About.com.
Stereotypes are boring, but archetypes can help you develop a character.
July 28th, 2010%
Our goal is to bring the reader into the story, not to confuse them. Readers need stability. Writers have concrete details. Then, things get a little crazy when we start to write.
For example, how would a writer move the reader through this scene from Roma, a film by Frederico Fellini, while retaining pace and energy?
Dialogue, observations, thoughts, and actions can be the source of order or unpredictability as we seek to recreate the scene. Tension can be created, but we need to manage it using all the tricks of craft.
As writers, our budget for special effects is unbounded, but our ability to handle complexity limits our access to the reader’s imagination. Film directors have their boundaries. We have ours.
July 21st, 2010%
Themes emerge when we look at several stories from the same writer. I recently noticed several prominent themes in an old story of mine called the 11th Arrondissement which were unintentional and became annoying once I realized they kept coming up.
Why was everything rotting in my story? I’ll admit I was reading some Baudelaire when I wrote it. I let that theme take over too many descriptions for a story that takes place in Paris. The city is very much alive and well. Noticing something like this may be similar to noticing things in a picture of me that no one else might notice, but it matters to me.
Here is an excerpt of my journal, written when I was seven years old, which demonstrates the dangers of writing with a theme (in this case, fun):
Today I went on a feild trip to the Puldick library. It was fun. The nexst day I went to the zoo. It was more fun then the library. I saw anamlas and I even got a suvener. I got two suveners that is what I mean, and elafant and a tiger. I already have a pangwen. Today is June first. Today is my last day of school. School is kind of fun.
Other than contrasting fun things, I don’t really let you know what I mean by fun. Themes can make your writing unintentionally generic like this, but it’s hard to identify emerging themes when you’re so close to the piece.
Comments are closed 
