Writing Takes Skill

This weekend, like the past few, was a weekend of football (at least if you've turned on your television you know what I'm talking about). My particular preference is college football. Could be because I went to a school with a lot of spirit but quite frankly, I love watching those guys play their hearts out. You'll find heart in pro ball as well but I it seems a bit harder of a search at times.

While the weekend was bittersweet (Virginia Tech lost but ASU won), I had to say I looked at football with different eyes this weekend. I was writing of course so the games were my background noise for the most part, but I couldn't help noticing the agility, quickness and flexibility of some of the players. I thought, wow, these guys have got skill. Many times when they are running with the ball, jumping, dodging and ducking, they probably aren't even thinking about how they are doing or what they look like. I'd imagine they are just on a one-tracked "get the ball down the field" mindset. Which brings me to my point, writing takes skill.

Okay, so you're probably wondering how I'm going to relate this one. Well, a week or so ago, I had my critique partner telling me to stop interjecting in my stories and inserting what I want to happen. Instead, I should let the story unfold and the conversations happen as they should.  I got what she was saying because I could see it in my writing. My conversations between my characters were coming off a bit stilted and scripted instead of natural. Still, I wasn't sure I completely knew how to fix it. Football this weekend helped me.

I'm serious, so think about it. If we would just write and not stop to think at each moment about everything that our characters say, our works might flow a bit better in both voice and story. We might just have that agility, quickness and flexibility to write the perfect scene. Now, I'm not saying the first draft is the end all and you should just turn those in, but sometimes there is such a thing as putting in too much thought. For one, it slows your writing down and two, sometimes the best scene, description, sentence, etc. is the one we spend less time on.

So the next time you are stuck or looking for the perfect part of your novel, just write it and move on. Unlike the football players, we writers can always come back to the play and change it. And the second time around, we just might realize that we've got skill instead of coming down so hard on ourselves.

Happy Writing this week!

Filed under: Characters, Toni Kelly, Writer's Life, Writing Topics