Writing Secrets: Discover Yourself and Recover the Magic

I’m going
to do something a little different today. Instead of the snarky, biting sarcasm
and humor I usually lace my posts with, I’m going to get all deep and shit. I
know you’re scared, but I’ll be gentle and it’ll be over soon. It’ll be
like…it’ll be weird. I’m not going to lie to you.



I want to
share a secret I learned not so long ago that helped me write fiction that not
only affects me, but also my readers. Writing so that the emotion leaps off the
page and into the reader’s head and heart is not an easy task. In fact, there
are few writers who are able to do this. We all struggle to take what we feel
and see inside and put it on the page so that the reader experiences it the way
we want them to. This struggle is often the number one cause of the mythical
writer’s block. Eventually we wear ourselves down to a hopeless blob of
patheticness. What the hell do I write about? Who cares what I have to say? Why
would anyone read my writing? I’ll never be good at this. Why do I even bother?



There are
so many options in terms of what to write about that folks embarking on a new
tale are often overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities. Couple that
with the uncertainty of whether or not you can pen something worth reading and
we freeze, or we don’t write to our full potential. So, how do you know what
you should write and how to go about it? It's simple really.



Know
yourself.



The first
step to knowing yourself is to figure out what kind of books do you want to
write. This is harder than it seems. It’s not as simple as wanting to write
whatever will sell. You can’t write for the reader you don’t yet know. In order
to find the motivation and the inspiration necessary to write well, you have to
know what is important to you and what you want your writing to say to the
world. It took me a long time to realize why I wasn’t happy with what I’d
written. I just couldn’t get that emotion that bubbled inside me to translate
onto the page. My problem was that I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I
did. A single manuscript, a story that I wrote only for me, revealed a person I
thought I’d left behind long ago, and introduced me to a stranger I didn’t
realize lurked in there with her.



Think about
your dreams and your desires. Go right back to those carefree days of your
childhood and think about what used to make you happy and what used to make you
hopeless. Then ask yourself a few questions about the present:



What do you feel passionately about? 
What do you love? 
What do you hate?
What affects you emotionally, both good and bad?
What are your “buttons”? How are they pushed and who pushes them most often?
What fascinates you?
What scares you?
What makes you batshit?
What doesn’t interest you at all?


 

You might
be surprised at your answers (if you’re honest with yourself). Many of us don’t
think about these things too deeply, so when we do sit down and focus on our
“whole” selves, we find we’re much like an onion with the layers and such, and
the answers are rarely black and white. This is why it’s so hard to pick out a
single idea and start writing. We have wants and needs that change from day to
day. We have likes and dislikes, biases and fears that are altered by the
events and the people in our lives. But knowing yourself is vital to knowing
what your dreams are. Dreams lead to desire, desire to motivation, motivation
to inspiration, inspiration to passion, passion to magic, and that magic turns
a mediocre storyteller into an extraordinary one.
 

As children
we all dreamt about fantastical and impossible things. As we mature, we put
aside childish things, and those dreams get stuffed way back into the darkest
corners of our subconscious. A gifted storyteller never loses access to those
dreams, but most of us don’t realize those dreams are still there, or that they
hold a deep well of inspiration and magic. This is why many of us struggle to
write with purpose. It’s why our prose lacks the emotion we feel inside.




To convey
your passion for what you’ve written—the magic that is vital to every great
book—you have to feel it. Writing whatever is most likely to sell is going to
ensure your work has no magic. “But magic doesn’t exist,” you might say with a
curled nose or a roll of your eyes. Ah, you are incorrect. When I speak of
magic, I’m referring to that intangible element present in all of your favorite
books. That bit that hides between the pages, in the white space, gripping at
your chest as you read, and clinging to your brain long after you set the book
aside. If your writing engages your
emotion, then it leaps off the page and engages the reader’s emotions as well. That
is magic.



While
passion is vital to writing, I think it’s important to add that it’s not the
only thing important to plotting a successful novel. Commitment, discipline and
devotion to the craft also play a role, so listen to advice, take whatever useful
information you can ferret out of the tons of writing tips that are thrown at
you and use it, but at the end of the day, make sure you’re clear on where you
want to go and what you want your work to say about you. Keep that idea in your
mind, but also remember it should be dynamic. We are constantly changing. Every
new experience and encounter alters our reality, and so it alters what we feel
as well. Your writing will reflect these changes. If it doesn’t, then you’re
not doing it right.



Don’t get
overwhelmed by the possibilities or the should and should not’s. When you do
that, you drift, and when a writer starts to drift, oh the disasters that follow. Panic sets in. Then comes regret. Finally you feel an all-consuming
urgency to do something that matters now.
This clouds your judgment and blocks creativity and it prevents you from
writing with emotion.



You’re never going to be able to convey your ideas
or your message to the reader if you don’t know yourself. When you’re in touch with who you really
are and what drives you, then you know what it is you want to say and you can
say it without fluff or hesitation. Basically, to be more than just a
“good” storyteller, you have to treat the inner you and all that entails with
the same respect you’d treat the inner self of those you care about. Yeah, we
all need to be tough, ambitious and independent, but you need to allow
yourself to be sensitive enough to encourage whatever that person inside you wants to be. Read, think,
debate; discover what matters to you. Let yourself feel things, good and bad.
Wallow in your emotions from time to time. The issues, feelings, beliefs, or
people that fascinate you, that are important to you, are what you should write
about. Cloak it in humor, horror, or romance. Whatever. That’s just the shiny
wrapping you give something you want to share so others will want to open it.
The important part is to explore your physical, emotional, and spiritual sides
and figure out who you are and what you are passionate about. That is what
makes fantastic fiction.



I hope you
enjoyed today’s jaunt over to my sensitive side. Don’t get used to it. The next
time we meet, it’ll be back to the mocking sarcasm you know and love.