A Writing Exercise

My boy came up with a delightful little writing exercise with which we had quite a lot of fun yesterday.  It would be particularly useful for genre fiction writers, say those interested in science fiction, fantasy, or superheroes, but it could also be used just to get the creative juices flowing.

1. Come up with the most useless power you can imagine.  Here are some of the examples we came up with: detect all guacamole within ten feet [and you can't look for it why?];  compel all hippos within a twenty-foot radius to do the Macarena [they could still attack, after they're done dancing]; transform actual goldfish into a cracker [soggy cracker]; ability to transform everything you touch into rats [that could then bite you]; telekinesis on small items usable by touch only [and you can't pick it up because ..?]; power to emit a mooing sound whenever you rub your hands together [say what?]; ability to tickle your own toes [scientists have done studies that show tickling is a social behavior, and you can only tickle someone else]; the ability to see halfway through a wall [so what about the other half?];  gift of telepathy, only useful on arachnids [you'd learn what from the mind of a spider?]; the ability to put food in your mouth without opening it [and that's so much easier than actually opening your mouth?]; ability to teleport one inch [really?]; ability to make chickens explode into glitter.  You get the idea.  We spent close to an hour coming up with these ideas, laughing the whole time.

2 Create a scenario in which this useless power is actually useful.  Say you are blind and have an enemy whose weakness is guacamole.  Then it may be useful to detect it.  Or let's pretend you need to pass through a field of killer hippos in order to steal a diamond.  If you can get them to dance the entire Macarena, you'd be able to slip through that field and get to the jewels without dying.  Imagine you are starving, and all you have on hand are goldfish.  You can take them out of the water and turn them into goldfish crackers.  Perhaps you have a lot of snakes and can't afford food for them.  Turning items into rats could really come in handy.  And so on.

3.  Write the story.  Expand on your exercise.  It could end up just being a writing exercise, but then again, you may be able to spin this into a children's story, short story, novel, etc.  Have fun!

Writing what You Know

It's been said that one should write what they know.  But if we only write what we know, how do we write anything but blogs, memoirs, and biographies?  How do we write that story that's trying to battle its way out of our soul and onto the page?

The easy answer, which may not be so easy in execution, is know more.  You may think, well, I know my life.  I can write about me.  But even that can get complicated.  That's where I started with the novel I'm still working on close to two years later.  About two years ago, I pondered the books I had recently read, the sub-par, poorly written books I had just read and thought, "I can do better than that.  What do I know?  I know what it is to be an overweight Mormon woman living in the Logan area who is dealing with loss.  How about I write about that?"  But I didn't want to write about me.  I wanted to write about some other overweight Mormon woman living in Logan dealing with loss.

So how could I write about this other woman?  I had to plan.  I had to decide who she was apart from me.  If I were to try to make her entirely me, I'd have such a hard time pulling us apart that the character would get mushy.  I'd assume everyone understood what I was writing because I understood.  I had to sit and figure out who she was, what her voice sounded like (if not mine then whose?)  I had to plan her relationships, her friendships, her past, her present, a bit about her future.  I had to come up with a story and research the pieces of that story I didn't know from memory.  I had to know more than just what it is to be me.  I had to know what it is to be her.  But what it is to be me informs my writing of what it is to be her.  And like I said, two years later, I'm still working out the kinks, figuring out what works and what doesn't about what I've written, so I can write her story believably and in an interesting way.

I could have put her in a fantasy or sci fi or western or any other genre.  I could have started with what I knew about fairy tales.  But I have tried my hand at much of that, and it has come out sounding cliched.  If you can start with what you know in one of these genres without becoming yet another in a long line of poor writers, good for you.  But I tried, and it didn't work for me. My me-as-a-fantasy-character stories fell flat because they had no meaning, no depth.  Maybe I'll go back one day.  But for now, it suits me to stay in the present with someone enough like me that I know her but not so much like me that knowing her, you understand my life.

Once I'm done knowing her story, I can  use that as a jumping off point to know more about other people, other lives.  Meanwhile, my knowledge base is growing.  As I research and explore more areas, I can write about more.  And all of this helps me become a better writer.

Names in Writing

In the best literature, names are meaningful.  Harry Potter character names are very well researched and profound.  Here is a link to what J.K. Rowling, herself, says about the names and what they mean.  According to the site, Harry Potter's name seems ordinary, but yet Harry is the name of kings.  The name of his nemesis, Draco Malfoy, means Dragon of bad faith.  Remus Lupin's name was based on the Roman myth of one of a set of twins raised by a wolf, last name a derivative of wolf.  The list goes on.  Other writers often use similarly symbolic and meaningful names.  Jane Eyre's name has multiple connotations, of plainness, of air spirits, of being an heir to a fortune.  Rochester's name means rocky crags, indicative of his hard and harsh manners.  Her favorite teacher is Ms. Temple, with obvious meanings.  Her best friend, Ms. Burns burns with a fever.  St. John, one of those who try to court her, is as self-righteous as his name may suggest.  Several other authors add significance through their naming, to varying degrees.  It may be something you want to consider.

Another thing to remember when choosing what to call the characters is that whatever the narrative calls the characters should be consistent.  To switch around from title to first name to last name can be very confusing.  It's almost as confusing to  use similar-sounding names.  If two to three of the main characters have the same first initial, the reader will start to get confused.  These are all things to consider as you name and title your characters.