When You Wish You’d Thought of It First
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Sometimes you read a story and think “Darn. I wish I’d thought of that first.”
I’m sure you can name your wish list. Mine includes, but is not limited to, Fruits Basket, Harry Potter, and pretty much any Tamora Pierce book.
Fortunately for us late bloomers, ideas aren’t copy-righted. Good thing too, or J. K. Rowling might have been in serious trouble using a large three-headed dog and a boy destined to rid the world of evil. I could write a novel about a zodiac-cursed family, and the worst thing anyone could say is that Fruits Basket is better. (The fact that it probably would be is another point entirely.)
So you like an idea. Use it!
Write about girls disguising themselves as boys to become knights, write about wizarding schools, write about vampires if you must (all I ask is that you do it well).
Don’t be discouraged just because someone else “got there first.” Maybe someday you’ll discover young writers complaining that you got there first!
Cliche Science
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If you want some nice brain benders, check out Fake Science. It’s a website that uses old textbook pictures and makes up science to explain them. It’s good for a few laughs, but it’s also a good exercise in thinking from a different perspective.
You’re going to need that different perspective when you start finding cliches in your work. And trust me – you will find them. Those darn things are embedded in our stream of conscious. But they’re tired and over-worked, like an old nag, and we want to put a new horse in the race.
You could just take the cliches out. There’s nothing wrong with that. But why not use the cliches to your advantage? Find a way to turn them on their heads with a new perspective. Astound your readers with insightful twists!
For an example off the top of my head, instead of saying “he had a warm heart,” (which by the way, is telling, not showing – but that’s a different matter entirely) you could say “he had a lukewarm heart.”
Or instead of “she was at death’s door,” you could say “she was at death’s door, but there was a sign reading ‘back in twenty minutes.’”
Actually, I kind of like that one…
So go out there and push some cliches on their heads!
Creative Hot Spots
Filed Under Creativity, Tales from the Author's Desk | 2 Comments
A creative hot spot is a place where you generate a high level of creative ideas for your stories. Every writer has their own. And if you don’t, well maybe you just haven’t found it yet.
During college, my creative hot spot was, believe it or not, the bathroom. Usually in the shower, but sometimes while brushing my teeth. One time I stepped into the bathroom for thirty seconds to change my clothes, and came out with a brand new comic idea.
Now, my creative hot spot is in the car, while singing along with the radio or a cd. Odd circumstances, but true. I drove down to school to visit a friend yesterday, and came up with several fixes for my NaNoWriMo revision. And on the way back today, I came up with a scene for Too Many Princesses.
I think this means I need to drive more!
So, where are your creative hot spots?
As I mentioned last Monday, my book club went to see Alice in Wonderland. Finally, a world that fits Tim Burton perfectly. The movie was okay – not spectacular – but I prefer the SyFy special Alice as far as Wonderland sequels go.
I did fall in love with several lines, including the Hatter’s admonishing that Alice had lost her “muchness.” But the exchange I keep coming back to in my head is cruelly cut off in trailers and reviews.
“Alice: This is impossible.
Hatter: Only if you believe it is.
Alice: Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Hatter: That is excellent practice.”
Our job as writers is to believe in the impossible, and then show that world to others. But as with everything, we need to practice. It’s no good being lazy and believing in possible things – they may have been impossible at one point, but no longer. We must find new impossible things instead.
After all, we don’t want to be accused of losing our “muchness,” do we?
Jamming Session
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As a percussionist, I like to play with whatever comes to hand. But I’m nothing compared to these guys. Make sure to lock your doors before you leave your house, so they can’t destroy it during their jam sessions.
How Not to Write a Metaphor
Filed Under Creativity, Tools of the Trade | 7 Comments
In case you forgot your high school English classes, here is the difference between a metaphor and a simile:
metaphor: (n.) a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”
simile: (n.) a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared, as in “she is like a rose.”
In case you were too lazy to read that, or you didn’t understand it: a metaphor uses “is,” while a simile uses “like” or “as.”
The trick to writing a metaphor or simile is to come up with a striking image, which is harder to do than it sounds. You want to avoid overused phrases like “her voice was angelic” or “the waves crashed on the shore.” But you also don’t want to throw your reader out of the story by mashing your images.
Below are some *ahem* colorful examples of real metaphors/similes that people used in their essays. (If these catch your fancy…well…more power to you!) Either way, enjoy!
Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.
Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.
She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre.
He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Petersborough at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.
Even in his last years, Grandpa had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.”
She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.
The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.
It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.
He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.
She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.
She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
Dungeons & Doldrums
Filed Under Creativity, Tales from the Author's Desk | 4 Comments
At some point in the fantasy writing universe, everyone decided it would be awesome to write a high adventure story about a boy who was secretly a king team up with fighters, thieves, mages, and priests to defeat the villain taking over the medieval-based world. Since when did we (the writing community) allow Dungeons & Dragons to overrun our creativity?
Don’t get me wrong. I love playing D&D and other rpgs. But I am so tired of seeing the same plots over and over again. And if it’s not the same plot, it’s the same setting with the same characters. Thieves with hearts of gold, priests questioning their god(s), mages learning to harness their ultimate powers, etc. I’m sure these were good characters at one point (maybe in the mid-fifties), but now they’re just dull cliches.
Cliches can have their uses, however. For my NaNoWriMo novel, I took those basic characters (prince, mage, thief) in the medieval setting, and turned them on their head. I had the omniscient narrator of the story step up and take over the novel. Granted, I could probably do a lot more with it than I did, but that’s for editing to sort through.
But glancing through other books, where did the creativity go? It’s like people just gave up and decided to follow Tolkien’s example, complete with elves, dwarves, and orcs (which can also be found in D&D).
Please, do yourself and your readership a favor: take the time and effort to build an original world.
Poetic Games
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A few days ago, I stumbled onto a social networking site for writers. At MYKUWorld, people converse in…well…verse! You have four lines to write about whatever you want, and can link these small poems to others. I think it’s worth checking out.
It also reminds me of a game I used to play on a forum. One person posts a haiku about a person, object, or location (in this case, from the show that the forum centered around) and the others would have to guess what the haiku described. These haiku could be very simple, or very obscure, but it was always fun to puzzle out the subject.
I’m not normally a poet. I don’t write heart-wrenching lines about my existence and stuff them into the dark drawers of oblivion that is my room. I took a poetry class in college once, but that was because I didn’t get into the fiction writing class.
Poetry once in a while, however, and with a purpose (a game or a contest, for example) can be fun and challenging to non-poets, especially when you use meter. Any writer will tell you that poetry doesn’t need to rhyme or have a specific meter, but blank verse doesn’t interest me precisely because of that lack of a challenge. It’s just prose with lots of returns between sentences.
Try writing an Italian sonnet about an Aztec sacrifice. Now that‘ll get the creative juices flowing.
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