Writers in the Storm

Laura Drake

"Where do you get your ideas?" Every writer has been asked this at least a dozen times. In fact, famous authors have come up with outrageous answers, so they don't have to go into it. Think I'm kidding?

"From the Idea-of-the-Month Club." – Neil Gaiman

"The Idea Book. It’s loaded with excellent plot ideas," he said. "I have a subscription, of course, and as soon as I get my copy I write in and select half a dozen ideas and get clearance on them, so that no other subscriber will go ahead and write them. Then I just work up stories around those ideas." – Lawrence Block

I don’t get them, they get me. – Robertson Davies

I've always been fascinated by this subject. At the same time, I'm reluctant to talk about it. Because I don't know. After all, if you're not in control of the ideas, they could just stop coming, and then where would you be? It's probably my biggest fear as a writer. Every new idea I have for a book is golden, because I wasn't at all convinced I'd get another.

Stephen King said once (sorry, I can't find the exact quote) that it's like there's this invisible stream over our heads, and writers tap into it, and the idea flows to them. Someone also said an idea is like a buried stone you trip over, and you think, "What is that'?" And dig until you see it all.

Michelangelo had another version:
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Wherever they come from, our job is not only to recognize ideas, but to get GOOD ones. Who hasn't had their interest piqued by an interesting tidbit, only to realize that it's not enough for a full-blown story? (And the goal is to discover this before you write the whole book, right?)

I don't pretend to know where ideas come from, but I do know where I'm more likely to get them. I don't mean a physical location—I mean my state of mind. My best ideas came when I was bored. I got my very first plot idea on the back of my husband's motorcycle (I hadn't started riding my own yet). We lived in Southern California, and it's hard to get anywhere without going through desert. Nothing against deserts, but after hours, your mind wanders, plays, and begins to put disparate things together. That's the state of mind we avoid in our busy everyday lives, but for me, it's where ideas live.

I've talked to a lot of artists—painters, writers, musicians—many of whom have had great ideas on trains. The only explanation I have is all that stuff is coming at you while you're relaxed, so somehow it kicks you into hyperspace in terms of brain function. – Peter Gabriel

Neil Gaiman told his daughter's class of seven-year-olds: "You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it."

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any. – Orson Scott Card

Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up. –Stephen King

Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that came to me in a dream…I fell asleep on the plane, and dreamt about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed the remains to her pig and bound his novel in human skin. His skin, the writer’s skin. I said to myself, "I have to write this story." Of course, the plot changed quite a bit in the telling. But I wrote the first forty or fifty pages right on the landing here, between the ground floor and the first floor of the hotel. – Stephen King on Misery

One night, I was lying in bed and I was very tired, and I was just sort of channel surfing on television. And, I was going through, flipping through images of reality television where there were these young people competing for a million dollars or a bachelor or whatever. And then I was flipping and I was seeing footage from the Iraq War. And these two things began to sort of fuse together in a very unsettling way, and that is when I, really, I think was the moment where I really got the idea for Katniss’s story. – Suzanne Collins

Where do you think ideas come from? What is your state of mind when ideas come to you?

Laura Drake's latest release, The Last True Cowboy, is going to be a Kindle Daily Deal, on July 1 for $1.99! Mark your calendars!

The next in the series, Home at Chestnut Creek releases the very next day - and contains a full book by Carolyn Brown! Two books for the price of one!

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by Tasha Seegmiller

The other day, I had a writerly existential crisis.

One of the greatest benefits of being an MFA candidate is the opportunity I have to work closely with incredible professionals who help me hone my craft. While there are agents who advise on stories a bit, and editors who help writers make their stories better, possibly even critique partners and beta readers, the chance to have someone who is literally paid to help me make my writing better is not something that is likely to appear again.

The reality of spending time, I mean really spending time looking at writing, thinking about writing, analyzing books, sitting in a room where other people are talking about craft and life and inspiration and story is that the writer realizes they have A LOT of work to do.

So much work to do.

I only get to work with each advisor once, for a single short semester. For those short months, I get to rely on them and their insight and their suggestions for my writing.

And so, in true neurotic fashion, I had a bit of a freak out about it.

If you are laughing about that right now, that probably means you know what I’m talking about.

I'm no stranger to these kinds of crises. They've shown up before, usually when I am on the cusp of something significant. A revise and resubmit request from an agent or an editor, a conflicting set of comments from beta readers you admire, or perhaps an editorial letter that appears to go against everything you have thought about for your story.

In the midst of my little freak out, I sent an email to my agent, who replied, “I see a writerly existential crisis as a great opportunity for creative breakthrough.”

That’s why we keep people like this around. And, after a new Diet Coke and a chocolate-covered cinnamon bear, I realized that she might be on to something.

There can be so many situations, as writers, when we are certain this is our ONE CHANCE and if we don’t get everything exactly right RIGHT NOW, it’ll never happen, we’ll be a hack forever, the ship will sail and our writing will drift into oblivion.

Spoiler alert: that kind of thinking isn’t healthy. And it’s not realistic. I’m not going to take the time here to give you examples of people who were not overnight successes but I recommend you go out and google your favorite actor, band, writer, artist – especially the ones who made it big, and see what work they had out before they made it big.

People who have been creating and on the internet for any amount of time have probably heard or read Ira Glass talking about “The Gap” (I personally love the video here).

Cate Kennedy, an advisor in my program said, “Be grateful for the gap because without it, you are creatively tone deaf.” We need to feel a little bit overwhelmed by the work that we are trying to do. We need to understand that seeing something that is amazing and not quite being able to also do the thing that is amazing is where growth happens.

I know. Blech. Growth hurts and it’s slow and it involves a bunch of readjustments. And worse of all, it takes time.

So what’s a writer on the verge of an existential crisis to do?

Keep a place where you can play with your ideas.

When I have a new story idea, I refuse the audacity to tell that idea I can’t pay attention to it right now. But sometimes I can’t play with it right now.

So I build it a sandbox, whether that is a folder on my computer, a single document, a note on my phone. In my conversation with my agent, I shared several ideas that I have. Two of them are only ideas – I’m talking concept and maybe a paragraph. But that lets me see what I’ve got going on, and sometimes, jotting down a sentence or two in the “fun” story is just what I need to shift my brain into drive.

Recognize that ground and pound might not be the best way.

If you aren’t familiar with the idea of ground and pound, you probably haven’t seen an MMA fight. The method there is to get the opponent on the ground until they tap out. If you have put yourself in a position where you view your writing as an opponent who needs to be conquered, guess what the reader is going to experience?

I’m not saying writing is easy. Besides parenting, it’s one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life. And I know there are deadlines and such in the real world, but there are ways to meet those deadlines without beating yourself to death. I think we need to be engaged in writing all the time, maybe even every day, but sometimes writing looks like "ideas while folding clothes" or sorting out a character in a process notebook or doing research on a region or idea.

Nurture instead of beat. Think about it.

Remember: Finished is better than perfect.

There are a gazillion suggestions out there about how writers should write, and I’m never going to be the one to tell anyone what their process should be. However, if you have been working on the same poem, the same short story, the same chapter, the same scene for a LONG time, if you are not sharing your work with someone because it’s not good enough yet, and especially if you don’t have the blasted thing done...

My friend, you are caught in a dangerous loop.

Listen closely: you will never make it perfect on your own. No, seriously. You need others to look, to listen, to suggest. You need someone to say what they experienced when reading your story, to point out where they got confused, to reveal where the sentence structure or the exposition or the dialogue didn’t resonate as true.

You will never catch everything alone. Declare it finished for now and see how it sits in the world.

Finally, I have one more suggestion.

Write down when you have a little bit of a freak-out, whether that is in a running document or a journal or whatever. It is nice to be able to look back, to see how you thought that was the hard thing and then realized it wasn’t – not yet.

Too often, creatives are so caught up in the process of creating that we forget to check in on how the creation is going. A journal like this allows us to see where we had gaps, to remember that we figured out how to narrow them before, and gives us confidence that we can narrow them again.

What writerly existential crises have you survived? Any tips for how to stay grounded when the creative winds threaten to uproot you?

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is the current president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and studying in the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific U. The former high school English teacher now assists in managing the award-winning project-based learning program (EDGE) at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

Deep point of view really isn't difficult, but it requires a shift in your mindset in how you craft your fiction. Choosing setting and description details becomes very crucial to making a story come alive for readers. All things being equal (assuming you don't have a broken story, flat characters, lack tension, or poor writing), the details you choose for your story can do so much more than create a setting in your reader's minds. They can put your reader IN the story with your character.

Your Character Is Telling The Story - You Aren't!

Whatever your character walks into - a new setting, a new conflict, a new emotional trauma, really try to pull yourself out of the story. You have a whole setting in your mind - that's actually important for you to have, but what's not important is that your reader pictures everything precisely as you do. The reader isn't picking up this book to make you feel better or pat you on the back, they're looking for an emotional journey and an escape from real life. This isn't about you.

Avoid the temptation to tell the reader what YOU’RE seeing or the urge to impress readers with how much thought you’ve put into the setting or backstory for a character. Focus on what’s important to your character in that moment – not what’s going to be important, not what was important. In deep pov, we want to write with as much immediacy as possible.

Filter Everything Through Your POV Character's Priorities

Instead, see the new setting, trauma, conflict, or another character as your POV character sees it. What's important to them RIGHT NOW? When my son comes home from school, he's always hungry (he's 16). He heads immediately to the cupboard where I keep the Mr. Noodles (his go-to after school snack) or searches the fridge like he's catalogued everything that was there in the morning and zeros in on what might be newly purchased or still available.

He notices first what's important to him IN THAT MOMENT. Everything he takes in is filtered through that priority - I'm hungry. Do you like the new paint color in the front hall? You painted? How the house looks doesn’t even register on his priority list. When your character is focused, they will miss or over look a lot of things except what's important in that moment.

Your character should have a goal for each scene - what are they trying to accomplish? That priority, need, whatever -- that will create a unique-to-that-moment filter through which they take in information – and this is how show how your character feels.

Avoid Cataloguing Details And Use Setting To Show Emotion And Desire

Your character visits the hospital. What do they notice? If they walk in and note every aspect of the setting objectively - like they're starting at point A and moving in a circle 360 degrees and capturing everything they see, the reader has no idea what’s important or stands out to your character, or how they feel about what they see. You've put the reader in the theatre seats watching the story (and in deep pov we want the reader to feel like they're IN the story). Instead, drill into why your character is there, what do they want/need/aim to accomplish. Let them focus on details that bring out emotion/desire/goal for readers.

Let the character feel their way through the setting or scene (instead of describe). When they interact with the setting in some way, that’s a more natural reason to think about what’s in the room. Don’t catalogue the broad coffee table, have them bump their shin on it or have to walk around it to get to the sofa.

Here are two different ways to describe the very same setting. Notice how the priorities or needs of the POV character dictate what they notice and how they describe it. Exactly the same setting.

Woman with bad past experience:
The searing antiseptic in the air stung her nose. She sucked in a breath through her mouth and held it. She clutched the new teddy to her chest and raced for the open elevator. She punched the up button and kept tapping until the door shut out the smell and the indifference of the white walls.

Woman with positive/neutral past experience:
She strolled in the front entrance of the hospital, new teddy under her arm. She squinted against the bright light. The new wall of tinted windows looked modern and a little cold from the outside. She tipped up her face to the warm sun. But all of this sunshine must be very healing.

Do you see how they’re feeling their way through the setting? Now you know how they feel, instead of simply what pieces of furniture are present.

Use Setting And Description To Show Familiarity

We notice different things when walking into our own home that someone who's never been there before doesn't see. Or sees differently. How we feel about our home, our vulnerabilities, or pride, show through the cracks of any facade (especially in internal dialogue).

A person concerned about first impressions, who is a perfectionist, or wants to impress, might zero in on the scuff marks on the wall by the door. The person who is frustrated with her kids might apologize for the mass of tangled shoes in the front hall. The person who feels vulnerable, less than, or self-conscious might apologize for imagined dirt or mess.

The person who's new to the home may not notice those same things at all, or see them in a different way. A friend, someone who's gracious or an empath might try to put the other at ease - it's lived in. Don't worry about it. Someone who's a perfectionist might smile and put a host at ease, but in internal dialogue critique everything they see or find fault with.

By overlooking the obvious big items and zoning in on small details, you cast an impression for readers. Using verbs and descriptors that are either negative or positive help the character feel their way through the setting. Instead of walk (which is neutral – doesn’t connote any emotion), let them stomp, march, skip or stroll. Any of those verbs give more of a hint of how a person feels than “walk.” Used sparingly, like spice in a casserole.

Keep writing and dive deep!

How do you infuse more emotion into setting and description when writing in deep point of view? Do you have any deep POV questions you wish to ask?

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson was a national award-winning freelance journalist and author who loves mentoring writers. Fascinated by history, fantasy, romance, and faith, Lisa blends those passions into historical and historical-fantasy novels.

Find Lisa’s blog, Beyond Basics for intermediate writers,  at www.lisahallwilson.com.

Join Lisa’s deep point of view challenge group. Three to four times a year, participate in free training on writing effectively in deep point of view – https://www.facebook.com/groups/5daydeeppovchallenge/