Staying in Shape

Welcome to the New Year everyone.

Staying in Shape - OK, I'm not talking about how many push ups and jumping squats you can do.

I've been thinking about the elements of prose and storytelling, and wondering how you keep all of those skills sharp.

Stephen King in his book On Writing talks about carrying around the Grammar Tool Box. He uses a neat metaphor in the book for this, but I'm afraid nothing can really get me all that excited about grammar. I tend to learn it as I need it, then let myself forget it - after which point it becomes instinctive. I usually only need to research grammar once in a blue moon.

What started me off on all this was reading about competitive athletes and how they stay in peak condition. Then I was thinking, 'What is peak writing condition?'

My first reaction was that time is the critical issue. I you asked a sprinter what he was going to do with the first hour of his available training he is going to answer 'sprinting' . It's only the tenth or twentieth hour where weight training, cross training or stretching start to come into the balance.

So - assuming you do have ten or twenty hours to actually write, what would you do with part of this time to stay in condition? I guess it's all about filling in the gaps - literary cross-training. If you are writing novels, write some short prose to hone your skill and rein in the wordiness. If you are writing third person, try first person. If you are scratching to get the words out - remove the mental barriers and give yourself permission to write anything as long as the words keep flowing, even if you are typing out the blurb on the back of a cereal box. If you are a pantster - try plotting. If you are an obsessive plotter - try letting the narrative take over.

How do you stay in Writing Shape? What else could help to increase Writing fitness, or do you just need to get the words out? Do you do any deliberate work to hone writing skills?

Books made into Movies and TV series

Fans of Stephen kill will be glad to hear that his 'The Dark Tower' is to be made into a film trilogy and TV series. It will be directed by Ron Howard who says:

“By using both the scope and scale of theatrical filmmaking and the intimacy of television we hope to more comprehensively do justice to the characters, themes and amazing sequences King has given us in The Dark Tower novels. It might be the challenge of a lifetime but clearly a thrilling one to take on and explore.”’

It would be fair to say that every writer would like to see their book/s made into a TV series of a movie. Only a very few are and, when they are, they can be very different from the book/s on which they were based.

The Harry Potter books were made into movies with varying success. The first few followed the books too closely. It wasn't until (I think it was) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, that they started to interpet the books which led to a more elegantly told story.



Look at the success of Charlaine Harris's True Blood series which had been turned into the TV series of the same name. I found the books an enjoyable read in their genre. Alan Ball, the director of the TV series, has taken the premise and refined it to make a TV series that is biting (sorry about the pun) and insightful. The award winning series titles encapsulates the essence of the TV series.

Then there is the excellent job that Peter Jackson did on Lord of the Rings. Now I must admit that when I read LOTR to my children I skipped the lengthy poems and pages of travelogue. I read my kids the exciting bits and this was what Peter Jackson served up, with hints of the back-story. (Warning, LOTR purists will not agree). I think Jackson improved on Tolkien's structure in the scenes with Faramir. In the book Faramir is never tempted by the ring. He just lets Frodo go. In the movie he has the motivation to keep the ring because he wants to win his father's love and he is tempted, so it is more heroic when he lets Frodo go.

I'm always looking out for new TV series and movies to watch and I particularly like being able to compare these with the books, (if they're based on books). Can you think of a TV series or a movie that is based on a book or series of books that really impressed you?

Telepathy and Characterisation

I don't know if you have ever read Stephen King's book On Writing, but one of the things that really stuck in my head was his description of writing as telepathy.

In essence what you are doing is very carefully crafting your own Thought and placing that down in a special format that can be interpreted by another person. All the thoughts, images and musings on themes (both conscious and unconscious), particular word choices, phrases . . . You are communicating this directly into the brain of another human being - across time and space. When you sit down to read a classic, you are opening a window into the mind of that long-dead author. Meshing your thoughts up against theirs and for a moment provoking a state within yourself that echoes that of the original creator.

Recently I have been thinking about this in terms of character. As writers we all try to craft our characters well. We want them fleshed out, with believable reactions and thoughts, consistent backstory and good dialogue. We want their purpose to be consistent with where they have come from, and their goal to echo their nature. But these characters cannot help but be an extension of what we are. The ones we like are those that have characteristics that we respect, or perhaps aspire to. Or perhaps they live the life we may dream of, strive for what we dare not. The antagonists are the opposite - encapsulating all the attributes we perceive as negative, and standing directly in the path to the hero (otherwise there would be no conflict on this level).

So these characters end up projected right into the mind of the reader. I would contend that at this point their is an immediate judgement - just as the human mind forms immediate conclusions about strangers you may be introduced to. Either you like them, or you don't. You have an immediate connection, or you are left underwhelmed. And just as the same person can either be the love of someone's life or a dull stranger (for different people), your characters can strike a chord with the book-buying public or potential editors or fail to create this response.

Now, of course there are some elements of human nature that are nearly always appealing. We love the girl who saves the kitten, or the man who cares about his friend. But when we extend to other elements of character, the reader can simply not connect with your crafted thought-projection.

In story, its the old scenario at the crit group. You circulate the story and find that two people loved the character, two hated them and four hardly care about them - and crit your word choices instead.

Have you come across situations where your characters have both connected to and underwhelmed different readers? Have you ever had one editor rave about your characters while another fails to care about them? Have you ever hunted down a book that everyone was raving about, only to find you either hated the characters or found them vacuous?

PS: I may be out of Internet range over the next day or so, will try to log in wireless, but apologies if I do not respond to posts.

Altered States

Every now and then in the arts (some arts more than others), you see artists who swear that they are more creative under the influence of drugs then while 'straight'. Favorites range from the psychedelics enjoyed by visual artists to the headbanger's cocktail of speed and alcohol (Motorhead). Reading Stephen King's On Writing, he mentions that he could not even remember writing some of his books he was that high - I think Misery comes to mind (he speculates the writer in the story was actually himself, held prisoner by his addiction). Its not just illegal drugs either. David Gemmell once related how he had tried to give up smoking, but looked at what he was writing, realized it was crap then started smoking again. In the end he died of heart failure at 57, and I guess the smoking would have had no small part in his untimely death.

I have always been suspicious of these claims, and I guess I have come out pretty much strongly on the other side of the argument -- that you will be more creative the more healthy and drug FREE you are. I think what often happens is that artists will be such long term users that they become functional addicts, and when they try to quit they actually do find their performance dropping. But this is just a short-term effect. If they persevere they will find themselves more creative than ever.

One of the odd things I do is read musician's autobiographies. A recent one was Eric Clapton. In it he rattles off a series of famous recordings and concert events where he was completely off his head either on dope (heroin) or alcohol or both. Even as an Eric Clapton fan some of his playing on these latter records sounded like shite to me. Not saying I did not enjoy them, just that I got so frustrated he could not lift his game. When I hear something like that, I can't help but feel cheated. How much damn better could that guy have been if he wasn't hiding in a bottle?

So what do you think? Is there some truth to the assertion that drugs enhance creativity? Or is that just the seductive reasoning of an addict?