Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Fri, Mar 05 2004
Upping The Stakes
I believe it was the talented Bette Davis who told us that old age was not for sissies. I would apply that same adage to writing. This has been somewhat a fractured week for me, with much time spent away from the keyboard. To be true to the art of words, a writer must balance the solitary life in the chair with the life away from the chair. I've been thinking back this morning to the events of this week, both personal and political, and I know I will put special focus on events that caused me to mumble and fuss and quake in my slippers. There is so much beauty still in the world, but we all know that conflict is what makes us grow and firm up our own inner character. And a story isn't just a cast of characters. It has a character of its own in which conflict pulls us to ride the crest of words and pictures to some sort of resolution. If we're not changed in some way when we read, or listen to, or watch, a story, we feel flat and cheated. That means my job, as a writer, is to write something that is guaranteed to change the reader in some way. If I tell you that Joe needed to cross a river, and I stopped there, I wouldn't have much of a story, or much of a chance to get your attention, much less change you. But if I tell you that Joe was being chased by a vigilante posse with baying bloodhounds coming ever closer, and that he stood at banks before the rushing water looking at the shackles on his ankles and remembering that he nearly drowned at the age of five, then you and I both have a place to go and be changed. When Joe steps into that water he is facing a big battle with nature, plus facing old ghosts of past fears, and he's facing danger from angry human pursuers who don't care whether he is guilty or innocent. I've just done what we call "upping the stakes". In order to make you care what happens to Joe so you will be changed, I have to dredge up my own struggles and fears and ambitions and be willing to change too. Otherwise, I have no right to ask you to be changed. So I hope I can use this week's ups and downs to help me invite you to step into my stories, and into the current through Joe's eyes. We'll all be bound together in those shackles--Joe first, then me, and then you.
People who think writing is dull don't know what they're talking about. Real writers live a million lives and touch a million more. And writers change lives--one reader at a time.
posted at: 09:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
I believe it was the talented Bette Davis who told us that old age was not for sissies. I would apply that same adage to writing. This has been somewhat a fractured week for me, with much time spent away from the keyboard. To be true to the art of words, a writer must balance the solitary life in the chair with the life away from the chair. I've been thinking back this morning to the events of this week, both personal and political, and I know I will put special focus on events that caused me to mumble and fuss and quake in my slippers. There is so much beauty still in the world, but we all know that conflict is what makes us grow and firm up our own inner character. And a story isn't just a cast of characters. It has a character of its own in which conflict pulls us to ride the crest of words and pictures to some sort of resolution. If we're not changed in some way when we read, or listen to, or watch, a story, we feel flat and cheated. That means my job, as a writer, is to write something that is guaranteed to change the reader in some way. If I tell you that Joe needed to cross a river, and I stopped there, I wouldn't have much of a story, or much of a chance to get your attention, much less change you. But if I tell you that Joe was being chased by a vigilante posse with baying bloodhounds coming ever closer, and that he stood at banks before the rushing water looking at the shackles on his ankles and remembering that he nearly drowned at the age of five, then you and I both have a place to go and be changed. When Joe steps into that water he is facing a big battle with nature, plus facing old ghosts of past fears, and he's facing danger from angry human pursuers who don't care whether he is guilty or innocent. I've just done what we call "upping the stakes". In order to make you care what happens to Joe so you will be changed, I have to dredge up my own struggles and fears and ambitions and be willing to change too. Otherwise, I have no right to ask you to be changed. So I hope I can use this week's ups and downs to help me invite you to step into my stories, and into the current through Joe's eyes. We'll all be bound together in those shackles--Joe first, then me, and then you.
People who think writing is dull don't know what they're talking about. Real writers live a million lives and touch a million more. And writers change lives--one reader at a time.
posted at: 09:10 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
