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.)
Mon, Jun 28 2010
The rhythm of wow
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine did Rhythm is Gonna Get You back in the 1980s, before she was in that terrible accident that put her particular rhythm in a serious time warp for awhile. Rhythm is a funny thing. We develop as humans in close proximity to the rhythm of our mother's heartbeat. Our own heart begins beating in the womb at around 5-6 weeks, from what I've been told. We don't consciously remember these rhythms, but they're with us from the very start. When we're born, we begin a new rhythm of breathing out and in. So it's probably natural that we seek rhythm in other ways in our post-natal life. There are other patterns that feel less rigid to us, but are comforting, such as ocean waves, flickers from fire or leaves moving in the wind. Part of the fun of writing fiction is weaving these kinds of rhythms and patterns throughout our characters' lives so that readers feel a sense of order and meaning to what is otherwise a series of made-up events. You've heard that saying about the difference between real life and fiction being that fiction has to make sense. Even if a protagonist loses a loved one, a limb or a million dollars, a sense of the greater rhythms of the universe have to keep going beneath the ebb and flow of a story. It comes from something even more basic than a theme. It's the very essence of life itself. If we can give that to our stories, we have a real wow for our readers.
posted at: 20:47 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine did Rhythm is Gonna Get You back in the 1980s, before she was in that terrible accident that put her particular rhythm in a serious time warp for awhile. Rhythm is a funny thing. We develop as humans in close proximity to the rhythm of our mother's heartbeat. Our own heart begins beating in the womb at around 5-6 weeks, from what I've been told. We don't consciously remember these rhythms, but they're with us from the very start. When we're born, we begin a new rhythm of breathing out and in. So it's probably natural that we seek rhythm in other ways in our post-natal life. There are other patterns that feel less rigid to us, but are comforting, such as ocean waves, flickers from fire or leaves moving in the wind. Part of the fun of writing fiction is weaving these kinds of rhythms and patterns throughout our characters' lives so that readers feel a sense of order and meaning to what is otherwise a series of made-up events. You've heard that saying about the difference between real life and fiction being that fiction has to make sense. Even if a protagonist loses a loved one, a limb or a million dollars, a sense of the greater rhythms of the universe have to keep going beneath the ebb and flow of a story. It comes from something even more basic than a theme. It's the very essence of life itself. If we can give that to our stories, we have a real wow for our readers.
posted at: 20:47 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
