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Creative writing | Finding a story: get off that mountaintop and start writing
By Ron Irwin
Writers are often in almost superstitious awe of the story. It is an ancient fear of the taleteller, of the witch doctor or shaman who told us long tales around the campfire back in the Paleolithic age. We think of blind Homer, and the prophets at Delphi. We believe that, like them, the novelist or short story-teller must have some profound connection with an ethereal ‘story world’, a world that in ancient times foretold the fall of kings or, today, brings in millions from Hollywood. We believe that stories seem to flow out of authors like water gushes from a faucet, or arrive on paper like Athena who popped out of Zues’s head, fully formed and perfect. We feel as authors we might do better on the mountaintop, waiting for divine inspiration. Or we wait for the story to form itself completely in our minds before writing a word.
Stories do not form themselves in your mind and come flowing out into your computer. As one writer once put it: ‘I wait for inspiration and if it doesn’t come I go after it with a club.’ Thinking about writing and really writing are two entirely different things. Your thoughts and mind images travel much faster than your pen. And writing is not like manual labour: you think very hard as you write, you concentrate. The amount of mental energy, the sheer brainpower that goes into writing fiction is tremendous. Many of us begin to pull back from our writing, we yearn to control it, and in controlling what we have  to say we get stuck. Ancient shamans took drugs so they could commune with the ‘other world’, but really they were freeing themselves from writer’s block. They were limiting their self-consciousness to let stories form themselves, uninhibited. Children form stories all the time. It’s simple. The idea here is to write from your instincts. If there is an image, or a sentence, or a paragraph that moves you to your computer, then run with it. Don’t worry if the image doesn’t come packaged in a story. If you can’t grasp the image, don’t look for the story behind it, look for the characters behind it. Interesting characters who want something and face opposition create their own stories. You have to have faith in this principle or you will never write, you will sit in your office waiting for stories that will pass you by. Almost every professional writer works this way, beginning with a character and a situation and some talisman image and working onward.  You can do this. Write. Words are free. Typing doesn’t hurt. Get yourself in the habit of writing before you think, rather than thinking before you write. The first paragraphs of the day may be a bit strange, they may be pretty awful, but after that your writing self takes over. Above all, write every day. The more you write, the easier it will be to write. The more pages you have beside your computer, the more you will be encouraged to press on. Professional writers, even writers who work in basic genres or churn out so called ‘pulp’ fiction, work from an instinct, and revise the manuscript into a story later. These writers include Ken Follett, James Michener, Ray Bradbury, Barbara Cartland, Jean Auel, William Kennedy, Michael Ondaatje, Thomas Wolfe and John Gardner. Very few expect perfection from their first drafts, they simply want something down on paper. They then revise, or work on what they have. Run with your inspiration, rather than your more cynical self. Writing first drafts can be fun if you commit to the bungee jump. Above all, do not resist where the story takes you. Resist later, if you must, but the important thing is to keep writing, keep typing. You will find that endings and middles tend to find their own way into the manuscripts. And if they don’t, I’m here to help. Extract from the Random House Struik Creative Writing Course: Module 1: Planning the Story. Click here for more information.
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