Implementable: Based on experience and not theory
Adaptable: Drawn from analysis and reflection as a writer and reader. Takes into account that writing is much an intuitive art as it is a learned skill, to provide the space for you to explore what works for you and what doesn’t to evolve your own methods
Scalable: A structured approach to approaching complexity as the sum of its parts – allows you to focus on details as well as the larger picture.
How to use this book:
By need/elements – dip into what it is you think you need at the moment – a creative boost to stir your brain cells, a second opinion on how to tackle a particular technique or just to find motivation to keep yourself going
Sequentially – towards the end you will find that the three broad elements of writing – creativity, skill and execution start to come together to create a cycle.
Introduction: To dream is human (fancy name for the human-reader-writer/mind/feeling/action method of writing)
- Ideas do come out of thin air
- Why write?
- What makes a story?
- Thefundamentalsof a story – story as a series of what how and why. Motivation. Plot driven, character driven, description driven
- Getting started – end/middle/beginning
- Outlining
- Creating compelling Characters
- Description: Show, don’t tell
- Pacingand structure
- Suspension of Disbelief
- Complexity and Convenience
- Using emotion
- Time: Chronology, Foreshadowing and Flashbacks
- Heroes and Villains
- Writer’s Block and other villains
- Feedback and Editing
- The Writer’s Journey
Troubleshooting Guide/FAQs
1 Ideas do come out of thin air.
The also come out of the empty page, the blank wall, the crack in the floor tile and the expression on a stranger’s face.
All stories – fictional or otherwise – begin with an idea. Ideas, however, are plenty, every thinking being has them. What sets writers apart is being able to move from idea to outcome, something one can point at and say, ‘I wrote that.’ In a way, that makes ideas the raw material of our craft. It also makes it imperative that we learn to deal with ideas, work with them, develop them in various ways.
Ideas, however, are also notoriously tough to recognise, because often what we are looking for is conclusions, when really, ideas are just beginnings.
How then does one recognise an idea? It helps to keep in mind that there are at least two types of ideas (and possibly many more):
First, ideas tend to be questions, things you want to know the answer to, or wonder why no one has asked and answered as yet. And they hold great potential to become stories because you want to answer them.
Question ideas tend to be tricky, because humans (and other creatures, including writers) are a curious lot – we tend to ask many questions in a day, and some are answered silently inside our heads while others are bigger questions, questions and answers meant to be shared with a wider audience. It is important to hang on to these larger questions – to acknowledge them when they come back to haunt you again and again, even though you think you have sort of answered them.
The other tricky aspect of question ideas is that they tend to sound a lot more serious in our heads, and that much sillier on paper. Most writers I know (myself included), have tons of scribbles, one-line pitches, concept paragraphs and tons of stuff that has been set down in on paper or on a harddrive that we tend to call “junk”. And the truth is, a lot of it may be junk. But what we as writers need to remain aware of is that today’s junk may well be tomorrow’s big idea – it was just something that needed time to mature, to build steam and grow into an unstoppable force in its own right.
At the same time, it is important to remember what I call the 90:10 rule (I just made that up, it might be a 70:30 rule for all I know). To produce one stunning idea, you might have to run through 9 other not-so-stunning ideas. And that is ok. Do not expect your every idea to turn into a book. At the same time, do not let the ideas that are not books (and there will be many) hold you back from
The second kind of idea is the one that has its roots in facts, or things that we are told are fact but cannot always accept them as such. Perhaps you wonder whether there is another perspective to a narrative. Is there another way of looking at things? Does everyone agree, or do different people have different points of view?
The curious fact from memory that you wonder is true or not, the sense, sometimes of overhearing strangers talk to each other and wanting to know more about who they are and what is happening in their lives, there are all ideas.
Sometimes, these questions, memories and strangers are not even real, but you wish they were, and you wonder why they are not. And that is why, you have to tell their story.
Ideas are not endings. They are just tiny beginnings, and therefore easy to miss. Keep a watch out for them.
Why write?
An idea alone is not a book. A fact alone is not a story. It can become these things only if you, the writer, work on it. Putting it in a much more mechanical way, the writer is the machine that takes the raw material input of an idea, adds value by processing it and finally delivers a finished product. This brings us to the next ingredient in the writing mix: Motivation.
Motivation, or discipline, if you prefer, is nothing more than the reason why you want to write, and that is a very personal thing. There is no one reason why most writers want to write, though it is likely that some reasons are more important than others.
What is important is to keep in mind your multiple reasons for writing, because these serve as different motivations at different points of time.
Feeling blank and uninspired to write? Then remind yourself that you have something that you think the world needs to hear, an idea so compelling, so important or useful that you have to share it.
Feeling frustrated because your manuscript was rejected? Then remind yourself that you write because you love the process, you love the feeling when you are lost in your story world, when you string words together to form magic.
Feeling too tired to write because it has been a long day? Then imagine the feeling of seeing your book on a shelf in a bookstore; what the heck, on the bestsellers list shelf in a bookstore.
Empower yourself by identifying your reasons and use them to keep you going through the tougher times.
WRITE NOW
Take a moment to list down at least three reasons why you want to be a writer.
Keep this list carefully. You will need it.
