I’m trying something new today. I’m participating in my dear friend Colleen’s prompt over at Silver Threading. Her rules in “Writer’s Quote Wednesday” state that the quote can be by a famous writer or by ourselves, since we’re all writers after all. So I’ve taken the liberty of writing my own statement, as I see it. I have to say it’s a little weird quoting myself. I hope it doesn’t seem too presumptuous.
Even when I was 10 years old, I was a stickler for grammar. I remember a slogan on a used car dealership’s lot in my hometown, meant to attract customers passing by on the road . It read:
“Little used cars use little gas.”
The potential double meaning of this sentence has agitated me–yes, agitated–for forty years.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
It took me a long while to decide to use my real name on my blog, and a little while more before I really felt comfortable with it. To start with, this blog was about me “coming out” as a writer. You may think it silly to equate it to announcing one’s gender preference (granted its nowhere near as traumatic as all that) but in a way it was the same. I’d seen, after all, the way people looked at me when I told them I was writing a novel. The word “flake” might as well have been stamped on my cheek for all the lack of praise the confession got me. It seems if they can’t see the finished product, the product will in their mind never be finished.
So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I signed up with WordPress using my own name. I was tentative – worried people I know would see my efforts and laugh. I still worry about that. But, having said that, I have gained a certain amount of confidence in myself. I started a Facebook page recently with the title “Linda G. Hill, Author” (you can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/lindaghill.fiction?ref=hl Like me!!) and that felt weird particularly when it asked me if the person I was making the page for approved. I think I actually yelled at the screen, “It’s ME!”
I still think about blogging under a pseudonym, even now that I’ve been blogging consistently here with my real name for a year and nine months. There’s a freedom in not using your name; what stops me is not being able to see the point. I’m quite happy here this way. I feel relatively secure in that I don’t disclose my precise whereabouts; I post pictures of my children knowing that they can’t be identified by their surname. (It isn’t “Hill.”) I find it easier than trying to keep up a facade. I don’t need to be careful not to give myself away… and I’m so close to being ready to get published that I’m no longer shy about calling myself a novelist. You’ll get your proof, damnit!
I would say the majority of blogs I follow here are anonymous. I realise there are many reasons for wanting to remain that way. For those who don’t use their real names, have you ever been tempted? And for those who do, was it a difficult hurdle to get over? Please share your story.
There are some things I just can’t help. Eating the last few nuts in the tin even if I don’t want them, straightening out a crooked picture on the wall, … writing a blog post even when I’m too tired to write a blog post…
It’s been a hell of a few days, and the next three aren’t going to be any better. Last week I had two days off (meaning the kids’ dad picked them up after dinner one day and brought them back after dinner two days later) but the one in I should have had a full day off had an appointment for Alex smack-dab in the middle that only I could take him to, so I didn’t really get a day off at all. August was the last time I had one of those. All this to say that I don’t have the energy to write … anything, really. I suppose this is what being a writer is. Compulsion.
Unfortunately for all of you, it means listening to me whine about how tired I am. So here’s a consolation. A pretty picture. (Hunts for picture.) Ah, here’s one from the spring:
and look at that – it’s not even straight
What are you compelled to do, no matter what? It’s okay, go on. Admit it. We won’t judge.
There are many writers out there who craft their stories based on a “what if” situation. They will come up with a scenario, such as “what if a meteor hit the earth?” or “what if a guy goes to the store and finds all the cars in the parking lot stacked on top of each other?”
These two scenarios may sound very similar, but they’re not. Yes, both start with the same three words, but the difference is this: the first revolves around a plot. The plot has yet to be populated by humans (assuming there are humans left alive after the meteor hit). The second scenario already has a human in it. Here may be the difference between a plot-driven story and a character-driven one.
For me, populating a story that contains a story first (aforementioned meteor crashing down) is near impossible. I can’t wrap my head around a crowd of people who have been plunked down in the middle of a situation. But give me a person to work with first, and I’m off and running. What any ONE person would do in a strange situation is fairly unique to that one person. That, to me, gives a story its excitement and its hook, if you will.
This whole topic came about when I started to think about how difficult it is for me to write a short story. Given a plot, I may be able to bang out a few words. But when I get my head wrapped around a character I find it hard to let go after just a few hundred words. I get attached to my characters very easily, and once I have them in my head I don’t just want to tell a bit of their story, I want to tell it all. Before I know it, I’m well on my way into a novel.
When I first began writing, I belonged to a Yahoo group in which a bunch of writers developed characters who not only interacted with one another, they told each other stories of their lives before they met one another. Quite like anyone would in real life. So I’m thinking about writing a character on my fiction blog rather than attempting and consistently failing to write short stories. Just a thought at the moment.
The character-driven story is a subject very dear to my heart. My characters become almost like family to me, much as the characters do in some of the novels I read. Especially the ones I’m sad to put down when they’re finished.
I’d like to hear from the writers out there – do you write character-driven or plot-driven stories? Have you ever ventured out of your comfort zone and tried the other one?
And from the readers – have you ever become attached to a character that was so well written, you never wanted their story to end?
My trip to Ottawa to go backstage at the National Arts Centre was amazing! I managed to talk to a few of the staff members, including stage managers, prop builders, and lighting staff, I ate lunch in the green room, and took loads of photos.
Photo from one of the box seats
There are four stages there; the seating for the largest is above.
View from the back of the stage
I found out some handy tidbits of info. It is indeed possible to get horses on stage (in my novel, my character uses horses in his magic act). I was told they’ve had an elephant on this stage.
The stage will also hold a thirty foot ladder
My novel also has a ladder as a prop. I discovered yesterday how tall it can be – and also how they would set it up so it won’t fall.
The backstage corridors are like a maze. I got lost.
The ladies chorus dressing room
Getting ready to go onstage
(No, that’s not me.)
I had to find out what this was!
Apparently, a vomitory in a theatre isn’t somewhere you go to upchuck your lunch. It’s a quick exit from the stage. I learned something new!
I actually learned a lot of things–details–I will use in my novel. Even if the whole ten hour trip results in the fact that I know how to get a large animal on stage, that I know how many rungs my magician’s assistant will have to climb and whether they enter and exit stage left or right–and all this results in a couple of sentences or a paragraph–I will have accurate details! An essential part of any novel worth its weight, in my estimation.
I was having a little discussion, as I do, in the comments on this post with my friend Foolsquest on his blog, 642 Things about horror movies and what makes us laugh, and I got to thinking about the horror I write.
I don’t particularly like watching horror movies. I used to enjoy them when I was a kid, even though they scared the bejeezus out of me. I remember one night when I was about 15, babysitting a couple of young kids in this old century house. It had a clawfoot bathtub in the washroom. Anyway, I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed the book Carrie and the movie was on TV that night so I decided to watch it. I admit I was fine until the damned dream sequence at the end. I’m sure that bit wasn’t in the book. Suffice to say I was so grateful when the parents got home that night I almost hugged them. But I digress.
I DO, however, enjoy reading horror books. And I enjoy writing horror. What I really can’t stand are slasher films. You know the ones – they invariably include a half naked chick getting stabbed through the bare naked chest and a bunch of people who can’t seem to run as fast as the bad guy can walk. At best, they make me laugh, but for the most part, I think they’re a waste of time.
Now give me a psychological horror and I’m all over it. Even better if it’s in print, because there’s only so much psychology that can be related on screen, The Silence of the Lambs notwithstanding. So I got to thinking, maybe it’s the blood and gore I don’t like. But then I reminded myself of this bloody little gem I wrote just over a year ago and I realised that’s not necessarily all there is to it.
I think blood is okay. Sometimes it’s necessary to fully explore the world in which the characters live, if they’re very off balance or have particular … er … tendencies.
I just can’t see the value in watching pointless violence, just for the sake of violence. Do you?
Do you ever live vicariously through your characters? I’m thinking about my upcoming trip to Ottawa where I will go backstage at the National Arts Centre to see the dressing rooms and the back hallways where the stars meet. I’ll go on stage and look out at all the seats and maybe I’ll do a little dance. But it’s not just the fact that my main character happens to be a performer. There’s so much more going on in his life than that; it’s only a facet of who he is.
My fictional characters go through their own lives with the dramas and fears and loves that I only wish I could experience. Sure, sometimes they are tortured by those very same things. But their stories are interesting – worth telling. Is my own life worth a tale? Sometimes, I suppose. But not like the lives of my characters. They live out loud, doing things I can only dream of having the opportunity to do.
I suppose all writers of fiction live, at times, in the imaginary world where their characters exist. A fantasy world, if you will, where not even the sky is the limit, and where unexpected things happen.
Once in a very rare while, I feel like I’m really there. And in a way my research will take me there. I’ll have my notepad and pen and my camera on hand to record the moment, but for the most part I’ll be living it.
“…it is delusion to assume that the creator controls his creations and that an attempt to exert such control while ignoring the true nature of those creations is doomed to failure.”
~ Diana Gabaldon, as William on page 470 of An Echo in the Bone, in reference to writing fictional characters in a play.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
I’m back home from my weekend in Ottawa where I had a chance to do some writing. With the work I accomplished, I’ve arrived home with a question for all my followers who are fiction lovers. But first a little information.
I have a new villain in the sequel to my novel and I’m finding I like her. She’s as sharp and witty as she is rotten to the core. So far, 40,000 words into the novel, she has yet to show how bad she can be. My question to you is, have you ever loved a villain despite the fact that they’re cruel and horrible people? Is what I’m doing a no-no?
In the comments, please let me know if you’ve ever read (or seen in a movie) a villain you’ve liked – who you’ve been excited to see when they turned up in a scene.
P.S. I’ll be answering all the comments from the weekend and reading as many of the SoCS entries as I can after I put Alex to bed. Thanks to everyone for your contributions to both!
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