The "writing for yourself" quandry

I have to admit, I've been deeply skeptical of the advice to "write for yourself." Perhaps it's a byproduct of my upbringing, of being told again and again that the root of all kinds of evil is selfishness--greed, lust, hatred, coveting, the whole litany of deadly sins. Perhaps it's from interacting with beginning writers who are excessively prickly and hostile to any suggestion that their rough draft "baby" isn't a perfect masterpiece. I hear the phrase and think self-indulgent and even narcissistic.

What about readers? I'd wonder. Do you care about whether they can make any sense of your story? Do you want to pour months of time into something that will no one will want to read? 

The ironic thing is, spending too much time worrying about the questions above is more likely to hobble you than help.

And so will convincing yourself that you have unselfish motives. Because once you start worrying about motives, you're likely to get lost in a hall of mirrors, frantic to find a pure reflection. Could there be a more self-centered pursuit?

But reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic (or more accurately, about half of it so far) has got me rethinking my assumptions about what "write for yourself" really means.

Gilbert says that creativity is "your birthright as a human being, so do it with a cheerful heart.... Let inspiration lead you where it wants to lead you. Keep in mind that for most of history people just made things, and they didn't make such a big freaking deal out of it. We make things because we like making things."

How's that for a pep talk with a good dose of kick-in-the-pants? :-)

Essentially, then, "writing for yourself" means engaging deeply with your ideas: follow them, invest labor and energy into them, shape them, feed them. Delight in the ideas and let their song move you to sing along and dance with abandon.

It means you can (and should) stop trying to be helpful--it's a masquerade for the deeply selfish need to be important, and the crippling need for permission and validation from others.

"Writing for yourself" is light and free and doesn't take itself so utterly seriously. If the idea leads down a blind alley, oh well. Part of the adventure! Look around, discover something unexpected. Backtrack if you must, or step through a side door. But when you "write for yourself," these glitches are not devastating disruptions of some Very Important Thing that will make you matter.

"Writing for yourself" comes from a healthy place of a right-sized self that can accept its own simultaneous greatness and smallness. It says "you are enough." Not the be-all-and-end-all, but not trash. Just enough.

Gilbert's book has been an interesting complement to Around the Writer's Block by Roseanne Bane, which I've blogged about HERE and HERE. Bane approaches creativity through brain science, and her main finding is that anxiety derails creativity; to be creatively productive, you need to relax and have fun.

In other words, stop looking over your shoulder, wondering how others will react, or seeking their go-ahead for your creative endeavors, or signs of their gratitude for your "help."

When your authentic self shows up and explores the ideas entrusted to you (Gilbert has some fascinating theories about how ideas find us), you become radically liberated from the impulses of selfishness--specifically self-preservation. The work done "for yourself" then flows and grows.

What do you think about "writing for yourself"?

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Why you should stop trying to get motivated

image credit: Felicia Santos for morguefile

As the school year enters its final weeks and summer fun is so close around the corner, homework is about the last thing kids feel like doing. I don't know about you other parents out there, but homework battles in my house have gone from bad to worse in my home of late.

Research nerd that I am, I went on the hunt for advice about how to get through the final marking period, ending strong without bloodshed. I tripped across a short e-book by life coach Dennis Bumgarner, Motivating Your Intelligent but Unmotivated Teenager.  What I found most striking in his approach to the whole "movtivating" and "unmotivated" issue is his breakdown of why sticks and carrots rarely work, and also WHEN motivation happens.

Hold onto your hats, because this concept is a game changer:

"Performance precedes motivation." 

Bumgarner argues that beginning a small piece of a task will motivate continued steps. Not cheerleading. Not rewards and punishments. Not lectures or logic.

Doing.

I think this insight has broad applications for nearly every step of the writing, editing, submission, design/formatting, marketing parts of creating written work.

Trying to "get in the mood" to write or chasing one motivational strategy after another is a waste of time. Simply start a little something. You only discover the intrinsic rewards of writing by actually writing, not by dreaming about writing, talking about it with other writers, pinning pithy quotes on Pinterest, or whatever other supposedly motivation-building (but useless) strategy you've attempted.

Write some words, any words. Flow comes when you overcome that initial inertia.

What do you think of the maxim "performance precedes motivation"? Can you think of instances where this idea has proven true for you?

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Compelling compulsions: Linking an old wound with a new challenge

Compulsion is a deep-seated need to do something, a belief that a particular action will make one's anxiety evaporate. More serious compulsions we label "OCD"--obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD sufferers need to wash their hands frequently to dispel their anxiety about germs, or flick light switches a certain number of times to keep the universe in harmony.

Photo credit: mensatic from morguefile.com

Most of us have less dramatic compulsions that surface in times of stress. "I'll be okay if I can just go for a run," says the exercise-compulsive. One of my good friends cooks and freezes huge portions of food when she's anxious. I tend to clean, organize, and rearrange the furniture. Having a neat environment makes me feel like life is under control.


There's a wonderful indie film that got me thinking more deeply about this: Sunshine Cleaning, starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters Rose and Nora. These women are both struggling financially and learn that they could be making good money starting up their own business--cleaning up crime scenes.

What sort of person would be drawn to this work? It's grisly and just really, really gross. But as you learn Rose and Nora's backstory, it becomes clear that this is therapeutic work for them. They lost a loved one in a grisly manner when they were both quite young and have had difficulty moving on. Clearing away the evidence of painful loss for their clients cleans their own damaged souls.

If a different set of characters had been set in this scenario, I don't know that it would have worked as well. A socialite scrubbing gore off the walls would have been funnier--but less believable. What kept me gripped by the film was a desire to understand the underlying compulsion--the psychological need being met in this particular set of circumstances.

At one point, Rose is at a baby shower and has to explain her new business to a group of well-off young women who were high school friends. You couldn't ask for a more ironic juxtaposition, so I was bracing myself for things to go horribly, hilariously wrong. But the writer took a light touch, and in that moment we expect to writhe for Rose, she gives a wonderfully layered response to her friends' questions that's simultaneously sappy and deep.

"We're helping people," Rose says, "at a time when they are going through something profound. And we make things better."

When you can link an old wound with a new challenge, well, friends, you have the makings of deep, compelling drama. The trick is to match your protagonist and plot well.

Does your story's plot force your character to grapple with an old wound? If not, how might you better match protagonist and plot?

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Writing lessons from The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug has such a mockable title, it's not much of a surprise Tolkien fans and film critics largely panned it. I'd honestly had no intention of seeing it, but when there was a free screening on the campus where my hubby teaches, curiosity got the better of me. Sure, this was the most non-canonical Tolkien film in Jackson's oeuvre so far, but did that aspect lead to the negative reviews?

Actually, no. I'd argue that poor storytelling is what killed the film--at least for me and many critics. (There's no accounting for the ticket-buying public, which seems to love nonsensical, overwrought action flicks--witness the box office power of the Transformers films.)

The beauty of being a writer is that scriptwriting failures are educational gold. Below are a few storytelling lessons I gleaned from DoS. (Sorry to resort to a goofy abbreviation, but it's taking all my self control to not make three dozen bad puns on the terrible title).

1. Whose story is it anyway?

I honestly could never quite sort out who the film's protagonist is supposed to be.

It might be Thorin Oakenshield, whose backstory opens the film. He's kingly, tormented, and kind of hot in a hipster-meets-80s-hair-band way. We learn in this backstory that Thorin has not only a quest--to regain the lost assets of his kingdom--but a new enemy, the Necromancer, who's keen to stop him, though we have no clue why. With both a quest and an enemy, Thorin seems like he ought to be the story's hero. However, the climax of the film focuses on Bilbo Baggins, who goes into the dragon's lair to face this fierce enemy, while Thorin and his entourage hang back in safety.

Yet if Bilbo is the hero, what exactly is his quest? What does he set out to achieve? We're never given much information about what motivates him, other than that Gandalf told him to go along with this weird assortment of dwarves. He might be hungry to prove himself valiant, or greedy for gain, or simply sick to death of his boring life in Hobbiton and itching for thrills. We just don't know, because we rarely get very close to him, just like we don't get close to Thorin.

Takeaway: Have a clear protagonist with a goal and motivations to meet that goal, both surface drives and deeper inner drives. Take the time to show why the protagonist is motivated. Make sure the protagonist is intimately involved in the climax moment.

2. Why are you chasing me?

Apparently the scriptwriters thought it wasn't going to be an exciting enough quest for a party of thirteen somewhat silly and unskilled little dudes to make it through the treacherous depths of Mirkwood, past Shelob's redneck cousins, in order to face a fire-breathing enemy that wiped out an entire city single-handed. No, they clearly needed to be chased the entire time by bloodthirsty, gholish orcs who are pursuing for no obvious reason.

The orc chase not only adds nothing, it actually takes away from the story because it feels to darned random. There's no solid reason that the Necromancer opposes Thorin. He supposedly doesn't want the dwarves to become strong again, but WHY? Does he want to get to the gold first so that he can be rich beyond dreams and powerful beyond dreams? The film would make a heck of a lot more sense if he did. But we're never given that much information about the Necromancer's nefarious plot. As the film drags on, it seems he doesn't really have one. And nothing is more of a waste of time than an enemy with no real goals.

Takeaway: Adding random enemies subtracts from the story's core tension, so don't dilute your main plotline with characters who have too little reason to be there. Invest in showing your hero/es unequal to the task being attempted (injuries or hardships work nicely here) or raise the stakes of what they'll lose if they fail.

Antagonists must have a goal. Vague malevolence is about as scary as flatulence--it stinks at first, but dissipates quickly with no lasting effects. 

What are your thoughts about creating a clear protagonist and a goal-driven antagonist? Can you think of other examples of films that fail to create solid characters for these two key roles?

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An essential question to keep asking your character

A phrase popularly associated with psychotherapy might be one of the best tools to developing a character your readers will consistently engage with. Keep it at the ready, especially when the plot thickens and action scenes become more frequent. Because those are the places where you'll be most tempted to leave your character's emotions behind. Places where your character is actually likely to have his or her most interesting interior world changes.

Call it your emotional pulse-check tool. Repeat after me:

Photo credit: anitapeppers from morguefile.com

"How does that make you feel?"

Your character has just met someone.
"How does that make you feel?"
The character's first impression might be fear, lust, or sudden peacefulness. Let that reaction come out in her posture, her attitude-filled thoughts, and/or her dialogue.

An obstacle arises. 
"How does that make you feel?" 
The character might react as decisively as you hope, but perhaps he naturally feels beleaguered at first. Unsure. Afraid. Wishing someone would advise or help. Moments like this separate realistic characters from the Mary Sues and Gary Stus, who never waver or falter--the kinds of characters who make readers roll their eyes and say "seriously? nobody really thinks like that."

An important battle is lost.
"How does that make you feel?"  
Watch where your character's heart leans in times of defeat. Is he first of all peevish because of wounded pride? Does his concern go first to his fallen or injured friends? Or is he righteously indignant that the evil ones prevailed and are free to continue hurting others? Don't assume a stock answer. Let your character reveal himself in all his complexity. Perhaps your hero is more narcissistic than he wants to believe, and realizing he over-values his personal pride could become a turning point in his emotional journey.

A love object declares his adoration. 
"How does that make you feel?"
If there have been numerous obstacles keeping your couple apart, let the heroine process them in a moment like this. Then the obstacles won't feel like annoying contrivances the mean author threw in their path for spite. Let her be stunned or tongue-tied, or even sarcastic and lashing out. No one believably does a 180 degree turn in an instant. The turn happens in smaller increments, often with some regression to old positions.

As I mentioned in the opening, be especially aware of incorporating emotion into action scenes. Clashing swords alone are not nearly so tense as when you can feel one of the sword-wielder's sweaty palms or icy surges of blood-lust. You wouldn't want to stop for a full-blown flashback, but flashes of back-story snippets can be extremely effective for making emotionally realistic action, especially when portraying a traumatized character.

Keep checking your character's emotional pulse throughout the story. Look for opportunities to work in
~physical responses, including gestures and emotion-based sensations
~attitudes, expressed in thought or speech
~processing, both logical and emotional

How might frequent emotional pulse-checks help you improve your story?

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The ties that bind: adhesive in conflict

Conflict should be at the core of what drives a story forward. Ah, but here's the rub: being conflict-averse and passive aggressive is far more common in real life than shouting matches, car chases and fisticuffs. Given the choice, most will flee from conflict rather than stay locked in it.

Unless there's glue.

In Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell gives one of the better explanations for this aspect of characterization he calls "adhesive." He defines it as "any strong relationship or circumstance that holds people together" (81). In other words, adhesive is the compelling reason opposing parties can't just peaceably part ways.

© libertygrace0, Flickr Creative Commons

What's the strong reason for your lead to stick around? What keeps her going in spite of obstacles and motivates her to reassess and take new action with each set back? How about the antagonist? Why doesn't he just go pick on someone else?

Adhesive is usually found in the reasons behind your lead's pursuit of her goal and your antagonist's opposition of your lead. Bell lists some broad categories:

~Life and death. If the opponent has a strong reason to want to kill your lead, that's a powerful glue. Your lead's struggle to stay alive is a powerful motivation to keep on keeping on.

In some genres, fear of losing one's identity, autonomy or reason for living--in other words, fighting to escape a psychological death--are the driving force. The lead must change and grow or die inside.

~Professional duty. Readers can understand how a doctor won't give up on a patient, for example. Our professional lives are often tied up in our sense of purpose and reason for living. To fail professionally means a kind of psychological death.

~Moral duty. A husband whose wife and child are kidnapped won't sit idly by. Nor will a pastor who discovers one of his parishioners is being abused. To give up on doing the right thing would mean letting evil prevail--a spiritual death.

~Obsession. Someone who has lost touch with reality may become powerfully locked to something they desire--whether it's the celebrity they stalk, and object they believe will empower them or a family member they need to control and dominate.

~Physical location. This is a setting-based twist on the life-and-death adhesive. Opponents might become stuck in a place that would be more deadly to flee from than to stay in. Think of the family snowed in at the haunted hotel in The Shining.

What's the glue in your story conflict? How might the applying concept of adhesive make your story stronger?

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Help for deepening character motivation

It's no small task to create characters that live and breathe on the page, that don't hamstring your story by behaving in a way that seems implausible. You can spend weeks dreaming up the physical details of your characters, mentally filling her closet and his iPod playlist only to discover you don't really know your characters, especially what they want, and more importantly, why.

What motivates a person, makes him choose this action and not that one, makes her invest in a relationship in a particular way--this is the deep stuff of characterization. I've found that simply observing people going about their business of living is not enough to train me to understand character motivation. And because motivation is the building block of solid plotting, it's essential to get motivation right.

I've found it especially helpful spend some time reading in the social sciences, especially psychology, child development and sociology. When drafting my first novel, I read heavily and talked to experts about the grieving process and grief therapy, and even attended a day-long grief workshop. Surprisingly, the research  also suggested a slew of plot ideas I never would have considered otherwise.

What a counselor might call symptoms are, for writers, the natural consequences of inner motivation and the stuff of great psychological storytelling.

What tools have you found helpful in developing characters?

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What makes a villain? Part 1: Dursleys and Malfoys

As I look back over the Harry Potter series as a whole, I see some interesting patterns. Today I'd like to consider Rowling's villains and what seems to make them tick.



The Dursleys

The Dursleys' bullying and abuse of Harry seem over the top to the point of parody in the vein of Roald Dahl. But unlike Dahl's villains, their primary motivation isn't selfishness. It's fear. They fear being judged by neighbors so much that they'll ruthlessly cover up and squelch anything that might mark them as "not normal" in the community. Once Harry's magical nature is revealed, they're far less concerned about his ability to hex them. No, they continue to tremble at the thought the neighbors might find out one of their blood kin is "a freak."

Ironically, we never, ever see the Dursleys enjoying the fruits of their supposed good reputation. They aren't having backyard barbecues with the neighbors, nor do they seem to entertain much. Their fear blocks them from having genuine friendships.


The Malfoys

The Malfoy family seems to have everything going for them--they're rich, well bred and attractive. They seem to genuinely love one another as well, which isn't something you can say for most of Lord Voldemort's lackeys.

So why are they attracted to the dark side? Fear. Unlike Voldemort, who comes from nothing and scrambles for power and privilege, they come from privilege and fear losing it. They have a lot to lose, and want to stay on the winning team.

But there are limits to the Malfoys' willingness to risk, partly because of the strength of their love for one another. In moments when this primary love is tested, it always trumps whatever harm Voldemort threatens--they go along only to keep one another safe. Even in this haughty family, Rowling shows the biblical idea that "perfect love casts out fear."

Next in the series, I'll talk about Rowling's other villains: Umbridge and Voldemort, as well as the antihero, Snape.

What do you think about villainy motivated by fear? Do you see other parallels between the Dursleys and the Malfoys?

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No Mary Sues: operating at maximum capacity

In How to Write a D@mn Good Novel, James N. Frey says many plots lack integrity because the author doesn't have her characters acting at their maximum capacity.

What does he mean exactly? When a character hits a problem, some roadblock keeping him from his goal, he should do everything in his power to reach the goal. Characters who become easily stymied by their problems lose readers' sympathies and their desires and drives won't seem particularly compelling.

The Harvard-educated investigator, for example, won't just sit around wringing her hands when she doesn't immediately understand something--she'll make use of all the intellectual tools at her disposal to research and probe. Likewise, even the "cannon fodder" expendable characters should go to a lot of trouble to avoid dying, unless the author has characterized them as suicidal or deeply stupid or proven some motivation for a death wish. "Maximum capacity" will, of course, vary from character to character. A nine-year-old protagonist in a middle grade adventure will have fewer resources than the Navy SEAL/brain surgeon in a techno-thriller. The trick is to know one's characters thoroughly.

In every scene, Frey says your character's actions and reactions have to pass the "would s/he really ____ ?" test. Does the action/reaction fit her personality? Is he making full use of his personal resources, know-how, experiences? These lines of questioning can open up plot to intriguing new possibilities.

For those unfamiliar with the term "Mary Sue," see THIS Wikipedia article. Worried your character might be a Mary Sue? Try THIS "Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test."

How might "maximum capacity" make your plots more compelling? In what circumstances do you think Frey's "rule" might not be the best way to go?

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