Lynne Patrick
A confession: about eight Wednesdays out of ten, I sit at the computer to compose my Dead Guy post without the smallest idea what I’m going to post about. Occasionally, though less so recently, something has happened during the week which puts me in rant mode. Sometimes the main focus of everyday life yields up something which may be of interest. But mostly I sit and stare at the screen until a random thought coalesces into a few hundred words.
If the result is a lot of posts which you prefer to gloss over en route for Jeff’s wit or Erin’s good advice, or the far-more-gripping-than-mine thoughts of Marilyn, Jessy, Josh or Ben, I apologize. Do feel free to chat among yourselves till Thursday.
In fact it’s a constant surprise to me where those random thoughts come from. One moment there’s a blank screen; the next, my fingers are on the keys and something is appearing in front of me.
I have a feeling that this means I may still be a writer at heart, regardless of things I’ve said in the recent past about leaving all that behind. The most common question writers are asked by non-writers is that old chestnut where do you get your ideas from? And the only answer that ever made sense to me was they’re just kind of... there; if I didn’t get the ideas, I wouldn’t be a writer.
Somehow, when a writer sits at the keyboard or picks up a pen, words happen. Not always the best possible words. Far too often not even words they/you/we want to keep; when writing, rather than editing or publishing, was my main focus, the majority of the words I produced finished up in the waste paper bin or that place out in the ether where stuff goes when someone presses the delete key. But words, words, words, lots of them, a small proportion of which survived to be honed and polished into a shape I wasn’t too embarrassed to send out to seek my fortune.
And sometimes they’re not even the words I set out to write. (There, see, I’m using the present tense. That writer gene must still be active.) Today, for instance, I was going to post about the role played by chance and coincidence in crime and mystery fiction. The seed of that idea lay in oddest place you could imagine, and somehow the post began to morph into ideas in general, and what triggers them. And that morphed into... well, you can see where it went.
Which possibly serves as an illustration of the notion that writers don’t necessarily have total control over what they write. Sometimes it just runs away and does as it likes.
Some famous author or other, I think it may be Fay Weldon, is known to deny hotly that this happens. More specifically, she refuses to acknowledge that characters in fiction sometimes behave according to their own rules and don’t do what the writer wants them to. She creates the characters and the plot, she claims, so her characters do exactly what her plot requires of them. It clearly works for her; she’s a lot richer and more famous than I’ll ever be. But I still think the other way works too. And that element of never being quite sure what’s going to happen certainly adds an edge of excitement to a writer’s life.
If this is one of those posts that makes you chat among yourself till Thursday, I apologize again. But not knowing what was going to happen next has made my morning a little more interesting.
Does that sound like a handy hint for crime writing, or am I kidding myself?
"More specifically, she refuses to acknowledge that characters in fiction sometimes behave according to their own rules and don't do what the writer wants them to." Well, sure they do; Weldon simply experiences when that happens in a different way from yours. You both know your characters, inside out. You know instinctively how they'll react in certain situations. The plot in progress only works if they react contrary to their nature. Either the writer recognizes this consciously and changes the plot, or the writer recognizes it unconsciously and it feels as though the characters -- as opposed to his skill as a writer -- are protesting and going their own way, "dictating" the plot. It's the same mechanism, processed differently in the mind.
Posted by: Mario in DC | October 17, 2012 at 12:07 PM
You're a writer when your THOUGHTS come out as words on a page/into a voice recorder/out your fingertips at the keyboard.
Thinking=writing if you're in our clan.
It is like either being taciturn or having logorrhea - it is a built-in part of you.
It comes unbidden, morphs into whatever forms it will during a lifetime, and can't really be stopped.
My basic operating premise is that writers put into words what other people may also think, but can't write.
Ergo, I'm a writer. I don't have a choice - the writing eventually comes out somewhere. It is nice when I can channel it, direct it for useful work. But I can only dam it up so long.
Most other humans don't have this bug/feature. They are perfectly happy reading other people's words, keeping a few items in a journal, writing letters/emails to friends.
I kinda like it, though. I'm glad I am one of the writers. Makes up for not having a lot of the other gifts.
Posted by: ABE | October 17, 2012 at 12:16 PM
Interesting comments recently from my sister, a voracious reader, who had just read my latest novel through for a second time (must have run out of reading material) and in a tone of some surprise said, "You actually write well." She admitted that the first time through any mystery novel, the plot holds all of her focus (how's this going to end sort of thing)and not the quality of the writing. Perhaps that's why Fay Weldon has been so successful. The plot's the thing, eh? (as we Canadians say).
Posted by: Roy Innes | October 18, 2012 at 11:02 AM