If you're looking for my lesson on historical fiction, that's the post below this one.
Ever have one of those days where you suddenly have a
fantastic idea, and then you sit for hours staring at a blank page unsure of
where to start? Maybe you know how you
want your story to begin and end, but you’re not quite sure how to get from A
to B? Or maybe your writing just feels
like something is missing, but you just don’t quite know what?
There are multiple effective strategies for writer’s block,
and different strategies may work well for different writers or different
situations. But adding another key to
your key-ring of strategies for unlocking the block never hurts. The topic for today is not just one of my
favorite strategies for writers’ block, but also a useful strategy for adding
visual details, coming up with plot ideas, gaining perspective, and even
getting to know your characters better.
The strategy? Visualization.
Sure, we all know that visual details are important and you
need to say something about how your characters look, and maybe something about
what the room looks like. I don’t want
to bore you with the basics. As a
writing strategy, visualization has so much more to offer than just adding
visual details.
When writing, I like to first visualize the scene. Every little detail. How the characters are dressed, the lamp on
the table, the rug on the floor, the clock on the wall. But so far, that is all just stationary. A still photograph. Next, set the scene in motion!
How do your characters interact with one another? How do they sound when speaking? What do they do during a typical day at work
or at home? Follow them around for a
while. Even listen to the traffic going
past and the ticking clock on the wall.
The more you put yourself into the scene, the more of these little
details you will notice. And the more realistic
the scene will be for your readers.
Of course you aren’t going to put every single insignificant
little detail into your writing, that would overwhelm your reader with
unimportant details. But visualizing the
details of the scene makes it more real to you, which will make it more real to
your reader. You may notice important
details while visualizing that you would not have noticed otherwise.
When visualizing in motion, it is also useful and important
to consider the perspective from which events are being viewed. Just like a video camera, you can zoom in and
out, move the focus around the room, and “cut” from one scene to another. Sometimes things can even get between the
“camera” and the action. For example,
one mystery I read built up the action towards a fight scene at the end when
the culprit was apprehended. The fight
scene turned out to be about three sentences long, one of which was a sentence
stating that the two fighting men fell behind the counter. Worst. Fight. Scene. EVER. The author apparently had no idea how to
write an actual fight scene. However, it
was a demonstration of how the reader’s ability to visualize the scene can be
blocked, since the fight took place behind the counter where no details were
“visible” to the reader.
Ok, now that we’ve gone over visualization in motion and what
I mean by “camera angles” in writing, let’s get back to how this technique
looks in practice, and how it can be used to help with issues like writers’
block or lifeless-feeling scenes.
To make the explanation a little easier to follow, I am going
to walk you through the process I used to write a certain short story for a
science fiction creative writing class in college, as this particular story
would have been nearly impossible to write without visualization and careful
attention to “camera angles.”
The assignment: Write
something in the “New Weird” genre approximately 5-8 pages in length.
The ideas I started with:
Setting: A sort of 1930s steampunk New York City
overgrown with jungle (to meet the genre requirement)
Problem: A series of gruesome murders
Apparently
unrelated subplot (which actually had everything to do with it): The ancient theft of an ancient religious
artifact
Main
Characters: Two detectives sharing an
office, one older and better at problem solving, the other younger and more
“street smart” but also not a very nice person
Summary of Main
Plot: Detectives hired to solve murders, the mayor did it and was trying to
blame a minority group in the city, the mayor had also stolen the religious
artifact
That was basically all of what I came up with during a
preliminary brainstorming session. And
then I got stuck. I knew how it would
start and how it would end, but what happened in between gave me a bit of a
problem. The solution? Visualization!
So I started by writing the first few pages introducing the
problem and the setting, and then I got to the point where I needed to
introduce the two detectives. But I
really didn’t know too much about them.
I hadn’t yet “met” them. So I
stepped into their office and observed them at work. What were they doing? That would tell me a lot about who they were
and how they thought. I looked around
the office and saw the older detective, Malwan, sitting at his desk. Appearance-wise, he is a little old
gray-haired man with sharp gray eyes.
His desk was neat and well-cared for.
This indicates that he is organized and pays attention to details. But he couldn’t just be sitting there staring
at the ceiling, he needed something to do.
I saw him typing on a typewriter.
What was he typing, and why? He
had a lot of newspaper clippings all over his desk, some old and some
recent. But he thinks they are all
somehow related. Backstory, an unsolved
case, some sort of hobby or obsession?
Malwan just became a much more interesting character. Did I know any of this before I stepped into
the office and watched him at work? Nope.
Next I looked at the other detective, Fayder. I knew I wanted him to be a bit of a rat, but
I wasn’t quite sure how I would indicate that without directly saying so. I also knew he wouldn’t be staring at the
ceiling either; he also needed something to do, but he is not exactly the
industrious hard-working type. When I
looked at him, he had his feet up on the desk and was reading a newspaper. His desk was all scratched up and full of
coffee stains. But this does not make
him a bad person, he just doesn’t value appearances as much as Malwan. What is he reading in the newspaper? He is not very interested in news that
doesn’t concern him, sentimental human-interest stories, boring stock reports, obituaries,
or updates from the local ladies knitting guild. What else is there? Comics, weather, or sports scores? Sport scores maybe, but that wouldn’t keep
him interested long enough to put his feet up on the desk.
And then the “camera angle” in my mind shifted, as if I
stepped around behind Fayder and looked over his shoulder at the
newspaper. And I had a strange “Ah, I
wish I thought of that – oh wait, I did” sort of moment. It turns out Fayder wasn’t reading a
newspaper at all. He was only using it
to hide a naughty magazine. And BINGO –
it is a bit more obvious that this character is a rat, and I didn’t have to
outright say so. Looking at naughty
magazines with his feet up on the desk in the middle of the workday. Shame on him!
Did I know that before I stepped into the office and visualized the
scene? Nope. (I had so much fun writing that character! Does anyone else ever have way too much fun
writing “bad” characters?)
So that little bit of visualization took care of a huge
portion of character development. And
several pages worth of content.
But I was still having a problem connecting the beginning and
the ending. How would the detectives
actually solve the mystery?
So I followed Fayder while he left the office and went out
investigating. Step by step as he
betrayed innocent people for a few hundred bucks, practically stumbled over a
few clues related to the case, got a bit too curious, and got himself killed. And then I followed Malwan step by step as he
put the pieces together, avoided the trouble that Fayder caused him, cleared
the innocent and brought charges against the guilty. By visualizing each step in the sequence of
events, one step after the other, brought me to the resolution before I knew
it.
Another funny note about visualization and “camera angles” in
this story: Starting on the first page, I “zoomed out” to give an overview of
the city and “zoomed in” on the characters who hired the detectives. I stepped into the office with them, and then
followed Fayder out of the office and on his investigations. I didn’t realize it while writing the story,
but my first 10 pages, about half the story, was almost one continuous
scene!
And by the time I got done with that story, I had 20
pages. (Original requirement 5-8. I just
can’t seem to write a short story that is actually short!) And I had an A. And I had a lot of fun writing it. I might
try to publish that story someday…
Good visualization is a skill that takes practice. Just keep going. The more you do it, the better you will get
at it, and also the more fun you will have with it. I must admit that I have been visualizing
scenes longer than I have been writing them.
Way back in fourth grade, a friend shared with me a secret to falling
asleep fast at night: “Just make up stories in your head.” I’ve been doing that every night since. (And yes, it does help me fall asleep
faster.) I don’t just make up stories, I
live them in my mind. Night time isn’t
the only time skill comes in handy.
Waiting rooms, long red lights, on hold on the phone? No problem.
I’m never bored. I carry my own
private universe with me wherever I go, and adventures are never lacking.
Group Activity:
Let’s each pick a character.
Maybe one from a story you’re working on. Maybe one from another piece
of fiction. Any character. What
job does your character have?
Farmer? Police? Marine biologist?
Musician? Housewife? Comedian?
Detective? Cook? Meteorologist? (Note:
If you pick a character with an unusual or unfamiliar occupation, that might
take some research.) Now imagine
following your character around during a typical workday. What do they do? More importantly, how do they do it? Why do they do their work the way they
do? What does that say about them?
You can share your writing experiment if you want. But let’s also talk about the visualization
process. Did you learn anything new or
surprising about the character? Was this
a helpful activity?
