David Carlson's Blog

ARE YOU A WRITING ATHLETE? (These first blogs in the series pertain more to writing fiction. Non-fiction writing projects will be the focus of later blogs)
Part Two: BEGINNING TO SHAPE THE CLAY
In the first blog in this series, we compared writing to running a marathon with hurdles. Writing is like a marathon in that finishing a project takes time, patience, and perseverance. As is true of a marathon race, there are no shortcuts to producing a quality result.
Writing is also like a high hurdle race. That is, there are moments in the writing process where the writer has to negotiate an obstacle (or pass a milestone). Facing these obstacles can seem daunting. Transcending these obstacles is exhilarating and energizing.
We introduced the first three hurdles in the previous blog. In this blog, we will consider further thoughts on those three hurdles as well as introduce hurdle four.
Hurdle one is the need to read authors we admire, focusing on what those authors do to keep our attention. Do our favorite authors excel in writing clever plots? Do they create characters who seem to live on the page? Do they write dialogue that surprises even as it is believable?
The second hurdle or challenge to master is setting aside some time every day (or almost every day) to put words on paper or on a computer screen. We don’t become writers when we are published. We become writers when we write. What we write will likely seem messy at first, but that is the clay we will shape as the process continues.
The third hurdle occurs simultaneously with the second hurdle. The task here is to jot down the ideas as we write that give off a jolt of energy. In fiction, we can refer to these ideas as “scenes.” Where do these ideas/scenes come from? Many are born out of our imaginations. Sometimes, an energizing idea or scene will arise out of something we observe in our daily lives or see/read about in the news—a conversation or occurrence (tragic, touching, funny, but memorable) that we realize at the time or sometime afterward would make a great scene in a story.
Work with that idea or scene by letting your imagination “off the leash.” Given that first scene, what could happen next? What might have happened just before that scene? Don’t stress this, as there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. The second idea or scene, and then a third and fourth, will either offer, or fail to offer, another jolt of energy. Here, keep two things in mind. One, don’t assume the follow-up scene has to be stupendous and full of fireworks. The follow-up scene, instead, has to seem possible (realistic) to the reader and, at the same time, intriguing.
Two, writing one scene after another is similar to following breadcrumbs on a path. Trust the creative journey, and focus only on one scene leading to the next. That next one will, in turn, lead to a following one.
If a completed book is like an oak tree, these first ideas or scenes are the acorns. Patience is often needed with this stage of the process, as it may take some time for an intriguing scene to produce its follow-up. At other times, the ideas or scenes come rapidly.
The new focus of this blog is the fourth hurdle: realizing that a book is the result of stringing together these energy-giving ideas or scenes. How successfully these scenes are arranged will determine whether a piece of writing falls flat or satisfies both the writer and our readers.
A writing teacher once shared that an author must never forget that many readers are looking for any excuse to stop reading. A flat scene, one that creates a lull, might be just enough to prompt a reader (or a publisher considering your manuscript) to put your book aside and never pick it up again. When we read in reviews “I couldn’t put this book down,” that’s another way of saying the author kept the reader interested from one scene to another.
There are some basic bits of wisdom to keep in mind at this stage, some we might remember learning in English or literature classes in school. One, a story must have a “beginning,” “middle,” and “ending.” That seems basic and obvious, but this truth becomes more challenging when we add to it that a story from beginning to ending has to follow an “arc.”
Think of a quarterback throwing a long pass. The ball leaves the quarterback’s hand and angles upward. At a certain point in a ball’s flight, the ball begins to descend. The flight of the ball from quarterback to receiver forms an arc.
The arc of a football, a basketball from the three-point line, or a home run in baseball follows a perfect arc. In writing, however, the arc is usually “imperfect.” To understand this, let’s start with the end of the arc, the ending. The ending of a story must be somehow satisfying to the reader. In romantic fiction, the ending will likely involve the main characters achieving an intimate relationship. In mysteries or suspense thrillers, the ending will likely reveal the sleuth solving the case (the mystery). Other kinds of fiction lead to other probable endings, but all will ideally lead the reader to finish the last line of the story and exhale with an “ah” feeling of satisfaction.
Notice in romantic fiction or mysteries/suspense thrillers that this moment of satisfaction, breakthrough, or release doesn’t happen at the halfway point. Think of Ravel’s Bolero or Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, or, one of my favorites, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Each of these pieces of music follows an arc, but in all three pieces, tension builds until the moment of satisfaction or release near the end.
The most satisfying stories, however, resist building the tension in a steady or predictable way. A clever trick in many mysteries/suspense thrillers is for the sleuth to think, at about the halfway point of the novel, that she has found the killer. Tension builds to a false ending—in a sense, a deliberate disappointment or letdown for both the sleuth and the readers. That disappointment or letdown, however, leads to tension rebuilding as the sleuth rethinks her approach to the case.
I don’t write romantic novels, but in watching TV shows and movies of this kind, I sense a similar trick is often used. The two main characters of a “love story” may begin a relationship, only at the halfway point to have that relationship fall apart. Yet, at the end, their relationship is recovered, their love stronger for the earlier collapse. The movie An Affair to Remember offers a great example of this.
We can also build tension by teasing readers to think that some unexpected development, at the last moment, will rob them of a satisfying ending. In mysteries/suspense thrillers, the villain might have one last trick up his sleeve. In romantic fiction, some nemesis or event will, right at the end, nearly separate the lovers forever. In both mysteries and romantic fiction, this technique leads the reader to think, or even utter, “no, no, don’t let that happen.” When the detective then foils that last trick of the villain, or the lovers defeat the final machinations of a jealous competitor, the “ah” feeling of satisfaction is even greater.
That’s more than enough to think about for now. In the next blog, we’ll discuss two problems many writers experience: writer’s block and the problem of having a riveting “beginning” and “ending” but sensing the “middle” is flat or unsatisfying.
ENJOY THE JOURNEY

ARE YOU A WRITING ATHLETE?
Whenever I offer a reading from one of my books, I ask how many in the audience have either started a book or have an idea for a book. I am amazed at the number of hands that fly into the air. It seems that almost everyone who comes to a book reading has the hope that one day she will be offering a reading of her own work.
What then is involved in moving from an idea for a book to seeing it in print? If the writing process from beginning to end can be compared to an athletic event, the events most similar to writing would be to combine the marathon with high hurdles. So, imagine a marathon race with hurdles standing between you, the author, and the finish line. In this first blog in a series on the writing process, the focus will be on the first hurdles, those involved in moving from initial ideas to words on a page.
The first of these hurdles is something you are probably already doing—read authors you admire. The more quality writing we read, the more our brains recognize what makes a good sentence, paragraph, and chapter. Reading the works of writers who inspire us can be compared to putting money in the bank. When we move to the next hurdle, putting thoughts on paper, we will unconsciously be using what we’ve read to help us create sentences, paragraphs, and chapters of our own that “sound right.”
The second hurdle is to set aside time each day, even ten minutes, to jot down first ideas for your writing project. Seeing your ideas on paper is important; it is a step of commitment, a necessary pushing against the inner voices that whisper “Get serious; you’re not a writer. Who do you think you’re kidding?” Almost all of us have those doubting voices. These voices begin with this second hurdle but will resurface throughout the process, but we don’t have to give in to them.
This second step in the process is, as one well-known writer describes it, quite messy. That is, what you’ll see on paper is not a masterpiece; in fact, it isn’t even close to being a book. We don’t expect muck to be impressive. But as raw clay can be shaped with later work into something quite beautiful, so can the muck of what you’ve written on the page. I recommend at this point dealing with the nagging question in your mind “Am I a writer?” by responding, “Yes, I am. The muck in front of me proves I am!”
The third hurdle is to pay attention to which idea or ideas you’ve jotted down intrigue you or give you a jolt of energy, even a slight jolt. Identifying that idea or those ideas will provide you a starting point. Identifying that idea or those ideas will also help you put aside for the time being the other ideas you’ve written down.
You now have an idea or maybe two. It will still look quite messy, but you sense there is something of value, some possible treasure within that idea that you want to explore further. Some people can conduct this exploration in their heads before they return to pen and paper or to the computer screen; others need to explore on paper or on screen from the get-go. (I’m the latter). Either way, the important question to ask is not “what do I write down next?” but “where does this first germ of an idea want to lead me?” That is, the idea that gave you that first jolt of energy is living.
Think of your role at this point as the person letting this first idea “off its leash.” Where does that idea want to go? Resist the urge to try to see what a book that begins with this idea would look like. Just let the first idea lead you to a second idea, and then a third. I can’t emphasize this enough: trust the process. Don’t worry if the second idea takes some time to surface. In my experience, if I try to force the next idea, everything becomes immediately lifeless. Go about your regular life and trust that your brain will likely come up with the next step—maybe when you’re not consciously thinking about it.
When you do find that your first idea has led to a second idea and then a third idea that gives another jolt of energy, celebrate! You are now someone “hooked” on writing, “hooked” on the question, “I wonder where this idea, these ideas, will take me next?”
NEXT BLOG: BEGINNING TO SHAPE THE CLAY