Gay Ingram's Blog - Posts Tagged "twist-of-fate"
Becoming a Writer Takes Involvement
Anyone can have a desire to write, and most people do at one time or another in their lives. But it takes more than the desire to become a writer. There must come some point in your life that you recognize your writing as an integral part of your life. Being a writer requires constancy, a concentrated effort to get grounded in the craft; always seeking knowledge and experiences that improve your writing.
A writer must commit themselves to “seeing things whole.” Instead of life being just a series of external events, a writer chooses to view his/her life “seeing,” not merely as spectators but as participants, accepting all eventualities as a part of their function as writers.
We look at life with “fresh eyes;” experiencing what’s in our environment with all our senses. Storing up incidents, people, happenings, chance occurrences as fuel for our future writing.
Anybody can have an idea. And, almost any idea can be the foundation for a good story. Anybody can sit down and write about that idea for a day. But the profession of writing requires constancy. Mastery in writing requires a daily commitment, a grounding in craft, experience, and knowledge of the field. Just like any other profession.
A writer must commit themselves to “seeing things whole.” Instead of life being just a series of external events, a writer chooses to view his/her life “seeing,” not merely as spectators but as participants, accepting all eventualities as a part of their function as writers.
We look at life with “fresh eyes;” experiencing what’s in our environment with all our senses. Storing up incidents, people, happenings, chance occurrences as fuel for our future writing.
Anybody can have an idea. And, almost any idea can be the foundation for a good story. Anybody can sit down and write about that idea for a day. But the profession of writing requires constancy. Mastery in writing requires a daily commitment, a grounding in craft, experience, and knowledge of the field. Just like any other profession.
Find That Point of Change
In every story, there needs to be a discovery. A light-bulb moment when a life-lesson is learned. If your character remains in the same place at the end of the story as he/she was in the beginning, then you've missed the mark.
Force yourself to dig deeply into your character's personality; search for a revelation of something wrong that needs to be righted. Discovery of the meat of your piece will set your spine to tingling, your head to spin. You'll grin like someone whose been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Sometimes it's just a tiny incident that starts a landslide of change in your character's life. Something incidental yet it will resonate with your readers, causing them to say, "Oh yeah, that's me too."
Force yourself to dig deeply into your character's personality; search for a revelation of something wrong that needs to be righted. Discovery of the meat of your piece will set your spine to tingling, your head to spin. You'll grin like someone whose been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Sometimes it's just a tiny incident that starts a landslide of change in your character's life. Something incidental yet it will resonate with your readers, causing them to say, "Oh yeah, that's me too."
