I'm working on a new story. It's a murder mystery set in Hawaii, with the Ms. Marple being a big Hawaiian-mix fellow who is a portrait painter. So far, so good. I'm into chapter 4 and I wonder what's going to happen next.
Writing has taught me many things.
Book One: This took me about ten years to write, and about that long for friends to read it. GIGO.
Book Two: This took me two weeks to write. I was on fire. I was inspired. The publisher said it was a nice caper. I thought it was Science Fiction Fantasy. Oy.
Book Three: The sequel to book two. Forget it. I didn't finish it.
Books 2&3 taught me that when my characters get into a bind, there are several ways to work through the situation. Somehow, in getting to practice problem solving through my characters, I started to see more options for my own real life. Problems seemed smaller too, through the lens of authorship. Just find the way to plot around it.
So this is Book 4. I'm learning about being the author. With a story, that authority is obvious. With our lives, it seems much more complicated. I suppose the fact that we cannot actually move other people around conveniently does make life different from writing. But the essence remains: We are the authors of our life stories, and we are the ones in charge of how we view the plot as well as how we make choices in relation to what has happened thus far.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Writing
Posted by mrs. tioli at 7:56 AM
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2 comments:
...and, I bet you can't freely move people around in your novels, either. don't they have a life of their own?
You're right. I flinched when I said that because the fact is that the characters tell the author what they're going to do.
Some say that writing a book is a matter of putting characters into a situation and then writing down what they do. I think that's pretty accurate.
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