Let's be Boring

At the first Romantic Novelist Association Conference I attended an agent gave a speech about what, in her opinion, made the perfect writer. Obviously a brilliant writing style came high on the list, but about half way through I remember there was a collective sharp intake of breath from the audience. The agent wanted the writer to live a boring life. She must have sensed the hostility because she quickly rushed in to say this was her wish list, and like it or not, a writer with a settled life was more likely to write.

I was thinking about this recently. A writer friend was telling me how she'd stopped writing for the last few months after the death of her father, and how she was worried that she'd got completely blocked. I was able to reassure her that I too had stopped writing when my father died, but as the shock had diminished, the writing had come back.

We can be so hard on ourselves. We're not machines. Of course we stop writing when our real lives absorb all the energy we'd usually spend on our fictional ones. Our loved ones die, have affairs, lose their jobs, we move house. We fall in love, or out of love, have problems with our children or our children have problems that need us there. Life happens. It takes our emotional energy away from the page.

So I understand what the agent wanted from her writers. Productive people whose lives were settled. But we can't stop life from happening to us. Because then, what would we have to write about?

At last! I've got my finger out and have committed to running some day courses:

Writing a Novel - 31st July in Bath and 18th September in Truro

Getting a Novel Published - 1st August in Bath and 19th September in Truro

Contact me on sarah@sarahduncan.co.uk for more info...

Get Some Attitude

   ‘I can’t do it,’ Abigail said, doing that stupid soppy thing with her eyes that makes her look like a pug about to be sick.  Pathetic.

   ‘Give it to me,’ I said, grabbing the jam jar from her. I’d show her.

***

   ‘I can’t do it,’ Abigail said, looking at me with big eyes shining like stars, so fragile, so helpless, for a moment I could hardly speak.

   ‘Give it to me,’ I finally managed, gently taking the jam jar from her delicate fingers, hoping that this time I’d get the lid off.

***

The dialogue is the same, the actions are the same.  The only difference is the narrator’s attitude. When I read I like to know how the characters are feeling about the situation, otherwise I might as well be reading a script. I want to feel I am in the scene, experiencing it through their eyes.  Their attitudes to life might not be mine, but this is how I’m going to understand them and, in understanding, get involved with their story. 

As a writer I find attitude is a useful tool, especially if I’m finding a scene difficult to write.  I stop for a minute and ask What is my viewpoint character’s attitude to this situation or these people? How do they feel about what they can see? Then I write the scene using character attitude to drive it, and the scene almost writes itself.  

Some people advise that you spend hours and weeks preparing detailed character backgrounds before you start writing but that's not how I work.  I don't need to know where a character went to school or what his first pet was. All I need to know is my character's attitude to life.