Stories are about risk.
The world shifts. Something is changed – for good or bad. The character reacts to this to either try to make things go back to how they were, or to make things better.
Steve Albini and Aristotle
Steve Albini – ““When I talk about recording an acoustic instrument, what I really mean is recreating the sense memory of having heard an acoustic instrument. I say that because acoustic instruments have an extremely long tradition. Every part of the world uses some form of acoustic stringed instruments, and we all have engrained in us personal and cultural memory of these instruments. So when I say I’m trying to make an accurate recording of an acoustic instrument, what I mean is I’m trying to evoke the sensation of having heard that instrument in life.””
Aristotle opens Poetics by describing poetry as a species of imitation. There are different ways to do that, different mediums and different ways. Painting, too, is imitation, Aristotle points out.
In our stories, that’s what we do. We imitate to recreate sense memory.
The Book Writing Blues
Marking Character
Whatever Worked Last Time...
Brian Eno has a card in his Oblique Strategies set suggesting: Whatever worked last time, never do it again.
That might be more extreme than we always need but the sentiment is a good one. Just because it worked last time doesn’t mean it would work again. And just because a client has one idea in mind with their story, it doesn’t mean that’s the best way to narrate their own journey.
Structural Strength of Your Manuscript
The Murakami Approach to Feedback
Hire an Elf
John Swartzwelder is a reclusive writer best known for writing a huge amount of the strongest early Simpsons episodes. He also wrote for Saturday Night Live. Now he writes novels. His writing process involves getting the idea out quick. Finish the first draft as fast as possible. Then work deeper in the rewrite.
Writing to Communicate
People read to connect with a story. Or they read to learn. They talk about the story with friends because it connects with them. They see themselves in the text. Or they’ve learnt something important from reading it.
Rarely has someone sat down with a friend over coffee and gushed over complicated sentences they couldn’t understand.
Wonder Boys & Writer's Block
The creative process is so fascinating. Over the last twenty years or so, I’ve collected a lot of different strategies and techniques to tap into the creative process. These come from reading books and interviews, talking with other writers and artists, watching documentaries, and searching out strategies that worked for my favourite writers and artist.
Roger Rabbit & The Downfall of the Jedi
When we work within limitations that we set ourselves, we rely on our inspiration and creativity to find solutions. This makes the story work. There are problems we could get around by breaking our own rules. But these rules keep us honest as writers. It forces us to find an answer that draws from the world we’ve written.
The Way It Is Meant To Be Done
When Brian Eno was working with U2 and Luciano Pavarotti for the song Miss Sarajevo, he observed that opera singers are cheats. Or professionals, depending on your perspective. No matter how the work is done, the professional or the artist understands that the right way is the way that works for them.