The Ebb and Flow of Creativity

The Ebb and Flow of Creativity by Debra H. Goldstein

I’m drained. Exhausted. Worn-out. Tired. And yet, I feel pretty good. This week alone, I’ve knocked out three blogs, wrote one 5000-word story that I like, am toying with revising another short story that hasn’t quite come together yet, and thought of a different way to approach the one more piece of writing I have a commitment to turn in by the end of October.

For me, when my writing is working, I get into the zone. Time flies. I don’t stop for food, e-mails, or anything else until I’m forced to come up for air. It’s wild how different being in the zone is from being frustrated when the right words won’t come. During those times, I willingly allow myself to be distracted. Surely, I won’t lose much time doing another jigsaw puzzle, word game, or cleaning out the closet that hasn’t been touched in three years.

These latter times are also when I ask myself why I write. I question if I have it in me to come up with something that should be read by other people. Am I a fraud or has-been? 

My mood lightens up when the words begin flowing again. Even if they come hesitantly before rushing out, my confidence returns. 

That is, until the next time.

Do you ever experience these feelings? 

Finding the Secret Hiding in Each Tale by Martha Reed

Human brains are hard-wired to consider unseen possibilities. What was that sound? Was something moving in the shadows beyond the firelight? It’s probably how we survived as a species. Couple that with our ability to use our imaginations to create possible solutions and you have the definition of a mystery reader.

Suspense and mystery stories are like a puzzle, containing secrets hidden within secrets. Authors are sleight-of-hand magicians, serving up surprising revelations until the final and amazing reveal. But if there are only seven basic plotlines and story archetypes, how do authors build stories that still delight and surprise astute mystery readers?

I start building stories by thinking of them as word architecture. Once I’ve laid out the pieces of the story (e.g., characters, short- and long-term goals, plot points, and twists) I begin weaving in the simple initial clues and foreshadowing so that a reader will feel satisfied by its ending.

According to the brilliant short story writer, Art Taylor: “But an ending … you’re balancing various strands of a story by that point, working against a reader’s predictions and expectations, trying to make sure your resolution is both surprising and inevitable.”

Presenting an inevitable truth at the story’s end is what has a satisfied reader sitting back in their chair, slapping their foreheads, and saying, “Of course!”

How can a writer achieve an inevitable ending?

1. Foreshadow the twists into the story’s initial paragraphs or section. The reader hasn’t grasped the story yet, so slipping in subtle clues sets up their unconscious expectations while still keeping the clues off the front-of-their-mind radar.
2. State each character’s personal stake in the outcome.
3. Use a surprise twist and up the stakes on the characters.
4. Use another twist and up the stakes again.
5. Mid-story, use more succinct dialogue and shorter sentences to pick up the pace. This also increases the tension.
6. In the final third of the story, present a logical denouement that the reader has already anticipated from the story’s setup. They will feel disappointment that they figured it out. The important thing here is that they are hooked into feeling an emotion.
7. Present the final and inevitable twist. This triggers a new and better emotion, delighted surprise.

How do you create a final and inevitable twist? This prompt has been working for me:

1. Identify a short-term goal for each character. Share these goals with the reader as part of the general exposition. Short-term goals should be stated and obvious since they reveal each character’s desire which drives their actions.
2. Identify a hidden long-term goal for each character. Insert and layer these hidden desires into the story in dialogue and internal monologue. This adds character depth and reader insight.
3. The final inevitable twist is generally wrapped up in the protagonist’s hidden long-term goal. If you’ve layered enough long-term clues earlier in the story, the final twist becomes inevitable.

One last suggestion on developing a final inevitable twist is to consider using the opposite of the protagonist’s hidden long-term goal. This final twist may end up surprising even you, the writer.

What stories have you read that offered great final twists?

Lunch with a Non-Living Author

By WWK Authors

I asked my Writers Who Kill compatriots, “If you could have lunch with any author who is no longer alive, who would you pick and why?” Two or three sentences, we agreed. I should have remembered my friends write well, but some are more challenged with mathematical concepts like two and three. And some don’t eat lunch, preferring tea, or dinner and drinks. (Submitted by James M Jackson)

In alphabetical order by author’s first name, we start with Agatha Christie.

Marilyn Levinson: I’d love to chat with Dame Agatha over tea and scones and discuss poisons and plotting mysteries.

Shari Randall: Like my friend, Marilyn Levinson, I'd love to do high tea with Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime. Perhaps in the library of her wonderful home, Greenway? Or Brown's Hotel, the inspiration for Bertram's Hotel? Wherever we go, I'd love to pick her brain about poisons and plotting, all the while being very careful to keep watch over my teacup. She looks like such a mild-mannered lady, but we all know and admire the devious mind that brought us The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Orient Express.

Then after tea, I'd meet M. C. Beaton for drinks down at the pub.

Marilyn: I’ll go along with Shari to have drinks with M. C. Beaton :) She’s a favorite of mine as well. Love all her series.

Susan Van Kirk: I would love to share a meal with the poet Anne Bradstreet [1612-1672] who was the wife and daughter of two governors of Plymouth Colony. She braved the ocean at age 18 to come to the New World. [Seriously, I would never have climbed aboard that tiny ship.] I'd love to hear about her religious beliefs, her life in the colony of Massachusetts, and how she managed to write while raising eight children with a husband often absent on colony business. Also, I'd like to tell her that she shouldn't have felt guilty about writing. When my first son married, I gave the new couple a framed calligraphy done by an artist friend that intertwined Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and John Ciardi's "Men Marry What They Need." Anne Bradstreet was such an amazing woman, and one evening with her would be the perfect conversation.

EB Davis: If I could have lunch with a dead author I'd choose Anne George because of her humorous Southern Sisters Mystery series, comprising eight novels, set in Birmingham, AL, which won an Agatha Award. What people don’t know about Anne George? She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her poetry collection, Some of it is True. Her humor was delightful, a gift from a very talented author. I’d like to think we’d have a Southern tea party with all the bells and whistles—white tablecloths flapping in a gentle breeze, hydrangea centerpiece, set on an antebellum mansion porch surrounded by old Magnolia trees. 

James M. Jackson: Benjamin Franklin is my preferred lunch companion. He is unique as the author of his autobiography, Poor Richard’s Almanack, and contributor to four of the major United States’ Founding documents (the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris establishing peace with Great Britain, and the U.S. Constitution). He’d probably control the conversation, but I’d love to quiz him on the concept of original intent.

Molly MacRae: I’d love to have a meal with Charlotte MacLeod. There are so many dead people with whom I’d love to have meals, but the humor in Charlotte’s books is a balm in these uncertain times. Having breakfast, lunch, tea, or supper with her would surely be a delight. Or brunch. Then maybe, if I were well-enough behaved, she would let me come over to her house just to sit and watch her write. I’d be very quiet.

Tammy Euliano: I would love to lunch with C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) most famous for the Narnia series in which he painted a remarkable world with amazing and perfectly flawed characters. He skillfully incorporated themes of Christianity without, in my opinion, beating the reader over the head. The stories are enjoyable even if one ignores the well-crafted allusions. His progression from Christian to atheist and back fascinates me, and mirrors my own, the latter portion very much triggered by a reading of his Mere Christianity. The Screwtape Letters is masterful and truly enjoyable (and hilarious).

Grace Topping: When the question of who I would like to have dinner with comes up, I always immediately think of Eleanor Roosevelt, someone I admired immensely.  For this project, I thought of her and then immediately dismissed that idea since we were looking for non-living authors to share a meal with. Then I discovered that Mrs. Roosevelt wrote not only an autobiography but also a book about her twenty years serving as an advice columnist for the Ladies Home Journal. So Eleanor Roosevelt it would be. With her experience as First Lady during WWII and serving at the United Nations, she would make the perfect dinner companion. 

Debra H. Goldstein: If I could have lunch with a dead author, it would be Elmore Leonard, Jr., in order to inhale his wisdom and ability to write spare character and dialogue driven long and short crime fiction and westerns. He was a master at including all the details and intonations while leaving out the parts readers tend to skip.

Kait Carson: I would love to have lunch with Margaret Maron. Her Deborah Knott series, Bootlegger’s Daughter series spanned twenty books. It was always fresh and engaging and her characters consistently surprised the reader. It’s difficult for a series to remain fresh, to keep both author and reader interested. Maron’s character is the only daughter in a huge family, yet each character is unique and vital. The voice never interchangeable. I’d love to learn her process, and swap stories of farm life.

Annette Dashofy: My choice would be Mary Higgins Clark. I was fortunate enough to meet her several years ago, although briefly. We writers know about the “elevator pitch” where agents are concerned. I literally rode down on the elevator with her at our hotel when she was guest of honor at Bouchercon. I managed to stutter out how much her writing influenced my choice of genre, but there is so much more I’d love to talk to her about.

Martha Reed: If I could have lunch with a dead author, I’d choose Mary Roberts Rinehart, the American “Agatha Christie,” although technically MRR’s successful crime fiction career developed first. Born in 1876 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania near downtown Pittsburgh, prolific and dedicated to her art, MRR wrote The Circular Staircase in 1908. The book sold over a million copies and propelled her to international fame. The story was adapted into a long-running Broadway play, The Bat, which is credited with influencing the comic-book superhero Batman. During WWI, she served as the first woman war correspondent to the Belgian front. In 1929, she helped her sons found the publishing house Farrar & Rinehart and served as its director. She developed series characters Letitia (Tish) Carberry and Nurse-Detective Hilda Adams (AKA Miss Pinkerton) in hundreds of short stories. She is also credited with inventing the phrase “The Butler Did It” from her novel The Door in 1930. In 1947, her personal chef tried to shoot her at point blank range over a menu dispute, but the gun misfired. He then chased her through the house brandishing carving knives. MWA awarded her a Special Edgar in 1954. MRR died in 1958 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. My first question to her would be: “Where do I begin?”

Margaret S. Hamilton: I would like to have lunch with P.D. James and discuss her use of place, particularly as it performs the role of a major character. I’m curious which comes first, the setting or the characters (I suspect it’s the former). My favorite Adam Dalgleish novel is Devices and Desires, set on a fictional isolated headland near a nuclear power station on the Norfolk coast. Cordelia Gray, her young private investigator, investigates a Cambridge student’s suicide in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman.

Jennifer J. Chow: If I could have lunch with a dead author I'd choose Wilkie Collins because he set the scene for detective and multi-narration novels. Also, I'm impressed in general by authors who wrote serials and could insert dramatic suspense. Finally, I appreciate that he populated his books with women and explored domestic issues.

Your turn: In the comments tell us who you’d choose and why.

Do you Write Daily or in Spurts?

Do you Write Daily or in Spurts? by Debra H. Goldstein

There are many articles and blogs written about whether a writer is a pantser or a plotter, but what about the motivation to write? How do different writers respond to the muse – or do they?

I have a friend who retired the same week I did to follow her passion for writing. Although I have had more short stories published during the intervening time period, she has written three times as many books as I have. She writes every day. If she knows she isn’t going to be able to write on a given day, she anticipates the extra words she needs to stay on schedule and works overtime in advance. Her books are excellent, but it is her productivity that overwhelms me.

For me, writing is a passion, but I don’t do it every day. When I try to be that rigid, I usually end up throwing out the words I write. They feel and read forced. I work best when I have a book deadline or am writing in response to a prompt or concept. In those instances, it is like having an out of body experience. Hours pass without me even realizing it. Often the final product needs little to no revision.

Sometimes, when I’m writing with this sense of freedom, I hit a brick wall. The words stop flowing or the idea doesn’t seem right. Some writers push through when this happens, but I pause and let my subconscious work. It may take days until I write again. Often, the answer comes to me in my sleep. Unlike a story idea that I may dream and forget, the thoughts that come to me in my sleep are more of an understanding of how the piece should proceed. The words may not be there, yet, but the mechanism for moving forward is.

What about you? Do you write every day? Do you work out problems with your WIP in your sleep? Is there a motivation difference between a writer who writes every day and one who writes in spurts like I do?