The Yin and Yang of Creative Writing

Much of the power of fiction derives from the tension between what is present and what is missing (the Yin and Yang of creative writing?)  Often, it is a sense of yearning or curiosity to explore this gap which drives a plot forward, so this is a factor which is well worth considering when you are planning a story, or thinking about how you can improve the construction of it.

This intriguing idea of discrepancy can be expressed in a number of different ways:

• Between the past and present.
• Between reality and aspiration.
• Between the known facts of a situation and the unknown ones.
• Between what you've had and what you've lost.
• Between the dead and the living.
• Between how your character sees herself and how others see her.
• Between power and impotence.

I'm sure you can think of hundreds iof examples of your own and -- who knows -- one of them may be the springboard for a new story or a useful way of fixing up an old one.

Perhaps this tension is also what lies at the heart of my fascination with doors: the interplay between the present, outside the door, and the unknown country that lies across the threshold....

A Quick Calculation

In his absorbing history of American Art on BBC 4, Andrew Graham Dixon described what he called Jackson Pollock's "calculated incoherence".  I thought it was an interesting phrase.  Its neatly differentiates art from mere accident. If you kick a paint can over you get a splash, but Pollock's intention of capturing the artist's motion and rhythm in paint is something altogether different.

It's a useful thought to have in your head when you are writing.  Without calculation at a profound, artistic level, stream of consciousness would be reduced to rambling, but there's a great deal more to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce et al than that.  If your own work is to stand on robust and intriguing foundations, the reader needs to be aware of your intention in writing.  You need to make clear to them (by means of a well-honed plot and vibrant characters) what your message is and how you are communicating it. You could, in theory,  get away with using crap dialogue, as long as you make it clear that it is appropriate to and indivisible from the character who is speaking it. A major part of the process of "calculation" lies in the editing: distilling and refining.

Part of writing is down to happy accident, but it's not just that. If you are to have any resilience as a writer, you need to write with the confidence that comes with making your intentions plain.

How to Avoid Cliches in Your Writing

Think laterally.

That's basically it.  Don't settle for the first thought that pops into your head.  Probe a little more deeply.  For example, one of the cliches which makes me cringe most of all is the device of conveying your heroine's appearance by having her look at herself in the mirror. However, if you are really stuck on using it, how about having another character watching her while she looks at herself in the mirror?  In this scenario you still get plenty of opportunity to describe her appearance, but there are several other little plums for you to pick at the same time:

• What is the relationship between the two people?  
• Do they have different responses to the heroine's image in the mirror?
• Is the watcher regarding his own reflection too, and if so what does he make of it?  
• Does the heroine know that she is being observed and if so, does this make her less artless, more guarded? 

 In this way, you can infuse what started out as something potentially extremely dull with some subtlety, and the end result is infinitely more intriguing.

N.B. The same process can be applied to other cliches too.

Otherwise Evil-Adverbiously...

 ...is a great phrase of Charles Dickens' which wittily refers to the folly and shortcomings of using adverbs in your work.

Jasper was walking slowly along the road when a car came suddenly round the corner.  The driver frantically hit the brakes and the car quickly came to a halt.  The driver leaned across and spoke furiously to Jasper through the open window.  Jasper was completely bemused by this, as he had no recollection of having seen the man before.

To the inexperienced writer they can seem like a great way of describing things: in my horrible piece above, Jasper was indeed walking slowly, so you might think that I have done the job of conjuring up the scene here.  But how was he walking?  Slowly tells us nothing much.  Was he ambling, strolling, wandering, creeping,  weaving...? The list is long and each word has different associations and nuances, so choose the one which comes closest to what you mean.

A car came suddenly around the corner. Hmm.  Don't like that very much.  It's bland and colourless.  How much more dramatic to say swerved, or screeched, or skidded. Similarly, instead of  The driver frantically hit the brakes and the car quickly came to a halt, how about something along the lines of, The driver slammed on the brakes and the car lurched to a halt? There's more economy, and with economy comes accuracy and narrative tension.

In the same vein, shouted, or yelled, or screamed, or bellowed all carry a greater descriptive payload than spoke furiously and use only one word instead of two. And in my phrase completely bemused the word completely is (completely) redundant: bemused does all the work for you.

Nuts and bolts stuff, I know, and just before the weekend too, but the devil is in the detail (perhaps I'll cover cliches next week...)

Reading Between The Lines

One of the key things which, as a writer, you have to do, is to form some kind of a relationship with your reader.  There are a number of tactics you can use: if your story affirms their own experience of life they will warm towards it and you.  Another ploy is to set them to work:  if you do everything for them, they will have less reason to engage with your story, but if you make them unpick various different knots, then your book will stay in their heads long after they had finished reading it.  One way of doing this is to make sure that they have to read between the lines of what you have written in order to get the full picture.

Have a go at writing a piece in which one world, or a version of it, exists on the written page, while another lurks just out of reach.  You can do this as a plot-based exercise, or have a go at characterisation, for example, you could have one character describing another in fulsome terms, but with just enough edge and bite to suggest a whole other secret, risque side of the person's nature too. Whatever that you decide upon, make sure you give your reader a rigorous work out, as that will get their intellectual endorphins flowing.

Starting to Write - Another Door Opening

On the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning they had a feature about why so many of us forget what we have come into a room to do - you walk in, and it's gone.  Apparently, it's because doors have an effect on the way our minds work. Its official!  They encourage us to bury past experience and start afresh. So here's a lovely door from Burgundy, when many of the best of them are to be found.

When you are starting a new piece of work, picture yourself throwing your whole weight against a heavy door again and again, trying to burst it open and imagine the feeling when it finally gives and you find yourself flung into the room.  Take that sense of momentum and write something - anything - as long as it is vibrant and fresh.  But don't necessarily bury past experience -- draw upon it.

Intricacies of Articulation - Putting Thoughts into Words

A couple are sitting at a table.  They are wearing their outdoor clothes.  He is smoking a cigarette and gazing over her shoulder into the middle distance.  She is smoothing the fingers of her left hand, staring at her wedding ring, with a kind of bleak acceptance that she is still wearing it.

There; I've set the scene for you. You could flesh out a few more details -- the time of day, the season (who knows, it may have a bearing on what is going on), the year.  You might like to think about how old the couple are;  how long they have been married. Don't be afraid to follow the ravelings of your imagination.

Next  I'd like you to concentrate on all the thoughts that are going on inside the heads of each of them.  If it helps you, make a list. Think how difficult it can be to raise an awkward subject, then show one of them plucking up the courage (or becoming so desperate that they can no longer stays silent) to say something. The first salvo is launched.  Each response is as difficult as the last; there is nothing quickfire about this, at least to begin with.  Instead, there is plenty of displacement activity. See if you can convert all the thoughts that you originally listed into dialogue -- there is no room for interior monologue here.  When you have finished, try taking out about one third of the speech, so that what is left is fragmentary and oblique.

If you want to have a go at this, post your work here and I'll tell you what I think.