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Universal Themes.

Universal Themes.

I could be wrong.
I've held the position, ever since I started working on my novel "Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe," that this story did not have a mass audience. After all, how many people out there want to hear about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of a bisexual man? How many people want to hear a story that rises the question: "Can we love more than one and the same time?"
Fringe. That's what I've felt. It's a fringe story about fringe issues facing fringe people living fringe lives. The fact that I waited nearly 25 years since I started writing this story to get around to publishing it, could make it even more fringe. Who in 2013 wants to hear about a tale from the 1980s? Well, to this last question I have an answer - oddly enough as far as the themes in the story go there isn't much that would be different now.
This is where I begin to wonder if I might be wrong about who would be interested in my novel. Not much has changed in regards to the themes because the themes are universal. My novel is about about trying to find a way to function in a world that wasn't put together with you in mind, about struggling to be true to one's self, about choices, about desire, and ultimately about unstoppable love.
These are all themes that nearly everyone can relate to, themes important to the human condition. The exact details of how these themes are portrayed in the story really aren't important to the reader; what is important to the reader is that the story is told in a way that rings true to them, and touches them, and helps them better understand themselves, others, and the lives we lead.
This is what storytelling is all about. This is why we have storytelling, why people love a great book or a great movie.
So maybe I'm wrong - maybe my novel has a mass audience? For the answer to these and other burning questions, stay tuned.

You've Got to Live a Little to be a Good Writer

You've Got to Live a Little to be a Good Writer
In my blog post, Every Experience is Potential Fodder for a Future Novel, I talk about how bad experiences have the redeeming quality of being useful in writing fiction. Now I'm going to emphasis how important good experiences are for writing.
Sure it's hard to find time to run around and have fun if you're busy writing, but the inspiration and experiences you gain will actually make your writing easier, faster, and better.
Chances are, if you don't live it up, you'll face extra challenges in being a good writer. Sure, if you've never been to the ocean you can find a way to write a beach scene, but you won't be able to add the fine details that describes the feeling of being there in a unique way that sets your work apart.
So many writing classes seem to be about accessing ideas and bringing your creativity alive, but all you really need is to have an interesting life of your own. Then ideas will come at you so fast you'll just have to worry about learning to have fun with editing.
So go out and climb a mountain, or dance in a mud puddle, or take Vietnamese cooking lessons, or fall in love, or talk to strangers, or join a kayaking club. Then tell me how it went; I can't wait to read all about it.

Writing from the Opposite Sex's Point of View.

Writing from the Opposite Sex's Point of View.

My novel "Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe" is written from the first person point of view of a man (Jim). What made me think I could pull this off despite the fact that I'm a woman? First of all, to my credit, I would like to note that I didn't think it was a good idea, and fought (valiantly, I might add) against the notion. But, alas, to make the novel work that is what had to be done. When you read it you'll see, getting inside Jim's motivations, emotions, and internal conflict is what makes the story.
But my reluctance was not because I didn't think I could pull it off. My reluctance was because I was concerned that others would find fault in the notion.
So, back to the question, what made me think I could know what a man would think, feel and want? There are a few things that contributed to my confidence in this task.
For one thing I am, personality-wise quite androgynous. I don't feel especially female, but nor do I feel especially male. Personality attributes that are mainly considered highly feminine or highly masculine are mostly puzzling to me. Thus, by making Jim not hyper masculine in personality, it was fairly easy for me to get a grasp on how he'd think.
Another thing about me - and I think this is the norm for all good writers - is that I have a strong sense of empathy. Being able to put yourself in another person's shoes (or bed, or bar scene, or classroom, or dinner conversation) enables one to imagine, or understand, what that person - based on what you know about them and I know a lot about Jim - would be sensing or experiencing, no matter who they are.
Indeed, there is so much that is universal to all humans when it comes to issues of love, desire, being true to oneself, loneliness, friendship, fear, hope and longing that no matter what sex you are, you can tap into those themes (all of which are in my novel) and the accompanying feelings, actions, and reactions.

Weed out the Irrelevant.

Weed out the Irrelevant.
I have those words on a physics classroom chalkboard in a scene in my novel, "Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe." Those words on the chalkboard are not important to the scene, but they are relevant, and those words are relevant to most any situation.
They certainly are important and relevant when it comes to writing.
In a writer's group I use to belong to, one of the other writers was reading a scene from her novel. At the beginning of the scene she has her character take his wool cap and gloves out of the car. She makes a point of showing us this action so I kept looking for the relevance in the scene. Does he leave them at the party and this is why he goes back the next day and meets the person who is going to change his life? Does he turn out to be the only one who is prepared for the cold night and thus impresses his date? Does it turn out the cap and gloves belong to someone else thus revealing him to be a thief? Do we see this behavior so that we'll know he's the kind of guy who's always prepared? No. In fact, the hat and gloves are never mentioned again, and when I asked why she put that in there, she said she just wanted to keep the story true to life by including what a person would likely be doing at that moment.
We can't keep our fiction TOO true to life. There are so many details in life that are... well, irrelevant. And these details, like the cap and gloves - become distractions from your story. Likewise, if you included every hello and good-bye for every conversation in your book, it would drive your readers to boredom. But there may be times when the particulars of the encounter make including those necessary or important.  Sometimes the relevance of a detail is subtle but very useful - as in my chalkboard words.

The Stories Within.

The Stories Within.

Lots of people over the years have said to me, when they found out I was a writer, "Oh, I've got a great story for you to write!" I'm always shocked - though you'd think I shouldn't be by now - that people think I need help finding tales to tell.
One of the things about needing to be a writer is that there are stories inside that are constantly pushing to get out, and one of the best things about being a novelist is using the imagination to create new world and new lives. Writing someone else's story would be like repainting a watercolor. There is an art to retelling someone else's story, but it's very different from inventing your own.
The hard part for me isn't coming up with ideas, it's making those ideas gel into form, getting my characters to take on a life of their own, and then getting them to let me tame them a bit to make the plot work.
On the same note, when I was a beginning writer, I often found that creative writing classes focused on accessing your inner creativity to dream up stories. This was always frustrating for me because I had all sorts of ideas running amok and just needed to learn how to corral them; I needed the techniques for good story telling, and info like: how not to overuse commas - which I think I still do.