Straight Lines and Circles

I have noticed an increase lately in stories - both in books and in films or television programmes - which are not told in chronological order.

 

They open half-way through the action and the reader or viewer is challenged to keep up as the narrative weaves between past and present, often with little signposting as to where the action is occurring.

 

It seems that to tell a story in the 'right order' - in the order that the events occurred is too ordinary.

 

However, to tell a story in a non-chronological order now seems the norm.  It has become ordinary and, perhaps, overused.

 

I wonder if this shift away from chronological structuring is a reflection of our fractured and fragmented understanding of the world around us, especially compared to our predecessors, who had a shared understanding of who they were and where they were going.  With a multiplicity of options available to us today with regards to where we live, where we work, when we work, what we do in our spare time, what we believe - morally, politically and religiously etc., is it any wonder that this variety of options has made its way into our story-telling too?

 

Rather than adhering to a grand narrative, we have created a pick-and-mix form of narrating, where we choose what we want in a story and the order in which we want it.  Moreover, with the increase in social media, we are used to telling our own stories in small snippets - Facebook statuses are usually short and snappy, and Twitter imposes a 140 character limit on all tweets, forcing us to condense our stories into short fragments.

 

Perhaps there is also a preoccupation with the past evident in these texts which circle back on themselves.  A desire to revisit memories in order to better understand them and to understand where we have come from in order to move forwards.

 

Whilst chronological texts are usually much easier to read - and to keep up with - perhaps this (relatively) modern inclination to tell a story in a disjointed or fragmented way, which circles back on itself and dips into the past and the future, is a more realistic representation of life. 

 

We live our lives in a straight line, on one level, but we are always projecting dreams and hopes and worries into the future and are constantly reflecting on and revisiting the past - both literally and mentally. 

 

Our lives are composed of both straight lines and circles and it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that our narratives are too.

 

 

 

 

Planning and Failing

I'm sure we can all join in with the catchphrase: "Failing to plan is ... planning to fail."

It is tossed around school classrooms and lecture theatres any time that there is a big exam or essay due.

It is a commonly accepted notion that if you want to write well, you need to plan what you're going to write.

However, I remember listening to a children's author several years ago who said that, in her writing, she likes to get her characters into situations from which she doesn't know how they are going to get free.

Why?

Because it makes the story more authentic.  Neither reader nor writer [for a period] know what is going to happen to the characters and how the problems are going to resolve.  The emotions are real; the panic, the tension, the desperation is real.  Rather than introducing a character who until now has been hidden, but who can sort everything out, or creating a contrived and neat 'exit clause' ["And then I woke up.  It had all been a dream."], the writing seems real, because it is raw.

Is she planning to fail?

I don't think so.

Isn't writing an adventure?  A journey?  A discovery? 

And sometimes planning out a route [no matter how thorough and thoughtful] can restrict your journey or adventure.  And it can restrict your writing.  What if you have your story all planned out, but another new [better] idea occurs to you whilst you are writing?  Do you discard it, as it's not part of the plan, or do you change your plan to accommodate the new thought?

I know some writers who plan meticulously and know exactly what they are going to write before they ever put pen to paper.

But as for me, I prefer to have a general idea and see what happens.  I prefer to 'discover' my story as I write it.  It makes it seem more real and genuine and exciting.  And that is what I look for, as a reader.

To me, planning is planning to fail.

5 Words Or Less

I have been thinking today about how many words it takes to make a story.  Or rather, how few words you can use to make a story.  We often think that the longer a sentence is, the more descriptive detail we can include: the longer the better.  But how often do we lose impact and effect in our writing by waffling?  Just how easy is it to convey a tone, an emotion, a character in just a couple of words?

Ernest Hemingway famously claimed to be able to tell a story using just six words:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Whilst there is no stereotypical ‘Beginning, Middle and End’, and it doesn’t describe the scene or develop the plot or characters, there is something desperately sad about those six words.  Something more moving than paragraphs spent building “realistic’ characters.  We aren’t given all of the details, but we fill them in for ourselves.   

And isn’t that part of what writing is all about?  Leaving gaps and spaces for the reader to fill with their own ideas and experiences?  Isn't all writing - seen by others - an invitation into a dialogue?

I challenged myself to use exactly five words to suggest a story.  Not to give all of the details, but to hint at something bigger and to leave the reader to tell the rest of the story themselves.  None of them come close to Hemingway's micro-story, but I had fun creating them and restricting myself to just five words (I'm not sure why I chose five words.  Probably because it's possible to count on one hand!)

The ocean was calm again.

No one heard her scream.

“It won’t hurt.”  He grinned.

They would never meet again.

He never received the letter.

Have a go and post your own 5 word (or less) sentences/micro-stories.

There are some interesting short story ideas at http://www.very-short-story.com/ (I follow him on Twitter too) and http://www.storybytes.com/.

Writer's Block

Writer’s Block

Perhaps I should start by touching the proverbial wood as I say I have never experienced that feared phenomena “Writer’s Block”.  Of course there have been many times when I have stared hopelessly at my screen or notebook and have felt that the words are stuck somewhere or, worse, are deliberately hiding from me.  However, I have never considered these times (or ‘periods’, as they sometimes last much longer), as moments of “Writer’s Block.”  Perhaps they are.  Perhaps I am living in denial.  But I have always viewed them as part of the ebb and flow of writing; I have seen these times as unavoidable, perhaps even welcome.

At times like these, I have several options: sometimes I try to keep writing in spite of the difficulties.  This can feel irritating and useless, a bit like insisting on walking around with your shoes on the wrong feet: at best uncomfortable, at worst a painful waste of time.  However, I have often returned to what I have written in these moments to find myself pleasantly surprised.  Some of it isn't half bad, some perhaps even salvageable.

I often have several writing projects on the go at once - all incredibly varied - so if I am struggling with one, I will sometimes focus my attention on another piece of writing to see if that helps to 'unblock' things, or to inspire other ideas.  If writing is completely impossible and seems to be getting worse with every scribbled-out word, or angry backspacing, I will take a complete break from writing.  This could be for a couple of hours or a couple of months. (Thankfully my writing is - at the moment - 'just for pleasure', so I don't have the restrictions of deadlines. Perhaps my relaxed attitude towards Writer's Block would change if I am ever lucky enough to find myself hurtling towards publishing deadlines...)

In this time, I don't worry about my writing; in fact, I often don't think about it at all.  I do other things that inspire me: I read books by a whole variety of authors about a whole variety of topics and times and places; I read articles and blogs; I paint and draw and doodle; I go to places that inspire me and interest me; I chat to fellow writers and friends and share ideas; I am trying to teach myself guitar; I spend a lot of time on Facebook (and, more recently, Twitter) ...

And in all of these not-writing activities, I never once feel plagued by the curse of Writer's Block.  I enjoy whatever I am doing and don't feel guilty or naughty for not writing.  I don't experience moments of panic.  I don't wake up sweating with fear in the middle of the night. 

In fact, after an indefinable period of time, I return to writing feeling refreshed.  Maybe even excited.  Without having noticed how or when, I find that new ideas and characters and plots have somehow seeped into my mind.  And as I start to write again, I watch them spill out onto the page and wonder where they have come from.

Perhaps the issue of "Writer's Block" is more to do with what we call it and what power we give to it. There are many books and articles about "overcoming" or "beating" the "debilitating" "difficulty" of "Writer's Block".  But what if we viewed it in a less threatening light?  What if we didn't see it as something that has power over us, but as an inevitable part of the process of writing?

What if we called it "Writer's Pause" or "Writer's Rest"; or, if we are being very literary, "Writer's Hiatus"?