To write a best seller, you have to live in the story you are writing… another place and in another time.
In your real life, your life maybe humdrum:
The story you want to write about is on another dimension, in different circumstances, beyond your quiet simple lifestyle. How then, do you write about stuff that will thrill other people, when your own life is so boring?
You have to live in the time-warp of your story. Think and behave like you are actually in those circumstances.
Considering conditions:
First you have to know the theme gentry you want to write about. Is it an adventure story, romantic novel, thriller, etc. What is required of the gentry? What circumstances will the characters be playing in?
What the history, place and conditions would be like on that time line. If it goes back in time your will have to look up the history of that time.
Consider the fashions people wore then and the animals, birds, etc that lived then. What would their transport be like then, and the perils they’re likely to face?
But what about futuristic stuff?
You have to think up unknown stuff `out of the top of your head’! Things people have never experienced or seen before! Scary way-out stuff!
This might sound silly, but you can start with what you know, what you desire or intent to write about. Once you have a vague setting in mind, you can elaborate on it and play around with it. This is how you do that:
Start writing:
Write anything, even if it’s a lot of trot. Silly weird nonsense can get you started writing. Perhaps it’s an outlandish thought you’ve had for years, that you can now play around with.
And playing around with those words and sentences gets your thoughts moving. This exercise prevents you from having writer’s block. But keep in mind this is just an exercise that you can trash later.
But somewhere in that so-called trash’, there will be something that sparks off thetrue’ story, that you can possibly base your real story on later.
So any time you get stuck in your story and don’t know what next to write, start writing silly-trash again, whatever comes to your mind! You can always eliminate or even use some of it later!
No bother, you’re the ‘guy’ that’s in control, aren’t you?!
Picture the place:
You can gather visual-aid pictures from old magazines to give you something to work on. Or do what I do. I paint the scenes (in watercolour) as I think up the story. It confirms the settings of the plot in my mind.
Watercolours are quicker to do than oil painting. And I love the subtle atmospheric conditions watercolours can produce! The more subtle the blurriness of the washes, the more thought provoking they are for me. The vagueness stirs your imagination… like it could be this or that, whatever the scene suggests.
Know personality traits:
We discussed in an earlier blog, about creating characters for your stories. So I won’t go into that right now.
But you have to know your characters and how they would behave in certain conditions and circumstances. One way is to look up the characteristics of the zodiac, for the possible behaviour of the type of person you have in mind.
Now live there:
You have to `live’ in your story, in order to feel the emotions and see what your characters going through.
I paint different types of scenes, like stormy scenes, dark starry nights, rocky shores and mysterious caves, etc. It sets the mood for me. And people respond emotionally to moody dramatic settings.
There is so much to talk about here.
So I’ll continue with this topic in my next `Writing Best seller Books’ blog… “Think wild thoughts!”