For me, answering that question is as simple as determining what is a) it that I am interested in; b) what am I currently reading (e.g. news, fiction, scripts, and etc.); c) what has changed in my life recently.

As a result of these (simple) criteria, finding something to write about is rarely difficult. I am interested in the political atmosphere – especially during a presidential election year; I enjoy reading books, especially good books – though you occasionally have to delve into crap to find good authors; I enjoy figurI am married which adds to the writing fodder; I am interested in cars and other mechanical things; more, I have a wide berth of interests that (on occasion) take precedence and cause me to want to write.

These are some of the things I will write about when it comes to places like my blog. However, how do these same “topics” inform what I write when I sit down to work on fiction. Again, how you tell a story (voice) is a part of the kinds of things you see as an individual and are important to you. Therefore, the kinds of things that interest you – and how you write about them, what words and phrases you use to describe your interests (and etc.) are directly linked to what you will write about when you sit down and write fiction.

What all of this means (for you) is that by writing what you like, enjoy, or are interested in regardless of what it is will help you when you decide to sit down and write similar descriptive elements into your fiction.

So, choosing what to write is a matter or realizing what you like and are interested in and then making the time to write about those subjects.

What makes this list interesting to me was the result it had on some of the conversations I’d had with Erin. As we walked around, drove around, sat around, and talked about a variety of different things, the outcome was that Erin would say something and it would spark another item on the list that I would then share with her.

A couple of examples:

• Best friends with red hair.

The Alicia Grey novel actually deals with different girls with red hair. We were driving to an animal store so Erin could experience wiggles and love (her signal that she needs or wants to hold puppies). I don’t recall what brought up the “red hair” issue of our conversation – as we are having children it could’ve been a conversation about the potentiality of future child(s) hair color – which prompted me to remember that item on the Anthony’s list (number 2, by-the-by).

As I talked about the frustration (personal) of a list that could potentially eliminate the writing of two characters in a story that I intend to get published some day by a major North American publisher. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am going to write these characters as I see them in my head, both with red hair, both essentially and inherently red-headed…. Erin pointed repeated to me the reason I was writing the characters that way I was (red-heads) as they are based off of specific character-types.

•  Guys with extraordinarily long eye-lashes.

Truth told, Erin pointed out that I had long eyelashes. Instead of pointing out (me to her) that testosterone is what causes naturally long eyelashes, I found myself reverting to this list and that “long eyelashes” were an overused item in Y/A novels.

The list is pretty good. I’d suggest going over it… if for nothing more than just to comment about it or become (slightly) more aware of these things creeping into Y/A novels.

However, one night, as I was reading, I came across a little blurb I thought was interesting. Essentially:

You are not writing if you are not abusing your characters.

What does this mean?

Well, I think that is a fair question and at times I wonder if I have any clue how to answer it. You know, Harry Pottter is a loveable character; but, when you watch him in his world, everything bad that can happen has or does happen to the guy… and yet, he still comes out swinging. Essentially, Harry is orphaned, he is made to live with abusive relatives, he is both loved and hated, and often distrusted, by his classmates. He found a home at Hogwarts, but it is never permanent enough to actually be called his home. He has to leave Hogwarts because Voldemort takes over the Magic government. Basically, when good things happen to Harry, bad things are not far behind.

That is one example. What other examples can we look at?

Pretty much anything you read. Currently, I am reading a book titled Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas.  He also wrote, Little Girl Lost, which I read a year or two ago. Anyway, the protagonist, John Blake is constantly finding himself in danger. He is also, constantly, trying to find his way out of a life where his friends and old flames end up dying. Blake is an ex-P.I. who is working as an Administrative Assistant at Columbia University’s College of Writing. He wants to write. However, before the story starts, a friend of his ends up dead, suicide, and he has promised to find the murderer while protecting the friends mother from knowing what she was doing for a living (hint: it has something to do with sex).

At every turn Blake is confronted with something new, different. Whether it is the angry, distraught mother of the deceased, or a large hitman chasing him through some underground tunnels beneath Columbia that were used for steam and coal transport. At every turn he is either in danger or the threat of potential danger, imprisonment (he works against and alongside the police) are prevalent.

In  Aleas’s previous book with the same protagonist, the character investigated the murder of an ex-girlfriend and encountered many of the same problems, issues, that he is here. Some people didn’t want him to succeed, the police thought he might be a part of it, he was arrested, beaten, and watched people die. Friends. Coworkers. As a result, in every chapter you are either in a happy state (nothing bad is happening) or a sad state (stuff has hit the fans). Most happy chapters are transitional. The characters are catching their (collective) breathes and the audience gets to see that the world is not all bad and then you get back into the thick of things.

The point to abusing the characters is that you have to keep things interesting, you have to set them up either to succeed or fail, and with the possibility that they are going to fail. Back to Harry Potter, at any given moment a lackey of Voldemort could’ve killed Harry. And yet, they didn’t because Voldemort wanted to kill him. At any moment, Harry could’ve given up and left England… well, Scotland, where Hogwarts was, and landed in America or some other obscure country, but he didn’t. He stuck it out because, in the realm of storytelling, as the Hero Harry had to remain where he was and fight the battles because it was in the fight that his story becomes interesting, readable, and memorable.

The reason I picked up a copy of this book, in particular, is that I was told I didn’t have a good enough grasp of how to write a young girls POV when describing how she would see someone else, like her mother or an older version of herself. What I’d done was write something that consisted of a man, adult, looking at a woman who was meant to be very attractive with specific features. These features, though, would be something that a young girl would notice, though not in the same way as a man.

In essence, I misinterpreted how someone might look at the same image as me. The outcome, buy a book that does something similar to what I want to accomplish. I would copy the two instances of the part of the story to illustrate… wait, that’s actually a VERY good idea…

These examples come from a couple different drafts of an introductory story for Cassandra West:

“Cassandra looked at herself in the mirror. She expected to see a short, thin, dark haired girl. Instead, she saw a woman, slightly taller than herself, wearing canvas pants and a cotton top with strings tying it together from just below what looked like considerable breasts showing off her cleavage at the top. The woman had a pair of holsters hanging over each hip complete with .45 Colt Peacemakers in the holsters with dozens of additional rounds on the outside of the belt. Her feet were covered in leather moccasins that came up to her mid-calf over the top of the canvas pants; leather cords wrapped around her ankles and ties at the top keeping the moccasins in place. This woman had bright, sun-bleached, blonde hair.

Cassandra looked at the woman in the mirror. She reached toward the glass without touching. “I want to be her.”“

That was the instance that brought several less than enthusiastic comments. This is what caused me to buy The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. The next draft looks like:

“Angling herself into the room so she was standing in front of the mirror, she looked at her reflection. Instead of seeing a short, thin, dark haired girl wearing an off-white nightgown with some embroidery on it, she saw a woman, slightly taller than herself, wearing canvas pants and a cotton top with strings lacing it together from mid-belly to three or four inches below her neck. The woman in the mirror was clearly older, more of an age with her mother, except more round at the hips, a thinner waste, more defined torso, and less matronly. The woman wore a pair of holsters hanging over each hip complete with too large .45 Colt Peacemakers and dozens of additional rounds in loops on the outside of the belt. Her feet were covered in leather moccasins that were laced up with leather cords around ankles and calves and tied at the top at mid-calf over her canvas pants. The most distinct difference between the woman in the mirror and Cassandra’s mother was the sun-bleached blonde hair.

Cassandra looked at the woman in the mirror. She reached toward the glass without touching. “I want to be her.”“

I think the second one reflects a better representation of what a young might do if faced with a woman who is meant to be attractive, but not described the same way as the first one. The outcome, between these two, is, quite literally, that you describe shape (girl) rather than feature (boy).

Anyway, the book covers the life of Charlotte Doyle, a young girl traveling across the Atlantic on a ship owned by her father’s company. As the ship sets sail, things begin to happen from her seeing faces where she shouldn’t to individuals of the crew informing her of a possible mutiny. The outcome, Charlotte Doyle is tried and convicted of murder, though how you get to that point is entirely amazing as the author doesn’t give a lot away until it happens.

I took a couple of weeks to read the book, as I was, and am, in the middle of school work and reading other things, as well as writing on Alicia Grey and Cassandra West, and as a result, would spend several joyous minutes flipping through pages and sitting on the edge of whatever chair I was using hoping that Charlotte would survive and knowing that she (first person POV) was narrating the story as an adult looking back, but losing myself enough in the telling of the story that I would think, “This girl is about to die.”

Ultimately, the book was purchased as an example of what I needed to be doing and ended up being an example of an exceptionally well written book by someone who is very talented at what he does. I would suggest, to anyone looking for a good, simple, easy read that will keep you hooked, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and I can see myself insisting that any daughters I have, someday, read this book.

With that said, I did not agree with how the story ended, but I couldn’t think of a way to end the story that wouldn’t radically change the book from what it is to something else entirely.

Macro

Macro is a term that means large. You wanted that lesson, I am sure. However, when you take a macro view of your story you pull way, way out and write a very broad story with a lot of information. There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Third-person Omniscient
2. Third-person limited

In the Omniscient viewpoint you, as narrator,  have a godlike ability to see everything. It’s a cool power, but one that is, actually, very hard to write successfully. Be published and successful and then go into the realm of experimenting with this one… either that, or write it and see what happens. You could be good at it.

Third-person limited, though is what a lot of stories are told in. You are told a lot of things, but you are not actually in the mind of the characters. You are more of that little bird sitting there watching events unfold and only privy to the thoughts when they are important, rather than when something is happening.

I would have to say that Third-person Limited is probably pretty close to the Medium viewpoint rather than being in the macro. But, I add this caveat, only when it is limited to one person. Many writer sit between Medium and Macro by leaping from one character to another.

Medium

Medium viewpoint is really just that. You are not in the head of the protagonist or main character, but you are pretty much only following that individual. An example of this (I think) is Tim Pratt’s latest novel Blood Engines, I will be reviewing this book. In it, you mostly follow Marla (his protagonist), but sometimes, maybe a half dozen, you leap into the head of B, a once nearly famous movie actor who has become a seer and doesn’t know it. The outcome is that you watch the events unfold through Marla, with limited access to her thoughts; but you also get to follow things through B’s perspective as well – though rarely. I can see why people asked, before the book was published (his first readers) whether or not B would be in future books.

Micro

Then there is the Micro viewpoint to things. This is when you sit in the head of the protagonist and you are not only privy to their thoughts, but every pertinent thought they have. I enjoy reading the Rachel Morgan series of books by Kim Harrison. Rachel Morgan is a witch, she is an independent runner tracking down fugitive magical creatures around Cincinnati, OH. The outcome is that you get every jot and tittle of her thoughts when it comes to people, her roommates and partners, and the crushes she has. It is an extremely well written series of books that sits, specifically, in the Micro level of description and detail.

Another good book, I am finding, for this is by AVI, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. You are limited to what Charlotte knows throughout the book and little or nothing more. When she discovers something, so do you. It is, actually, a rather amazing little read. Too bad it is taking me some time to actually work my way through the book.

Regardless of the way something is written, the objective to narrative is to begin and remain in the level of writing you are doing: Macro, Medium, or Micro, or some combination of these elements.

You have a good idea where the characters all start… most likely with the dog walking through the neighborhood complaining about the life he is forced to lead because he’s a dog. And then instinct kicks in and he starts to chase a cat. He trees the cat. That cat opens its mouth and… nothing. Not even a mew.

The dog, frustrating, walks away from the tree and decides to head home; except, suddenly, the dog doesn’t know where home is. He looks around and the neighborhood is completely different from what he remembered it to be moments before. He’s lost his memory, or maybe he has alzhiemers or is some product of a government experiment. The reason matters, but here you are stuck. You know that you have to write something, you know the audience needs something in the way of explanation, but… you don’t know what….

That’s when, as an author, you sit there and stare at the page. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, you decide to start writing and see what happens. You begin with the dog, his name is Rolph, and he is chasing the cat up the tree. The cat is in the tree, it opens its mouth, and nothing comes out, not even a mew. And then Rolph, who clearly remembers his name, suddenly turns to leave, to go home, and looks around noticing that he doesn’t recognize the neighborhood anymore. That’s when Rolph does remember that he’d run through something spraying a rather foul smelling liquid out of a broken pipe in between two large industrial buildings.

He remembers, since he can both speak and read that there were signs indicating dangerous chemicals; but even remembering that is causing some troubles. Rolph knows a few things:

1. He has to regain his memory to go home.
2. The cat made noise when he started chasing it.
3. He is just a dog.

This starts one of the instinctual journeys that is writing, discovering things about your characters that, even though you’ve spent a great deal of time planning them and creating them, they still are characters on a stage and have no personality until you discover what that is by creating the descriptive narrative of the story. You may discover that a character you are totally sympathetic toward actually makes money, on the side, by broadcasting live webcams of her mother on a pay-per-view site she maintains out of the basement. You may discover that a pair of characters, twins, have a lot of animosity toward each other, though they also love each other, because one is more academically and socially inclined while the other is intellectual, but also likes the baser things in life and doesn’t care about social customs.

I received some advice from a writing teacher a couple of years ago. Basically, his advice was/is “What does the little bird see?” I can’t say this was unique to him. Rather, he’d been to a writing conference and attending a meeting where Zen writing was being discussed and a couple of professors were sharing their approach to fiction and – specifically – fiction, and the hurdle of getting over the act of writing unimportant information in a scene. In essence, write what the little bird sees.

The advice is to imagine a little bird is on your protagonists shoulder and you are writing what that little bird sees, hears, feels, or suspects. This applies a level of intelligence to fowl that I don’t think exists, but the exercise is still a good one. As you write imagine the bird on your shoulder, if you are placing yourself in the eyes of the protagonist, and then let the little bird tell you what it sees.

It does not make sense to go about writing a lot of description about what the protagonist went through to get to his current situation if it has nothing to do with the situation. A situational description should be congruent to that scene and only that scene. If, in the course of the scene, the character – and by extension the little bird – is forced to remember something that happened earlier, then that is an appropriate moment to bring to the memories of readers that same event. The memory becomes pertinent information that can be shared, or told, depending on what ratio of share-don’t-tell and tell you are writing in.

By watching description through the angle of a little bird, by adding that extra level of internal filtering of what could go in to a story and what does go in to a story, you will better be able to handle the description in a way that doesn’t draw away from the central theme of the story, while also allowing the reader to feel more involved in the action of the story.