I’m reading Stephen King’s On Writing right now and he has been spending a great deal of time talking about the Ideal Reader. Or rather, writing for your own personal Ideal Reader. It’s an intriguing concept for me because I’m not sure what my Ideal Reader looks like. I don’t really have any clue as to who they are or what they’re looking for in a story. Perhaps because I’ve never written fiction before? Whatever the cause, I wish I did have an Ideal Reader because maybe they would have saved you all from the drivel I wrote last week.
Joe was about three dimensional as his name. Sorry about that. I just had this idea about this guy who was a campus security guard who loses his job after many years on his particular beat and I started wondering what would happen to him next. But instead of focusing on that next piece, I got sucked into the previous. I got distracted by his needy wife and his absolute adoration of her. And I lost my original idea. Which would have been fine if what replaced it was interesting. But it wasn’t really.
The past two weeks I’ve been focusing on allowing my writing to be driven by a character. But I think maybe this week I’ll focus on a situation (hopefully an interesting one) and then take a look around to see who happens to be the most engaging character in the room I’m already in. We’ll see how that works.
Oh, and if any of you have any ideas about how I can get more of you here, reading whatever I’m churning out, I’d love to hear them. I need more feedback!! Self critique will only get me so far I’m afraid.
2 comments:
I'm wondering if the problem is that, in this scheme, you're on the hook for both the theme/event/topic/character AND the writing...maybe you could do something like pick page 52 out of a magazine per week, then draw the fiction around it? Might tow the line between drawing you out of your comfort zone while allowing you to focus on one element of the craft at a time...
That's a good idea...I was also thinking about maybe going to a coffee shop or a park and just people watching until an interesting character or situation arrives...I'm still playing with the process. I think I also need to start reading out of my typical genre so I can get more familiar with different voices/styles...
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