At last!* The secret revealed!** Three simple steps to improve your writing!***

by Dana Cameron

That's right:  I said three simple steps.  Ready?  Here they are: 

1.Figure out where you need work in your writing.
2.Figure out why your otherwise positive personal qualities might be getting in the way.
3.Figure out how to work around that quality.

    I said simple.  I didn't say easy.  But if you can do these things, I bet you'll make a breakthrough in your writing.

    For example, because I have been expanding my repertoire of story styles and situations, I've been running into plotting issues.  Like, all the frakking time.  When you're writing mysteries, thrillers, crime stories, adventures with big ideas, it usually helps to have big things happening.  And it hasn't been happening lately.  Sure, I'd be on the right track, I'd have a germ of the idea, but it always seemed to take someone else to say, if you just expand it, it will work better.  Frustrating, to have everyone else figure out your work faster than you.  Outside perspective is one thing, but this was becoming a recurring problem.

    So my problem was plotting.  Why wasn't I able to bring the drama?  Simple:  I don't like drama, I don't like chaos.  In my daily life, I prefer things to be organized, logical, rational.  I plan ahead, anticipate, study in advance, propose, reconsider, rework, then implement.  The way I figure it, if everything else is relatively organized, that frees me up to go crazy in my internal worlds.

    I bet you can already see how I was getting in the way of myself (and most writers' problems have to do with being in their own ways).  I finally, OMG, figured out that I was anticipating the problems my characters would have.  Then, being me, I would find a way to mitigate the problems before they actually happened.  You can't nip plot points in the bud, not if you're going to write adventures.   And, equally bad, I would find a way to make the problems things that could be logically dealt with, in whatever universe I was working. Not only was I diminishing the problems my characters would face, I was making it too easy for them to solve them.

    Oy.

    Figuring out the work around will be harder, but now I know, when I'm backing off because something seems messy and chaotic—things I would ordinarily avoid—that's the point where I should dive in.  Already, just having identified the issue seems to help.  It's not solving everything, but a problem that can be clearly stated, with data points, can be solved.  And that's where that otherwise useful personal quality can save your bacon, again.

    That's the lesson I learned this week.  Give it a shot.  Let me know what you come up with.  Good luck.

*I know for a fact this won't be the last thing I have to figure out to improve my writing.
**  Okay, and it's probably not all that secret, either.  Just something I had to learn this time around.
***  Note, I didn't say “make you the perfect writer” or “make you the best writer.”  It's all incremental, right?  YMMV.

Comments

[Barb Ross]

OMGosh. I do this exact thing all the time! Now let's see if I can stop.

[Janet Reid]

This is very interesting! I'm in the process of writing an editorial letter to a fiercely talented writer and I think you've given me some good insight to work with here.

Fang up!

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

OH, that's...fascinating. I'm sitting in the BWI airport, looking at the full moon, and reading your very perceptive blog. Hmm. Clicking over into my ms. now.

Oh, now the sun is coming up. Sigh.

[Dana]

Barb, finding the problem is the BIG half of solving it! Best of luck!

Fang up, Janet!

Hank, did you make some progress? It sounds like the sun rose in a figurative sense, as well...

[krisneri]

This is both funny and profound, Dana! Funny, in that the big things, while never easy, are often simple if you look at them this way. Too often we don't. Thanks for sharing it.

[Nancy Pickard]

This is a brilliant post, Dana. I wish we could all talk about in person!

[Dana]

You're welcome, Kris!

Absolutely, Nancy! I'm convinced learning how to write is mostly a good chunk of application and a good chunk of hearing how other people get over their own hurdles and then applying that (in appropriate form) to our own work.