Last month we talked about every writer having a place to write that helps to put them in a writing frame of mind. But say you’ve already got a place to write. You’ve even got the time to write. Still, maybe, you’ve been making excuses. Maybe you just can’t seem to put your seat on the chair and start putting words down. Or maybe the words just aren’t there.

I have a great idea for a book. I’m going to write it. But I have to admit, even though the idea has been lurking in my mind for two years, I’m having a hard time forming the opening and getting into gear to write it down. In fact, I’m writing just about everything but that book!

But I know that eventually it will happen, and I can help to make it happen, just by doing a few things to get my inspirational juices flowing.

First I’m going to start exploring some books for research. I’ll probably find tons more information than I can or even want to use. But reading about, say — railroads — will spur on some ideas. I just know it will.

Then I’ll start brainstorming some thoughts in a notebook. Most of them I’ll probably chuck later, but it’ll help get things moving forward.

Of course I’ll pray a lot! I’ll ask God to give me some ideas and themes that would be important to include. Whatever else I’m reading or listening to, whether it’s my devotions, a magazine article, a sermon, or whatever, I’ll be keeping myself tuned in to those themes God might be waiting to show me.

I’ll read books like the one I want to write. Not the same stories, of course. Just books written by authors who lean toward my voice and style. Coinciding with that, I’ll read some books about writing. No matter how far you go as a writer, you never stop learning. Reading what other writers say about writing is not only educational, but inspirational as well.

I’ll also journal. I’ll complain. I’ll mope. I’ll put all my twaddle in my journal. I’ll write written prayers there, too.

Ultimately, I’ll put down an opening paragraph, then another and another. I know that even if it stinks, it’ll at least get me moving forward. I can change the beginning later, after my characters and I get to know each other better.

Which reminds me–I’ll sometimes write a journal page in a character’s voice, or I’ll fill out pages telling all about them, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their dreams and ambitions, their fears — everything.

Those are some of the things I do to get motivated. I don’t always do all of them. It depends on how stuck I am.

Exercise: Find ways to loosen your story. Here are some more techniques to try:

• Take a walk, a bubble bath, a bike ride. Pray and think about the story. Brainstorm with God, if you will. And while you’re at it, talk to yourself too. Convince yourself that you have to do this!
• Jot down all the ideas you have so far, even if they are unclear. Write out a scene that you can see, no matter where it is in the story. It’ll clear some of the mud out of your brain and you’ll start to get excited.
• Talk to someone about your story idea and ask for their ideas. Maybe they’ll inspire you with something.
• Read a story similar to what you like. Imagine how you’d have written it. Copy some pages that you really liked. See if that doesn’t help draw out your “voice”.
• If you’re writing about some other place or period of history than that in which you live, do a little research. It’s amazing the things you’ll discover that will make you say, “Cool!” and will spark your creative energy.
• Set aside a period of time, just one, for maybe an hour or two, that you are going to dedicate to writing. It’s so easy to let other things steal your time. You have to be willing to schedule writing in sometimes. Make a deal with yourself that this particular time or date is non-negotiable.
• Akin to the last technique is to set yourself a word count goal: “I am going to sit here and write until I have 1000 words written, no matter what. Even if they stink.” Don’t walk away and do something else until you’ve reached your goal.

I’d like to introduce you to a term, if you aren’t familiar with it already, called “author intrusion”. You have author intrusion when you’re reading a story and all of a sudden something is said in a way that pulls you out of the “zone” your imagination is in. It might be a really fancy or strange word that causes you to lose the flow of your reading. Flowery writing – the use of excessive adverbs and adjectives is also distracting. It might be a mistake in tense; an author may accidentally switch from past tense to present tense or word things in such a way that it sounds like they’re going from 3^rd person to 1^st person. Another blunder—which happens too often, strangely enough—is when an author suddenly changes point of view, giving us the thoughts of a character who’s head we’re not supposed to be in. We call it “head-hopping” (another term to know). And what I think is the most disruptive type of intrusion—when an author may suddenly dump a lot of information in the narration that sounds like he’s explaining something from a text book. (The term for that is called an Information Dump, by the way.)

Here’s an example of an information dump.  Say you’re reading a story about a young person who is torn between accepting a scholarship to attend their dream college or taking two years off of school altogether to pursue another dream of making it to the Olympics. Suddenly, the author veers away from the meat of the story to insert a long paragraph or two about the important history of the college or what another individual had to do to overcome a similar situation. (He’s letting us know how well he researched his story and wants us to be proud of him. Blech!) Narration like this can suddenly make you disconnect with the story as you become immediately aware that the author is trying to teach you something.

…and How to Avoid It

All of the above are ways that the author intrudes into the story. There are several things you can do to avoid author intrusion in your fiction writing and remain invisible to the reader.

• First, don’t set out to necessarily “teach” a lesson, or make a moral point in your fiction. You will likely have a lot of research and knowledge built into the topic you’re writing about, but you can’t include it all. That which you do include must come out as being natural to the telling of the story, or you will be in danger of creating information dumps. Most of the time, a lesson or moral will end up being innately ingrained in a story by its plot or how characters behave without the author pointing it out.
• Don’t use extravagant vocabulary words where a simple, clear one will do. Otherwise you’ll be guilty of stepping into the spotlight, saying, “Look! I’m here. I wrote this. Don’t I have an expansive vocabulary?” You don’t want to be the reason readers become distracted from the story you’ve worked so hard on. Also, clean out as many adverbs and adjectives as you can.
• Pay close attention to grammar. Be sure your verbs always agree with your subjects so that you don’t make the mistake of changing tenses mid-step. That can sometimes sound like the author is suddenly there in the story, mingling with the characters.
• Always stay in only one character’s head (POV) per scene. Observe everything that happens through the filter of that one character.

EXERCISE:

Look through your manuscript for creeping author intrusion.

• Does any scene suddenly sound like a Wikipedia description?
• Are you watching those noun/verb agreements?
• Is your vocabulary sufficient but not flowery?
• Are there too many adverbs and adjectives instead of strong verbs and specific nouns?
• Have you head-hopped in any one scene?

Edit for these problems.

When I was a teenager starting to pursue my writing passion, I was constantly bombarded with the adage: write what you know. I found this a little bit frustrating, to say the least. After all, I was about fourteen. What did I know? Very little, I’ll tell you.

Imagine life without Google. When I was starting out, there was no quick way to find out the stuff I didn’t know. I couldn’t type in the computer, “When were hand-pumps invented?” Good grief, computers? Only NASA had those things, and they took up an entire room! The World Wide Web hasn’t been around very long, but it sure has changed the way we find information.

But, still, I was told to write what I had knowledge of. I didn’t travel the world – I still don’t. I hadn’t been in any serious relationships. I knew that my youth would be smiled at when it came to big, worldly topics. What I did know was high school and camping and riding my bike and swimming in the creek by my house. My world was as small as Tom Sawyer’s.

So how was I supposed to write what I knew? How are you supposed to do that?

First of all, take a look at the small things, rather than the big ones. You don’t know first-hand about marriage and raising children or living in a 3^rd world nation – all that stuff. But you do know about some of the things that I knew about. Take those little life experiences and let them live and breathe in your writing.

If, like me, you ride your bike a lot or swim in creeks, then let your character do those things. Whatever kind of story you’re telling, let your small life experiences unfold in the story.

She couldn’t take it anymore. She flew out of the house and yanked her bike out of the garage, knocking over her brother’s fishing pole with the wheel. She didn’t care. She didn’t even stop to pick it up. She got on and pushed the pedals hard until the wobbling tire straightened out and the gravel crunching under the wheels sounded like a soft roar as she pedaled down the road.

I knew then, and I still remember years and years later, what it felt like to be mad, to take off on my bike, to try to put distance between myself and home, to hear those wheels spinning on rocks or pavement.

There are so many similar things you know that you maybe don’t think about. I write a lot of stuff set in forests. Some of it is historical. As a kid, I learned what it’s like to walk for long distances in wild country, to hunt, to gut out a deer, to breathe in the scent of wild flowers and pine pitch.

Those small experiences will make your stories come to life with real power.

NOW – about that other part – what you DON’T know.

People who write historical stories have never gone back in time and ridden on a wagon train. I pretty much doubt that science fiction writers have been abducted by aliens and gotten to travel in space ships either. They don’t know what they’re writing about. Not really. But still they write about these things with such passion and insight, we believe they really know what they’re talking about. It seems like only a person who’s experienced some of these things can be writing about them.

That’s where research comes into play combined with those little things we do know. Writers sometimes have to write about things they don’t know. But they have to really research them. Writers who don’t like to read will never really become excellent in their craft. So, read, read, READ! Read the kind of stories you like to write, but read other kinds of stories too. Read biographies. Read about science. Read histories.

I never really liked history until after I graduated from high school. Names and dates bored me. But then I started reading more historical fiction. In those stories, history suddenly came alive and mattered to me! Now I like to study history because I care about it.

Read that stuff. You’ll get great ideas there.

Sometimes writers can only imagine the nuances of the experiences and places they don’t know. I mean, think of J.R.R. Tolkien writing about life as a hobbit or even as a cave troll in Middle Earth! But when they add into the mix the things they do know, the unknown suddenly sprouts wings and takes off in fantastic ways!

Exercises:

Grab your journal and start writing down a list of the things you know about – your life experiences. Describe how you felt, what it was like, what you saw or smelled. Go ahead. Do it now.

You’ve gone hiking in the Rocky Mountains? Neat; lots of senses involved with that one. Write it down. You’ve walked through a huge motel and forgot how to find your room, or you got lost in the Mall of America? That would be kind of scary. You live on a farm – or in a major city? Some people have no idea what one or the other of those is like! Your brother just went on his first date? I bet that was funny to watch. Your family heats the house with firewood? That’s a lot of work. You just painted your bedroom? That’s a great skill, but paint makes you light-headed, doesn’t it? You went to summer camp? I bet there was some drama there.

Now take some of those experiences you’ve written down and think of how you can incorporate those experiences, or at least the feelings and senses of them, into your stories.

And as for the things you don’t know, go the library. Really explore your school books. Ask your world-traveling friends on Facebook. Google.