…What happens next is that we drop into edit mode, your inner critic takes over and all the creative flow drains away whilst we correct, fiddle, adjust, rearrange, and agonise over word choice. The wonderful creativity has dried up and it can be many minutes before it again comes back on stream…
…However, there is a neat trick that I have learned, one that can fence off your inner critic and stop him/her from jumping in and destroying your creative flow. This trick revolves around two things. The first is;
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Recently I noticed a brilliant use of foreshadowing to get around an otherwise “pull you right out of the story” moment. So neat was the use and timing of this, that in talking to someone else about it, they had missed its importance, believing that it related to another story point. In what and where had this been performed? Should you include action in your work or exclude it? The answer? Well, it depends. This post examines where three different authors for three different reasons have used or ignored action in their work. Action is not just James Bond or Lara Croft heroics, it is also the simple acts of walking across a park or [...] …but it was not the subject matter that riveted my attention and caused me to pull the flyer from the stand. The carefully selected words literally shouted out to my scribbler within. …she was quite taken with one analytical tool for measuring the pace in writing that was new to her. It is a way of looking at the pace of sub-sections and beats, then assigning a value. After measuring the pace, you can stand back and see beyond the words and easily identify if your pacing is other than what you intended. I was inadvertently using this powerful technique. Now I hasten to point out, this doesn’t make me a literary high performer. What it means is that I am a sponge to the alliteration used extensively around me. That I am the same as your reader, my mind is pre-programmed to enjoy all forms of alliteration and attract me to the text.
Do you know who your reader is? Do you know what affects their reading pleasure? When you write, do you follow all the prescribed guidelines because you’ve been told they are what your reader wants? Funny that, I also thought I knew and I believed the guidelines to be truths. I was talking to a [...] The first edition of this important little book was published in 1918. Since then it has been extensively revised and has formed part of the backbone of writing wisdom for the last fifty years. How can you refuse a free copy of this literary excellence? Despite Word popping green and red squiggly lines all over my copy and despite my best efforts to go back and correct them, mistakes get through. It’s not Words fault that they get through, it’s mine… The Proust questionnaire was a questionnaire that Proust asked himself a number of times throughout his life. He filled it in to gain a clearer understanding of himself. But here is a questionnaire where you can really KNOW your character. You can have a two way conversation with him before you write your first line. |
Journaling for creativity
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