Category: storytelling

What is Art?

The eternal pressing question: What is art? What defines it, what is its nature, how is it differentiated from the common dross, and how do we recognize it when we see it? What. Is. Art?

Ask a hundred people, and you’ll get a hundred and one different answers. Nobody can seem to decide, though everyone, from the working joe to the professional critic, seems convinced that they know exactly what art is. The artistic merits of literature, film, paintings, and even video games are debated again and again. Is it art? But can we know, when the definition of art is as fluid as the fresh paint dripping from a canvas?

Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Maybe we should instead ask what isn’t art.

Can this process of elimination help answer this great question? Consider the humble spoon. Is a spoon art? Well, most people would say it isn’t. You use it to eat soup and cereal. It’s a mundane thing. It has an everyday utility. It isn’t art.

What about a car? Is a car art? Well, it also has a mundane use: transportation from point A to point B. But look at car commercials and car shows. Cars boast aesthetic pleasures and pleasing design. They are promoted based on appearance, performance, improvement, and flashy lights. People collect cars. People analyze cars. Are they art? Or are they merely utilities passed off as art? And how do we know, unless we can define what art is?

This is getting complicated.

Why do Jackson Pollack’s paintings get hung up in museums but a two-year old’s paint smears don’t? What’s the difference? Aren’t they both paintings? And aren’t both paintings art? Well, the latter obviously isn’t art art because nobody cares except the parents. But everyone must care about Sydney Pollack since he gets public exhibits.

Nobody cares about spoons unless they try eating soup with a fork. But everyone cares about cars, one way or another. They’re both a fact of life, but one is just plain more noticeable than the other.

Nobody cared about the pipe until René Magritte put up a picture of one alongside the words, “This is not a pipe.” A pipe is just a pipe until it isn’t.

Maybe that’s all there is to it. Maybe art isn’t art until you decide that it’s art.

Until you care whether or not it’s art.

If enough people say that something is true, does it become true? No. No matter how many people say you can fly by flapping your arms, you can’t. But it sure is easier to think you can.

Is that all that art is? A shared belief? A social construct? Just the idea that if we belief something has merit inherent in its composition, construction, appearance, and intent, it rises above the mundane to become something with social significance?

But what about your two-year-old’s paint splatters? Is that art? What loving parent would say, “No”? To them it’s art. It’s more precious than everything in the Louvre.

Maybe art is more than just innovation, messages, and composition. Maybe it’s something more personal than that. Maybe art lies in how much it is valued by the individual. I happen to think cars all look the same and are basically just glorified boxes on wheels. I don’t see the appeal. Cars aren’t art to me. But to others, they are masterpieces.

Critics say something is art, and so we believe them. They must know what they’re talking about, right? Then, a hundred years later, the great art of the time is depreciated. It’s not as important. And new art replaces it. Tastes and preferences change. The definition of art changes based on what we think is important.

A spoon can be a piece of art. In some ways, it is by default. “Art” is a relative of the word “artifice.” Artificial. Manmade.

Maybe everything is art. But if everything is, than nothing is art.

Oh, to heck with it. Art is whatever you want it to be.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

My first book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is available on Amazon.com. Witness the modern day adventures of the Greek god Hermes in a world much like our own – and with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, and magic. The myths never went away, they just learned to move on with the times. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Delving into the Unreal: Fantasy and Social Commentary … or Lack Thereof

Don’t let the title scare you away. I’m not talking about specific politics or social issues. Rather, this is about how fantasy can be a tool for analyzing society undercover. That is to say, the fantasy genre gives authors a knack for talking about real life without actually talking about real life.

Now, the fantasy genre isn’t real, obviously. That’s kind of the point. However, fantasy’s detachment from reality can give it a very unique perspective on the world we do live in.

This comes, I think, from the fact that the fantasy genre can be used to observe elements of our world by substituting real groups, issues, events, or locations with fictional analogues. These same analogues allow readers to perceive them more objectively than if they were the real thing. Real-life issues tend to get our defenses up, consciously or not, and we let our own biases color our lenses. Fantasy equivalents are, well, fantasy, so we don’t view them in the same way, even if they are equivalent to the same social issues that otherwise get our hackles up. It’s a bit of a literary trick, really.

Whether or not a writer gets their message across to the audience depends on two things: One, whether the readers recognize the subtext, and two, whether they connect the subtext with the correct issue. Yes, we must trust our readers to infer what we want them to infer. And sometimes, alas, they don’t. All writers reach a point where their authority dies, and their readership draws its own conclusions independent of the author’s intent. So, you might very well have been writing a hard-hitting social critique using elves and pixies, but the audience comes away thinking it was about the virtues of natural conservation rather than the consequences of war.

On the other hand, maybe your story has no message. You just wanted to write something fun and light. Yet, for some reason, readers are convinced there’s a hidden meaning buried in your writing. Tell me, dear reader, what is the message of Little Red Riding Hood? Is it just a story about a girl and her grandma who are eaten by a wolf, then saved by a woodsman, end of story? Or is it about:

The dangers of nature

Man’s triumph over nature

Listen to your parents

Pay attention to the task at hand

Don’t trust strangers

Rebirth from death into a better person

A metaphor for puberty

A metaphor for sexual predators

A metaphor for rape

A metaphor for how people read sex into everything

Axes are useful for killing animals

If you think a wolf looks like your grandmother, you really should buy glasses

And so forth.

Maybe we don’t really know for sure? Maybe there is no analogy, but there is applicability. Applicability is a very different animal. It is the reader’s independence of the writer and ability to view the story through their own lives and beliefs. In short, they see the story as matching their own notions.

Or maybe, we’re just thinking too hard about it all.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

My first book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is available on Amazon.com. Witness the modern day adventures of the Greek god Hermes in a world much like our own – and with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, and magic. The myths never went away, they just learned to move on with the times. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Image: “Dave Checking out the Perseid Meteor Shower at 10,000 feet“; Dave Dugdale; Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Delving into the Unreal: How Fantasy Helps Us Deal with Real Life

Real life is hard. Can we all agree on that? Real life is really hard to deal with. If it’s not the troubles and calamities of real life intruding on our status quo, it’s the dreary monotony of everyday activities. Going to work, washing the dishes, walking the dog. Sometimes, we just hit a rut. What to do?

People are imaginative, and there’s nothing better at firing up the creative juices then boredom.

There are people out there prone to daydreaming. They come up with whole worlds in their heads. The really ambitious ones commit those worlds to paper. Voila! A new fantasy story is created.

Fantasy helps us cope with the real world. It is a form of escapism that gives us a few precious moments away from humdrum reality, a chance to catch our breath and maybe let out a couple screams, then return to the grind. A little fantasizing is good for our mental health. Relaxation and rest is a good thing, and fantasy is a form of that. A jaunt into a made-up world where heroes always win, good triumphs over evil, magic can make food and water out of nothing, and we can fly on winged horses is just … fun. That’s the point of fantasy. Just like some people like car racing or hiking or painting or math (such people do exist), so do some enjoy fantasy because it’s just plain fun.

To deny ourselves recreation is to trap ourselves inside a metal box at the bottom of the ocean. We can’t move, can’t escape, can’t even see the light. We suffocate under the inability to exert ourselves. Our minds along with our bodies atrophy from the lack of exercise. And from the lack of challenge. Fantasy is a challenge. Fairy tales and epics challenge us to see the world in a new way and ponder how these stories match up against our own experiences. And they let us see something new, period. Don’t we humans crave novelty? Why go on vacation, if not to “get away from it all?” And what are we getting away from? The ordinary and the familiar.

Fantasy is all that writ large. It is the unfamiliar and the extraordinary. A chance to wonder: What if?

And at an even more fundamental level, fantasy taps into that all-consuming human urge to create. We all want to create something. We tinker, we write, we draw, we brainstorm, we organize, we build, we muck about. We like to make things, whether things concrete or things abstract. Fantasy is creation. It’s a powerful impulse, the urge to create, and making fantastical worlds is the perfect outlet for what, I believe, is a basic human need.

Does fantasy matter? Absolutely. We can’t resist it’s siren call. To get away from mundanity, to satisfy our basic natures, to keep ourselves sane. Fantasy is very, very important.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

My first book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is available on Amazon.com. Witness the modern day adventures of the Greek god Hermes in a world much like our own – and with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, and magic. The myths never went away, they just learned to move on with the times. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Image: “Dave Checking out the Perseid Meteor Shower at 10,000 feet“; Dave Dugdale; Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Delving into the Unreal: Taking Fantasy Seriously

Does the fantasy genre matter?

Let’s be honest. With a question like that, and the fact that my blog is subtitled “Writer of Modern Day Fantasy,” you can pretty easily guess that the answer is, “Yes.” But, hey, did I catch your attention? I did? Good. Let’s dive into it, then.

Fantasy is an important genre. Myths and legends have existed for almost as long as humankind has. There is an almost natural urge in people to invent and make up lands, species, events, and other such things that don’t exist in nature. The urge to create things that defy natural law: flying carpets, giants, dragons, dryads, genies, wishing stars, talking puppets, elves, hobbits, fairies, people the size of your thumb, people as tall as a mountain, alien worlds, life on the moon, and so on and so on. The earliest myths probably were meant to explain phenomena that man couldn’t yet fully understand, like the weather or earthquakes. But even after science has offered its explanations, the fantasies endure. Do old habits die hard? Or maybe we need fantasy in our lives.

Consequently, fantasy is a versatile thing. At its heart, it is the telling of things that not only don’t exist, but can’t exist. There are no elves in the forest. There are no genies trapped in bottles. There is no Fountain of Youth or cities at the bottom of the ocean. But the stories are still told.

For a long time, though, there was a problem.

For the last century or so, fantasy got a bad rap. It was viewed as this sort of nerdish subject that is impractical and of no relevance to “real life.” Dungeons & Dragons was the epitome of loser geek culture for decades. It was a “loser” subject because, in part, it was something that wasn’t real – but people took it so seriously! Why make such a big fuss over the unreal? Why obsess over the rules for a game about fighting made-up creatures? If you’re going to obsess over statistics, at least apply that obsession to football and baseball, not orcs and hobgoblins!

For many people, deriving so much enjoyment from something made-up is just plain childish. Oh, when we are children, it’s fine to enjoy stories of knights versus dragons. Fairy tales are quaint little things that amuse us when we’re young. Then we grow up and enter the serious real world where we need to be interested in grown-up things. Like cars and sports and art and the latest celebrity gossip. You know, important stuff.

That association with the immature has been a stain on fantasy’s reputation for a long time, as well as its sister genre, science fiction. The dominions of nerds and other people who can’t handle reality. There were exceptions, of course. Star Wars, for example, was a major blockbuster in 1977. But by and large, fantasy movies and books and games were strictly niche. There was an audience, but a highly specific one.

Then things changed.

I think the Lord of the Rings film trilogy in the early 2000s was the big turning point. Here was a fantasy series with major, respected stars that took itself seriously. It had a big budget, it was being produced by a major studio, it had marketing and advertising out the wazoo. The critics liked it. It was art.

Suddenly, fantasy lost its stigma. It wasn’t so bad to admit you liked the genre.

Others followed. Game of Thrones was a biggie. And there was Stranger Things, which proudly wore its 1980s nostalgia on its sleeve. And what was big in the 1980s? Yup, Dungeons & Dragons. Speaking of which, a Dungeons and Dragons movie released last year was warmly received. Oh, how the tables had turned!

The fact is, there are lots of people who like the unreal. They like to step away from reality for a few hours. It is called escapism. Personally, I think part of fantasy’s bad reputation is that escapism is confused with retreat. One is the willingness to step away from your problems or worries for a little while to refresh yourself. The other is an ultimately selfish choice to ignore one’s real-life obligations in favor of never leaving the fantasy. But many non-fantasy fans view the genre strictly through the latter lens. A bunch of guys and gals without jobs living in their parents’ basements reading silly books about silly people in silly lands. Fantasy is for the weak, for people can’t handle their own responsibilities.

It’s not fair, really. J. R. R. Tolkien wrote fantasy, after all. You know, the highly respected scholar and linguist? A man with a very productive and well-balanced life? And it gets more unfair.

So, fantasy has hit it big, as I just mentioned. And why did it hit it big? Well, a few successful movies certainly helped. But also, you know, the average person finds out that people like Henry Cavill and Joe Manganiello play stuff like D&D and Warhammer 40,000. Hey, they’re not nerds! Fantasy must be cool!

Sometimes, the best way to get people to take something seriously is to find the right spokesperson. All this time, fantasy just needed better PR.

It worked. Fantasy is widely accepted now. People aren’t ashamed to say that they like it. Nerds aren’t social pariahs. Heck, most of them are running major corporations. And the people writing those hit fantasy movies? They’re nerds, too. That’s the other big shift in the fantasy genre in mainstream culture. Four, five decades ago, fantasy films and TV shows were mainly being written by people who saw it as harmless, inconsequential fun. But the people who grew up with those shows and films, the people who fell in love with them, are the ones calling the shots now. And their beloved childhood is anything but inconsequential. Fans tend to pour their hearts into their work, and the quality of the product (hopefully) goes up. The bigger budgets certainly help.

By and large, fantasy has found public acceptance. Fairy tales aren’t just for kids anymore.

But the question posed at the beginning of this article is only half-answered. Does fantasy matter? Yes, yes it does. Financially, socially, culturally, it matters very much. But why does it matter? And in what other ways does it affect us besides providing something to do on a Saturday night?

Stay tuned …

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

My first book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is available on Amazon.com. Witness the modern day adventures of the Greek god Hermes in a world much like our own – and with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, and magic. The myths never went away, they just learned to move on with the times. It’s a tough job, being a god!

Image: “Dave Checking out the Perseid Meteor Shower at 10,000 feet“; Dave Dugdale; Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Confessions of a Skipper

I must confess to a strange reading habit, one that might shock and horrify you. Do not judge me too harshly, for I shall explain myself.

When I start a fiction book, I like to skip to read the last couple of pages first.

“What?” I hear you cry out. “What is this blasphemy? Why ruin the story for yourself?” Calm yourself, please. Let me clear things up.

It’s true that I’m not sensitive to spoilers. I really don’t mind when plot twists are brought up in casual conversation. But this habit is more than just wanting to know how things end. Really, without context, knowledge of a story’s ending doesn’t have a terribly great impact on me as a reader. I have no grasp of the import of the scenes and dialogue. What I’m really interested in is catching a glimpse of the finished jigsaw puzzle, then going back to the beginning to see how the pieces fit together.

Rather than starting a book with no idea of how things end up, I know exactly how it ends. And so, the fun of the read shifts from the “what?” to the “why?” Why is this the ending? And how will my initial impression of it change as I get more pieces of the bigger picture?

I suppose I’m interested in perceiving the author’s mind. How do they assemble the various elements of the narrative into its final shape at story’s end? How are these characters and events inserted into the story? In short, how did we end up here?

Pieces click into place as I read on, and the ending’s significance becomes clearer. Sometimes, I feel like a detective solving a case in reverse. I already know whodunnit, but the howdunnit isn’t so obvious.

And I do it because I’m quirky and it’s kind of a fun exercise to try out. I neither recommend it nor warn against it. Reading style is a matter of personal preference. It’s up to you.

And there you have it. The true confessions of a skipper.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Writing Characters You Don’t Agree With

Writing characters require us to dive into their heads and figure out their backstories, beliefs, and personalities. It’s a fun diversion in and of itself to discover a character, much less to incorporate those discoveries into a greater narrative. Learning more about our protagonists can make us as attached to them as we hope our readers will be.

But what about writing people who are … less than agreeable? Or worse, who don’t share our values and principles? What about writing those whose motivations and beliefs are diametrically opposed to our own? What is it like to dig around in the head of someone who we don’t agree with?

It can feel almost like a betrayal of ourselves. He can’t say that, I don’t believe in it! She can’t do this, it’s not part of who I am! But putting yourself into your writing doesn’t necessarily mean you are your writing. You are creating a world with words, and that world will be filled with a motley mix of individuals who all possess their own strong personalities.

This can apply to antagonists and villains, but really, it includes any character you write. They play roles in a story, and sometimes those roles require them to be someone drastically different from yourself. Can that be awkward? Sure. Maybe there’s the nagging feeling in the back of your head that writing a character who deviates from your own worldview is somehow condoning things you don’t agree with. But if the story demands it and it develops your world, then it must be done. It’s not betrayal, it’s the mark of a maturing writer. I write people who do and say things I don’t personally find tasteful, but which do fit their own personality. I’m not that person. They’re a work of fiction, after all.

Besides, characters who disagree with you are likely to disagree with other characters, and that creates conflict. And conflict is how you keep a story going.

Even if you don’t agree with a character, they’re still yours and serve a purpose in the story. So, roll up your sleeves and figure out what to do with them. The first thing is to put yourself into their shoes. Think like them for a bit, practice seeing the world through different eyes. How do they feel about this thing or that other individual? How do they feel about your protagonist? Why?

Learning a bit of empathy and a bit about other worldviews certainly helps, as does reading good literature and learning from example how other authors write. It’s valuable to learn how to write characters whose voice and opinions don’t echo your own. Why? Because it is too easy to put yourself into every character and have everyone essentially act and believe as you do. And that makes a story boring and predictable.

And besides, for all that characters have a habit of taking on a life of their own, you are ultimately the final authority here. Like a director herding meddlesome actors, you learn to work with your cast and guide them toward your vision.

Ultimately, story is king. It comes first, and we do what we must to tell it. It’s all part of growing as writers.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Writing Jerks

Why do jerks seem worse than villains? Villains are grand and powerful and fierce and evil. They deserve our disdain. But jerks are just plain petty. What’s worse? A dictator bent on conquering a nation, or a man who keys your car because you bumped him in the parking lot? Well, the former, obviously, but the latter certainly seems to steam people a heck of a lot more.

But I’m not here today to talk about “why’s,” but rather “how’s.” Namely: How do you write a jerk protagonist so that he’s likeable?

Think about it for a moment, writers. There are plenty of villains that people like. I’ve even written about it in a previous post. Mass murderers? Evil tyrants? Amoral thieves? They’ve all got fans. They’ve all got that special something called charisma. People will forgive a lot if you have charisma.

But jerks? They’re personal to the audience. We may never have met a murderer or a dictator (hopefully), but we all know a few knuckleheads with attitudes who stoop to the lowliest of cheap shots. Spend a week in customer service and you’ll meet jerks on the regular. They come in all flavors, but they all have something in common.

THEY AREN’T LIKEABLE.

Thus, going back to my first question, is there a way to write a protagonist who is unpleasant, rude, and otherwise just plain mean, and still make that character someone the audience can enjoy? Well, yes and no. The main thing about writing jerks is that if you keep them that way from start to finish, chances are you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Consider a classic example of jerkdom in literature: A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge. A miserly, heartless, soulless businessman who has no mercy or pity for the poor. He’s on the up-and-up – he’s an honest man in the original story, believe it or not – but he has no redeeming traits. At first. The entire story is about Scrooge’s character development into a better person. And that’s the key to writing jerks: They shouldn’t still be jerks by the end of the story.

Side characters can stay jerks. Antagonists, of course, can remain jerks. But the protagonist should not remain static at the best of times. They evolve and mature. And if they start out as jerks and bullies, then they should show some sort of marked improvement by story’s end. Less of a jerk, kinder, more patient. Like Scrooge, they should learn something. There is nothing stopping you from writing a protagonist who remains the same come the conclusion, but if they were nasty and unlikeable to begin with, you risk leaving your audience with a sour last impression.

On the other hand, maybe the jerk not changing is the point. Maybe this is a more cynical piece, an introspective look into what makes a meanie tick – or maybe it’s just a comedy. Well, there is a way to make the audience side with the jerk, and that’s to introduce an even bigger jerk to square off against. Have a protagonist who’s belligerent and petty? Bring in someone else who’s even more so. It worked for British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty is a Class-A Jerk through and through, but he frequently dances with people even worse than he is. See for yourself.

We like someone to root for, you see. If we’re given two flavors of unpleasantness, we’re naturally going to compare them. And if one is slightly less bad than the other, we’ll favor that one and despise the other. The lesser of two jerks, if you will.

There are those rare occasions where your story doesn’t require that the protagonist change for the better, or circumstances dictate that there isn’t a worse character to compare against. So, what to do? Well, you can make the jerk empathetic. That’s not saying you give the protagonist the capacity for empathy, but rather that you give them traits the audience can relate to. Humanize them a bit, just a little, so that they’re a tad more understandable. Maybe they are the way they are because of a bad childhood, or ill health, or they’re just plain unlucky.

Let us consider the case of Disney’s Donald Duck. He’s … not the most pleasant individual, especially in his 1930s and 1940s cartoon shorts. But oh, boy, does he have bad luck at every turn. Nothing turns out right for him. No wonder he has such a chip on his shoulder. If we had the rotten fortune that Donald does, we’d be short-tempered, irritable scoundrels, too.

So, there you have it. My two cents on writing jerk protagonists. It can be done. It has been done. You can do it, too.

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Blank Spaces of the Mind: How Do You Tell A Story Without Having to Tell Everything?

I like movies. I’m a visual person, and I enjoy seeing things portrayed on the screen. Little details are the most fun. Characters’ tics and interesting events happening in the background. Sometimes, I envy filmmakers. Creating their worlds are a little bit easier, because they can convey in a minute what can take a writer four or five paragraphs to communicate. ESPECIALLY when they are able to tell the story without a single word being said.

We writers, of course, don’t have that luxury. Books are nothing but words, which got me thinking: How do you show the reality of a story, that is, communicate character traits and worldbuilding details, when you can’t really show anything at all?

It’s a different game from simply describing a scene or a character. That’s to be expected. But where to stop? Where’s the line between “This is what Joe looks like and how he acts” and “This is Joe’s personality and character, let me tell you without ever referring to it again and thus making this paragraph pointless.”

So, I’ve thought about it, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

Stories are best told when the writer doesn’t need to explain everything. A good story unfurls through action, whether visual or written. Actions define a character, a group of characters, even a location. The way a person carries himself, dresses, talks – these all express relevant elements without the need for a mountain of exposition.

And they can be brief. For example: A wizard appears in the story. He dresses in fancy clothes and has clean, well-groomed hair. He talks formally with a condescending tone. He casually refers to esoteric subjects. He sniffs loudly whenever he disapproves of the other characters’ comments. He kills a wolf with a single, well-timed spell. Short, succinct statements that tell us what we need to know – and give us the freedom to paint a picture of the character in our minds. We don’t always have to go into detail about hair color, eye color, body type, or a detailed analysis of clothing. Heck, just the word “wizard” probably had you paint half the picture from a single word, didn’t it?

But then, another character brings in the Artifact of Doom for the wizard to identify. The wizard immediately panics and backs away, demanding that the object not be brought near him. Well, that tells us immediately that the Artifact of Doom is really bad news. If Mr. High-and-Mighty is scared, it just might be a serious problem for everyone.

So, yeah, books aren’t visual, but they can still tell a story without having to tell us everything. In short, leave some space for the reader. Now, I’m not going to say that I’m necessarily good at this as a writer. I’m still learning, but I’ve learned as much from reading as writing. And I get annoyed when books pause everything to describe the POV character’s emotional state or appearance in long, flowery detail. It just seems … excessive.

Maybe it’s just the mark my journalism classes left on me. I like simple and to-the-point. And I like to think that my readers can be trusted to have a little imagination to fill in the blank spaces of the mind that words can’t reach by themselves.

What are your thoughts? How do you think a story can “show, not tell?”

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “New York City Street Scenes – Rainy Night on the Lower East Side” by Steven Pisano; Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Quirks and Tics: Characterization through Minor Details

You ever think about how traits and habits can shape a character? Everyone has their own flavor of mannerisms: body posture, repeating gestures, facial expressions, verbal expressions, nervous habits. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call them “quirks.” They’re the little details that don’t play a part in the unfolding plot, but simply help flesh out the world you’re creating. Being visual cues, for the most part, they also aren’t always the easiest thing to describe in writing. Movies love them, though, and they can definitely help liven up a scene and make characters more relatable.

It’s all about humanizing your characters. Real people have habits and tics. They do or say things on a regular basis that are uniquely a part of them. You – yes, you – have habits and gestures of your own that make you, well, you. The devil is in the details, but so is good writing. Experienced authors can make even a bit character memorable by throwing in a couple of notable traits and letting those emblazon themselves in readers’ minds. Movies have it even easier. Being visual by nature, a film or TV show can display those quirks without pausing to describe them, letting such details blend more seamlessly into the narrative.

Mostly, quirks are all about worldbuilding, aren’t they? Not necessary to the plot, not vital to understanding the hero and supporting cast. They’re like sprinkles on ice cream. They’re a little something extra.

Or are they?

Quirks can be used as plot devices and can even deliver good payoffs. Someone recognizes her long-lost lover because of the specific way in which he twirls his hair. A secret agent’s habit of spinning his knife causes him to drop it and nearly trigger a motion-sensor alarm. A villain always unconsciously taps her fingers at the prospect of playing a game. A protagonist with OCD compulsively touches and counts poles on the sidewalk. He misses one and goes back for it – just in time to miss being run down by an oncoming car.

These are all examples taken from real movies and TV shows. Can you figure out where they come from?

Do you want your story to feel real? Do you want your characters to feel like people you might actually meet on the street? Or maybe you just want to challenge yourself with producing something a little more creative than past works? Consider using quirks to ad spice to your story. How? Well, take a look at the people you already know. Watch them carefully (but don’t be weird about it). Look at how they act and talk and move. Real life is good inspiration. Everyone has quirks.

Are there ways in which you have used quirks in your writing? Please feel free to share!

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

History: The Greatest Source of Inspiration for Any Writer

Fact is stranger than fiction, they say. And it’s true. But have you ever considered the inverse: Fiction is never stranger than fact.

No matter a writer’s imagination, no matter his ability to craft new worlds out of his own mind and populate it with characters who seem as real and unique as anyone you meet on the street, and no matter how engaging, grandiose, bizarre, or heartfelt the events portrayed in his work, he will never be able to surpass the parade of the unexpected that is world history.

History IS story. It’s right there in the word, isn’t it? And it’s real. Just think about that for a moment. Think about all the things you’ve read in the history books. Adventure. Romance. Mystery. Tragedy. War. Friendship. Triumph. Defeat. Despair. Hope. All of it is there, all of it waiting to be discovered by that one author seeking a mote of inspiration.

Where am I going with this? Just to say this: We writers have so much to draw from just by browsing the history section at our local library or bookstore. Heck, just go online. We live in the age of information. The World Wide Web contains everything. Try a quick surf of your hometown’s newspaper archives. Stories aplenty. Ideas in abundance.

And now I’m starting to think that there are so many tales in history that haven’t been given their due. Forgotten stories that need a time to shine. Eras and events that have been lost in the bustle of modern progress. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon highlighted a time in Native American history that deserves more recognition. A terrible time, but one that should be known.

What else have we misplaced? What battles and victories waiting for their recognition? Unsung heroes waiting for their song to be written? Tragedies yet to be acknowledged? Villains who thought they got away with it?

Apologies, I’m just waxing poetical now. You get the idea. Writers don’t just write stories. We live at the tail end of the longest story ever written. All we have to do is look back a little ways for new tales from that saga to tell. Isn’t that a teensy bit amazing?

If you just so happen to be enjoying my blog, feel free to subscribe. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Image: “Early printed vellum leaf” by Provenance Online Project; Licensed under CC0 1.0.