Become a Hoarder - It's Good for Your Creativity

Spend some time in strange shops. Vintage stores, antique dealers and exotic or ethnic markets. As Canadians, and as is often the case for Americans as well, we are exposed to a multitude of cultures and many items we encounter can spur stories. If an item grabs you but you still can't think of a story just try describing the item and for what is it intended. If you do not know what its purpose is, make one up. In the very least you have an exercise in description. In most cases a story will come and you've added an interesting piece to your portfolio. If you can, try finding a chest or box large enough to hold these items and when you get stuck again revisit them. These wonderful treasure troves can also be shown to other writers who may get their own ideas.

Beginnings

A blank page can be a writer's greatest blockade. We all know, or should know, that a strong beginning is crucial in gaining readers, so when faced with that daunting task how can a writer do anything but break down and weep? The answer is a stock beginning. Really. Truly, I mean it. Start with a couple of stock beginnings.

They can be as simple as "Once upon a time...", "Let me tell you something about...", or "The other day my friend was telling me..." As you begin to fill up a tiny portion of paper with ink, or the screen with pixels, the words will simply flow out. Once you actually start writing you can figure out where the story is going. The reason why this happens is simple.

We all know how to lie.

The lie, or in this case, the story, takes on a life of its own and all you need to do is keep up. Once the story is well underway or finished go back and change the beginning to suit the rest of the story, now that you know what it is, or add something to the story that occurs before the original beginning.

And Now Back to the Show

Telling, as important as it may be, is not always very interesting, and in truth it is the showing that gives writers their flair. Bad writers can easily slip past the artistic and into the bedraggled zone of amateurish over-exhausted metaphors and campy diction. Overuse - or simply poor use- of showing can result in long winded speeches about superfluous aspects of the text. Many artists and academics may disagree with me, but I'm sure the populous of general readers may be nodding in agreement. As writers, both academic and artistic, we often forget that then main consumers of our work are not overly interested in the specific flora which happen to match the colour of bricks with which the tertiary protagonist's house is built, and they are not going to bother to deduce you said this to show the character's personality.


Is it Marigold?

No, it's Forsythia, so the character is light-hearted and springy.


My main point here: be careful with showing off. That said, Indulge a little, show off a bit, but follow the French method and restrict yourself to two bites. If the imagery over-extends and the details cloud up what matters, you will lose your readership.


Showing, for those of you who are lost and wondering why this mad man is ranting so, involves giving hints and clues to readers instead of simply giving them the facts.


"Charlie was old." a sentence from my previous article Sometimes it's good to tell is telling. The same sentence reformatting in showing would look something like:


"Charlie's leathery skin bunched into wrinkles on his face. His large work callused hands told archaic tales of the rise and fall of empires."


Writers have fun with showing off. Showing makes literature art and not just made up stories. Without showing literature would hardly differ from newscasts and scientific articles, but too much of it can seem so very flowery.