Consternation and consideration

Sep 10

MeredithUncategorized , , , 1 Comment

I am having a cranky day, and have let myself get needlessly worked up over a variety of things from my weekend plans to parking both here and yon, so, instead of being creative and drawing or painting my self-portrait of the day, there’s my cranky-face photo. I promise that I will soon come forth with more diverse efforts in this arena. In other, semi-related news, I found a website that deals with this type of daily project, which gives further justification to its completion. Click and read.

Given that it’s a Wednesday, I spent my evening in classes. I should note that I love school. I adore sitting in a classroom, discussing whatever the topic may be or simply listening to a teacher unfold a lecture. I crave learning and knowing. One of tonight’s classes, a seminar on literature and writing, gave me some really great things to think about.

Firstly, a writer’s style is a reflection of their way of looking at, thinking about, and making sense of the world. I started to think about the poems I’ve been writing in recent months, and I can absolutely see that. Many of these poems and writings have been motivated largely by news stories, and I can see in my style a sense of looking for what’s beneath the surface. What aren’t the news stories telling me? What is omitted? What facts are left out, sacrificed because of a lack of column inches and reader attention span?

Further, our professor encouraged us to look for our sensibility as a writer, to identify it and understand it in how and what we choose to write about. In doing so, he said, we would better understand the effect our sensibilities have on our writing and how those sensibilities change throughout our lives. It does not matter if those sensibilities or views are correct, simply that they are ours.

Secondly, the more you know about the story you are writing, the better. I know that may sound out, but the point was this: the writer should fully explore the story she is telling, to know all the details about her characters and setting, because then she will be better equipped to tell their story. This is why people do character sketches. They may never use all the details they record, but knowing those details will make the characters fuller, will make the writer understand how those characters work, what motivates them.

I’ve long looked at people who discussed their characters as real people as total cheese balls, but now that I consider it this way, it makes sense. Our professor suggested we profile our characters, ask the most ridiculous-seeming questions: what brand of toothpaste does the character use and why? what type of shoes does he wear? how does he wake himself up in the morning? As I began thinking about how I myself, a real person, would answer these questions, I saw how those details add up to be me, and how applying them to the fictional people I write about would create more realistic, three-dimensional characters with real motivations and short-comings.

Thirdly, we have much to learn from Hemingway.