Censors and Sensibility

A recent turn of events has led me to contemplate the many forms of censorship writers encounter. There is, of course, the external forces – censorship driven by the market, your audience, the FCC, etc. And then there’s self-censorship.

Sometimes, we self-censor based on the audience we have in mind. When I’m writing for an audience of elementary-age children, I will naturally exercise a certain kind of self-censorship. But even there, where the parameters ought to be pretty obvious, you can run into hazy territory. I may be okay with witches or ghoblins, or stories about death or divorce or other ugly realities that kids experience. Someone else might think these topics inappropriate or unacceptable. I’ve been working on a highly abridged version of MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM for my drama club of 4th-6th graders. The word “ass” appears in reference to the donkey’s head that Bottom wears. But, Shakespeare being Shakespeare, the double-meaning is played upon liberally. Do I cut these references? It seems a crime. But parents may complain.

There is a deeper kind of self-censorship, the kind Virginia Woolf refers to as the Angel on your shoulder, the voice that tells you not to upset your family or friends or polite society by writing about darker issues, or intimate subjects, or family secrets, etc. Woolf has a wonderful essay in which she describes killing off this Angel as a necessary act, especially for women writers who are particularly susceptible to its form of self-censorship.

Can censorship be a good thing? A necessary evil? Or just plain evil? Which kind of censor is the hardest to beat – the outside one or the inside one?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Writing from the inside out

I was lying on the couch tonight, recovering from stomach flu, and watching a show about Rod Serling. They spoke of how often his scripts were born from writing through and about his own internal conflicts or fears.

Often as writers we begin to think of our writing as an outside entity, driven by external forces and ideas. The muse visits us. Our characters take control of the story. I have often written about the process in this way here in this blog. The mention of Serling’s drawing from his internal struggles was a reminder to me. Sometimes, our best work comes not from looking at the world around us for inspiration, although that can be powerful, but from delving deep inside ourselves and squaring off against our own fears, hopes, desires, struggles. This writing can be painful, can be dangerous.

Writing from the inside out. Maybe it’s like sewing a garment. You muust put it together inside out first, to make the seams clean. When the structure, the bones, are finished, you turn it rightside out and put on the finishing touches that make it beautiful for the world. The best writing combines these personal internal visions with the external connections that make them speak to others, to the audience.

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

What’s In a Genre?

My last entry, and subsequent comments, got me thinking about genre. Specifically, its purpose and its limitations. Who is genre for? Is genre something the writer decides in advance, or is it something a reader uses to identify and classify work? Does genre help us, providing useful templates to lead the way through the thorny woods of our story, or does it limit us, setting up barricades and “Do Not Enter” signs to our creative detours?

I tend to think genre is something we assign after the fact, a common, if simplistic, way for us to find readers and publishers, and for them to find us. What do you think?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Two Plotlines Diverged in a Wood

Two plotlines diverged in a yellow wood… And I don’t know which is the road less traveled or how to choose. I am working on a novel that has both fantasy and realistic elements. It has developed a split personality. There is a point in the plot when it could go in one of two directions. The one takes it further and faster into fantasy territory. The other keeps the setting more realistic, while the fantasy elements appear in that realistic setting. I cannot seem to write my way through this.

Is my dilemma the mark of a larger problem, a lack of clear vision for the overall story? I had been working on it with the realistic grounding and fantasy elements invading. I had gotten quite a bit written that way. Then, I re-read it and suddenly, it seemed to make sense, and be a better read, to thrust it pellmell into a fantasy realm at an early point in the narrative, thus scrapping my earlier work. But some of that earlier work is good stuff!

“To scrap, or not to scrap – that is the question.” God help us all when we have to tackle major rewrites and revisions. It truly is a “re-vision.” Seeing the whole piece anew.

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

The Self is a Narrative

“The self is a narrative, not a fixed identity. There are countless cultural fictions that lie about the self … For writer’s, there’s ‘Find your own voice.'” – Siri Histvedt in NOVEL VOICES.

Your self, and therefore your voice as a writer, is constantly changing, growing and evolving – a work in progress. In a way, this is true of humanity, too. Our identity as the human race, the human story, is constantly being told and retold with different voices, changing and ever-shifting. By telling our stories over again, we actually participate in creating that identity. That is a part of the writer’s job, the storyteller’s job.

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Spending Time with Your Characters

A character comes to mind, or you call one forth or start to sketch one out. Maybe you start telling their story and you find gaps and holes begin to pop up, or the character floats grayly in a fog and eludes your vision. How do you get to know them better?

When I first tackled writing a novel, I found that simply telling the story only carried me so far. I had to take occasional rest stops to get to know my characters. The story would grind to a halt because I didn’t really know their history as well as I needed to.

What was their childhood like? Where did they grow up? Who is their family? What do they want? Has it changed? What is their job? How do they dress? What little stories and memories do they carry around? What makes them laugh?

I believe there are no pointless questions to ask about character, because you never know what little details may pop into the story later and give your reader that extra measure of reality.

Sometimes, I sketched out a history. Sometimes, I retold a crucial scene from the perspective of a character I needed to understand better. Sometimes, I had other characters describe the person in question.

So I ask again, what do you do to spend time with your characters? Ever met a character you couldn’t stand? Did you keep him or her and make yourself get to know them? Or did you decide they were better left undisturbed?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Make the Wrong Choice

I was talking with someone tonight who told about being directed in a play to “make the wrong choice” when they were stuck on a scene. Got me thinking about how this can apply to writing. It’s a very freeing instruction. Of course, in writing, it involves a level of commitment, by virtue of actually putting the wrong choice down on paper. Still, maybe we all need to make more wrong choices as writers in order to arrive at the right choice.

Go make a wrong choice with a piece of your writing. Make that wrong choice on purpose and see what happens.

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

Life is the Fuel

I like reading journals by well-known writers I admire. Steinbeck & Woolf are among my favorite journals. Steinbeck often talks about not getting any writing done when he stays up too late with friends, goes out or has people over, etc., etc. Very human of him – comforting. I thought about Steinbeck’s late nights this evening as we came rolling in at 11 pm from a festive and sumptuous dinner. Life is the fuel – the fuel of our writing. Some solitary time is needed, but we also need to live, make merry, be among our fellow humans. Or perhaps solitude is the fuel and life is the main ingredients, the raw material.

In “LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET,” by Rainier Maria Rilke, Rilke encourages a young man in his solitary, almost hermit-like occupation, extoling the virtues of solitude for the poet.

What mixture of solitude and human conviviality works for you as a writer?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

The Company of Writers

Last night, the chatroom had a full house. Lots of folks showing up to exchange ideas and talk about their latest work. It got me thinking about how important the company of other writers is.

I arrived pretty late at my understanding of the need for connecting with fellow writers. It isn’t easy. I was always very protective of my writing, and terrified someone would shoot it down, or worse yet, wouldn’t “get it.” Writing is meant to be a conversation, meant for an audience, as Jamie pointed out. But it is so intensely personal. Of course, personal can become lonely, and at some point someone has to see what you’ve written. In recent years, I’ve learned just how vital the company of other writers is – electronically, in person, on the phone – anywhere you can get it. It has given me the courage to be public about my work, even send it to publishers, far more than I ever have before.

The company of writers can call forth my green-eyed monster. It can also inspire me, give me new perspective, revitalize my own work, cast out the demons of doubt and isolation.

What does the company of writers mean for you – good and bad?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.

A Head Full of Characters

Jamie said, “the challenge is to allow the characters to develop the plot and the story, rather than make them tools of the plot.”

So, what characters am I hanging out with lately? Well, there’s Red-faced Rosie, a little girl who throws big tantrums. She helps me write through my pissy moods. Then there’s Ryan, an ordinary kid in a special needs world trying to figure out how to get more attention when he has to compete with difficult kids. There’s Hope, a chubby girl, big and different and creative. And Jimmy, inspired by a kid who lived across from me where I grew up. And there’s Lillian, based on my grandmother, daughter of a wealthy and demanding father who grew up to run away and marry a poor, alcoholic Irishman.

Who are the characters running around in your brain these days?

This is a post from the Writer’s Wavelength blog which can be found at writerswavelength.blogspot.com.