The Characters You Meet

“I feel like your story doesn’t have a defined main character.”

There’s only a small group of people I’ve talked about my book with.  One of those people is a close friend of mine that I’ll be calling Levi.  Levi has read parts of my book in no particular order.  He’s read the chapters like they were short stories.  Last week, in the car, he said that there doesn’t seem to be a definite main character, that it’s a book about the other characters.  For a moment, I thought about it in silence, and y’know, he’s kind of right.  My book doesn’t revolve around one central character, it revolves around the people he meets and how they change him.

If you’ve read A Walk To Remember, a Nicholas Sparks book, you would think that the main character is Landon.  It’s spoken from his point of view, so it must be him.  However, who’s the book really about?  Landon or Jamie?  Landon is the guy who meets Jamie.  He’s also the guy who asks her out.  He’s also the guy who gets sent into this world of love and triumph and all this gushy stuff.  But, in my opinion it’s more about Jamie.  What character is the book really about?  It’s about a girl who doesn’t have that long to live (spoiler alert) and how she changes the people around her.  Landon is just the reflection.  Landon is what happens when a character meets the story.  

We’d like to think that we’re all main characters in our story, and yes we are to a point.  But, without community, without people, we’re just stories that start with descriptions of the weather and, more than likely, end with descriptions of the weather.  Our stories are the stories of other people.  We grow in that way.  All superhero stories, are stories about villians.  Villians breed conflict.  Other people breed conflict.  Without conflict there’s no growth, there’s no development.  There’s no choices!  We need people to build conflict so we could grow.  Without them and without conflict, we can’t find who we really are.

The Simpsons Is Still Able To Connect With An Audience

It’s nice to see that The Simpsons still has an ability to connect with their audience in a sweet and down to Earth manner.

For the past few episodes, The Simpsons seem to have been focused on reeducating society about culture and a new aged society as they threw together episodes about modern publishing, marketing, hiring an agent, the food network, food blogs, and even the idea of blogging altogether. Almost every episode this season has brought in a different celebrity voice. Actors such as Joan Rivers, Mad Men’s John Slattery, Jane Lynch, and a lengthy line of food network stars such as Gordon Ramsey, Mario Batali, and Anthony Bordain offered up their voices. Even the voice of the literary celebrity, Neil Gaiman, guest starred on The Simpsons. Neil Gaiman! If anyone didn’t notice, Neil Gaiman’s a writer. His books don’t speak, probably because their written in font. How does it make sense for a writer to provide their voices when almost no one’s even heard him talk. With all these celebrity voices and all these ways that The Simpsons seem to be implementing all of this modern culture, it’s almost like The Simpsons are just trying a little too hard to fit in and seem hip and cool. It’s almost as if they’re trying desperately to connect with people.

I just finished watching last week’s Christmas Special, Season 23 Episode 9: Holidays of Future Passed, and I got to say it’s really nice to see that The Simpsons can come back down from their struggle to pull things out of the newspapers and new media and just be nonsensical and sensible. Nonsensical in a way that’s not like Family Guy where they’re throwing a meteor shower of cut aways in a thirty minute span, but nonsensical in a way where comedy doesn’t have to be clever, but just fun. The sensibility comes back when the writers of this episode decided that the theme wouldn’t be about food blogs or Facebook, although there was a tangent that mentioned the likes of Facebook. It, their sensibility, came back when the writers decided that the theme would be the almost repeatedly overkilled and revamped re-run theme that has gone through almost every television sitcom ever made: It’s hard to be a parent.

That’s what people want to see. People want to connect. They don’t want to challenge their brains to inform them about the new wave of society. They just want something to remind them of who they are.

People who watch cartoons don’t like newspapers.

If I Don't Find The Time To Write, I'm Quitting My Day Job

Last Monday, I left a note to my manager saying that I would only be able to work weekday mornings and that I would need my nights and weekends off. The days are available because one of the other busboys in our restaurant just got fired for stealing tips. But, in result, they’ve asked if I could work double shifts. That’s not going to happen. I work as a busboy to pay rent and eat restaurant food, but at the same time, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life cleaning up after people and worse, not writing. I need to write. Writing makes me feel like my life is going in a direction. When I finish pages in a book that I’m writing, it feels like I’m getting closer to my goal. In some quirky way, it feels like my life has meaning. Unfortunately, ever since I got here, I haven’t written at all.

There’s just no time to write when you work evenings. You spend your mornings waiting to work. You spend your evenings working. And you spend your nights tired from being worked. It’s a sick cycle merry go round.

Today, is my first day back after my 2 day weekend from work. I get to sit or stand patiently in front of my manager as I suspect he’ll be infuriated to hear my proposal, as if he hadn't seen the note I left him on Monday. But, it doesn’t matter. If I don’t get the hours I need to write, I need to quit my job.

I’m just a busboy. I don’t have a family to feed. I don’t have school loans to pay off. I don’t have a car or car payments to think about.

I just have a book that’s been waiting for me to take care of it.

How The Thought Process Of A Fiction Writer Works

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking. Going into my 8th chapter in my book, I’ve been putting a lot of thought in the creation of my world, the emotions, the growth of my characters, building these personal conflicts, and doing as much as I could to make my book seem livable. I do my best not to rush my book so I could complete it quickly. I want to immerse in it. It just feels right writing that way. During these past two weeks, I’ve noticed a pattern with my writing that I’d like to share with people. I’d like to share with you my thought process.

I work retail at an interior decorating store. For a good portion of the time, there are no customers walking in, anyone to greet, or pretty much anything to do. I spend a lot of time walking around aimlessly, sometimes shelving things in place. This gives me a lot of time to be thinking and lately, the only thing I’ve been thinking about is the book I’m writing.

For a good portion of my free time, I let my mind wander into my book in a not so chronological way. I think about the characters who will come up later in my book. I think about how they look like, what they’ll do, how they help or provide conflict for my main characters as the book comes to meet them. I think about the different settings that will be a part of my world, what that will look like, certain items that’ll make the place seem authentic, more visual, the minor yet interesting details. Sometimes, I put some thought into how the dialogue will be as my book moves further into the story. But, being that it’s so far away, I try not to put too much thought in it. I just try to get an idea of what people might say at a certain point.

Dialogue is a very important part of writing a book, well at least for me it is. I feel that more writers should put more time into their character’s dialogue. There are some who I feel go overboard with dialogue, having their characters go through long speeches that seem like lectures instead of conversations. I think more authors should play around and observe what other people say in movies, tv shows, and most importantly, life altogether.

Near the end of my shift, I usually notice that it’s about an hour or so away from clocking out. This is where my mind starts to come back down to a ground level. I start thinking about the chapter that’s coming up next in my book; the chapter that I’ll come home to work on that day. When I do this, I pretty much outline the chapter in my mind. When my thoughts are done with that, I put the dialogue together in my head. When I’m done with that, I do what I feel is the most important action to set my writing into motion: I think about the first sentence that will lead into the first paragraph of that chapter. That there, that’s probably the main part of my thought process that keeps me writing into the night.

On my way back home from work, where hopefully there isn’t any thing left in the day for me to do, I carry my thoughts as safely as possible in my head until I get in front of a computer. When I finally get home and before I place my fingers anywhere on my keyboard, I pull out a college rule notebook and outline the chapter with pen by dumping as much of my thoughts that occurred during the day onto that piece of paper. I somewhat use the JK Rowling method that she uses for her Harry Potter books. I change the categories and usually spend a lot more space in outlining my chapters.

I then I pull up a blank document, place my fingers on the keyboard, and that’s when I start typing. That’s the thought process I use when writing fiction.

You Do Your Best Thinking When You're Not Paying Attention

There's a reason why I take a longer time to wash dishes. . .

. . . it's the same reason why I take so long to fold my clothes.

. . . it's the same reason why I take longer showers.

. . . it's why I don't drive a car and decide to take the trolly.

. . . it's why I'm reconsidering enrolling back into college.

. . . it's the same reason why I don't think of new ideas while I'm sitting in front of my computer.


"I do my best daydreaming when I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing."

Why You Should Stop Reading The Books That You Supposedly Need To Read To Become A Great Writer

For the longest time I use to tell people that my favorite book was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I never actually finished the book. I liked the first couple of chapters and the throbbing sexual tension between two innocent kids. But after awhile the book began to trail off and I couldn’t find anything to hook me back into it. I felt like I was waiting dearly and patiently through the main character’s naive life hoping to see Estella again, to watch her break down into a lesser and more vulnerable character. I would wisp through pages with anticipation, but by the point where I gave up every night and put the book down, I left feeling frustrated when it wouldn’t bring Estella back to life. My great expectations had fallen short.

I never read another book, except for English class, until I read A Walk To Remember. I was fully infused with the book as I cradled the pages in my fingers for 11 hours until 9am in the morning. I was imprisoned by the book, unable to escape it’s mesmerising bond between it’s characters. I wanted to see how they grew, how they changed, feel their emotional epiphanies. Every time I reached the end of a chapter, I wanted more plot, more words. The book made me hungry. When it was 9am and I finally closed it, finished, I felt. . . well hopefully we all know what a good orgasm feels like.

I’ve tried to read the classics but I only felt like I was lying to myself. I felt that putting myself through the torture of Elizabethean writing would make me a better person and influence my writing for the better. I can’t say it did, or didn’t, because I don’t know if I could gauge that. However, forcing myself to commit to a book was a painful experience. Reading an awful bestseller is like being in a relationship with someone you don’t like but your friends say is good for you. You just can’t wait until it’s over.

Books shouldn’t be like that. By the time you reach that conclusive last sentence, you should feel the pain of letting go of something you don’t want to see fade out and disappear. Stories are supposed to make you happy, at least for as long as it could be in your life.

Why I’m Obsessed With The Hunger Games And Why I Can’t Read It

 

I’ll admit that I’ve repeatedly watched the official trailer for The Hunger Games half a dozen times.
The Hunger Games is an incredible book.  It threads inside your mind and wreaks havoc as it cuts through your body from the inside out.  With every line you could feel your breaths hasten.  With every fleeting sentence the words slowly and painfully crawl up your arms toward your neck.  And, I’ve only read past chapter 2.

By now, after watching the trailer so many times, over and over, I’m sure I’ve become obsessed with this book.  I want to follow the characters, glide through their storyline, and live inside a book about a futuristic depression that pins pre teens and teenagers up against each other in a battle to the death.  However, I can’t read it.  I can’t sit myself down and say, I’m going to let The Hunger Games suck me in.

Reading the Hunger Games, to me, has become a full body experience.  It’s a literary orgasm from the first few lines to whenever it’s impossible to keep going without keeping still.  I just can’t handle that.  That’s just too much for me.  The book is that powerful.  The writing in The Hunger Games has this emotional tendency to strike every chord in the body so perfectly that it becomes a heightened experience.  Each sentence is perfectly crafted to paint a sincere heart throbbing pain.  Back in High School, I once read a book called Night by an author named Elie Weisel.  The book was about a man’s experience through the torturous horrors of the Halocaust.  That book nearly comes close to the pain in The Hunger Games; and The Hunger Games is set in the future.

I can’t read The Hunger Games because I can’t handle that type of pain.  I love the book and practically every aspect of it, but it’s just not something I could handle, and not the way I want to influence my writing.  The writing is spectacular.  The plot is spectacular.  It’s gripping, it’s piercing, it’s everything a book should be.  But, right now, I’m a writer.  I want to find the writing that makes me feel a certain way.  The Hunger Games can’t deliver what I want to feel, right now, in this moment.

There are times when I want to read about a post American Civil War future where children are starving and need to kill each other for food.  But, sometimes, well most of the time, I don’t want to start my mornings feeling that way.