“Words are substance strange. Speak one and the air ripples into another’s ears. Write one and the eye laps it up. But the sense transmutes, and the spoken word winds through the ear’s labyrinth into a sense that is no longer the nerve’s realm. The written word unfolds behind the eye into the world, world’s image, and the imagination sees as the eye cannot see – thoughtfully.”
~ Dan Beachy-Quick
A Brighter Word Than Bright
invisible stories

“I write because I have an idea I want to get out….Writing it feels better, and if what I write influences anyone, that’s unexpected and great.” Michele Weldon

 Erle Stanely Gardner was a lawyer although he was admitted to the bar without attending law school, and a prolific novelist and short story writer. He’s most famous for his character Perry Mason, who along with Della Street, Paul Drake and Hamilton Burger became household names in the 1960s.

 “Murder is not perpetrated in a vacuum. It is a product of greed, avarice, hate, revenge, or perhaps fear. As a splashing stone sends ripples to the farthest edges of the pond, murder affects the lives of many people.” (from The Case of the Horrified Heirs, 1964)

 In one of Erle Stanley Gardner’s notebooks he jotted the following reminders:

“Work on every plot until you have

1. Unusual opening incident

2. Complete character conflicts

3. Some emotional appeal

4. Some unusual slant of characters and situation

5. All stock situations eliminated

Make a genuine reader suspense in which he doesn’t know what will happen next and surprised either by

(a) What does happen

(b) the way in which it happens.”

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

from my former blog The Writing Life Too. If you’d like to look through the archives you’ll find it here.

Carry a writer’s notebook. Always. A writer’s notebook trains you to be a relentless observer. Using the notebook forces you to capture the endless ideas, phrases and stories that pop into our heads but are lost unless we jot them down immediately. So many of our ideas are lost unless we note them as soon as they occur.  So pause and record those sudden insights and flashes.

Then look around; pay attention to weather, recording the first breath of spring or the muffled magic of a snowfall.  Write about people, a co-worker who drives you crazy, your high school sweet heart, your in-laws and childhood bullies. Write about your memories, beliefs, and questions, but remember this is not a diary. It’s a canvass, a safe, deep place to throw words together with Jackson Pollack abandon.

Practice characters sketches, scenes, outlines and poems. Write about grief, loss, jealousy and other strong emotions. Write about bugs, trees, gardens, vistas, creatures, and flowers. Collect scents that you can later infuse into a story.  Write about how you imagine life in the West of 1800s or England in the Middle Ages. Write about places, worlds far from your own, populated by cowboys, sheiks, philanthropists, gypsies, Arctic explorers, royalty, conquerors, and orphans. Jot your observations of people you spot at the county fair, supermarket, or shopping mall. Write about the weather, the lighting at dusk, the night sky awash in silver light, a dinner party that lingered on with laughter and secrets and warmth. Write a scene or a description of an old couple holding hands. Write a conversation, a letter, a diary entry told in a character’s voice. Never go into the world alone; arm yourself as a writer.

“Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don’t reject them, let them come through when they’re ready, don’t think you can plan it all out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.”
~ Naomi Shihab Nye