LIFE
Life is taking out the garbage, dropping the kids at daycare and cleaning up spills.
LIFE is signing the papers on your first home, the moment your child comes into the world and surveying the devastation of a flooded home.
Life is going to the park, picking out new underwear and eating ice cream.
LIFE is walking in the rain forest you've only seen in pictures, seeing yourself in THE wedding dress for the first time in the mirror and having gelato on a hillside in Tuscany as the sun sets.
We all know that moments are not created equal. Nor are days, weeks and years. There is normal, and there is extraordinary. There is happy, and there is elation. There is not fun, and there is horrific. That's life.
My favorite Sinatra song inspired this post. Life also inspired this post.
Last week I had leaky ceilings, dental visits and car inspections. This week I had drinks with dear friends I see only every few years. I got to see my friend's son conquer his fear of water slides and subsequently have the time of his young life. And was able to spend too-rare hours just hanging out with my spouse.
As usual, I found a writing lesson in all of this.
When I write my first drafts, I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about Life. Cups of coffee. Phone calls. Waking up. Falling asleep. And so on. It helps me figure out who the characters are. What they do. How they do it.
It's an essential part of my process, just as those cups of coffee, sleep and quick conversations with my brother are essential to my own life. Most of life is made up of Life. But it's only LIFE that counts in writing.
It isn't until I get to the second draft that I really figure out what constitutes as LIFE for my characters.
A phone call from a friend is Life. A call from a grandparent they thought to be dead is LIFE. Coffee sipped over a friendly a chitchat is Life. Coffee thrown in a lover's face during a quarrel is LIFE. By my third time through I usually have a pretty good handle on it, but I still need to be cautious.
Our stories should be filled with LIFE. Think of the story as a compendium of LIFE for our characters. Only include the dire, the exceptional, the exhilarating and the devastating. Everything else needs to support or facilitate that or get out of the way.
As simple of a concept as it is, I've found it to be one of the hardest things to train myself to do. Probably because I can't imagine my own life in a Cliffs Notes version. It's exhausting to even think about!
But there's good writing exercise in it ...
But there's good writing exercise in it ...
Try writing down your own life highlights. Maybe just from the past year. Now imagine building a story around just those things. Once you've done that you're onto something.
It hurts to cut the normal from the lives of our characters. Why? Because it would kill us to not have the normal in our own lives. The collection of "normal" is what makes up a childhood. Normal is the memory of your grandparents. Normal is the values your parents instilled in you that you're busy instilling in your own kids.
Take away the normal, and there just isn't much to life.
Take away the normal, and there just isn't much to life.
But no one likes to read about normal. We live normal. It's LIFE we want to read about.
~EJW~
Posts
Yeah. You're right. My first drafts are mostly dialogue and backstory. That's how I get to know my characters.
ReplyDeleteI thought you meant your real first dates, Shelly. Had me thinking, "man, she's all business!" :)
DeleteVery good point! It's the cutting of the boring parts. They happen, but no one wants to read about them.
ReplyDeleteAnd where in the park do you buy underwear?
They don't have underwear stands in your parks? Hmm, always interesting to see how the other half lives... :)
DeleteE.J. You do know that guy in the video is not Sinatra?
ReplyDeleteAwesome post like always.
Normalcy however, is a tough one to define. There was very little "Normal" to my growing up and even my current lifestyle. Do I have regrets? You bet, and I think that's what I write about. Do people like it? Well, that's probably debatable.
I see we have another Sinatra fan in the house! Yes, I do realize that's not the guy. It was just the best version of the song I could find on YouTube without ads. :) Bouble does my favorite cover, incidentally, and the Van Halen version ain't bad either. ;)
DeleteYou're very right, as usual. Normal is VERY relative. However, I think that illustrates another fabulous point; even if out characters lead what would be for most an atypical Life (promise I'll quit that after this post is dead), we have to find the extraordinary in that as well. Or perhaps magnify their normal.
And you write from the heart, that's not debatable. :)
Great post!! Going back through my first draft, I realzed I tend to overuse boring details whenever I need to transition from one scene to the next.
ReplyDeleteThat's an excellent point, Christina. I think there's usually a reason we fall into using 'life details'. Learning to sniff out our tendencies can go a long way toward cutting it out.
DeleteAin't life grand?
ReplyDeleteGreat distinction. My first drafts are always way too full of walking across rooms to pick up things, the details of driving places, and conversations with all the backs and forths preserved.
ReplyDeleteI am, however, reading a book - an oldie but a goodie, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon - in which he sets up so many questions, so many BURNING questions, about a simple scene of a man and woman eating breakfast together, that even the detail of the marmalade melting on the toast is interesting and purposeful. That is a skill I would like to develop.
You're right, Elizabeth, there are authors who can add so much tension and weight to simple things it becomes important. Certainly a style thing, and as you say, something most of us would struggle to master.
DeletePERFECT timing on this post! I'm just starting a new WIP, and am having a little trouble finding the voice and full background of everyone. The general plot I've got, but the character's lives aren't falling into place the way they usually do. Thanks for this insightful post~ off to make a few relevant notes on my brainstorming page!
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it, Jess! Isn't it crazy how many times you'll bounce over to a blog and find a tip or something you didn't know you were looking for? I do it all the time. Just means I keep good blog company, I think. :)
DeleteAwesome post. Life is in the details and that's what makes great characters too. :) Though I'd like to believe my characters have much more exciting daily lives than I do!
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Though I don't think we should eliminate the normal completely. It's OK to say a character had her daily cup of coffee - it makes them more human and relatable. Then when major s**t starts going down, the contrast is all the greater and the reader will think "What would I do in that situation?" Great writing is about extraordinary things happening to ordinary people, I think.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, your posts give me chills. Amazing perspective. It reminded me of that quote we've heard by, I think, Alfred Hitchcock. Something about story is life without all the boring parts (totally butchered and paraphrased that!)
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's the quote about life being what happens when you're busy making other plans.
ReplyDelete"But no one likes to read about normal. We live normal. It's LIFE we want to read about." Brilliant and so true. Wonderful post that had me smiling to the end... and beyond. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteThere's a magic to your posts, EJ... I love how you're able to create "Feeling" behind your words... there's just a small handful of blogs that I actually jump to click on when I see a new post is up... and you're one of them. :)
ReplyDeleteI love this. Life for me this past weekend was being evacuated from my home because a ginormous fire was spreading right behind my house. Crazy stuff! Adventure = Life. And I loved all your examples of how to put life into our writing. I think I need to keep this in mind this week as I'm pumping out the words ;)
Since I became a parent four months ago (or thirteen, depending on how you look at it), I have never seen Life in snapshot moments that can never be captured with a keyboard or a lens: my daughter's first smile, her first laugh, rolling over, "talking" to me; these moments make my Life beautiful, and I hope I cherish them enough.
ReplyDeleteGood point. We tend to focus on the highs and lows, but the middle stuff makes up most of our 'real' lives.
ReplyDeleteI've recently learned to appreciate Sinatra in a whole new light. Now I listen to him sometimes when in the mood. I wonder if it's an age thing.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! And I can't tell you how often I sing this song, because, well, this is life. I write in Womens Genre about life as we know it and as we don't know it. I loved this post!
ReplyDeleteEJ, this post says so much! We have to muddle through the normal n' mundane to find the sparks that ignite. Once we find them, the process starts to take off. Mine is probably more like a forest fire. I need to get it under control...edit, edit, edit. I crave normal in my real world, but you are so right, we only want a few sprinkles of it in our books. We need to find common threads so the reader can relate(the normal). Then give them a bonfire! Thanks, I am going to do just that, write down the year's highlights, so far... Great post!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree that LIFE is what our stories should be about, but Life also needs to be included, because they can give the readers a much needed breather.
ReplyDeleteBut Life moments can't take away from the story. They always need to add something. :-)
This reminded me of a scene I wrote between two brothers on the phone. It was just a conversation about life, ya know... what was going on each other's world. As they talk, one is seducing the receptionist at the telephone station and the other is going through his girlfriend's bag... I had to cut it, but to this day, it is still my fav piece of writing. It's so real, it's so fun, but it's what I needed as a writer to get to know these guys, not what my readers needed to know. There is a difference and it's why we have to sometimes go through so many drafts. such is... life.
ReplyDeleteSo true. I think we writers sometimes forget which life we need to be focusing on.
ReplyDeleteHey EJ, I nominated you for the Fabulous Blog Ribbon Award. Details at my blog! :)
ReplyDeleteJust last week, I've started taking time each day to compile big and small events from my life so that I can make my writing seem more life-like.
ReplyDeleteFantastic post, E.J. I finished reading it with a smile on my face. That was an excellent way to make your point. The difference between life and LIFE, and wow--no one wants to read about normal. Thanks for a good post. Sometimes its nice to reminded of the things we let fall by the wayside. Now...to link this to Twitter... hmm...
ReplyDeleteI loved this post and I am so happy that I heard about your blog on Donna Yate's blog and stopped by. What an excellent blog! I am now following you.
ReplyDeleteLife is made up of so many little moments that change all the time. I like the writing challenge that you threw out there and plan to give it a try. It will be interesting to see what my life looks like. :)
~Jess
http://thesecretdmsfilesoffairdaymorrow.blogspot.com/
I like this post a lot, E.J. I hope you'll be back to the blog soon. Enjoy the Twitter thingie you're going to work on.
ReplyDelete
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