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It Was Good Enough For Shakespeare!
by: Steven Barnes

One of the core conflicts for creative artists of all kinds is the tug-of-war between art and commerce. Frankly, an artist needs to make money, and it is preferable to make it from his craft.

A writer who must work a full-time job to support himself will struggle to find the time to work, and often eventually gives it up altogether. On the other hand, being able to write on any project at all can polish valuable skills, and teach one the rules of the publishing industry.

On the other hand, I’ve met writers who were clearly working on projects, or toiling away at a career, that was burning out their souls. I remember meeting one such writer. His business card read “freelance hack and literary mechanic.” Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, he was dead of alcoholism within a year.

How to avoid such burnout? Well, in my own career, in addition writing the books I cared about the most, I’ve written Batman comic books, a Star Trek novel, and a Star Wars tie-in. In my television career, in addition to writing for “Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone,” I also wrote four episodes of “Baywatch”(!)

And never for a moment did I feel that I was selling myself out. Let’s get something straight: Shakespeare wrote for money. One can keep a careful eye on the bank account, and still reach the heights of craft. But again, how?

In my own case, the answer is fairly simple. Envision the thought process like this: I draw two circles. In the first, is everything I would like to write (and there are always dozens of projects in the mental hopper!). In the second is everything someone else is willing to pay me for. Where the two circles overlap, I write. In other words, are there projects I’d love to write, but can’t get paid for? You bet, and I generally don’t write them unless they are quite short. And there are projects that producers or publishers might want me to do, but don’t touch my heart at all. Having learned through experience that there are limits to my creative flexibility, I turn those down.

But from time to time, an opportunity arises that is in the no-man’s-land between the circles. There is money, but the project isn’t exactly something you have ever considered writing. What then?

Then, you ask yourself if the project is something that you could be proud of. If you would read it, or respect someone who did. For instance, when my agent called and said that the producers of “Baywatch” wanted to talk to me, I had the office send over six hours of video on the show. I sat on the living room couch and watched them with my daughter, who was about six at the time. After a few episodes, I asked her what she thought. She liked it. I asked why. She said: “Because it’s about nice people working hard to make the beach safe for us.” I thought about it, and then replied, “you know? There are worse things than that in this world, by a long shot.” And decided to try writing for it.

Every show, every project has its limitations. You must use certain characters, must get them into certain kinds of situations, and must avoid certain topics. That can be restrictive, but you can also decide to take it as a challenge. After all, you could give Fred Astaire a stage of any kind, and props of any kind, and he would find a way to create dance. Should you be committed to a lesser level of skill and vision? No.

You must find ways to amuse yourself while writing, to stretch your skills by trying something you’ve never done before, by empathizing with a younger audience if necessary—never ever writing “down” to your audience. That is the death of art. But if you can be truly flexible, you’ll find that more doors are open to you, more opportunities arise, that brass ring comes around more often. A writer ready to leap at any opportunity to show his skill, and who finds it easy to fall in love with about a project will often out-perform a brittle “genius” who must have everything exactly his way in order to write.

And if that approach is good enough for the Bard, it’s good enough for me.

About The Author

NY Times bestselling writer Steven Barnes has lectured on creativity from UCLA to the Smithsonian Institute, and published over three million words along the way. For a FREE daily writing tip go to: http://www.lifewriting.biz, or http://www.lifewrite.com.

This article was posted on December 08, 2005

 



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Creative Writing Tips - Have You Established Your Main Character At The Start?
 by: Nick Vernon

In the beginning of your story you have to grab your readers’ interest and sustain it till the end. Our hook is our character. Readers keep on reading to find out more about the character. To see what he’ll do in the story; how he’ll solve his problems. What his goals are and whether he’ll achieve them.

And because our character is the reason readers become hooked on our stories, establishing him at the start is a must in a short story. And it is essential to establish him at the start because we don’t have the capacity in our limited word length to introduce him at our leisure.

The bond between readers and character has to be developed almost immediately.

You might have a few characters though. How do you decide who your main character will be? A main character is one that drives the story.

Think of it this way… If we were to take him away, there will be no story because it’s his story we are telling. The story will unfold by what is happening or what has happened to him.

When you establish who your main character will be, the next thing to do is to find which of your characters is in the best position to tell the story. Will your main character tell his story or will you give that role to another character?

This is what we call Viewpoint and what we’ll see in more detail in proceeding chapters.

Your main character isn’t necessarily the one who is telling the story; he might not even appear in our story ‘physically’ but will be there through the thoughts of others. So the viewpoint character might be a secondary character.

Whoever is telling the story is the viewpoint character.

The viewpoint character gives the coloring of the story. Whatever this characters says, we will believe. It may or may not be true, according to the main character, but because he isn’t there ‘physically’ to voice his opinions, we will have to take the viewpoint character’s word for it.

In a novel you can play around with viewpoint. You can have several viewpoint characters. In a short story it works best with one.

So your main character, whether he’ll be telling his own story or someone else will be doing it for him, has to be established at the start of your story.

Having said that, let’s see the reasons why the main character may not be telling his own story...

  • Perhaps our main character is one that readers won’t sympathize or empathize with.
  • Or the main character will not view highly with our readers
  • Or the viewpoint character knows all the facts and can tell the story better
  • Etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me give you an example of a secondary character telling the story of a main character…

Let’s say your secondary character is a psychiatrist and the main character is the patient. Depending on what’s going to go on in the story, we’ll have to choose who’s in a better position to tell it. In this case, I will choose the psychiatrist.

I’ve done this because the patient is confused, being the one with the problems. The psychiatrist knows all the facts and his opinions will make things clearer to readers.

So, as the secondary character (the psychiatrist) unravels the story, we’ll become involved in the main character because it’s the main character’s story that is been told.

This may get a little confusing to the beginner writer. As they write they will have to keep in mind that the secondary character, although he’s telling the story, is NOT our main character.

The secondary character is there to do perform a task. He’s only the voice. It’s the main character we’ll become involved with.

A secondary character doesn’t play such an important role as a main character does. Therefore, information about secondary characters should be kept to a minimum. It’s not his story – it’s the main character’s story and the spotlight must, most times, be kept on the main character.

Take the above example for instance. It’s no relevance to the story how the psychiatrist started his career or where he received his diploma – what’s important, is what he has to say about the main character, his patient.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introduce your main character straight away, as close to the beginning of the story that’s possible. Enable your readers to form a bond and that will keep them hooked.

Is your main character established at the start of your story?



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