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1. Writing your way out of a rut

I think I first noticed this when I was a kid, glued to this marvelous new invention called HBO. I clumsily tried to describe it in my Still vs Video posts. It’s the following quote from John Houston that really crystallized the idea for me:

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“To me, the perfect film is as though it were unwinding behind your eyes, and your eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were seeing what you wished to see. Film is like thought. It’s the closest to thought process of any art.” (found on p. 60 Walter Murch’s, In the Blink of an Eye)

Thinking about this quote, I realized that I use a similar approach in my writing. My fiction writing style is spartan, as you can see in Natiki. I’ve never been comfortable writing flowery prose detailing every last scratch on the furniture or meditating on each shade of color. Most human beings don’t take in that much detail when they walk into the room. People tend to notice the details only when something draws their attention. I like to write fiction similarly — supplying details a little at a time as you’d notice them while invisibly following the protagonist around. If I do my job well, you don’t notice. The writing follows your thoughts just as in film.
(BTW: Walter Murch’s book goes into this mechanism in detail. It’s a fascinating read if you are interested in editing or just love movies).

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That at the beginning of the journey, [once upon a time] the hero’s world is stable, if incomplete. [and every day] Their existing life is their story-system. [until one day] Some new content presents itself which cannot be successfully integrated into the existing story-system. ie, it is seen as an enemy or as a threat. In order to combat this threat [because of this], the individual is taken outside the realm of his story-system. That is, he goes on the hero’s journey. In so doing, he leaves his normal realm, and [because of this] encounters various psychic trials and aids which serve to transform his thinking-emotional processes enough so that he may integrate the new content. At the conclusion of his quest, when [until finally] he “vanquishes the monster” it means that he releases it from its form. By releasing it from its form, that of an enemy, it then becomes absorbed into his system of knowledge as a whole. The boon which he then gains is a transformed version of the monster itself. It has been transformed from a monster, which has only a destructive role in his story-system to that of a treasure, which has beneficial results for the world he exists in. He can then return to his story-system, but [and ever since] it will have been changed by his individual experiences, and his final integration with the outside content.

I snorted my hot chocolate when I read how perfectly the two story systems match. As I cleaned my drink off the table, I began to ponder: Joseph Campbell asserted that the hero’s journey is the one true story — all the other stories you’ve heard are just riffs on this theme. There’s a whole lot of debate about this, some agreeing with Campbell, some saying that there are several other archetypes. Though I haven’t researched it, I suspect the heroine’s journey is different. Still, maybe there is a little truth in Campbell’s assertion, but it’s not the story that is universal, it’s the structure of the story that’s universal. Perhaps we’re all just hard-wired to respond to that form as English speakers are hard-wired for iambs and Japanese really works in 5s & 7s. It’s the pattern not the content. Stick any characters, heroic journey or no, on top of that same structure, and we’ll enjoy it just the same.

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1. What makes a story?
2. The perfect story
3. Story time!

Mixing ink and water
Ok, I mis-remembered the quote. The convolutions of my brain have been remembering it as “Leave a little ink in the well.” (ink — inkwell — writer, get it?) I like my metaphor better, naturally, and not just because it’s more apt. Thinking of it as an inkwell, I found the corollary, “pouring ink in the well”: Namely, when an idea comes to me, taking a little extra time to flesh it out, leaving myself something easy to start with when get around to implementing the idea.
I come up with ideas constantly, and rigorously write them down in endless lists. I rarely go back and do any of those things off my list, though. When I look to my lists for inspiration, the items seem lifeless; like a bunch of empty ink pots. Now, I’m extending the habit to not just writing them down, but really sketching them out: outlining, drawing, or writing random phrases or scenes that come to mind — really doing a braindump of the idea so that there’s something fascinating to start with. In effect, I’m filling the empty ink pot with ink to later write with.
It works with photography too, but I really do need to learn to draw…
Getting ink all over the place
I’ve been having so much fun with these ideas that I’ve been applying them in several places in life:
With friends: When visiting, don’t stay until we’ve exhausted every topic of conversation. Leave a few things unsaid for next time — or even for the next person (so I don’t feel like I’m rehashing the same story for every friend I run across).
In dating: Don’t satiate desire; leave a little lingering in the air that you both can savor until you next see together. Anticipation gets the blood boiling after all — why use it all up? I’ve been trying this and the the past few weeks have been quite fun. No, electrifying.
With housework: Don’t try this at home, kids. My laboratory studies have shown that these techniques have a negative effect sanitation: if you stop cleaning in the middle, you still end up with a bunch of crap around your house. Think before you ink.

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When I get stuck like this, I find the problem (and solution) is usually one of the following:

• I’m out of practice. Even a few days off will cause me to forget my native language. The best solution is simply to keep on writing. Wax on. Wax off.
• I’m not reading enough. Reading is the fifth food group for writers
• I don’t know what I want to write or where I’m going, so I fuss over the details. Sometimes, ploughing ahead is still a good remedy — stop worrying about the details and listen for the story to tell itself. For me, switching to dialog often works as that’s more natural for me. If all else fails, I’ll go for a walk or switch to another project (say, blogging about writing).
• I’m trying too hard. When obstinate perfectionism rears its ugly head, it’s time to bust out the BFG of mind games: rewriting the piece in the style of a five year old. For extra potency, tape thumb tacks upside-down on the punctuation keys. Nothing says flow like a five page run-on sentence. Of course, I never have finished a run-on — somewhere in the midst of being five years old, I remember how to tell a story.

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1. I am a writing machine!

Every once and a while, a writer sits down to write a story and it writes itself. It’s like you’re just taking dictation. My last story was like this. Writers, myself especially, seem to always long for that effortless story and get disappointed when it of course doesn’t work.
We have a similar legend in photography: the perfect negative. A negative so well made in the camera that it requires no skill to print at all. You just run the paper through the chemicals or press File/Print, and the image comes out with all the light & dark bits adding emphasis exactly where you wanted. No burning or dodging or other darkroom tricks. Your desire visually transcribed.
The difference is that photographers joke about it whereas writers stress about it. Many photographers know that the perfect negative is a gift of chance, not will. As a writer, I often forget this.
I think this is why I like cross-training art.

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Trying to recreate that hit never works. The harder you try, the more you miss, and the more frustrated you become. If you let that frustration get to you, you won’t hit a thing. Swing and a miss, strike two.
But: if you blow off the feeling and just keep swinging — not even caring if you hit the ball — you’ll start hitting the ball again. Your body automatically starts getting better. Eventually, you’re hitting it fairly often and you start thinking about how to place your hit where you want. You still miss occasionally, but you accept that — nobody hits the ball perfectly, nobody. The best batting averages in history are still less than 50%, after all.
I’m sure there’s something zen about it. It’s amazing that I haven’t seen any smiling, saffron-clad monks at the plate lately. Shaolin Baseball, anyone?
It’s the same with writing. The last story I wrote flowed so easily, it felt more like recording than writing. Then, I took too long of a break and got a little rusty. Returning to the keyboard, I kept missing the ball. I let it get to me and couldn’t write anything. Then, I stopped worrying, and just started writing — emails to friends, little scene sketches that popped into mind, anything. Ideas began to pop up faster than I could write about them. After a while, I noticed, “Hey, I’m writing again!”.
As everyone in baseball knows: when you’re 0 and 2, swing away.
Why is this? If you think about it, it’s completely strange: the more you try, the more you fail; the less you try, the more you succeed. It’s the usual suspects: over-thinking, fear, and that eternal nemesis of creativity: the word “no”.
I’m convinced that the brain is not the origin of creative work, at least not the left side. My work is best when I’m not thinking at all. When I start thinking, I start analyzing, critiquing, dissecting. This puts my brain in control with the implicit assumption that through rigor & will, my brain will instruct me on how to perform the creative act. It’s like working for an overbearing, micro-managing boss. Creativity comes from thinking sideways, taking alternative paths. It depends on a lack of control.
Missing the ball makes you wonder why you missed. You start thinking & analyzing. Self-consciousness and rigidity arrive, muscling creativity out. Soon fear joins in throwing punches — fear that you’ll never hit the ball or make anything cool again. I know that fear is the primary fuel for my frustration. Then you start getting critical of you work and methodology. You start saying no. The word “no” kills creativity. It imposes limits on a process that desires no limits. You try and you fail.
When you stop worrying & learn to love your slump, you don’t ask why you missed. Over-thinking isn’t initiated. Because you’re expecting to miss, fear has no foothold. Because misses & hits are equally accepted, the word “no” isn’t even at the game. Home run, baby.
So, whether my little league coaches were wise or just lucky, their words are true: “just swing away.”

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1. Leaving a little ink in the well
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The beauty is in the details
A master painter makes a thousand little decisions while creating a great work: where to place the light, how to arrange the composition, what color to paint this side of the face so that it appears lit by a fire, how to vary the direction and type of brush strokes as she moves from the face to the hands of the subject. The skill of the master is to combine these minute choices so that they vanish individually and create an overall impression that can move the viewer. You don't know how; you don't know why; you don't even care. All you know is you love this painting.
As a student, I can find great insight by understanding what choices the artist made and why. I'll understand how she thinks, and what she sees. I'll learn not just her aesthetic, but I can begin to understand where it comes from. I'll compare all this to my own process and decide either to keep my own way, to follow the master, or to synthesize something new. Most importantly, over time I'll learn what makes something great: how all those little decisions contributed to the grand finale (often by imagining what would've happened if she chose differently).
Unfortunately, most of these thousand little decisions were made instinctually by the artist. She probably couldn't tell me let alone write a cookbook for me. I can stare at the work and hope for enlightenment, but if the artist was truly a master, I won't find the important subtle choices.
You can only discover them by struggling to recreate the work from scratch, yourself, just like Verrocchio made da Vinci do.
Cross training
My photography has improved each time I tried to recreate a favorite picture. Several years ago, I tried to recreate one of Diane Stefanich's photos taken in the Seattle Arboretum. When I got there, I found only problems: I couldn't make the scenery line up as she did; the light wasn't working; my lens was wrong. It was completely frustrating. Yet, as I tried to compensate, I gained a visceral feel for how each element, from lighting, perspective, placement of the tripod, exposure, etc, contributed to making that particular image. The same thing happened after I spent a couple hours at the Hotel de Ville in Paris trying to duplicate Doisneau's famous Kiss. (can you say fanatic?) There's so much to learn by imitating your favorite shot.
But maybe you're literary and not visual at all. Pick your favorite scene from a book and rewrite it, matching the intensity, mood, and narrative content (so you could replace the author's scene with yours). It's an incredibly fun exercise.
Maybe you're an animator - redo the scene from The Incredibles where Bob picks up his car and is spotted by a neighborhood kid. Match the style and comedy of the scene and still make that car look incredibly heavy even though it's being lifted by one guy. Then do a few other scenes from the movie and you'll see that the folks in Emeryville really know how to do weight and how subtly that improves the feel of the movie. Then go watch Robots and try not to cringe.
Cheap Inspiration
I firmly believe that your skill level is strictly a matter of how much work you've done that you've tried to make your best. It's how many times the photographer has composed carefully and hit the shutter release. It's the number of perfectly chosen words a writer has arranged on a page. It's the length of tape or video a cinematographer has shot and known he nailed it. The fastest way to get better is to do more.
But, when you're just starting out, it's hard to crank out the volume when you don't have any ideas. Copying masterworks is a great antidote. It allows you to keep working - and learning - until your own ideas start to bubble up. Similarly, it's a great pastime on the road to discovering your own style. As you make copies, you'll have stronger and stronger opinions of what you like or don't like.
Go forth and multiply
Once you've got the hang of it, copy your favorite master, but do it in a way that's completely your own. Then do something else your own way. Pretty soon, you're doing your own stuff really well, standing on the shoulders of giants.
So, go forth. Copy. Learn. Become great.
[Just be respectful of other's work and don't try to sell something that's not yours. Copying's not bad as long as you respect others. (However it is too bad that the frenzy over copyrights has lead some people to associate the word "copy" with "evil", but that's another story to blog elsewhere. In the meantime, know that creative commons is cool.)]

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You can ask anyone this question and they’ll tell you what makes a good story. Depending on their personality, they’ll say that it’s interesting characters, a richly developed world, amazing events, or wonderful language. These do make a piece good, but do they make a story a story? A poem can paint an interesting portrait of a character or a fanciful world, yet have no action take place nor any problem resolved. Is it still a story? Then there’s the Iliad — a poem with enough stories to inspire most of western literature.
A few months back, I wrote a story about a writer struggling to get out of a rut (all authors write this story at some point). I showed it to several people and they all thought that, though it was hilarious, it was missing something. After reading it over, I realized that the problem was that there was no change. The character was interesting, the events enjoyable, but it never went anywhere. To make it feel like a complete story, I needed to have something change — either he gets back in the groove, or gives up and becomes an Amway salesman, or even in the last few moments of the story simply realizes he’s in a rut. Any change will do.
That’s the essential element that makes a story: change. Change in the protagonist, his environment, or the reader. The change can be overt — ridding the world of evil; or subtle — a change in the character’s perception (or even just the reader’s) like in It’s a Wonderful Life. Whatever it’s form, there needs to be some sort of change. Without it, the piece is just a portrait or chronology. While there are many great literary portraits, they feel different than stories. Right away, we know that there will be no change or resolution, so we can relax and enjoy the description. When a piece feels like a story, we wait anxiously for something to “happen”, and if there is no change, we feel empty.
Change alone won’t make the story good. It’s just the basic structure — sort of like a car that is only a frame and drivetrain. It’ll get you from place to place, but you’ll look weird and be a little sore afterwards. For a “good ride”, you do need all that great banter, believable characterizations, and the rest of the accessories. As a writer, I can change the blend of accessories to suit my intended audience. Some people like Mercedes, some like Volvo. Some like screwball comedy, some like Rambo (or so I’m told). It’s important to remember, though, that characterization, etc, are just accessories — you still need change to get the thing rolling.

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