Writing – Page 4 – Thomas Cotterill

The Creative Magic of Absorption

The way to get creative projects rolling is to get enthusiastic about them. We must keep thinking about what we propose to do long enough for the priming effect of absorption to begin drawing forth the relevant ideas and information from our inner and outer lives. Isaac Newton believed that to solve a problem required “thinking on it continually.”

We are at our creative best when completely absorbed in what we are doing. (Photo: Wikipedia)

By continually thinking about our project, we get into the creative mood specific to that project. A cocoon or atmosphere of feeling surrounds what we are doing. We have enveloped ourselves in a creative possibility cloud. As our mood-focussed attention gathers the relevant ideas, images, and bits of information around the emotional nucleus, the proposed project will take shape and the momentum will steadily increase. American sculptor Louise Nevelson said of the artist’s work, “It absorbs you totally, and you absorb it totally, everything must fall by the wayside by comparison.”

Writing Gives Thoughts Value

A few useful thoughts and inspiring insights on creativity and the writing process.

An Illustrated Version of William Blake's Poem, The Tyger

Do your thoughts have any value if you keep them to yourself? (Image: public domain.)

Writing Begins Things

Writing is about making beginnings. It is about bringing something into existence that did not exist before. All true art works in this way.

Finding a Way In

The hardest part of any task is getting started, finding a way in. This can be especially true with writing where one must establish so much early on.

Plan Writing Ahead

It is easier to get out of bed in the morning if one has a clear and precise knowledge of the work one will be doing that day. I think it a wise thing to plan the next day’s work the evening before.

Build Novel Chapters with Scenes

At the level of structure, writing a novel is like a construction project. Understanding the basics will allow you to use imaginative architecture. (Image: public domain.)

How should we writers construct our chapters? Inevitably, the process starts with scenes. Some authors create lengthy scenes and simply make the big scene into an entire chapter. Novels constructed this way can seem slow moving, weighty, and dull, although skilled writers have made this work throughout the centuries that novels have been written. Writers of a more commercial bent often turn out short scenes and declare each little episode a little chapter. We have all seen the numerous genre books with three-, four-, or five-page divisions. While conceptually simple, and conducive to a fast-paced story, the scheme looks and feels crude. Most writers use multiple scenes, separated by spaces or asterisks, to assemble each medium-length chapter. This most popular arrangement combines reasonable pace with satisfying variety and complexity.

Write enough scenes to reach the desired or planned climax for the chapter. If you end up with too many scenes and your chapter is becoming too long, reconsider what you need to accomplish and look for places where there is already a nice climax and end the chapter there. Do not try to do too much in any one chapter. Only experience can help you here. Get in there and give it a try!

Successful Novels Are Filled with Emotion

British author Colin Wilson highlights a critical aspect of art when he writes, “A work of art holds an emotion as a bottle holds wine.”

Book Titled Living Vicariously by E. Motion

We read books to enrich our emotional lives by living vicariously through the moving experiences of a novel’s characters. (Image: public domain.)

Writers should never underestimate the novel’s vitally important role as an emotional mechanism. A novel is a “device” to make people feel. Therefore, when planning and writing each scene we need to ask ourselves what emotion we wish to arouse in the reader and toward which character or setting we want to direct the feeling. Paying attention to these two tasks will ensure each scene has the right kind of well-focussed emotion. Our scenes will seem satisfying and have weight.

How do we handle the novel’s cerebral aspects, its “message?” Most people are not intellectually inclined and even fewer enjoy a sermon. Readers will not tolerate long-winded theoretical or ideological explanations. We must transmit all content of an intellectual nature to the reader via the “carrier wave” of feelings. As we search for some emotional way to convey an idea, we should keep in mind that all thoughts carry a mood or feeling just as all emotions have thoughts for companions. The human mind stores its information in what the scientists call emotional-cognitive structures. Note carefully the term’s hybrid nature, the blend of feeling and idea. By wrapping our ideas in a suitable emotional package, we can deliver them to all readers.

Classic Writers and Personal Computers

Among important writers of the past who would have welcomed and used personal computers?

Laptop computer surrounded by faces of classic authors

Word processor anyone? Would great writers of the past have welcomed personal computers? (Image: public domain.)

H. G. Wells was a great believer in science and progress. In fact, he was a science teacher until tuberculosis forced him to give up that profession. Always an early riser, and a disciplined writer who believed in regular daily production, he did all his work at a desk in his study. Writing came before all other tasks for the day. I see him as a definite candidate for a well-equipped desktop computer.

Henry Miller’s Childhood Reading

Henry Miller is a good example of how childhood reading has a powerful effect on the kind, and style, of work writers produce as adults. (Image: public domain.)

I enjoy comparing my own adventures among books with those of famous authors. All writers, whether they are well known, obscure, or as yet unpublished seem to have a lot in common. However, there are exceptions. Henry Miller, author of oft-banned books such as Tropic of Cancer, seems to be one of them.

In The Books in My Life, Miller describes his vivid memories of books read during his childhood. He has astonishingly clear recollections of covers, illustrations, historical eras, famous people, even where he first encountered certain words. Looking carefully at that list of recollections, I decided he must have been a heavy reader of non-fiction. It struck me how much Miller’s rememberings differ from my own memories of youthful encounters with books.

Personal Transformation Through Writing

Alchemy was the medieval forerunner of chemistry. It was particularly concerned with trying to convert base metals (such as lead) into gold or to find a universal elixir – more popularly known as the philosopher’s stone – that would perform the conversion upon contact. In recent times, the word alchemy has evolved to indicate any process of transformation, creation, or combination that seems magical.

Writing over a long period can be a powerful alchemical process of personal transformation. (Image: public domain.)

Even the ancients realized that alchemy is as much about refining the alchemist as it is about distilling some raw material into the philosopher’s stone. Jung popularized this notion in his writings. In this process of self-refinement, the alchemist must pass through three stages:

Fantasy Writers and the Sense of Enchantment

There are many reasons why people write. Each writer has a reason of their own, and no two are exactly alike. Much of my writing is fantasy. Why that is so may help you understand your own impulse to write fiction of one kind or another.

Scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Writers are often trying to recapture a favourite mood. Work after work is produced as they hone in on the cherished feeling tone, which can be quite specific and durable. (Image: public domain.)

Like so many people, when I was small I possessed a powerful ability to enter a state of enchantment. The feeling prospered until, at twelve, a broken heart drove enchantment from my life completely. How deeply we feel things at that age! Luckily, not all was lost. There were books in the world. My love of reading soon rekindled the magical feeling. It disappeared again during the trials and tribulations of late adolescence. This time I was more aware and made strenuous efforts to retain it. Those efforts were of no avail. The loss of enchantment made life seem grim and not terribly worthwhile. Thinking that enchantment was a thing for children, I entered adulthood in a sadly disillusioned state.

Make Your Story’s Setting Work For You

The most powerful way to depict setting is with telling details that affect and influence characters in the same way as does plot. The technique adds unity by tying the setting to the story’s characters. They are not just in the setting; they are interacting with it. How characters respond emotionally to the setting allows readers to identify and empathize with them. We all know what it is like to enjoy or dislike a particular place. When writers have their characters tell what they feel, readers will, based on their own personal preferences, agree or disagree. Either way, their feelings are engaged.

You can develop a character by showing how he or she reacts to your setting and why. (Image: public domain.)

Do Indie Writers Need a Pen Name?

Some indie writers operate under a carefully chosen pen name. Is there an advantage to this? Does it increase the author’s ability to sell his or her works? When I set out to become an indie, I thought the strategy had some merit. Subsequently, I had cause to reconsider.

Mark Twain is probably the most famous pen name. A special nom de plume can make you stand out, but there are other pros and cons. (Image: public domain.)

About two months after I decided to become an indie author, I discovered that I would not have, as I confidently expected, exclusive use of my somewhat unusual surname in the fantasy genre. I finally thought to search Smashwords for “Cotterill” and found that one Rachel Cotterill (in the UK) has two fantasy novels already listed on the site. The “Cottrell” spelling of our name is common, but “Cotterill” is much rarer so this seemed a bit of bad luck. It is not that I begrudge Rachel Cotterill the use of the name, naturally, but I had the idea that a unique surname would give me an advantage in making sales. After all, a search that brings up only your books must be better than one that brings up a whole list of books by people with the same name; right?