Writers are creative people, and creativity can be defined as thinking differently from everyone else. Now, insanity can also be defined as thinking differently from everyone else. You may wonder then why writers aren’t locked up in insane asylums. The answer is a process we call “faking it.”
We Talk with People Who Aren’t There
All good writers of fiction have conversations with imaginary friends, or “characters” as we like to call them. A bad writer will just slap together a few clichéd aspects and create cardboard cutout characters who are nothing like anyone you’d run into in real life. You’ve seen these. The villain who shoots a minion just to demonstrate how evil he is. The warrior woman who acts like a man with breasts. The knight templar who slaughters and kills because he’s a good Christian.
When a good writer creates a character, she determines what that character’s basic nature is and then extrapolates from there. What in his backstory brought him to this point? What does he dress like? What are his quirks? What forces drive him? Who are his friends? His enemies? Soon this doesn’t feel like a process of imagining a character so much as discovering more about a real person.
A good writer knows her character in great detail. She starts thinking of this character as a real person. He acts on his own, and she’s only recording his actions. She feels happiness when he succeeds and she feels like a terrible goddess for inflicting pain and suffering on him. She doesn’t think of her characters as imaginary, she thinks of them as people she knows and loves (or occasionally hates).
“So they’re like family?” you might ask. Not at all; there are many differences. Characters never suggest you give up your writing and find a “real job,” just to name an example. Also, characters can be killed when they cause too much trouble. Doing so with family is considered rude.
There’s one advantage to all this. If the author’s done her job right, when you read her story, you’ll forget that it’s all just a book and none of it’s real. The delusion becomes contagious.
We’re Addicted to Compliments
Only hacks are primarily focused on writing for money. True artists write so that other people will say how great their writing is. We are compelled to show our work to as many people as possible so we can see them enjoy it and at the same time afraid to show to it to anyone lest they point out mistakes.
I’ve heard one woman say that sending your work to an editor in hopes it will be published it’s like having your child’s worth judged. That’s not accurate at all, though. Whereas a mother can blame a child’s fault on the father, we writers have no one to blame but ourselves.
And there’s only one thing worse than having an editor read your work: having a family member read it. When family members say there’s a flaw in your writing it’s pretty much the same as saying they don’t love you. Also, family members can get a deeper insight into a writer’s mentality through that writer’s work. Remember how we’re all insane? Years of work pretending to be a normal human being can be undone by a single piece of fanfic.
Even having your piece edited can be agonizing. As I write this, my fiance is editing a slightly earlier version of this piece. I’m constantly listening to her, waiting for a reaction. She just laughed at that! Great. Oh, was that a scoff? She scoffed. She hates it. She’s lost respect for me as a writer. She’ll call the wedding off.
We Invented Literary Criticism
To protect our fragile egos, we’ve constructed a system wherein anyone and everyone can produce a masterpiece. This is known as literary criticism, and it is fundamental proof that the total body of authors is, as a whole, completely bonkers. Some people might judge a book on whether it was enjoyable to read or if it made a powerful message. True writers are beyond such pedestrian concerns. To say that the masses can identify good literature would mean admitting there are authors out there who are better at writing than we are, and that just will not do.
Literary criticism allows you to select the best criteria by which literature can be judged and apply it systematically. Coincidentally these criteria usually show how the book you’re working on is better than the trash currently on the market. Sure, your piece may not have such proletarian trivialities as deep characters, an engaging setting, readable dialogue, or anything resembling a coherent plot; but the complex interplay between the inherent morality of the capitalist system and mutant squid is a deep and powerful theme.
But literary criticism goes beyond showing how great you are personally as a writer. It can also show how your favorite books are better than everyone else’s, and as a corollary, how great your taste in literature is compared to that of your friends. An expert critic of literature isn’t limited by the author’s skill. He can find themes and depth that the author never knew he put into his work. To see this in action, visit http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8342167/robot_unicorn_attack_heavy_metal.html?cat=19 . It’s a review that, through the wonders of literary criticism, I have determined is one of the best reviews of all time. I assure you I am not biased by the fact that I wrote it.
We Hate Writing
Don’t get me wrong, writers sometimes love to write. We’re driven, compelled, nearly forced to write. The stories build up in our heads until we get them out on paper just to keep whatever remnants of our sanity remain. And the process is incredibly fun. Well, this happens some of the time.
Sometimes words of pure genius flow straight from our minds through our fingertips and onto the page. Usually we strain for hours to get two sentences and a phrase down on paper. And it’s crap. The hardest part of being a writer isn’t coming up with good ideas; we have too many. It’s not creating good characters or vivid settings; we can do that in our sleep. It’s writing when our muse has abandoned us and we just can’t cobble those tricky words together to make anything worth reading.
Thankfully, writers have some false muses from which we can draw inspiration in even the darkest of hours. The first is caffeine. Nothing gets me going on writing early in the day like drinking some liquid inspiration. My fingers fly over the keyboard, bringing forth multitudes of words. Okay, sometimes they’re random arrangements of characters. But usually they’re words. A second false muse is money. While caffeine gets me going early in the morning, the thought of eating something besides more ramen can keep me working late into the night, long after natural inspiration has left. Hallucinogenic substances can be a third, and while I’ve never seen it in person, it would explain a lot.
We Ask Stupid Questions
You might argue there’s no such thing as a stupid question. Surely any question that leads to greater knowledge is worth asking, right? Here’s a typical list of questions I try asking, in the name of creating a better story:
-If you’re committing a murder, what would be best to wear to keep from leaving trace evidence?
-What are some typical effects and costs for hallucinogens?
-What’s the most effective way to burn down an orphanage?
-What is a typical way of laying a voodoo curse on your enemies, and if you don’t have access to a goat for sacrificing will a cat work instead?
It turns out asking these questions while remaining out of jail is a difficult prospect. And a writer whose choice of research material doesn’t land him on an FBI watch list is a bad writer. Doing any good writing requires thorough research. If you wonder why that writer on TV murders his victims and then wraps his experiences into a story, it’s because he found it’s easier than going around asking questions.
We’re Fueled by Pain
A good story is all about conflict. The more obstacles a hero has to overcome and the bigger those obstacles are, the more powerful the story. However, there’s a writing adage “write what you know.” The only way we can write scenes where the hero is suffering intense pain, going up against unconquerable obstacles, or dealing with incredible loss is to experience those sensations for ourselves. This makes us masochists.
Did you ever notice that the works of Shakespeare that are considered his greatest are always his tragedies? Hamlet, MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet: what do these all have in common? Everyone we care about dies. Meanwhile, all the ones that are filled with laughter and marriage are just good, not masterpieces. I can guarantee you that when Shakespeare was writing his best work, he was not in a good mood.
Personally, I find my writing improves dramatically whenever I’m in a funk. The trick, then, is to avoid getting so excited about how well things are turning out that I stumble out of the funk into actual happiness. Then everything turns to mush again. Thankfully, as you’ve read so far, the depth of insanity we deal with means that if everything’s going smoothly, it’s only a matter of time before some inspiration comes our way.