When a book comes alive it’s a wonderful feeling. Your words
sparkle on the pages. The dialogue is snappy. You even laugh out loud at some
of your one-liners. The characters leap off the page. You can’t wait to get
back to working on it.
Well, I’m not there yet. This is my fifth murder mystery,
the fourth featuring Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police
Department.
I’m reading through the second draft connecting bits and pieces,
finding notes to myself: (Describe bedroom)
and (More here.) You writers know what I mean. Now it’s time to wrestle with exactly how the
bedroom looks, what kind of comforter or curtains reveal the character of the
protagonist, how her closet smells, what pictures are on the wall.
But there’s the fight scene I’m having terrible trouble with.
I’ve never been in a fistfight, never been shot, and never seen an actual
gunshot wound. But how many times have we witnessed violence and death on TV
and in the movies?
I suppose this is why we are given an imagination. I can
imagine a fist coming at me. In my imagination I know the smell of gun powder,
the sound, and feel the kick of a gun.
Take today’s New York Times, book section: Write What You Know’ — Helpful Advice or
Idle Cliché? http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/books/review/write-what-you-know-helpful-advice-or-idle-cliche.html?ref=books
I take this from the second essay by Moshe Hamid. He writes:
But I also write about things I
haven’t experienced. I’ve written from the point of view of a woman, of a
global surveillance system, of a writer who is being beheaded. I write these
things because I want to transcend my experiences. I want to go beyond myself.
Writing isn’t just my mirror, it’s my astral projection device.
Ah, yes. We’ve all catapulted ourselves into worlds we will
never know. I’ve written from the pov of a Chechen gold digger, a homeless
teenager, a Kurdish gangster. It all feels normal to me while I’m doing it. You’ve
done it too as writers.
Where have you soared in your imagination?
My recent book about an honor killing in glitzy Santa Monica:
2 comments:
Yep, writing about something you don't know is a challenge, but that's what makes writing fun.
Well, how else would sci fi and fantasy ever get written? I guess we've all been children and young adults, but I couldn't summon the imagination to remember back that far.
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