Confessions of a Copycat

post by Michelle Griep
I don't like cats. I know. I know. I just offended half my audience. Deal with it. The thing is that I grew up with the cat from hell. No, really. He smelled of sulfur and his eyes glowed, seriously, all the time. I'm pretty sure he was possessed.

That being said, I do have a certain affinity for felines because I am a copycat.

If you grab a book off my shelf, you'll be able to tell if it's one of my all-time favorites by the amount of dog-ears and highlighting. Why do I trash my most beloved novels? I keep a notebook, several, actually (I can never remember where I leave them, so if there's a bunch laying around, I never need hunt for them). In the notebooks, I copy down sentences that make me weep, wet my pants, or hang my head in self-pity knowing that I'll never be able to put words together in such a fashion. Why bother? Several reasons . . .

- The act of writing down beautiful writing inspires my own writing.

- Innovation is often fueled by imitation.

- And most importantly, in the words of Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."  (click to tweet)

Now don't get me wrong. I am not advocating plagiarism. Felonies are never fun. Here's how I use those notebooks . . .

When I'm polishing up a rough draft, I love to add in lines that really zing. I look for places that are dull or dragging, then open up one of my notebooks. I find a sentence or two that could work in that spot, then I use them to inspire me to think creatively by re-writing them into something different. Need an example?

Copied sentence: His throat twisted into a sodden, knotted rope.

My innovation: Words knotted in his throat, cutting off air, breath, hope.

See what I did? I used knotted and throat from the first sentence and then rewrote them into my own voice.

For more on imitation, here's a great article by 99U: Here is Your Official Permission to Be a Copycat

You didn't think I actually came up with the idea for this post today all by myself, did you?

Like what you read? There’s more. WRITER OFF THE LEASH: GROWING IN THE WRITING CRAFT is a kick in the pants for anyone who wants to write but is stymied by fear, doubt, or simply doesn’t know how to take their writing to the next level.

Michelle Griep’s been writing since she first discovered blank wall space and Crayolas. Follow her adventures and find out about upcoming new releases at her blog, Writer Off the Leash, or stop by her website. You can also find her at the usual haunts of Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

Read More

Filling Your Well of Ideas

By Michael Ehret

Sometimes I think my idea well has run dry. The plots I dredge up are so spare they couldn’t even flesh out a flash fiction story.

What's in your Well of Ideas?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and cbenjasuwan

Can you relate?

Usually what this means is I need to switch from “creative” mode to “ingestion” mode—I need more raw material to draw from. Some writers can create a story idea from nothing except their own imagination.

That is not me. And if that’s not you, too, maybe this trick will help you fill your well.

Feed Me, Seymour!

Much like the carnivorous plant in “The Little Shop of Horrors,” I need constant feeding. Often I chow down on a great novel; less frequently nonfiction fills my gullet.

Maybe it’s my background as a newspaper reporter, but some of the best food for my imagination comes from the news—including quasi news sources like blogs. Because, as Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”

When I read news, online or print (broadcast doesn’t work for me), invariably I read an article that sparks an idea or two. Now, I freely admit not all of them will produce even a flash fiction piece, let alone a full-blown novel, but the important thing is I’m filling my imagination. At the appropriate time, several of the ideas will likely congeal together and produce something workable.

But I can guarantee that nothing workable will be produced if raw material isn’t imported into the processor.

Is he talking about you?

What are the costs of living together?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net and Ambro

For instance, I read this commentary from Regis Nicoll the other day called “The High Costs of Living Together.” It included this gem:

In 1969, although the vast majority of people, 82 percent, reported having had sex before marriage by age 30, only 21 percent felt that was morally acceptable.

… Over the next 40 years, as public acceptance grew three-fold (to 63 percent) and (more) people (94 percent) admitted to having “done it,” there was far less social pressure to restrain it or keep quiet about it.

This sea change in attitudes and practices can be attributed to two things: “no-consequence” sex and a morally-compromised Church.

… With roughly 80 percent of the U.S. populace Christian and 94 percent admitting to pre-marital sex, that means that a lot of Christians—very likely the majority—are guilty of sexual sin.

Woah … right? I know a lot of people who will take offense at a study like this. But that’s what makes great fiction!

Is that giving you ideas? (Story ideas, guys, story ideas.) It sure did me. My oeuvre, the framework within which I write, includes marriage, fidelity, trust—and all the antonyms of those, of course. I took the entirety of Nicoll’s piece and fed my imagination with it. Who knows where it may lead, but now that information has been uploaded and is available. (And also stored electronically.)

Fill your well

The point is there are ideas for fiction everywhere if you open your eyes, your heart, and your mind to them. If you read something that sticks with you—good or bad—file that away in your Well of Ideas. Maybe you’ll use it, maybe you won’t. But you for sure won’t use it if you don’t have it stored away.

Obviously our world is ever in need of the transformative power of story—and of Story. What ideas have you picked up from news sources and used in your stories?

Want to play?

Screenshot from Jan. 25 FOXNews.com home page

Go to the front page of your local paper (or to the home page of CNN or Fox News or your favorite online news source) and read the main story—no cherry picking. Choose one fact or one quote or one idea from that story as your idea seed and freewrite a paragraph or two in the comments.

Here’s my example. I wrote this on Jan. 25 based on this story, but the story has changed since that day and my idea seed is no longer in it.

My idea seed from that story: The scene was “believed to be secure” police said in a tweet issued at about 12:36 p.m.

Ethan was dead. True. He’d been an effective triggerman. Also true. But there were others. Many others.

Captain White’s tweet that the mall was “secure” made Gaston—almost—laugh out loud, but he did not "LOL." When he laughed, and it was rare, it was real not some fake social construct. But that “out loud” part was a luxury he couldn’t allow himself right now. Later? Most definitely.

Stupid twerkers. Ethan got a few, but they’d be back prancing through the mall in their tight clothes and loose morals soon enough. It was “secure,” after all. White said so. Truth. 

So not true.
 
And then he did chuckle—but quietly. After all, the shoppers trapped in his store from the lockdown were still shook up and hyper aware—no sense in giving them something odd to remember if the police did questioned them.

They’d soon enough embrace again the fragile cloak of security they thought protected them. True, always true.

So, if you want to play leave a comment. Or, if you want to talk about where you get your ideas from—how you fill your Well of Ideas—leave a comment.

Michael Ehret loves to play with words as a Marketing Communications Writer for CHEFS Catalog and as a freelance editor at WritingOnTheFineLine.com. Ehret is the former editor of the ACFW Journal and has edited several nonfiction books, proofedited for Abingdon Press, and reported for The Indianapolis Star.

Read More

Shoot the Wad

Lisa Samson, three-time Christy award-winner and author of 34 books including Quaker Summer, is known for excellence in writing as well as her artistic bent, but more than anything, perhaps, the name Samson brings to mind authentic stories that make you think. Once asked why she writes, she said, "So people will know they're not alone." Dealing with difficult issues has also given Samson a reputation for courage in her writing. Lisa, a visual artist as well, has three children and lives with her youngest daughter, her dog, Zeus, and too many cats, in Lexington, Kentucky.

One of the reasons I’m not on the writer’s conference circuit any longer is because I became tired of hearing myself talk, blabbing the same old tired things, giving the same old advice over and over again. That’s not the way I’m wired. After a while, I figured out there were better teachers than I at these gatherings, saying a lot of the same things I was, granted, but doing it better than I ever could.

           

So I went back to just writing, and living, and trying to figure out what it means to be faithful to my giftings. That’s not an easy process, is it? Because unfaithfulness tends to snake its tendrils into every area of your life.

           

When Ane asked me to write a column, I jumped on it, and for the life of me, I can’t tell you why. I hate being boxed in, committed to anything but a deadline or what the day presents, because let’s face it, that’s more than enough for one person to handle. Maybe it was time to share again, not because I have sage wisdom that has collected after more than two decades of trying to figure out this writing thing, but simply because I’m trying to be faithful.

           

So in the event that I pull out of my driveway today, turn onto Lafayette Parkway only to be plastered into the next life by a Best Buy truck thereby making this the only column I write, I’m going to offer you the best piece of writing advice I’ve got.

           

Shoot the wad

           

Seriously. Don’t save your best storyline for later. Use it now. And what’s more, use the most intriguing characters you’ve ever come up with to people that tale. Keep a list of striking metaphors? Try and employ every single one of them in your current work in progress. Don’t skimp. Don’t save. Become a wanton spender of your creativity.

Walk down the aisle of your brain and throw the most expensive, most dearly won life-lessons right into your cart and don’t look back. Pull down all the paintings in the halls of your imagination and throw them onto the fires of your passion and let them burn, right onto the pages of your books and poems and stories and articles. Let nothing remain. Empty all the tanks. Sweep clean the vaults. Roll up the rugs and give away all the furniture.

           

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

           

If you live and love and take chances, if you open your eyes to the world not as you think it should be, but as it is, every single bit of it will soon be replaced.

           

Don’t save anything for later. Use it now.

           

If you have an idea you don’t think you’re talented enough at this point to develop, use it anyway. Your brain thought it up right now, your brain will figure out how to use it. Trust yourself. Use yourself. Take your life, roll it around in your mouth, chew it up, swallow it, and fuel your work with abandon. Become a self-cannibalizing glutton and don’t apologize for it.

           

Each work you set out to do deserves no less than this. Be ruthless in the scraping of your soul; turn your heart inside out and dump out every last item inside. Use every last piece you can find and then watch with wonder as life hands you more.

Runaway Saint

Thomas Nelson

Releases 2/18/14

Sara's an artist with a supportive husband and a house that folks on her block admire outright. But she's restless and bored with life.

Then her legendary Aunt Bel shows up, wearing a smile after years without a word.

Twenty years ago, fresh out of college, Bel left for a summer missions trip and never returned. Now she's on Sara's doorstep, looking for a place to crash. Sara can't say no to family, even if she hasn't seen Bel since she was a nine-year-old girl. But saying yes to Bel turns Sara's whole precariously-balanced life upside down. 

Read More