The Characters Make The Plot

January 21, 2009 in Characters, Plot, Writer, Writing

Many a times, people ask me why I delve too much into the deeper aspects of peoples’ lives. The reason is simple – all the people I know or end up knowing are potential characters for me.

So, I really need to know what makes them tick, what is their basic motivation – who they are inside out. Of course, basic psychology always comes in handy. But then you also have to be ready to listen when they are ready to talk. And trust me, my observation is that if / when you show an interest in listening, you will hear people talk.

Everyone of us has a story to tell. All the faces are heroes / heroines. We are all the star of our own story. And each story has something or the other that moves us or touches us. All we have to do is listen.

And as a writer, one of the main things I do is listen (apart from observing, of course)!

Because it isn’t me or my great big head that comes up with the story – it is the Characters – it is them that write the story.

It happens like this: there are a bunch of characters jumping about within the head and then one of them begins to interact with another one and then another one and so on, till they begin to have a dialogue with each other…and then a plot line falls into place and then the whole thing just starts to live inside of my brain. And while it comes alive in there, it wants to break free from the confines of the brain and be written down onto the pages of a book (or of the word processing document).

And then begins the torture – the story won’t let you eat or sleep or do anything else until you put it down onto the computer. It will rule your day / night / time until and unless you do that…

That’s when I write.

What happens to you? Comment back….or put a link to your post in the comment(s) below.

The Urge To Write

January 18, 2009 in Writer, Writers, Writing

The tag line of my blog embodies the underlying drive within each writer – we (writers) have an un-deniable urge to write. Something tugs at us, pushes us and pulls us – we simply have to write.

This is the urge that we all fight and eventually succumb to – the inner urge to write.

Invariably, it brings me back to the picture of the Magician card in my tarot deck which clearly embodies what we are as writers…

If we see the picture and understand its basic symbolism, we can clearly see what the Magician fellow is doing – it is what we writers do all the while when we write…

The urge comes from somewhere in the Unconscious. It drives us and it won’t let us go. And finally, worn out, we sit down in front of the computer, or at our desks with paper and pen, and then let that urge take over. We write.

Just like this Magician fellow – he simply stands there, becoming a channel, and then the energy of the Universe flows through him – the wand he holds in his left hand absorbs the energies, and then those energies flow out of his right hand – and then he creates.

This is what we do. We are writers. We write.