Non-Lethal Loss

Listen to people talk about a coworker or boss who left their job. It sounds like they died. We talk about how things used to be when they were still here. We say that things will never be the same again. We wish that they were here just a little bit longer (unless we hated them, in which case we have never been happier to see them go).

But it's more than just what we say. Our actions change, too. We go through the same stages of mourning and coping that we do when somebody actually dies.

Non-lethal loss is a relatively untapped pool of potential. It does take some skill to have the audience experience the character's sense of loss, even though nobody died, but it is hardly an impossible feat. And once you can do that, you can bring in more nuanced feelings. We can explore the human condition without going to extremes or cliches, and that in turn allows for more nuanced events to happen. For example, we generally can't bring people back from the dead, but you can visit your retired former boss.

The other interesting aspect of non-lethal loss is that it does help prepare a person for lethal loss. Death is always a tragedy when it happens to someone you care about, but having experienced tragedy in general, and having experienced loss, it gives you points of reference, shows you how you have coped before, and how you have survived those feelings.

This again adds to the potential nuance to a story. By having a character experience non-lethal loss, and learn and grow from the experience, it makes the experience of death a relatively new one by having different shades in the character's eye.

I'm Not Talking About You

A friend of mine mentioned today that she had read my most recent blog post and facetiously wondered how I got the idea for it. We had a conversation the night before about storytelling and covered the idea of a world within the mind or an alternate world which interacted with our world. This conversation was rewarding and gave me some good thoughts to ponder for my own projects.

So I told her the truth: I had a cool thought on Saturday and, although it was compelling, I could not help but wonder how to turn it into a story.

She was less than amused. But that was the reality. I generally write about principles and concepts. By painting with such broad strokes, what I talk about can apply to a lot of people. But that's the point.

I need to be speaking to you. I need to be talking about things that happened to you yesterday, even if you are one of the people who I have never met or spoken with.

And if you are one of the people that I speak with regularly, trust that I am not talking about you. I don't talk about people behind their backs. If I have spoken about a particular person, I will either give them a heads up, or mention it in our next conversation.

This goes along with my advice not to look too deeply. It is fairly common for people I know to assume I'm talking about them in my writing. While sometimes they may inspire certain thoughts, my writing will never be a veiled message to people I know.

However, I am not insulted or offended when this happens. I find it to be a compliment. It means I did my job. I reached out and touched you. I made a strong connection. And every time my writing does this, I have succeeded.

How Do I Make This A Story?

Sometimes I find something particularly moving. It may be a spoken line or a characteristic of a person or a particular scene. It is compelling to me, but I have no idea what to do with it. I don't want to leave it alone or let it fade away, but I find myself asking, "How do I make this a story?"

The answer to that question will depend on the thing you are thinking of. To answer it, you will probably need to approach it from several angles. You will definitely need to know what else is going on beyond that fragment.

I find the easiest method is to work backward from it to find out what caused it. From there, the ending can be easily derived. Of course, if you do the exact opposite and figure out what happens after the thought, then the origins should fall into place.

Good thoughts are valuable. Sometimes a whole story just springs to mind, but when you only get a fragment, it's not worthless. Just ask that question and put in the effort to find out the answer.

Quantum Mechanics Is Everyday

I have been talking about quantum mechanics long before I ever knew what it was. In fact, I've already written about it on Cheff Salad.

That's right - the blank page is an excellent example of quantum theory. Being blank allows it to be the the first stage of every single story ever. Every word you add narrows down what potential story you are writing, and not until you make the final punctuation mark of the final sentence is it done (not counting future revisions). Similarly, we have no idea what the future holds because there are infinite possible futures that may occur.

I bring this up not for any kind of gloating or bragging. I'm not smart or special because I talked about quantum mechanics before I knew it had a name. In fact, most of us have had thoughts like this. We've all thought about the potential outcomes of things. We've all realized that a blank canvas can hold anything. In fact, that's often what prevents many of us from ever starting a project.

We are all thinking about big, heavy stuff. We don't always know it has a name, though. But that doesn't make it any less impressive. And if you break down any impressive-sounding thing, you will probably find that you have had a thought similar to it at one point or another.

Typographical Errors Revisited

I'm an excellent speller and a terrible typist. Ask me how to spell any word and I can probably spout it off. But set me in front of a computer and I make a mistake on every document I write. I wish I could blame it on my keyboard, but I regularly use three different computers and I make typographical errors on all of them.

One interesting note is that I seem to make different errors on different keyboards. On my laptop, which I do the bulk of my writing on, I have a tendency to miss keystrokes. That's why "that" becomes "hat" and "one" becomes "on". Typos like that you are far more likely to see because they happen to be real words, so my spell check doesn't flare up at it and I don't always catch it.

The other computers are desktops, and on those keyboards, I am far more likely to hit the space between two keys and push them both down. I always know when I do it, but it is annoying and I have to take the time to go and fix them.

Regardless of how they happen and what kind they are, typographical errors tend to occur for one reason: rushing. They always happen to me when I am trying to write faster than I can. Sometimes that is unavoidable; your mind works faster than your hands, so sometimes they have to catch up, especially when you're on a roll. But if nothing else, know when you are most likely to be making them.

Typos are still inexcusable in any important document or communication. They reflect poorly on you and make you look dumber than you are. The more that make it through, the worse you look. Take the time to catch as many as you can. I can't decide which is worse: typos that I see in published materials like books (which are few and far between), or the dozens of typos I see in emails on a daily basis. In either case, they're both awful and you should strive to make as few of those mistakes as possible your own.

There's A Human Behind That Badge

Many jobs come with a badge of some sort. Some are fancy like a sheriff or a CIA badge. Some command respect like a doctor's credentials. And some are miserable and humiliating, like a McDonald's name badge.

Badges are similar to uniforms: They dehumanize us. A cop is a cop. They're all the same. No matter the nuances, they have the same beliefs, same actions, same speech patterns and vocabulary. They're totally interchangeable. The same can be said of every retail wage slave.

Except that it's completely wrong. The badge may dehumanize us, but there's a human behind that badge. And when you take it off, or when you look beyond it, you see that an individual person is there.

Many interesting stories can be found by seeing a human behind a badge. There is always conflict in beliefs and expectations. It is compelling to break down a figurative cog and see that it is powered by a unique spirit.

And while you have all of this in mind, remember that not all writers are interchangeable either, even though many people may believe it. And, when needed, feel free to remind people of that fact if you hear them saying otherwise.

Somebody Wrote That

We are bombarded by text all day. It is insane how many words you look at. What's crazier is how much you don't read. There's classic stuff like fine print, nutritional information on food, probably 90% of the writing on any container.

Sometimes our eyes open and we see all the text. You can actually have a really amusing day going around and reading text everywhere. Heck, you could look around your normal places and find tons of text hidden in plain sight. Sometimes there's little jokes and Easter eggs you can find. You'll find that when people know that almost nobody reads stuff, they can get away with a lot.

And that leads into the biggest aspect that we all ignore: Every single word you come across was written by somebody. That manual for your car/power drill/refrigerator that you don't read, your warranties and other legal documents, all the junk mail that you get with credit card offers and other people asking for your money, all of that stuff was made by a human being (probably a few of them, actually).

It's an amazing thing to consider: how much stuff has been written. Of course most of it is not art in any sense, but it is people writing, and people getting paid to write, at that. It may not seem glorious, but to some extent, being paid at all to do writing is impressive. Not everybody gets to write something that takes thought, especially material that reaches the general public.

If you want to be a professional writer, every step you take forward, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction.