Take Things Literally

We love our euphemisms, analogies, and general hyperbolic speech so much that we don't ever think about how hilarious or terrifying it can be when taken literally. Take basically any expression and imagine a child hearing it for the first time, not knowing what it means, and thinking about it really happening.

My friend got thrown under the bus. I was waist-deep in papers. She stabbed me in the back. My head exploded. He gave them the shirt off his back.

Read that set of expressions again. And really take your time with them. Take each one and seriously try to imagine them happening and then try to figure out how and why it happened at all.

You could probably find a lot of creativity by taking things literally. It can start you thinking about normal things in weird ways. It can turn the mundane into the magical. If you are struggling for ideas, just find any common expression, take it literally, and start writing it down.

Have Totally Different Tastes

I always think it's weird when somebody listens to only one kind of music. There is so much out there and so much is attractive for totally different reasons, but it's good. By the same token, it should be weird if a person only likes one kind of story.

And yet, I find it odd when people have totally different tastes in books or movies. Somehow, if I think of a story as being a piece of worthless trash, then I am shocked that a person whose opinions I generally agree with would have anything complimentary to say about a trashy story.

Of course, everybody has their own opinions, and it would be easy enough to chalk it up to that, but if I really challenge the notion, I think there's more to it.

A story is only trash if you judge it by certain criteria. A story may be absolutely terrible if you try to think of it as a legitimate drama, but it could be hilarious if you look at it as a spoof or other form of comedy. A generic romance novel may not be anything more than softcore porn, but if you happen to be in the mood for softcore porn, it could be great.

Few people are always in the same mood all the time. So it is natural that the kinds of media that would interest them would change as often as their moods. Though it may be jarring to hear one person criticize a good movie for logical inconsistencies, and then praise a stupid movie for having awesome graphics, it is probably the better way to go.

Have totally different tastes. Be more than one-dimensional in the kinds of things you like. If nothing else, you will have a far larger pool of material to find some gems in.

Don't Just Parrot Others

Every time I find a new favorite person, I have trouble making my own posts. Basically, I get absorbed in what they have to say, their words get stuck in my head, and all I can think to write about is the stuff they've already covered.

In this case, the primary rule I follow is don't just parrot others. If your hero talks about writing good horror stories, that doesn't mean you can't talk about horror. It doesn't even mean you can't bring up the points that your hero brought up. What it boils down to is that you need to bring something new to the table.

People should look to you for what you have to say. It is your look on things that keep them coming back. So give people your thoughts.

I know it's easier said than done. Most things are. And if you really just can't think of anything to add on the subject, then put it on the back burner. Hey, that's why I keep a list of ideas for just in case.

Talk To Different Kinds Of Writers

Every writer has a specialty. They may have a couple or a few of them, but they will not be equally good at all forms or genres of writing. You could consider a specialty as the form of writing they have the most practice/education/experience with. You could also consider it the forms they have the most passion for.

In any case, it is nice chatting with fellow writers who share the same interests. You tend to know the same stories, the same authors; you can talk about the same techniques, and so forth. It's really reassuring having a kindred spirit.

What I would also recommend is talking to different kinds of writers. If you're all about action and fantasy, talk with writers of sci fi and horror. Talk to poets or screenwriters. It will blow your mind how totally different the experience is, despite the fact that you're both creative writers.

You should also be amazed at how similar you are, despite your differences. To a large degree, writing is writing. The issues other writers may have could manifest in very different forms, but if you're paying attention, they should sound familiar.

My ultimate hope for such a discussion would be that it inspires you. You may just find that some aspect that could be commonplace in a different form of writing would be a new spice to your style.

Defend And Insult Continued

I really did not expect to be making a follow-up to my last post. I thought it was going to stand on its own and maybe some day in the future I might revisit it. But my experiences today sort of demanded it.

I have recently become a huge fan of The Spoony Experiment, the website of Noah Antwiler (the spoony one), who does reviews of movies, video games, and roleplaying games. I'm going through a lot of his archives, and I just so happened to see that he had a review of District 9.

Yesterday, I really hesitated before saying that I believe perfect stories exist. In my mind, I only hold two stories in that high regard: Portal 2, and District 9. I hesitated because I was unsure if I could honestly say they are perfect. I don't know of a single story that doesn't have criticisms to it. And can a story be perfect if it is criticized?

Ultimately, I decided that these stories deserved the title. I believe that a story can be perfect without being beloved by 100% of people. If I don't like romance stories in principle, then it is impossible to make a romance story that I will like, but it is possible to make a flawless story in the genre. As such, I believed that for what they were, Portal 2 and District 9 are perfect, so I went ahead and made the claim that I believe perfect stories exist.

So when I saw that Spoony had reviewed District 9, I had to watch it. I set up the video, sit back, and hear a strange tone in his voice. He enjoyed the movie and he thought it was a good movie, but was disappointed in it. He did praise the many excellent qualities of the movie, including the special effects, and the high quality writing, but also found faults in them.

While the special effects are fantastic, there was a criticism of the style they were used in. For example, the movie starts out as a documentary, then switches over into a more standard action movie filming, and Spoony said that it was jarring to switch from one to the other. He would have preferred it be all one or all the other.

Another criticism was that, although the movie is a flawless analogy of apartheid, somehow none of the characters realize that this is a flawless analogy of apartheid.

I loved District 9. I was kind of shocked that anybody, let alone somebody I really respect, would have any negative words to say about it. But as I sat there listening, I really checked my memory. And yeah, I do remember it being kind weird, a little jarring, switching from "footage" to just being regular movie shooting. And yeah, it is kind of weird that South Africans are somehow all cool with each other racially, yet also maintain extreme prejudice against a bunch of fairly harmless aliens.

I can't ignore these things, but I can still love District 9. I can still claim it's perfect (though that would require some more defending now). However, I can't say it's above or beyond criticism. It isn't. Nothing is.

I am still a die-hard fan of District 9, and that is precisely why I must both defend and insult it. It shows that I don't have fanboy blinders on. It shows that I am being as honest about what it is as I can be, and that I understand it may not be everybody's cup of tea, but that if you like the things it has to offer, you will love it.

Defend And Insult

There are very few perfect creations out there. I do believe they exist, but they are few and far between. For everything else, it's in the middle. You'll have goods and bads, and you need to acknowledge both of them.

No matter how glowing of a review you can give, if you judge something fairly, you will be able to find flaws. They may not be enough to make you stop loving a story, but you can admit they exist.

No matter how scathing of a review you can give, you can find something positive about it. If you don't believe me, look only to my review of Deathbed: The Bed That Eats.

We have been trained by our culture to become not fans, but fanatics. If you like something, you love it with all your heart and defend it to the death. If you dislike something, it is flaming excrement spawned by the devil himself and has zero redeeming qualities. Along with this, if you compliment a story, and criticize it in the next breath, you are at risk for being called any number of derisive terms.

In reality, you should not trust any person who cannot both defend and insult something. If they are one-sided, they're either blind or scamming you. Either way, beware.

I've talked before about the doubting game and the believing game, and to some degree, this is an extension of that. In this post, I mostly am stressing that not only is it a good idea to find the positives and negatives in things, but if you are giving any kind of review, your motives should be suspect if you don't.

Make Success Special

Probably the best way to make a character boring, forgetable, or obnoxious, is to make them infallible. It's pretty much the defining characteristic of a Mary Sue (the worst possible thing a character can be).

Failure doesn't necessarily make a character better or more interesting, but it does force them to come up with backup plans, to think on their feet, to handle setbacks without giving up. And those are the qualities that make a character appealing.

Find the balance in your narratives. Don't make them fail just to fail. But don't make them succeed just because you can't think of an alternative.