How Dark Is Your Shadow?

How dark is your shadow? Well we all have a light side and a shadow side. If you think of the ying and the yang sign. That shadow side is the part of ourselves that we would rather not look at, the anger, the frustration and the special place where full-on tantrums are made. So the question is how dark is your shadow and why on earth would I even ask you such a question?

Well over the last month I have been entering 'the shadow lands' whilst writing my next book  Elora... (I mentioned the fairy book yesterday on my blog). The thing is the shadow landscape has proven a challenge for me. I found that writing all the baddy stuff was pretty tormenting. In fact it was so tormenting that I actually got stuck for a few weeks, where I literally could not progress. I went into a full state of avoidance because I did not want to go there or enter into the darkness / shadows.

After cleaning my apartment numerous times I had to face the fact I was avoiding the shadow aspect of myself. We all have this aspect and the shadowlands represent an individual's inner dark landscape This darkness is something that has fascinated me over the years. Especially when people reach a point in their lives where they discover 'The Dark Night of the Soul.' That time is when an individual fully enters into their own darkness and discovers all that they have avoided and all that they have been told is wrong in them. The thing is, this is my opinion, is that the person who shines brightest will be forced to face the depths of their darkness. Why? That light and darkness both draw energy. By resolving the darkness, empty energy is not feeding it anymore. That then frees up energy for an individual's full illumination. Have you noticed the people that really aggravate you usually do what you quite often do yourself? Have you also noticed when you are angry you meet more angry people and attract more angry situations? Have you noticed when you face and dissipate the anger then less aggravation comes your way? All of that is part of the shadow.

So this question how dark is your shadow is quite fascinating because it makes you question all that you suppress. Imagine stepping into a corridor that took you to a dark room where all the windows were closed. In that darkness all your fears, all your avoidances sit dormant. When you are in that darkness those fears have power. It is the darkness itself that makes them more powerful because you can't see them. So that room you are in has potential. You can avoid what is in the room and give it power or you can decide to shine light in the room and face what is in there. You don't have to keep the windows shuttered, instead you can open the shutters and shine light on what is in the room. It is fascinating what you will find inside. The tiny little spider (what you feared) was casting a huge shadow. The anger, that you were hiding, was not so bad once you processed it. That fear of intimacy was simply triggered from a long time ago and when rationalised meant you could have happy relationships. There are so many fragments of self lurking in the shadow lands that when you write creatively, you often enter into these lands and discover some huge inner monsters. Those monsters are equivalent of dragons to be slain  or better recognised and transformed and accepted. I will be honest with you all - writing shadows is not that pleasant; however, it enables you to process some nasty stuff from a removed state. It enables you catharsis. So why not try writing about a deep fear from a different character's perspective and in doing so you may have opportunity for catharsis.  The more you face your shadow then the darkness decreases.

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CHAPTER 4 - A Short Course In Creative Writing

A Short Course In Creative Writing

 

 

CHAPTER 4

 

Character Construction and Consideration.

Characters are the crucial to the writing of excellent fiction and non-fiction. Characters who are dull, two dimensional and lifeless do not engage the reader, that is, unless there is purpose behind the dullness or lifelessness. Readers are usually fascinated by quirks, mystery and curiosity. A level of identification is also useful to enable identification with the character.  One of the easiest ways to create an interesting character is to create a biography (a character history) of that character. You may like to consider the following when building your character:

Note: you can use these considerations for real or imagined characters.

·         Attitude

·         Posture

·         Tattoos

·         Accent

·         Origin

·         Gender

·         History

·         Wealth

·         Religion

·         Height

·         Build

·         Job/career

·         Addictions – drinking, smoking, coffee, sex or food?

·         Hairstyle

·         What activities do they do?

·         How do they maintain themselves?

·         What is their choice of clothing?

·         What period of time were they born?

·         What do they eat? What is their favourite food?

·         What are their ambitions?

·         What motivates them?

·         Who are their friends?

·         Have they made any sacrifices?

·         Have they suffered hard times?

·         What makes them who they are?

·         Who would they like to be?

·         Where do they go on holiday?

·         How do they cope with stress?

·         What makes them stressed?

·         Do they exercise? What sort of exercise?

·         Inner world/outer world.

·         What kind of house do they live in?

·         Are they single or married?

·         Do they have children?

·         Do they suffer from any ailments?

·         Victim, rescuer or persecutor?

·         Why are they interesting?

·         Are they overweight or underweight?

·         Why would anyone want to read about them?

·         What are their fears?

·         What is the worst situation you could put them in?

·         If they had to confess one thing what would they confess?

·         What are their quirks?

·         Do they fall into a stereo type or cliché?

·         What are their flaws?

·         What are their hobbies?

·         Satisfaction level – happy and content versus angry and discontent?

·         What would their friends say about them?

·         What would their mum say about them?

·         How do they justify their behaviour?

·         What makes them laugh?

Consider the below approaches:

1) Sometimes it is easier to find a picture that resembles the character you intend to create. Try browsing through art books that feature portraits. Family photos, magazines and the Internet are great resources for finding inspiring faces.

2) When writing about the character consider all the senses. How do they appear? What stands out? How does the person talk? Accent, tone of voice, stutter? What smells come to mind? What aftershave or perfume would they choose? How would you describe their skin, hair, clothes and posture?

3) Consider the people around you including friends, relatives and co-workers. When you write what you know it is more convincing. Real life is often more interesting than the imagined. Using what you know, try combining character traits of those who you like and dislike.

4) An individual exists beyond the moment and so should your character. Build the personality outside the story. Consider their past, present and future. Accumulate as many details as possible until you really know that person. Consider them in different situations, on a train, in a lift, at a party or dealing with a crisis.

5) Look at the inner traits of the character versus how they are appear. What the character conceals makes them interesting too. What is the character’s inner dialogue? What is the character trying to conceal from the world?

All of the above will help you develop a more three dimensional character.

6) A basic character sketch can include:

·         Physical description

·         Career

·         Partner/Ideal partner

·         What makes them angry and what makes them happy

·         Strengths and weaknesses

·         Hobbies

·         Fears & Hopes

·         History

·         Family

·         Dreams

·         Quirks

·         Attributes

7) Consider using metaphors and do your best to avoid stereotypes. The most vicious bully could be in the guise of the sweetest little girl instead of the more obvious bulldog-featured man. Also the character who is willowy can be considered metaphoric for flexibility and lenience. The rigid character can be considered stubborn or resistant.

8) It is often the case that the best loved characters have the most obvious flaws. A character with flaws, quirks and emotions is far more interesting than those who are perfect. Consider positive and negative traits. The villain who evokes sympathy because of their flaws is far more powerful and interesting than someone who is simply vile and rotten to the core. Imagine a character who desperately wants to be kind but when the kindness is not noticed they become angry.

9) Avoid being too obvious. It is all very easy to re-create characters that we have been influenced by; however, the fun is pushing them and making them more interesting.

10) The general consensus of opinion is that perfect characters are not that interesting. So have fun using contradictions and polarities. Take for example the cleaner who does not wash or the gourmet chef who lives on fast food.

EXERCISE FOR CHARACTERS:

Write two positive traits such as kindness and compassion. Now write one negative trait such as anger or jealousy. Use these traits to describe one of the characters you have in mind.

To make the characters more complex write three positive traits like cheerful, optimistic and gentle with two negative traits such as a compulsive liar and manipulator. Take these to a character you have in mind and write the character with these traits. See what happens and where your character leads you.

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A Short Course in Creative Writing
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CHAPTER 1 - A Short Course In Creative Writing

A Short Course in Creative Writing

 

By

Ruby Allure

Copyright Ruby Allure.

 

For my lovely students

who always astounded me

 by the random stories

floating around their minds!

 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

What do you want to write? That is the first place to start. It is a simple question; however, there are so many options and so many genres that making this decision is paramount before putting finger to keyboard. One of the best ways to determine precisely what you want to create is to make a mind map. To do this take a piece of paper and write the question ‘what do I want to write?’ From this little bubble make arrows and boxes, then once you have an arrangement of boxes decide what the priority is by creating a list. At number 1 write your top priority and list the other writings in order.

Another way to discover what you wish to create is to free write, which is where you simply write a statement and respond to it by writing as fast as you can without actually consciously thinking. The outcome is often quite a surprise.

With this in mind, I would use the following statement to enable the free-flow:

I want to write…. (this is your prompt) now write as fast as you can until you have nothing left.

Quite often students want to write lots of things and become caught up in all the potentials. They then write nothing because there are too many options. I call this the asteroid syndrome where all the ideas are floating around the students’ heads but they remain in space until one lands.

When you complete this prompt notice all the potential pieces that you wish to write then make a priority order in a list. Decide on the first project and then take action. When I say action – I mean begin. As obvious as it seems, to write one has to actually write. Writing is not walking around thinking about it, it is not doing the washing up, the cleaning or phoning a friend. Writing is sitting down and writing.

A few little things to consider about what you wish to write. Writing a memoir or a life story is the opportunity to step into yourself, reflect upon your life and share it with others. This type of writing is based on reality, the experienced, a history and a series of events that have been interpreted by the person whose life it is. Writing a memoir or personal life story is the prime opportunity to re-live, remember, re-experience and possibly even resolve life events. Through writing a memoir or life story not only are you sharing who you are and your experiences, you are enabling yourself a catharsis - a way in which to process events. Through writing your life story you will re-visit situations from a new perspective. You may even notice that you have changed in your approach and perception as you have matured.

Constructing a memoir will involve writing from reality. To gain clarity one may reference old journals, diaries or letters to remind the writer what has taken place. This style of writing is classed as writing from reality because it references actual events, real people and that which has actually taken place. Writing from reality is often known as non-fiction which covers: newspaper stories, editorials, personal accounts, journal articles, textbooks, legal documents and documentary.

Fiction, on the other hand, is imagined; however, it can be built from real life people, places and events. Fiction stories, although constructed from the imagination, are often written to suggest that the story is real. The author often writes the story by researching, imagining and referencing through research. Fiction covers poems, stories, plays, novels, film scripts and dramas.

In addition, fiction is commonly divided into three areas. This division comes from the general appearance of the text:

• Stories and novels are made up of prose usually which follow the usual paragraph structure. The story is then divided into chapters
• Poetry consists of lines of varying length. Sometimes there is rhyme, other times there is simply a rhythm within the construct.
• Plays/scripts consist of spoken lines, stage/television directions. The play is arranged in scenes and acts.

If you think about it, the difference ultimately comes from the mind – the imagined versus the remembered/experienced.

Some of the best advice that I have been given is to write about what you know. The question then becomes what do we really know? Where does reality stop and fiction begin – is there a blur? When we write fiction we often take aspects of what we know, our reality, and combine the realistic ingredients to create a story. There is a fine line between what we remember, our reality and using what we have experienced to generate fictions. With this in mind, have you noticed that you and a friend have different memories of the same event?

Try the following: Write a short piece or journal entry from memory using one of the following titles. Please choose an event or a situation where other people were involved.

·         The Biggest Challenge I Overcame

·         The Day My Life Changed

·         What I Never Expected

·         The Reason I Laughed So Hard

·         My Most Inspiring Moment

·         The Major Event!

Now I would like you to take your reality piece and consider the other people who were involved in the event. Considering who else was involved, step into their shoes and write the event from their point of view. What would they notice? How would they feel? How were they involved?

Now sit and imagine a random character, observe them and make a fiction story from the third person perspective.

·         The Ultimate Challenge

·         Life Changes

·         The Most Unexpected Situation

·         A Reason To Laugh

·         A Moment Of Inspiration

·         A Little Bit Awkward

·         Their Major Event.

At this point you will notice that maybe one style of writing is easier. Now we are ready to consider style and voiceJ

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A Short Course in Creative Writing
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