Number 11 — December 10, 2004
Character Roles — Part 3

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Before I continue, I want to address the matter of subjective characters in more depth to expose their value in storytelling. In the broadest sense, we may classify story characters as those who are in command, or who control the conflict on one side or the other of the dispute—pro or anti—and those whom the conflict affects. For example, a general remote from the battlefield has a different view of warfare than a soldier in the trenches. The general's perspective is objective. What strategy must he employ to thwart his enemy's tactics, and win the war? The soldier's perspective is subjective. What caution must he exercise to obey orders, and still escape the battlefield alive to return home to his family?
     In any master/servant relationship, the master exercises some power or control over the servant. By making the servant the Main Character in the story, the reader perceives the author's view of what it is like to be in a particular situation. Let's look at a couple of other examples.
     A family company is floundering because of nepotism. They hire a consultant for a stipulated fee to reorganize the company and return it to profitability. The consultant—Protagonist [1]—is objective with a defined story problem. A manager—Antagonist [2]—who is also objective opposes the consultant for whatever reasons. On the factory floor, rumors begin to circulate; imminent layoffs; moving production overseas; possible bankruptcy; and more. One of those workers is a welder who decides his best choice is to quit his job, and start his own welding service. He takes the problem and proposed solution home to his wife.
     "Have you lost your mind?" she shrieks.
     Mrs. Welder sees nothing but problems: financial; family; school; car; housing; an endless litany of undesirable results. Despite their differences, they share the same concern, namely the welfare of their family, but they are on opposite sides of the issue. In this scenario, the welder plays the role of Main Character [3]. In her opposition to her husband's plan, Mrs. Welder plays the role of Obstacle Character [4]. In the end, one of them will prevail and the other will change. While this argument ensues, the battle between the consultant and the manager transpires with either a positive result (the company recovers) or a negative outcome (the company fails.)
     An author may examine any story in this manner: How will I show the reader the experience of being in this situation under these circumstances? A story that succeeds in accomplishing this is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The theme is prejudice, and the story problem is the unjust treatment of blacks in the south. Atticus Finch—Gregory Peck in the movie—is the Protagonist, but he is not the Main Character. He wants to free the black man wrongly accused of rape. The Antagonist is Bob Ewell, father of the girl supposedly raped. Shamed by his daughter's behavior, he wants the black man to hang. But, the Main Character through whose eyes the reader sees the story, is Scout, Atticus' daughter. The Obstacle Character is Boo Radley, the "boogie man" who lives next door to the Finch family.
     Here is a tale in which the author separates the Main and Obstacle Characters from the Protagonist and Antagonist. The result succeeded in both the written form, and the cinematic follow-up. The concept of four primary characters is well worth considering as you plan your stories.

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Number 12 — December 17, 2004
Character Roles — Part 4

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Note: Character role designations in this article, and referenced elsewhere in The Book Doctor Series, come from Dramatica, A New Theory of Story by Chris Huntley and Melanie Phillips.

Every character in the story must have a concern about the problem. Conversely, a character unrelated to the problem should not be in the story. That's not to suggest every character type must appear in every story, but every character that does appear must have a concern related to the problem. Each is trying to bring a particular conviction to bear and each has a reason to care about the outcome. When introducing a character, the author must know the role that character will play. Also, the author must know each character's goal, motivation, critical flaw, and connection to the problem—more about these later. The corollary is the author must understand the problem from the outset.
     To continue with identifying character roles, Dramatica identifies the next two as Guardian [5] and Contagonist [6]. The former is the mentor, the wise friend, or the helper who carries the action trait of help. The latter is like a germ contaminating the efforts to achieve the story goal and carries the action trait of hinder. To make their roles plainer, Dramatica identifies the Guardian as the angel sitting on the Protagonist's shoulder providing wise counsel while the Contagonist is the devil perched on the other shoulder inciting disaster. The group of six roles—these two plus the previous four—constitutes the "stars" of the show. They are the drivers of the action; the people whose names are on the marquee. The remaining four roles are the "passenger" characters. They may be allied with either the Protagonist or the Antagonist.
     The Sidekick [7] is forever faithful while his opposite number is the Skeptic [8] who forever doubts. Reason [9] acts on the basis of logic and Emotion [10] responds from feelings. While each of these Characters has its own motivations, they represent different approaches and attitudes toward solving the problem.
     To help understand the character roles, let's return to the story about my fictitious uncle. Remember in planning my story, everything is flexible. While I let my imagination wander over a spectrum of possibilities, I have to start somewhere, so I make some initial choices.
     The Contagonist could be a political ward-healer manipulating both the Protagonist and the Antagonist.
     My first choices for the Guardian role are often a wife, or a church prelate. In the present story, the churchman could be a community activist who perhaps becomes involved with the judge through civil disobedience. Before making my choice, I must remember to find a role for my grandfather who is the object of my uncle's scorn. Grandfather may fit into the role of Guardian, in which case I would move the prelate to either Reason or Emotion.
     Various ideas pop into my head for the remaining roles. Since my uncle is a duplicitous character, he may have a rocky marriage. Possibly a subplot would fit in with a wife, a servant, a son or daughter, even a mistress, or lover. Each could have an interest in the story problem and those interests would be widely divergent.

Suddenly, I have more characters than I have roles, but is that not always the way in auditions?      This completes the definitions of Dramatic's ten basic character roles. The role nomenclature designated in Dramatic is by no means immutable. In subsequent articles, I will suggest alternate names. The importance of archetypal characters is not role titles, it's the function they fulfill, as I shall demonstrate later.

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Number 13 — December 24, 2004
Dreaming The Story — Part 1

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Next, in the development on my story, I come to what I call Dreaming the Story. In the beginning, I envisaged a tale about my lawyer uncle. I approached the problem by selecting players who might fill the basic ten character roles. A snippet of story popped into my mind as I made my selection until at the end of the last article, an embryonic idea for a subplot developed. The next task is to assign attributes to the characters, which are name, gender, age, goal, critical flaw, motivation, and to classify them as "good" or "evil," a classification I call "type." One by one, I put the characters under my microscope. Whether sitting at my computer, driving my car, waiting for my doctor's appointment, or any other place I have a free moment, I dream the story. I think about each character's background and how that will influence his or her contribution to the story. Here is a condensed version about my misguided uncle. I don't think it makes the slightest difference which character you analyze first, but I believe it essential to examine all of them.
     The idea germinating in my mind starts with the home life of my father's family named Taber. Each of my father's siblings bore an Old Testament first name; my uncle was Isaac Taber. Their ancestors were of Quaker stock among the early settlers of New England, which they left as a form of protest against the War of Independence. The family industriousness in their new Kentucky setting brought wealth and prestige resulting in a formal old-country upbringing of my father's generation. My story begins when Isaac has the opportunity to escape the restricted and regimented family life for university in the East. He is like a caged animal released from captivity. His wild behavior filters back to his father who cuts off Isaac's funds to bring his son under control. Through shear determination, Isaac completes his law degree on his own and never again speaks to his father. Isaac's rejection turns to spite and a covetous need for wealth that so eludes him he turns to unscrupulous deals, but his father's image is never far from his conscience.
     I like to place my stories in the fifties and sixties, a period when I was active in business leaving me with some knowledge of the conditions in that era. Let's say, Isaac was born in 1912 making him too young to serve in World War I and too old for World War II. He leaves home in 1930, graduates in 1938, and prospers during the war in association with an arms dealer of questionable reputation.
     Oh! Oh! Suddenly, another character arrives that I never imagined in my first character contemplations. Where could this fellow fit in? Should he be a mysterious undercover character with a foreign name, or should he be Mr. Blank who seems simple and ordinary to the other characters in the story, but who Isaac recognizes as a conniver of the first order? If I do bring this character on stage, who should I drop?
     I have not written a word of my story, but through the process of selecting characters and creating backgrounds, I develop a notion of the relationships between my basic ten characters, or as many as I choose to include. This is the process I call Dreaming the Story.

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Number 14 — December 31, 2004
Dreaming The Story — Part 2

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Continuing from last week, I progress with my character assignments. You will remember, I introduced Mr. Blank. I must decide who knows Mr. Blank. A good possibility might be the ward-healer. His knowledge of the association between Isaac and Mr. Blank could provide Mr. Ward-healer with all the ammunition he needs to exploit Isaac. I already cast the ward-healer as the Contagonist, which fits my plan. You remember the Contagonist allies with the Antagonist by definition. Making Mr. Blank a mole that befriends Isaac would provide an interesting plot twist.
     I let my imagination run wherever it wants to go until I integrate all the characters into the plot, each with a purpose relating to the story problem. Usually, the characters pile up too fast and I must select those who may contribute more to my story. It is an arbitrary process of casting.
     Let's finish with Isaac. We know his name, age and he's male. His goal is to be wealthy. His motivation is a subliminal urge to avenge his father. Even after his father's death, Isaac remains consumed by the foolish goal of exculpating himself from his brothers' charge of dishonoring their parents. But through all his shenanigans, he cannot escape his eighteen years of gracious, well-mannered upbringing in his father's home. Even in his worst folly, he is always a gentleman. Maybe the title of this story will be The Gracious Folly.
     I pause to stress the benefits of this technique in story creation. In Article 9, I proposed to write a story about my fictitious uncle. I started by picking somebody effected by the story problem; the subjective character called the Main Character. I followed this by selecting more characters to fit archetypal roles, which I chose from Dramatica as a convenience. I could as easily define other role models—love-interest, villain, helper—fitting my characters into relationships. As I do this, the story automatically evolves. I develop an idea of where I'm going as if I'm planning a trip in which I select my purpose, destination, route and traveling companions.
I have attended many conferences in which the leader directs the class to write spontaneously on a particular subject. Before I discovered the technique described in these articles, I always had difficulty in responding. In one such circumstance, the subject was "a road." I approached it this way:

1. What is the story problem? An abandon railroad, a modest deviation from the assigned subject, which I considered legitimate since the exercise was a creative endeavor.
2. Who is the Main Character? A hobo who used to ride the rails.
3. Who is the Obstacle Character? His sister who married a wealthy man.
4. Story line: Destitute, the man pleads with his sister for welfare. She refuses to allow him in her expensive home. She relents and lets him sleep in the woodshed.
5. One night he hears a train whistle. He goes in search of the train, comes across an abandoned railroad where he sees a steaming locomotive. In the morning, his sister finds him leaning out the woodshed window in the posture of an engineer. He is dead.

     By creating characters to fill roles—protagonist, antagonist, main and obstacles characters, etc.—I conceived a crucial event and could then write a short story because I knew my destination. Using this technique, I can write fiction on almost any subject; define the characters and dream the crucial event. You can do the same.

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Number 15 — January 7, 2005
Character Attributes — Part 1

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Before I leave characterization, I want to explore four character attributes—flaws, motives, good, and evil—in more depth. The terms are related in a generic sense. To use the terminology of physics, some attributes are kinetic rather than static. Kinetic implies motion whereas static is lack of movement. The specific kinetic quality I have in mind is continuous and productive energy resulting in change; in other words, the qualities that energize the characters.
     My dictionary defines a flaw as an imperfection or weakness, especially one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness. Among the examples the dictionary offered, this one seemed apropos: "Vanity was his character flaw." To pursue this idea further, it could lead to the defeat of a vain Antagonist, allowing the Protagonist to solve the story problem. Another use is a Main Character setting aside vanity after realizing it prevents achievement of the goal.
     A wide range of choices exists. For instance, any of the seven deadly sins—pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth—could be a character's critical flaw. In essence, a flaw is fatal to spiritual progress, which goes a long way to dictate or explain behavior. An interesting feature of fiction is that it allows us to explore prejudices harbored inside our characters' heads whereas in real life we are never aware of other people's predilections. Whether a character is mentally able to overcome the flaw and change for the better is a critical story element.
     Let's examine this proposition in more detail through Isaac Taber. In previous articles in this series, I developed some of his attributes. Raised in a refined home by strict parents and plenty of servants to attend to the chores, he develops contempt for his home life. He becomes covetous, revengeful and unscrupulous as he matures. Which of these is his critical flaw? Do we simply choose from the fifteen or twenty synonyms in our thesaurus? Wait now! All these describe the singularity of his character that is open and exposed for all the other characters to appraise. In fact, his behavior comes about because of his motivation to avenge his father. In story life and in real life, everybody shelters his or her critical flaw. What is Isaac masking? Can the readers and the story characters deduce it as the tale unfolds? Perhaps Isaac's critical flaw is his upbringing. No matter how he tries to deny his father and mold himself into the shameless world of pretense, his Quaker heritage gnaws at him. His critical flaw is his rebellion against the inculcated high moral standards that he denies orally, but cannot do so spiritually. Thus, outwardly he behaves well-mannered and solicitous. The world sees him as a gentleman until his eventual unmasking when his true self comes into view.
     Let's analyze another player in Isaac's story; say the Mayor with high political ambitions who manipulates Isaac into a crooked fund-raising scheme. The Mayor, in the role of Skeptic, is an affable gladhander, has good leadership qualities, and is well liked; a popular politician. He is astute enough to suspect Isaac's glossy exterior hides his true nature. Note how the attributes of one character—the mayor—complement or oppose another character's—Isaac's. But what does the mayor keep from the world? This is an easy one. He is selfish. His ambitions are clear. He directs his actions towards his own vanity that he camouflages in a pleasant persona.
     The determination of behavioral characteristics is important. The depth of investigation is variable, but in general mental characteristics that evolve from analyses of flaws, motives, good, and evil are more important than physical features, especially remembering that flaws, good and evil may be static while motives are kinetic. If I can deduce how a character will react to stimuli, then I have a realistic chance of maintaining consistent behavior as the character attains, or fails to attain, a particular goal.

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Number 16 — January 14, 2005
Character Attributes — Part 2

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In the previous article, I assigned the Mayor the critical flaw of selfishness that underlies his lust for power. Does that mean on Valentine's Day he puts a rose in his lapel and neglects to buy his wife a gift? Not at all! She is the mother of his children and the keeper of his house; she stands beside him on the podium with arms raised after a successful campaign. In short, his love for her motivates him towards consideration for others. But, what if a stronger motivation exists from a different source? Suppose his father lived beyond his means, incurring large debts the Mayor wants to settle. His motivation is to ensure his progeny never suffer a similar fate and to care for his destitute mother. When the opportunity of his political career arises, his critical flaw dominates his actions. Alas, he falls into the same trap as his father and drags Isaac Taber with him.
     Human motivations are complex issues that change with time; our story characters' are no different. In the preceding example, my intent is to show the Mayor with two motivations; the welfare of his family and his wish to care for his mother. To satisfy these motivations, he needs money, but alas, he expended most of his resources promoting his political career. This leads him to the same pitfall as his father. In other words, at crunch time he put his selfish political interest ahead of his professed interest of his children and mother.
     Continuing with the character development of the Mayor, I must decide whether he is "good" or "evil." What are the qualities that cast a character in one category or the other? To make a character good, we assign qualities that we normally admire in other people; to make the character evil, we assign qualities we dislike. The objective is to make the reader feel sympathy for the good and antipathy for the evil. Some of the attributes we like in our story characters are:

1. good guys always play fair; they wait for their opponents to draw first;
2. the word of good characters is their bond; they never lie or break their word;
3. they are not self-serving and only undertake the dangerous job when other choices are exhausted;
4. they overcome pain and suffering and find the last ounce of energy to defeat adversity;
5. they sacrifice self-interests in favor of others;
6. they are courageous, clever and reliable.

     When writing a story about good versus good, share the attributes, making sure the characters are different, putting the reader in a seesaw state feeling sympathy for first one character, then another. But, don't forget the flaws. The characters cannot be so perfect as to be inhuman. They must have some qualities that are undesirable, even if you resort to such trivialities as sloppy dresser, messy quarters, slouching posture—anything that makes them real.
     The opposite qualities are those that make a character evil. Again, don't forget to give the bad guy some redeeming qualities.
     What about Isaac Taber? I chose to make him evil. Therefore, I must assign attributes that are usually looked upon as character defects. One source of inspiration is the ten commandments. Isaac does not honor his parents; he steals; he bears false witness; and if we include a mistress, he may be an adulterer. Any or all of these will be distasteful, especially since he masks them behind his well-mannered persona, which is to say he is deceitful.
     This concludes my comments on character definition. The more individualization I give my players, the more the plot develops. Here, then, is my argument in favor of character planning: The actions that move my story forward will seem plausible to the reader because those actions are character driven. Because my characters are good or evil with motivations and flaws, they will appear as real people. Note also my tale has shifted from my initial story problem—the integrity of lawyers—to an exposé of political intrigue. Had I begun composing my story without dreaming it first, I might well have written a considerable amount before I realized I wanted to make a change. With half a story written, or even a few chapters, changing the theme will inevitably lead to confusion, particularly if you overlook necessary corrections. The greatest dangers in writing without a plan are the tendencies to drift off in unrelated directions and to have your characters behave inconsistently, or even worse, not behave at all. They will appear flat and uninteresting. In a word, your story will be boring. You avoid this result by developing your characters first and allowing the action to flow naturally from them, which means to place in-depth character analysis first.

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Number 17 — January 21, 2005
Subjectivity, Objectivity & Perspective

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I noted previously some writers combine the Main Character and Protagonist. How does the author decide why and when to include a Main Character?
     The Protagonist and Antagonist concentrate their efforts seeking, or avoiding, a solution to the story problem. That is, they have objective purposes. The Main Character plays a subjective role, and as a corollary, so does the Obstacle Character.
     Objective means seeking something, physically or mentally—as a buried treasure, or a spiritual concept—and which at least one character considers attainable. Subjective means feelings arising because of the objective search.
     Before I explore this idea, here is a list of the characters in Isaac's story.

1. Main Character: Charles; young lawyer; wants to be a judge.
2. Obstacle Character: Henry; wants Charles out of the office.
3. Protagonist: Sydney, District Attorney; seeks to expose judicial crime.
4. Guardian (Protagonist's ally): Ed, newspaper court reporter.
5. Antagonist: Isaac Taber, contagonist's victim.
6. Contagonist (Antagonist's ally): Abe, conniving political ward-healer.

     Ed becomes suspicious of Isaac's rulings and relays his concern to the DA. This gives Sydney and Ed (good guys) a story problem exploring their suspicions. Abe promises Isaac (bad guys) a payoff for helping his friend the Mayor's political ambitions that provides a story problem they want to hide. These four have objective purposes.
     Charles, aware of the maneuvering among the four characters, acts subjectively in a manner he judges to be in his best interests. He and Henry debate the issues with the latter always taking a position opposed to Charles.
     These six characters allow the author to examine four story perspectives:

1. All the events of the story that create the reader's perspective;
2. The Main Character's subjective evaluation of the events;
3. The Obstacle Character's subjective evaluation of the events;
4. The argument between the Main and Obstacle Characters that eventually leads to one or the other changing one or more of his value dimensions.

     Through exploring these four perspectives, the author examines the real world in fictional terms. The reader experiences the first perspective through watching all the characters from a distance and associating them with a role regardless of whether the reader can name the roles the characters fulfill. Think of the reader as a spectator at a sporting event, watching the players on the arena floor. He may not be able to name the positions the players occupy, but he is able to grasp the sense of the game. In contrast, the Main Character presents the subjective argument, supporting whatever theme the author selects, while the Obstacle Character entertains the opposite view. In the sporting analogy, these characters represent individual players on opposing teams concerned about their personal involvement, which is the subjective view of the game from the arena floor. This is not far from real life. Decisions often come through consideration of an alternative view, sometimes called the devil's advocate.
     An author combining objective and subjective characters in the same body, consciously—or by default—takes the argument out of the story by removing perspectives 2, 3, and 4. Although nothing is wrong in such a choice, character analysis as a first step in story creation forces a conscious decision to include, or exclude, subjective characters.
     To distill this diatribe to simple terms, the author's problem is a practical, easy-to-understand choice. Will he or she describe the battle of Sydney and Ed versus Isaac and Abe as action-driven lacking philosophical arguments, or will the story broaden to wider considerations? If Charles and Henry are absent, Isaac's story explores American judiciary without regard to its effects on others. With Charles and Henry in the story, it expands to include an argument about the effects of such improprieties as graft, duplicity and deception. Combining four principal characters makes the controversy multi-dimensional, which is not only more interesting for the reader, it is also more challenging for the author.
     Will your story be a two-dimensional game like tic-tac-toe, or a three-dimensional challenge such as Rubik's Cube? The decision may be hard to make, but once taken, it should not be reversed.

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Number 18 — January 28, 2005
Freewriting — Part 1

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Before I leave character roles, I want to reiterate an earlier comment. The terminology I used came from Dramatica as a convenience. The terms protagonist and antagonist are in common use, the rest are not. But, the role nomenclature does not matter. You could use terms like protagonist's helper, or aide, or friend; love interest; mole; and so on. The important point is not the name of the roles characters fulfill; it's the author's assignment of competing or conflicting attributes before beginning to write plus the fundamental decision to include or exclude two competing subjective players.
     I guess by now, most readers of this column have had enough of my banner-waving in favor of character creation as an expedient method to create a story. "That's all very well," you say, "but let's get on with the writing. How do I begin?" My answer is to begin by simply writing whatever comes into your head in a process generally known as freewriting.
     So now, I turn to practical considerations of writing and will continue on this vein for several articles to come. In my book Creative Writing Workshop — Second Edition I devoted seven pages to explaining freewriting, a development technique that sacrifices ordinary writing rules in favor of speed.
     Imagine telling someone a story on the telephone. You speak without interruptions, perhaps pausing for a second or two to gather your thoughts, but in general, you keep talking. In freewriting, you try to do the same; produce a simple continuous stream of words about your topic.
     Suppose you make a mistake in the oral account of your story. You correct yourself by adding the information you omitted. For example, suppose you said, "After Jack found the pail, he went up the hill to fetch the water." You realize you forgot some information. But, you have already made the statement that your respondent heard. Having said the words, you cannot have them back, erase them, or recover them. Your only recourse is to add the missing information. "Oh! I forgot. He asked Jill to go with him and they went up the hill together." In a storytelling conversation, you always keep going forward, even when you make a mistake; try to do the same in freewriting.
     In freewriting, you don't allow your mind to interfere with your writing. You ignore constraints of grammar, and write as if you are talking, including only grammatical elements that come naturally to you when writing and ignoring those you happen to omit. When you take pencil and paper, you experience "the fear of the blank page." In freewriting, you train yourself to overcome that fear.
     The effectiveness of freewriting depends on obeying these rules:

1. Write as much and as fast as you can;
2. Never change a word once written;
3. Never go back to make corrections;
4. Never insert an omitted word.

     Here is an exercise to introduce yourself to the technique. Select a person you knew five or more years ago. Set a timer and freewrite for exactly five minutes about an experience you had with that person. Set your writing aside; do not reread it or correct it. Repeat the exercise for five days in a row, never looking back at your previous work. After the fifth time, did you feel a story developing? You are writing what you know.
     For more, visit Capital Community College Web Site Guide to Grammar & Writing. (Check front Index for URL) Also, see Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes by Roberta Allen.

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Number 19 — February 4, 2005
Freewriting — Part 2

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I continue the topic of freewriting because I attach so much importance to it. Here is an exercise I use at the beginning of my Creative Writing Workshops I offer at public libraries.
     Think of a person with whom you had an assocation in your past. For older folks, I suggest somebody you haven't seen or heard from for at least five years or more. If you can go all the way back to your childhood, even better. For younger people, such as high school students, I suggest going back at least two years, farther if you can. Write down the person's name. Example: Mabel Foster.

1. Write a short sentence stating your association with this person. Example: Mabel was the teller at the bank where I cashed my paycheck on the fifteenth and first of every month.
   

        I pause here to address the subject of events, which are basic to creative writing. The easiest way to understand their use is through examples. I ask you to go back to Article 7 on page 21 to read the three examples of opening paragraphs.
        Graham Greene in Travels With My Aunt: The opening sentence is an event—the meeting with his Aunt Augusta. He follows this with some exposition about his mother, his aunt and him, ending the paragraph with a great line.
        Robert Ludlum in The Bourne Identity: Here the author reverses the sequence, opening with three sentences of exposition about the perils facing the trawler, and then introduces the event—two abrupt explosions.
        John Le Carré in The Night Manager: In this one, the author gives the reader one sentence of exposition before the event—The Gulf War had just started.
        The only difference in the preceding examples is one of arrangement; each begins with an event ranging from a simple meeting to an explosion. Clearly, it doesn't matter what the event is: that it is present is the all-important issue. Let's return to our exercise.

2. Write a statement of the event that caused you to recall this person. Example: One day in July of 1987, I went to cash my check. Mabel wasn't there.
3. Now, start freewriting. Remember the rules stated in the previous article. Set your timer to five minutes and write the story of this incident in your life as fast as you can. Don't cheat and don't go backwards. Always keep moving forward. The moment you stop to read your work, or to make corrections, you defeat the purpose of the exercise. When your time is up, STOP. Do not read your story; simply close your book, or fold your paper, and put it away. You can expect both your handwriting and your composition to be terrible. It doesn't matter; nobody else will ever see your paper.
4. For the next three days, write the same story without ever reading your previous work. Same procedure; set the timer, write for five minutes, and put your writing away. DO NOT GO BACKWARDS. On the fifth day, forget the timer and simply write the story.

     What do you expect will happen? I'll tell you what will happen. As the story filters through your mind day after day during your normal activities, you will recall many circumstances about this person you have not thought about for years. The purpose of the untimed fifth exercise is to get all your recollections into this true story from your own life. You will write what you know.
     Don't believe me? Try it, but remember it only works if you don't violate the rules.

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Number 20 — February 11, 2005
Freewriting — Part 3

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After one of my workshops, a participant offered this comment: "The best part of your workshop was about freewriting." This surprised me. As time passed, I found this was not a rare comment, so I decided to do a little research. I sent the following question to several people who had made similar remarks: "Have you used freewriting in your creative work, and if so, can you describe how you do it?" Half the respondents confessed they had not used it; the other half offered a variety of answers I distilled down to three points:

1. Nobody used a timer to write for exactly five minutes; one said he wrote until he exhausted his ideas; the others did not mention the time restraint.
2. Two people said they did not write connected statements. Instead, they wrote random thoughts about the story they were working on. I construed this to mean they wrote a series of "whatifs:" What if John has an accident? What if the house catches fire? "One leads to another until I uncover an idea that I think will move my story forward," wrote one respondent.
3. All respondents using it reported finding freewriting useful for exploring and uncovering story ideas, no matter the particular variations they may have infused into the process.

     I neither condone nor criticize how people vary the technique. Personally, I employ it often, but I confess I don't time myself. Every weekday morning, I go for a three-mile walk unless it's raining. I direct my thoughts to my current story problem. When I return, I take five or ten minutes to freewrite whatever ideas have arisen. The result is a foolscap book full of scribbling. Occasionally, good ideas pop up. This raises another point that writers must recognize. First drafts are terrible and freewriting is simply a first draft.
     I recently heard Joyce Carol Oates interviewed on the radio. She had brought manuscript notes with her. The interviewer described the notes as illegible. "I can't read this," he said. Ms. Oates pointed out the notes were a first draft. Anne Lamont in her book Bird By Bird stresses that "everybody writes (poor) first drafts." Steinbeck or Hemingway—or one of those famous guys—is reputed to have said it takes twelve to fifteen revisions to go from a first draft to a finished story.
     Why am I wasting your time telling you this? It's because I see people at my workshops who fail to write continuously during the freewriting exercise. They scratch out; they stop to think; they correct spelling; these and many other interruptions defeat the purpose of the exercise. By so doing, these folks leaped the benefits of creating and went directly to revising the story before they had written it. To put it more charitably, they revise as they progress. My workshop proposes a four-step process: find, create, write and revise. It begins with freewriting.
     I deviate for a moment to respond to a question from a reader about story planning I advocated in earlier articles. I recognize not all writers plan their stories. A local writer here in Arkansas contends planning kills spontaneity and creativity. I argue everything we do in life is planned—going on vacation, erecting a building, going shopping, you name it. Why then would a major endeavor like writing be free from planning?

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