WRITING: Fiction and Not

Reality teaches story, and writing can teach something about life. 

While experience has some great story to it, it is often too difficult to write about it as is.  Sometimes it shows up in bits and pieces in stories about characters we don’t even know, must learn to know better to realize that their perceptions and reactions may differ than ours.  This is where workshopping helps:  to point out flaws in developing a character that isn’t the author, to point out a story line that isn’t working because it has been camoflaged to keep it from being too close, too real.  I worry more about character development and story line than any other element of writing now, although I’ve had my share of hits at workshopping sessions for not using imagery, overdosing on imagery, and overuse of adverbs.

One thing I’ve found is that workshopping life stories and situations is just as helpful and valuable even if it’s not going to be written up.  In a particularly bad week where several ongoing situations came up at once, I found that talking to others about it, usually friends that can be trusted to be honest rather than offer condescending nods of approval was the best avenue to take.  We often get so wrapped up in our own side of the battle that there comes a time to question ourselves.  We could, after all, be wrong; the opposition is just as damn sure they’re right so somebody’s gotta be not totally right.

Workshopping, discussing the story and the series of events and various perceptions can very often tell you if you’re on the right track or just running on empty.