Filling the Creative Well (Part 1)

by Karen Krossing | Jul 30, 2013 | On Writing

After a year of solidly writing every day, I need to take a writing break this summer. The problem is that I’m terrible at sitting still. For me, resting is torture. My mind continues to spin out scenes that beg to be written down.

But as Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way, we all need to fill our creative well every so often. She writes, “In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well-stocked trout pond. We’ve got big fish, little fish, fat fish, skinny fish – an abundance of artistic fish to fry. As artists, we must realize that we have to maintain this artistic ecosystem….Any extended period of piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well.”

Ideally, Cameron recommends that we fill the well with sensory experiences, fun pursuits, intriguing explorations.

So how does this writer take a creative break, other than getting away from my writing desk? By finding a different creative project. One that uses a new set of creative muscles. And I had the perfect idea.

First, I enlisted my daughter, Paige, to help. She’s a fabulous visual artist – a skill she didn’t inherit from me. I shared my plan to revive our boring kitchen chairs, re-making them into painted, themed works-of-art. I would act as creative consultant and base coat painter; Paige would supply the art.

Here’s the set of chairs we started with. Dull, I know.

We brainstormed ideas for how to paint each of the six chairs, which was a lot of fun. We settled on these ideas: cosmos, Aztec, steampunk, Doctor Who (yes, we’re geeks), floral/nature, and collage. Now I’m doing the grunt work: stripping and sanding each chair, painting the undercoat and colour coats, and painting the polyurethane after the artwork is complete. Paige does the glory work, and her art is anything but boring!

What I’m finding is that painting gives my mind time to process what I’ve written and what I plan to write next. It gives me a way to relax my mind without sitting still. Like a long walk, painting is a terrific way to unwind and contemplate.

The best part is that, in the end, I’m left with gorgeous and unique chairs. Don’t hang your art on walls – sit on it!

Here’s our cosmos chair:

And our Aztec chair (front and back):

And finally our steampunk chair (front and back):

The last three chairs – Doctor Who, floral/nature, and collage – are in progress. I’ll post later with pictures of them. In the meantime, I’m off to paint a Tardis-blue chair, contemplate life and fill the well!

Analyzing Story with Christopher Vogler

by Karen Krossing | Jun 24, 2013 | On Writing

Most people in the publishing world will admit there’s no magic formula for creating a great story. The art of storytelling is difficult to pin down, hard to teach, and challenging to perfect.

Perfecting story is a continual task for most writers – a never-ending quest for excellence. That’s why being able to analyze one’s story – to determine what it’s doing well and where it needs revision – is essential.

For years now, I’ve been exploring the teachings of screenwriting experts to help me better understand story. A long-time favourite is Hollywood story consultant Christopher Volger. In June, I had the pleasure of learning from him in person at his weekend seminar on the Essence of Storytelling. The seminar covered essential story structure, the hero’s journey, major character archetypes, and strategies for deepening the audience’s involvement in the story. It was great fun to attend with fellow writers Anne Laurel Carter, Lena Coakley, Jennifer Gordon, Gwynn Scheltema, Rebecca Upjohn Snyder, and Erin Thomas.

At the seminar, Volger proved himself to be an expert at analyzing story. Here are two particular aspects of story analysis that I found useful.

Organic Storytelling

Vogler suggests that story connects with the body, that it can have a physical effect on the organs of the body. For example, we talk about how a story chokes us up or warms our hearts. Somehow, stories are hardwired into the human body.

That’s why Vogler has this rule: If a story is not making two or more organs of your body squirt fluid, the story is no good.

By observing our bodies as we experience story, we can better determine what makes an effective story.

Story Structure

Throughout his career, Vogler has sought to understand the hidden rules of storytelling through analysis of story structure:

• What is the expected story structure that a reader will intuitively anticipate?
• How can we use unorthodox story structure to give readers fresh, original stories?
• How does structure punctuate a story, heighten key moments, and invite the audience to breath at the pace set by the writer?

Volger explains his twelve-stage template for story structure in his book The Writer’s Journey (based on the writings of Joseph Campbell and his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces). Basically, Vogler has developed principles to analyze stories, building a writer’s toolbox from which to select tools to use in a particular story.

Of course, Vogler’s story structure is a guideline of a classic story structure, and many variations on it exist, from the tightly formed mystery genre to avant-garde and non-linear storytelling. Any story structure serves as a model only, and writers need to trust their stories to tell them when and how to vary a model.

Using Intuition and Logic

It interests me that Vogler marries both intuition and logic to analyze story, although it’s no surprise that both are needed. It explains why there are no hard-and-fast rules to storytelling and why no publishing expert can regularly identify which books will be the next bestsellers.

So if you’re looking to expand your writer’s toolbox, Vogler may be of help. You can check out either The Writer’s Journey or his newest book, Memo from the Story Department: Secrets of Structure and Character.

Maybe Vogler’s thinking will shake up your view of storytelling. Maybe it will validate it.