Writing by Observing People

by Karen Krossing | Jan 4, 2011 | On Writing

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how to begin a story by writing from personal experience. Another way to begin writing is by observing people. Here’s how you can use this technique.

Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are a writer. You can gather material from every aspect of your life. Every moment is an opportunity to fill your creative well.

I have been in trying circumstances and said to myself, “Maybe I can write about this later.” It consoles me when things are tough, and inspires me to try out new experiences.

So I suggest you eavesdrop on people sitting at the next table in a restaurant, or at a bus stop, or at work or school. Observe how your body reacts when you feel angry, sad, happy, and so on. Make note of sensory experiences (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) so you can use them in your writing.

Write down your observations. Borrow shamelessly from life around you. Let life inspire your writing.

In a later post, I’ll explore how to write by asking “what-if” questions.

Brainpicking Interview

by Karen Krossing | Dec 22, 2010 | On Writing

Check out this quirky and insightful interview of me at author Sarah Raymond‘s blog. Sarah’s first young-adult novel Signs of Martha will be published with Great Plains Publications in Spring 2011. What is Sarah’s novel about, you ask? Here’s a teaser: When Martha apprentices under an off-beat signpainter, she paints herself into an uncomfortable corner. Good luck with the novel, Sarah!

Writing from Personal Experience

by Karen Krossing | Dec 18, 2010 | On Writing

There are many ways to begin a story: one is writing from personal experience. Here’s how you can use this technique.

Ask yourself what moments from your childhood stand out for you? Which ones can you recall in vivid detail, which stories did your parents repeat to you over and over, which ones were the most terrifying or the most exhilarating? When you find a moment with energy, write it down. It may not become a story right away. It may begin as an anecdote. But collect these anecdotes until you begin to find the links and connections that will pull them into a story.

You may want to fictionalize personal experience, combining real events with imagination to make a story. I used this technique in Take the Stairs, which is based on personal experiences I had as a teen as well as those of people around me. Or, you may want to retain the flavour of actual events, using real names and places, like in a memoir. Either way, you’re looking to arrange reality into a story.

Here’s a quote from Alice Munro that I like: “Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.”

In later posts, I’ll explore how to write by observing people and by asking “what-if” questions.

42 is the Answer

by Karen Krossing | Nov 30, 2010 | On Writing

A new study conducted by Antanas Sileika, Director of the Humber School for Writers, complied information about the ages of Canadian fiction and nonfiction authors who publish for the first time. It turns out that people do not publish quite as young as Sileika first thought. The average age of the first-time Canadian author is 42, which also happens to be the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series of science fiction novels. Is this a coincidence? Perhaps not.