Clifford Thurlow | Tips For Writers

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." Flannery O'Connor

Media and writing courses are growing in popularity at the universities. Library shelves are weighed down with books on how to write. We live in the age of communication, the time of the world wide web. There are more markets, more magazines, the publishers bring out more books every year. It is the time of the writer.

I believe there are two secrets. First – it ain't easy, and second, the secret is there is no secret. It's plain hard word. All writing is re-writing. As Samuel Johnson cleverly put it:

Read through your work. When you come to a part that's particularly pleasing, strike it out.

It makes my heart skip a beat every time I read that line – because it is such good advice. Whatever goes down on paper, however well it looks, and with the abundance of nifty tricks available on our computers, it's probably going to look super, that first gush of words is unlikely to produce anything of great value. What that first gush will do is give you something to work with. It is the cloth from which the tailor fashions a suit, the fittings the re-writes, the new drafts.

It is often said that you should write about what you know about. I would amend that to say, better still, write about what moves you, your passions, dreams and desires. You have to write the story, get into its very heart, its essence, before even you, the writer, knows what it is you are trying to say. Character drives plot, but the underlying theme, the message, is the basket that holds all the diverse threads together.

Once you give birth to your characters, they are responsible for their own actions, and the effects caused by those actions. If you want the reader to be interested in your heroes and heroines, they must be interesting flesh and blood people who start at point A and shift subtly, cleverly, gradually and convincingly to point B and beyond.

Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created – nothing. F Scott Fitzgerald

It is the emotional journey the characters make that holds readers and grabs an audience. Each scene in a film or section in a book should have its own beginning, middle and end, a minor conflict leading to a resolution: action and reaction, and on to the next scene, the characters growing and changing through each development. The effect is like placing tiles on a mosaic path, each contributing to the story's journey and driving is forward to a satisfying conclusion.

If the story has been well told, the characters would have gone through changes. We will have been made aware of their imperfections, foibles and flaws, the acts of kindness and humanity that add up to the sum total of what they are: a reflection of ourselves. The metaphor of the sculptor releasing the figure from the block of marble is familiar and can be extended to the part played by the writer, the unique mannerisms, word patterns, strengths and weaknesses of his characters laid bare as each new challenge chips away the protective coating to reveal the individual beneath.

In writing classes and literary discussions someone will usually remark that there is only a handful of different stories - the exact number always varies - and writers throughout time just keep retelling them. Every love story ever told is a replay of Romeo and Juliet; the man with the fatal flaw – Achilles; the precious gift taken away – Orpheus; virtue finally recognised – Cinderella; the devil's pact – Faust; the spider trapping the fly – Circe; change or transformation – Metamorphosis; the quest – Don Quixote.

To the list we can add the coming-of-age plot - (The Catcher in the Rye); rivals - (Amadeus, Ben Hur,); escape - (The Great Escape); manipulation – (Svengali); revenge - (Hamlet, The Man in the Iron Mask).

These stories have been reshaped over and over again, but it is the reshaping and combination of plots that makes them fresh and original. Cross Romeo and Juliet with Cinderella and what do we end up with: the Richard Gere/Julie Roberts film Pretty Woman; change Cinderella for Orpheus and we have Nabokov's Lolita. The genius of George Lucas is that he mixed them all to create Star Wars, a mythical adventure in the tradition of Gilgamesh, the pre-Biblical epic still on the bookshelves today.

We are still discovering species of bird, insect and fish unknown to mankind. Every generation has its own hopes and fears, its own tales to tell. What makes our story special, what draws in the reader is not the underlying mechanics of plot, but the characters. Great characters move the audience and, as plot unfolds through conflict, great villains make great stories.

Once born, before a single word of narrative goes down on paper, writers should sketch out complete biographies of their characters, their ages, idiosyncrasies, disappointments, hopes and dreams, not caricatures or stereotypes, but one-off originals with all the qualities, doubts and nervous tics that make us all unique.

From this study, you should be able to extract the essence of your characters and summarise them in a few sentences. Callie Khouri does it brilliantly in her screenplay Thelma and Louise, describing Thelma's husband (the perfectly-named carpet salesman Darryl) in three swift brushstrokes:

Darryl comes trotting down the stairs. Polyester was made for this man and he's dripping in men's jewelry. He manages a Carpeteria.
Darryl is checking himself out in the hall mirror and it's obvious he likes what he sees.
He exudes overconfidence for reasons that never become apparent. He likes to think of himself as a real lady killer. He is making imperceptible adjustments to his over moussed hair. Thelma watches approvingly.

What Callie Khouri did was take the traditional buddy movie and put two girls in the lead roles. In the story, while Thelma is coming-of-age, Louise is fighting the demons from the past. When they have fully matured into new beings, they know they can never go back to what they were; they are ready for the ultimate metamorphosis: the drive over the cliff edge into the Grand Canyon.

If the characters we create have a tale worth telling, they will want something: escape to Mexico, to get the girl, rob the bank, be a star, find El Dorado. A story becomes interesting when the writer sets up obstacles that prevent their heroes getting what they want (Thelma and Louise first lose their money, essential for their flight). The story hooks us as they overcome those obstacles and/or villains and thereby grow and change in the process.

As the characters go through a range of emotions: fear, self-doubt, sorrow, elation, the audience will be seeing themselves in the hero and will be sharing those emotions. If you laugh out loud while reading a book or feel a tear jerk into your eye while you are watching a movie, the writer has done his job.

The importance of character names cannot be overemphasised. Writers keep books with titles like 'Naming Your Baby' always in reach and pour over them with all the nervous dedication parents pay to naming their new-born infants. Think of Scarlett O'Hara, Sam Spade, Luke Skywalker, Lolita, Robin Hood, Bond – James Bond.

We as people are interested in people; Disney cartoons and science fiction monsters are anthropomorphic, and it will take rare skill for a writer to keep us involved in a plot where the hero goes into battle against some generalised adversary like nature, disease, the tobacco companies or big business. The enemy needs a human face – Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.

In life, the whistle blower usually loses his battle against the corporate giants. It is the role of the writer to put the world back in balance and show us the little guy winning; when people come away from movies or close the cover of their book, they are more satisfied with happy endings.

Whether it's James Bond entering Ernst Blofeld's fortress, Rocky Balboa in the boxing ring, or Charlie Sheen challenging Michael Douglas in Wall Street's final reel, the hero and the antagonist must have this conclusive, face to face confrontation to send the audiences home contented. The little guy rising to the challenge and overcoming evil appeals to our deepest humanity. We are the little guy.

I am quoting more films than books because the examples are more likely to be known by more people. In turn, one of the problems first-time writers must overcome is that everyone has grown up on the same diet of countless movies and endless hours of television. We know how it's done because we've seen it done, over and over again. The struggle is to break the mould of our education and environment, think in fresh ways, and find our own originality.

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. Truman Capote

What Capote is saying is that while storytelling does has rules, like the moon and stars to the navigator at sea, we must still pilot our own course through the darkness.

Listen carefully to first criticisms of your work. Note just what it is about your work the critics don't like – then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. Jean Cocteau

Cocteau was a poet, dramatist, novelist, film director, the kind of guy you could really grow to hate.

TIPS FOR WRITERS