Stephen King said that “A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger" and it is. It's fleeting, it's mysterious and it leaves you both excited and satisfied. The best thing that you can do for your writing is to leave it up to interpretation. When I write, I don't want to tell you that the door is blue because I am sad- you can conclude this or you can conclude that the door is a symbol for something else entirely or maybe, just maybe...it's just a blue door.
           I don't want to draw you a map with a big red 'X' at the end, making sense of the entire journey, I want you, the reader, to travel a winding road and end up somewhere entirely unexpected. This 'somewhere' will not be mine. It will be elsewhere for everyone who reads it, that is the only intention or plan that goes into anything that I write. Ishmael Reed said that “No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.” In short, write anything you want, anyway that you want to but make it real and honest and it will be good.

          Take a cue from Hemingway and sit at your typewriter (or Macbook...since it is 2013) and "bleed" until the world knows the truth about how you see things. Wake up at 3am and write, write drunk, write sad, write angry- never happy. Happy is full of euphemisms and falseties. Write at anytime that you will be completely honest- and do not edit out the truth in order to please anyone, not an editor or a reader that you don't even know. All efforts to do so will be like trying to extinguish a fire by blowing on it- futile- and untimately you will end up burning the whole thing down.

         Do not cower behind fluff or write happy endings, in fact, omit endings all together and leave your reader angry. They will never think more about a piece of literature then when it has not ended the way they want it to. Leave it ambiguous, kill the good guy, let the bad guy win, end the world as we (the readers) know it and they will love to hate it.

         Basically, do not let anyone tell you how or what to write because it will not be good, it will be lying. I will not tell you about rhyme or meter, punctuation or grammar because it is not important. There are no rules to writing, so write in capitals, breaks, run-ons and mispell anything you want if it makes your piece yours and it will be great.

by Hayley-Quinn McBride

Character Stats

When I found out we had to write about an author’s style of writing it didn’t take me long to decide on who I would write about.  I decided it would be best to just write about the author I was the most familiar with and after looking at my book collection I was very obvious.  The names that came up the most were Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Lucky for me I don’t have to pick between the two because they usually write in collaboration with each other and after having read more than 30 of their books (not counting the ones they wrote separately) it would probably be wrong if I didn’t.

Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman are most well known for creating the Dragonlance series which may be one of the longest running (and possibly nerdiest) fantasy series ever written. When I go into a used bookstore I like to play a game and see if I can find a Dragonlance novel in less than ten minutes. I’ve never lost. That may be because there are more Dragonlance novels than I can count although to be fair many are not written by the two authors themselves.

The Dragonlance novels have somehow managed to stand out, not by being unique or ground breaking, but by being the most generic and stereotypical medieval fantasy books ever written.  Some might think this is a bad thing yet there is something special about the tone of the Dragonlance novels that make them the most fun books I have every read. The real question is “what makes them so fun?”

It’s probably because the entire series is based on a Dungeons and Dragons game. The two writers where originally hired to write a D&D module, with the books being only an afterthought.  Again it sounds like a bad thing but it’s not. It’s hard to explain the appeal behind this to someone who doesn’t have an interest in playing D&D yet I remember being in 6^th grade, wanting to try D&D really badly but having no one to play with (because why would an “all grown up” 6^th grader want to play imaginary games...). Finding the Dragonlance books was the closest id get to satisfying that need.

I think that basing the story of a fantasy game did wonders for the story, most of all the characters, some of which may rank among my favorite characters in fiction. Just as any Dungeons and Dragons player becomes deeply attached to their own characters the reader becomes attached to the ones in the book.  I tend to think of any character I write as if they were a character on an RPG character sheet because truth be told, those games have developed some of the best generative processes ever and the attributes of character building transcend just fantasy settings. Thinking of characters in that way is,  in my opinion, one of the most useful creative tools I can think off because it gives you such a strong idea of what your characters capabilities and demeanors are. As an added note, just playing any table top role playing game will in my opinion make you a much better story teller because you become acclimated to telling a story whilst making most of it up on the spot.

Dragonlance may not be the most innovative or literary thing on the planet but it still manages to tell an epic story with unforgettable characters without ever disappointing your expectations. It may just be some stupid fantasy series but it never needed to be more. It doesn’t just adhere to the stereotypes, it defines.

--Kevin Coughlin

Write in photographs

Mark Twain said it best when he said "write what you know." Broad-yes, but imperative nonetheless.  Think about it. Think back to your favourite novel, poem or piece of prose, chances are you fell in love with it because it expressed some misunderstood part of you. It was relatable, it brought you back to a time or a place or a feeling you've cherished, internalized or maybe even repressed.

The reason we attach ourselves to these words that for some unseeingly defined reason have spoken louder to us than others is because they profess an honesty that we can't profess ourselves. And as powerful as this relationship between writer and reader is, it is not intentional. Writers don't necessarily seek out a particular reader-or the good ones don't, they don't intentionally write the most powerful thing YOU'VE ever read. They simply write honestly and about experiences that are bound to happen to more than one human being. The best pieces of writing capture authenticity therefore the best way to write is to live. Sounds pretty simple right?

Ha.

There's just one small problem. How do we capture all of it? And just what exactly are we supposed to capture? If all I can write is what I know and all I know can be condensed in to 19 years of suburban life-hood, how will this possibly compare to the extraordinary adventures of Harry Potter? I'm not a wizard. I don't have a bad ass scar, and I have neither a wizarding protege nor an arachnophobic ginger for a best friend. So what on earth do I write about?
And then I sit back, and I take a breath and I realize that though J.K Rowling does an incredible job at creating a world I'll never be able to live in, I am drawn to the modest, humanistic tendencies of her writings. Like Harry's first kiss with Cho Chang, or the unsaid but always acknowledged tension between Ron and Hermione. These things, I definitely have experienced.

And then I realize that the best pieces of writings I have ever read recreate a moment. One sparingly intense moment. Like a picture.
Here's the ticker. To maintain authenticity, always assure that YOU are in the picture. Or at least some part of you is.

For example, in Tenessee Williams' A Street Car Named Desire, the main character; Blanche returns to her sister's home after a traumatizing experience whereby she finds her lover in bed with another man. Similarly, in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" another one of William's plays, we see Brick struggle with his sexuality as well. We now know that Tenessee Williams was, in fact gay. Though it wasn't always as obvious, he leaked trails of himself in to his works.

Lemony Snickett, in my opinion has written some of this centuries most intelligent novels and he actually makes himself a character in his books. Though this character is detached and not clearly defined, he, on many occasions implies a personal tie to the story.

So take a moment. Freeze it and describe all the little things about that day, how the wind was blowing, who you were talking to, if you had sweat stains on your shirt, if it smelled like pizza pockets, if you were happy or if you were just semi-ok. Write all of it down, get every tiny detail in there even if you think it will be unbelievable. There are many instances in life where I have had to double take or rub my eyes and assure myself that I did indeed just see a man pull down his pants in the middle of San Francisco and try to take a dump. (Excuse the graphic visual.)

Do this over and over and allow yourself to place these pictures in chronological order, soon you'll have a prose of some kind. And it will be honest, because it ACTUALLY happened,  because there is a genuine sentiment that used to be reality. There's no use writing about getting cheated on if you've never experienced betrayal of any kind. Just like there's no use in painting a wall red when you want to paint it white.

Life is a reel full of photographs. So get out your polaroid, and snap away. Then sit down and tell the world exactly what's in that photograph and you'll find someone somewhere far away taping your words to their bedroom wall because you've managed to perfectly depict what they're going through.

Or at the very least, you might be on my bedroom wall!

A Bloggers Voice

Yes I know this is a blog and yes I’m going to be talking about voice in a blog about  blogs but stay with me as I approach this paradox and offer up my findings to you. Lately I’ve been attempting to speak through the typed word but have come to realize that it’s tremendously difficult. The options are to vast, particularly when you haven’t quite grasp your voice. In the endless abyss of possibilities people tend to lose themselves in their misconceptions of blogs, thinking that options mean structureless and freedom means without objective. There are millions of bloggers out there today with their “make it yourself” pages and partially completed post that lack consistency which allows for a sustainable audience. 

Personally I’m not an expert but I do believe that there are certain techniques and guidelines should be followed in order to achieve at least a satisfactory blog page one of which is the voice and writing style of the blogger.

First and for most, find your voice. Yes it sounds easy but trust me its a roller-coaster of indecisive procrastination. Start of with the broad question in order to make slight progress on the road to productivity. First question you ask yourself, do I want to sound like an educated Harvard graduate, “ presented in society through ages of savagery...” or do I want to speak in relation to a school student “and yah, life fucking sucks but there’s nothing you can do about it..” once you’ve accomplished this, you at least have a foot hold, grounding some ideas and possibilities. Now, try thinking about a mini you, relaxing on your keyboard, reading every word that you wright. Do you think you like it? Are you falling asleep? Really take a moment to acknowledge the fact that others will be reading this and if mini you can’t be bothered to pay attention how do you expect others to? By doing this you are not only enhancing your own voice but you are being courteous to others as you appreciate the effort and time they put into reading the blog and reward them with consistency. Without this fluid voice traveling from post to post there lacks a connecting factor that enables the reader to befriend and trust the writer.

This being said, I strongly believe that a great voice comes not from the writers self criticism, but from their consideration for their followers (readers). In blogging your voice defines you, instead of writing a story where there are characters who have there own fashion of speech, blogging is more personal, you are the only character, the content is directly produced by you and no one else. Find your voice, just start to write, there’s nothing stopping you but the possibilities in a blank page.

By: Zoe Bujold

Rhyme Time

By: Mina Mazumder

Many authors and poets use rhymes in their work to create a more pleasant sound, although it isn’t an aspect of writing that is always easy to do. Many writers like myself face the challenge and struggle to properly and effectively integrate rhymes in our writing. Rhymes are mostly used in songs, books and poems to create a pleasant flow for the reader’s ears. It is also a great way for authors to introduce narrative and the imaginary world of a book to toddlers and children at an early stage of their lives (such as nursery rhymes). William Shakespeare commonly uses rhyming couplets to demonstrate the ending of a scene in a play. Rhyming correctly and effectively can take lots of practice for the writer but once we have perfected our rhyming skills, we are able to create many beautiful writing pieces. One of my favorite authors growing up who integrates rhymes in his work is Dr. Seuss, since he creates such creative stories and great rhymes in his work: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go.” – Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places You’ll Go!) 

Below are my three favorite types of rhymes that I love using in my writing and that any other writer can benefit in using on their work: 

End Rhymes are one of the most common types of rhyme (rhyming of the final words of lines in a poem, song, and story). This is probably the easiest rhymes for anyone to use in a poem or any other literary work. I personally really like using this form of rhyme since it is straightforward and effective. Many writers, even beginner writers, use this form of rhyme in their work.

Internal Rhymes are another common type of rhymes but it is the rhyming of two words in a same line of poetry or story. A good example of this form would be a line from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” I personally love using this form of rhyme since it is quite simple and it allows you to integrate two words that rhymes in one sentence. 

Rich Rhymes are a great type of rhymes since you use two different words that sound exactly the same (such as raise/raze or brake/break). I really love and appreciate this form of rhyme since it is quite fun to use in my writings. Many poets use this form since it can create puns and play on words for the reader.

Rhymes are always a great and interesting way to spice-up our writing while making it fun and interesting for the writer and for the reader. Practicing all the different forms of rhymes and reading literary work that contain various types of rhymes from different authors and poets increases our exposure and knowledge towards rhymes and forms of writing from writers.

Poetic Justice - Staying Inspired

    I think the reason why so many people hate poetry is because they have to write it for english class on subjects they don't care about. But it doesn't have to be like that. You can love poetry and poetry can love you. Every weekend I take some time to write down what I'm thinking about. For some reason it always comes out in the form of poetry. It's uncanny how soothing it is to write down your problems on paper. You feel like some of the pressure gets lifted off your shoulders and put onto the paper.
    I'm never satisfied with my work either. Maybe that's why a lot of people hate it. It's hard to make a perfect poem. But that's not the goal of poetry. You thoughts aren't perfect, so why should your poetry? Just write. Write it all, even if it sounds bad. Even if it doesn't flow. Even if you hate it. I've got page after page of poetry that I've never finished, on topics that I look back at and shake my head at. "What was I thinking?" comes out of my mouth as I reread old poems. But then I find that one stanza. That one combination of lines that rings true even if the rest it complete garbage. It makes it worth it. Then I write more based on that stanza, until I've got a bunch of them that I'm okay with.
    I almost always write to music. Now music isn't obligatory, but I find it helps to discover what rhythmic flow you're searching after. Poems sound better when they've got a certain flow. Fast, slow, whatever. There's plenty of instrumental music out there. I love old hip hop beats. They're repetitive and consistent, easiest to write to. Don't get an instrumental that's super abrasive, I find it really hard to write when the music is overpowering my thoughts. Get something smooth and easy-going. Having some back up music helps me stay focused for the few hours I write a week.
    Staying inspired is hard. It's alright to feel discouraged. I find that reading some poetry online or listening to your favourite music helps keep you inspired (and sane). Drink a tea or something like that, turn off the TV, get away from your family. If you can't stay in the house go to a coffee shop or something like that, or hit up a library. Plan it out beforehand. I've found that if I go out of my way to do something, I stay focused on it a little better. You can skip a week or two if you've got other priorities, that's fine, but keep the memories and emotions you felt in mind. Let it simmer if you can't write it down. But don't forget it.
    Honestly, the best way to experience poetry is to just get to it. Don't be afraid of your writing. You're you're own worst critic. Don't try writing all the time, take a break. Write once a week, but write at least. Sunday's a good day for writing (assuming you've done your homework) because you've got a whole week of experiences and feelings to write about. Look at other poets for inspiration, or listen to your favourite songs. What are they talking about? Love? Family? Hopes and dreams? You don't have to get into a cliche about love, but if that's what you're feeling, go for it.

By Matthew Lopes

Freedom and Writing - Mariah Hill

Freedom and Writing
Sartre's philosophical perspective on writing

            There is a unique relationship between the reader and the writer. First, the writer has complete freedom, and knows that he or she has complete freedom, in their writing. They are writing for an audience but up until the point of publication, the work is completely the writer’s in which they have absolute freedom to put on the pages what they desire. However, when the text is published, the author is handing over their work to the reader, who is then given the freedom to interpret the work and find meaning in the text.

            Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, novelist and literary critic, among other professions, wrote about the "pact of generosity" between the reader and the writer. The writer puts trust in the reader while the reader puts the same faith in the writer. If not for readers, who would the author be writing for? On the other hand, the reader depends on the writer to provide them with a piece of literature to read. They are demanding of each other.

            Though the writer puts a lot of hard work into producing such literature, the writer cannot  be attributed as the sole creator of the work. Once the piece is published, the text is being handed over to the reader, who can then take away whatever meaning they want from it. Thus, the reader is also creating the story. The author's work acts as a guide while the reader completes the work through interpretation. "The writer gives birth to the dead text but the reader gives life to it," is the idea Sartre had in mind.

            Sartre believes that there is a connection between freedom and writing, in which the writer should not aim to merely flatter the audience but tell the audience what they think needs to be told  If a writer is reserved with their writing and does not express what they want, he or she is limiting what they want to say to the world. He believes that good writing is done with freedom of expression. On the reader's part, they are likewise practicing this freedom by reading such content, and encouraging this freedom in the writer.

            Writing, in itself, is an act of freedom. Sartre said that the "writer writes to express his freedom and to exist," and that the "author writes to reveal the freedom of the reader, and the reader reads to reveal the freedom of the author." Freedom of expression appears to be a key component to the writing process, as well as the pact of generosity between the writer and the reader. 

Dialogue Dragon

Everyday, we all do one thing that many writers find difficult to translate into written word: talk. Dialogue can make or break a drama, submerge or expel a reader from your fantastical realm. It’s a handy tool to have in your tool belt, and the better the quality of your tools, the better quality of work you can do.

Getting my characters to talk to one another was always hard when I first started writing. Everything I wrote was stiff and sounded so formal. It all changed when one of my elementary teachers noticed I liked writing stories. She started giving me photocopies from a young author help book. It had advice in it about anything and everything to do with writing short stories. It had a very small chapter on dialogue. One of the tips it had has stayed with me until now: speak the lines out loud as you write. This makes them more realistic, and sound coherent. If you, or someone you know, wouldn’t say it that way, your character wouldn’t say it that way (unless your character was super dry and/or brainy, like Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory”).

You can adjust the tone of your dialogue much easier by saying yourself what you want your character to say as opposed to imagining how they would say it. Writing from experience is usually much simpler to do than creating a whole new scenario that you know nothing about. It’s like we’re always told: “Write what you know”. And you have to know your character if you want to write dialogue that sounds like them.

It’s true that I’m the type of writer that has to submerge myself in the world I’m writing about or the person I’m talking as in order to write a story that is believable. This method doesn’t work for all people, so here are some tips that can help:

1. Make a character sketch. This is basically a brief description of the person you’re writing as with some background info, personality traits, fears, dreams, basically anything that’s special about them.
2. Force some of your friends to have a fake conversation as though they are your characters. Not only will this help you with your dialogue, it can also be pretty funny.
3. Watch some movies and focus on how they talk. It doesn’t really matter what they’re talking about, but how they say it. What kind of language are they using? Is their tone light, serious, sarcastic, bored, annoyed? How do you notice it? All these little details that are found in movies can be used in your stories. You aren’t stealing them. It’s inspiration.
4. Spy on total strangers in public places. Listen in on their conversations and try to figure out their emotional state just by their word choice. Different words have different connotations, even if they’re synonymous.

Dialogue doesn’t have to instill fear in the hearts of every burgeoning author. Face the dragon head on and find out it was only a kitten with cardboard triangles on it’s back. Happy writing!

-Seivan Engelhardt

Adventures in Self Loathing

  There is no better writer than the self loathing writer: this is a paradoxical thought from the mind of yours truly, a writer whose loathing of ones self is embedded in her very soul. Maybe the term "self loathing" is a tad harsh for someone who is enamoured with the act of writing creatively, but I believe it gets the point across, that the best literature often emerges from intense scrutiny of ones own work.

  For a very long time I found myself trapped in a cycle of inspiration, ecstatic writing, neutral writing and then finally loathing ever letter I had written and hiding my work in places no one would ever dare to look. I am that writer who tears their work to shreds, double and even triple bags it before throwing it into the trash, and yes, even burning it, I kid you not. Until the dawn of writing on Microsoft Word I never kept my writing and I regret it, if only for the fact that I would have gotten some terrible laughs out of rereading it. Once I acquired my first laptop and learned all the tools of the trade I decided not to turn my writing into something at risk of starting forest fire in my backyard and instead hiding it in files within files within files on my computer. After this moment I realized there was more to my self destructive cycle, and that every piece of writing I had ever created had a chance at rebirth.

  The fact that I could keep my work without the fear of anyone ever finding it allowed me to return to it after months and even years of despising it. I discovered that given time, much of my writing seemed to improve, so to speak, even through I had done no editing to it at all. This is not to say that every piece I have ever written is salvageable; I have spent many an hour writing stories of up to 70,000 words and then suddenly experiencing some form of divine intervention screaming to me from the heavens, "Dear Lord if you write another word of this abomination the universe just might cease to exist itself!" But all of this being said, failure is a necessary part of writing, for it allows the writer to find themselves and what works for them, not to mention that it is absolutely hilarious to look back on.

  Loving what you write is far from a requirement when writing creatively, loving to write, however, is. From personal experience I can tell you that loathing your own writing can lead to lovely outcomes. You may, for example, become so enraged with your story that you decide to make your characters drink some tantalizing red Kool-Aid in an outburst of mass suicide. You may decide to introduce your lovely heroine to a charming Mr. Ted Bundy, in a tragic mixture of fiction and non-fiction. You may allow your character to trip and hit their eye on a door knob. Be abusive with them. Your story doesn't need to make sense. If you're angry take it out on your writing because God knows we would all love to do it in real life but this is your only outlet so you might as well utilize it, am I right?  Sometimes anger can lead to the most creative of ideas, and sometimes being absolutely ridiculous can allow you to become more light hearted about your own work.

  Leaving your writing to its own devices for a while is another ideal way to renew your creative spirit and lessen your murderous rage. Sometimes I will return to a piece a few months after completely abandoning it and I will think to myself, "This is much better than I originally thought! I'm a God damn genius!" and from then on out I will be more than happy to continue my story. It seems that the best way for one to love ones own writing is in fact by loathing it. That feeling of wanting to decapitate yourself with your own laptop or smash your own skull in with a typewriter, if you're the old fashioned type, is a sign that you're doing something right. You're discovering your own writing style, you're discovering what works for yourself through trial, error, and intense self loathing. But really, is there any better way to do so?

  The moral of my harrowing tales is that there is nothing wrong with a little rage, depression and self loathing when it comes to writing. It's all a part of the writing process and it allows for one to improve upon their own writing and devote themselves to it. Whether it's anger or enthusiasm, feeling passionate about your own work is a wonderful thing. Your feelings will guide you to becoming a better writer, and knowing how to become your own critic is the most useful skill to have.

- Jamie Wilkinson

Be a Sadist

            Do you ever find yourself really dissatisfied after watching a movie, feeling like you just wasted 2 hours of your life? I recently felt that after watching a movie. It was a low-budget, independent film with a cast of 4 people and one set location. Throughout the entire 2 hours, not a single bad thing happened to the characters. I felt like they just frolicked through a field of daisies throughout the whole thing, that’s why it was so boring.

What happens quite often to me is that I’ll be writing what seems to me a perfectly fine story, where my characters are adequately developed and my plot seems to be moving forward, and then I’ll reach a stand still. So I wonder, what next? What’ll happen to my precious characters? Something interesting I’ve learned recently is that that next event that pushes your characters forward should be something bad.

Kurt Vonnegut once said “Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” I happen to agree with him. Readers want to fall in love with your characters, whether they are realistic or fictional, positive or cynical, good or bad, readers WANT to be attached to your characters, that’s what they’re most often hoping for when they pick up your piece to read. And as a writer, you’ll grow very attached to your characters as well. They’re your babies, you’ve helped them grow and develop. Naturally, you’d hate to see them suffer. Well, too bad.

I’ve come to believe that one of the best things you can do for your characters is put them in awful situations. Its when they’re in these situations that you, as a writer, will discover what they will do and how they will react. Even if it’s not what you want for them, or even if you know it won’t move your story forward, try it out. Let your mind go there, string together a couple sentences letting your characters get his by a bus or shot in the foot and see what happens. You may discover a deep boldness within the soul of one of them, or discover an unforgivable cowardice. Ultimately, you will show the reader what your characters are made of, be it good or bad.  

When thinking up ideas for a story, or when you’re drawing out a timeline of your piece, try making it a time line of bad events. Whether that bad event is a cancer diagnosis or eating expired bread, put them in there. Push your characters to their limits, see how much they can take. And if these situations don’t make the final cut, so be it. At the very least, this has led you to discover even more about your characters, and hopefully you can share those traits with your readers, enabling them to feel more strongly for your precious children.

- Sienna Zampino

Writing Fingerprints

By: Harry Gittens, Lauren Hannough-Bergmans, Nelanthi Hewa

Hey everyone. I try to write. I really do. I sit down at my laptop and try to pour words on to the screen and add on to them to make sentences. Sometimes I dance my fingers around the keyboard [(whose layout I’m so familiar with) you know like when you use the same one every single day and get vexed by all others when you try to use them] in cartoonish and exaggerated ways trying to convince myself I know what I’m saying. Sometimes it helps and I feel accomplished, it doesn’t always though. When it doesn’t work and I really have no fuckin’ clue about what I’m to say I generally follow this procedure.

Whining. Whining is great. Whining makes me feel like I actually have problems. And don’t get me wrong, it is a problem when you can’t think of anything to write. When I need to write something: a song, a poem, or something like an essay, I sit staring at my computer and flip back and forth from the blank word document (of course with my name and other required info in the top left corner, there to make me feel like I have done something, dealt with the required formatting and such) and webpages. After procrastinating a bit I spew a terrible and poorly constructed sentence onto the virtual paper. I realize can’t do this on my own so I harass those who are closest to me. I whine to anyone who fits into this category of people for about an hour while procrastinating by surfing the web.

That is what I am doing right now actually. Not the whining but procrastinating. This is my second night writing this and I don’t know from where my thought train left off yesterday.

Admitting that got me back on track.

Usually after whining for a while, the “closest to me” individual that I decided to talk to about this assures me that I can indeed do this because I am decent enough at writing. I’ll take the encouragement while giving many thanks and sit on that for a while. I usually wait a while and then spit out a random sentence in my head that is intriguing and has potential to build on. I then work on that. Yes I do.

That initial sentence is what is able to get me started on my project. I like to make them short and gradually build up size from there, adding more and more elements.

For me, writing has never been difficult. I am a follower of Hemingway’s “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed,” school of thought. By choosing to write, most of the difficulty has already been taken care of. Despite this, I acknowledge that it is not always easy to discover that magical thought that allows you to produce something that you itch to show everyone you know, in the “Look at me mommy” fashion. However, this does not mean that there is no formula to writing- quite the opposite in fact, as nine times out of ten I find myself following a few steps to get the creative ball rolling. I’ll try my best to curtail the unnecessarily preachy how-to book approach to this by referring merely to my own work as opposed to the typical you may follow this when attempting to write, format. Without fail my first step is to create a playlist. This is no random combination of songs, no shuffle permitted here. The songs must be worthy of either the idea I have chosen to discuss, or the character I am trying to create. There is a time and a place for both The Smiths and Beirut, but they need to be carefully separated based on the intended point of the piece. At this point it is not essential to have a fully formed idea; the music is the vein of inspiration, waiting to be tapped. I am continually influenced by what I listen to, adopting a softer tone with classical music or an abrasive one with hip hop. A couple sentences will come to mind; words jump out and demand to be thrown into context. Once an idea has been happened upon, it is a matter of continuing along the same lines and committing to the topic. After the music has been chosen, it’s time to get comfortable, to find a place equipped with food and plushy furniture to maximize working potential without causing distraction by interrupting the flow of writing. Writing has always been a way to immortalize a miniscule aspect of myself, to put down any sort of depravity or radical opinion that I could never imagine articulating in regular conversation. There is some sort of sick satisfaction that stems from creating a character that you see parts of yourself in, or in creating one that you want to despise but cannot because they are the symbolic representation of some perverse idea you find yourself drawn to. These final aspects are what make writing simultaneously interesting, attractive and deeply twisted: writers, no matter how humble they appear, are all ego maniacs, shamelessly self-promoting their interest in controversy and addiction to their own opinions.

Writing is like swimming: you can be told how to do it all day long, but in the end you need to jump in and figure it out yourself. And for a while there, you’ll be up to your neck and flailing your arms like a crazy person, but with enough practice you’ll be doing the butterfly stroke like a pro. Or at least not drowning anymore. Hopefully, anyway.

Understanding this concept brings forth one of the greatest challenges I face as a writer: that terrifying beast, originality. Human beings have been living and writing and suffering and thriving for a hell of a long time now, so how can we possibly make anything new out of our existence? How can we reconcile our fear and disdain of the trite and overused with the simple fact that our very lives are cliché? None of our experiences are new ones, none of us have thought anything that someone before us hasn’t also thought, and in the end none of us are special snowflakes. As writers who are expected to make something interesting, thought provoking, and above all, unique from our human experiences, what can we do?

That’s a question I think we’re all still trying to answer. But different authors have tried different approaches. Books like Mrs. Dalloway and Ulysses are immensely interesting to me because they embrace the mundane. They don’t take us to Middle Earth, space, or the future, and nothing terribly thrilling or exciting happens. Characters don’t go through dramatic shifts, don’t really have the kind of intense, climactic epiphanies people talk about when you’re told “how to write”, and that’s exactly what makes them so ground-breaking and worth reading. They prove to us that regular life, with all of its regular little problems, is still interesting and worth talking about. And I think that’s important because it reminds us that we are worth talking about. It reminds us that even though the great majority of us haven’t gone through great upheavals or experienced anything that will get us on Oprah, we still have something to say and something to share. These books capture regular life, with its general absence of climactic moments, its worries about parties or money or death, and they still manage to make them interesting. Both novels use words in interesting ways and craft sentences that are as intricate as they are misleadingly simple. These books are great because they redefine good writing and are proof that writing is, at the end of the day, about the words on the page and the way writers can reinvent language itself.

Although everyone has a vastly different approach to writing and reading, one universal truth is that literature is a uniting art. It has been proven that words can transcend language and time and that, as the Latins said, ars longa, vita brevis. 

Écrire à la première personne du singulier

By: Shany Pageau

Parler à la première personne du singulier lors d’une rédaction, c’est plus facile, car les émotions décrites sont ressenties plus aisément  par le public, mais également par l’écrivain lui-même.

Tout d’abord, c’est plus aisé pour le public de se laisser emporter par l’écrit qu’il lit quand ce dernier est rédigé au « je ». Il va se sentir comme s’il était le personnage principal du roman et, dans plusieurs cas d’histoires écrites au « je », également le narrateur. Ceci dit, le lecteur va avoir l’impression qu’il exécute les actions que le personnage principal effectue dans le roman qu’il lit. Ainsi, il va avoir la capacité de se faire des scénarios ou même de s’imaginer un film en entier tiré du passage qu’il survole. Ce qui, selon moi, est génial! Certains lecteurs sont également capable de se créer un monde tiré du roman dont ils en font la lecture quand il est rédigé à la troisième personne, mais, de mon point de vue, l’effet n’est pas du tout similaire. Ce n’est pas comparable étant donné que lorsqu’une histoire est écrite au « il » ou « elle », le public se retrouve à être dans la position que personnellement j’appelle « Dieu » : il voit l’histoire d’au-dessus. Pour clarifier, quand un livre est écrit à la troisième personne du singulier, le public sait tout du roman quand, à l’opposé, le personnage principal ignore pratiquement tout. Ce qui signifie que les émotions entre le lecteur et le personnage sont plus éloignées les unes aux autres. Si, toutefois, elles sont similaires, elles ne seront pas aussi puissantes que si le roman était rédigé au « je ».

Par après, c’est plus facile de ressentir les émotions que le plus important personnage vit quand l’écrivain a écrit son roman à la première personne du singulier. Le public va être triste en même temps que le protagoniste étant donné qu’il avoir su en même temps que lui que son chat est décédé par cause qu’il s’est fait rouler sur le corps par un véhicule. De plus, le lecteur va aussi être capable de vivre l’anxiété que le personnage vit durant sa quête pour la raison que, en fait, c’est lui qui résout la quête. Dans le cas présent, si un roman est rédigé au « il » ou au « elle », le public va être parfois poussé à dire au personnage où aller ou, dans le cas contraire, ne pas aller. À l’opposé du « je », qui, le lecteur ne peut reculer devant rien, car il ne voit pas le récit d’au-dessus et ignore, en quelque sorte, les possibilités qui pourraient se présenter à lui.

Puis, c’est plus aisée pour l’écrivain lui-même de rédiger son roman au « je » étant donné que c’est plus libérateur pour ce dernier. Rédiger ce qu’il ressent à la première personne est plus simple pour l’individu qui écrit vu qu’il n’a pas besoin de changer ses émotions, ses actions et même ses pensées en « il pense » ou « elle pense ». Aussi, c’est plus facile de rédiger un passage en écrivant au « je » parce l’impression de se confier est présente lors de l’écrit : les émotions font surface plus rapidement et plus naturellement.                 

The One that Fits

By: Andrea Ouellette

When it comes to writing, whether that be writing songs, poems, novels, or short stories, it can often be difficult to write something original. After all, everything has been done before. Thirty seven times. And that’s just since the turn of the century. 

 We’re taught not to write in clichés but what is one to do when everything has become a cliché? Writing about love is so overdone. And loss? Well that’s just drab. We have gotten to a point in history where we are so desperate for an original plot line that we are mixing things like pride, prejudice and the undead. Jane Austen would probably shove a tiny tea spoon through her eye if she ever came back as a walker, may God forbid it.  

Perhaps writers are straining a little too much for originality and ignoring the fact that there are simpler ways to make a piece original and authentic. It was only recently that I began to really pay attention to the detail of point of view in my own writing and as I gave it a second look, I realized that point of view can turn a complete failure of a story into something worth the ink from your printer. Don’t get me wrong, Twilight could have been written from a million different points of view (something poor Stephenie Meyer tried) and it still would not have won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It would not even have been long listed, or even considered to be long listed. But you get the point.  

For inspiration on point of view, I didn't have to reach very far on my bookshelf: my favourite novel, The Great Gatsby, is a perfect example of the importance of point of view. Fitzgerald made Nick Carraway his first person narrator, rather than one of the main characters of the plot. If Gatsby had been the narrator, or even Daisy, the novel would perhaps never have been the success that it is today. It would never have been a forced read in high schools and we never would have gotten to witness Leonardo Dicaprio throwing cashmere sweaters about his room, makin' it rain like Fifty Cent. By using a minor character as a first person narrator, Fitzgerald achieved an original telling of a love story that could not have been told, fully, otherwise.  

Another great example of the importance of choosing the right narrator is Emma Donoghue’s Room. The entire novel is told from the point of view of a five year old boy, who is stuck in a room with his mother, who was kidnapped six years before. When I first read this novel for a class, many people complained about the narrator because they thought it was tedious to read his descriptions of things when all he was really talking about was a window. It is exactly that however, that made the novel so powerful; its narration. There are probably hundreds of books about kidnapping in your local Indigo or Chapters, but Donoghue made hers original and authentic by creating a narrator that saw the world in such a naïve and sheltered way that readers experience it in a much more raw fashion.  

In the case of these two novels, the authors’ choices of narration were the difference between being bestsellers and being those books in the five dollar book section (which has treasures of its own, of course). So next time you feel like you have a good story or a good character that you aren’t quite ready to let go of, think of narration. Sometimes you have to try on a few cashmere sweaters before you find the one that’s worth wearing. 

What's Missing?

By: Allison Cohen

            Ever since I was young, I’ve enjoyed writing. It has always been a passion of mine, as I’m sure it will be for years to come. One of the biggest problems that I face while writing, is once I’ve finished working on something, I read it over and I feel as though nothing has really happened. The story has progressed, but there is not real change. The characters have gained nothing, the problem remains relatively unresolved, or some other something that makes my stories feel incomplete to me. After reading it over, I always seem to be asking myself “What’s missing?” or “What really happened?”

 I struggled with this problem for years, and more recently I have found a way to help fix it. As the author, I feel like maybe I’m to close to the story, and that it could be useful for someone else should look over it- someone who can take a step back and be more critical about my work. Sometimes I will have a friend read it over, but they don’t always know exactly what the issue with it is exactly. Other times, I will tell a friend the beginning of one of my stories, but I’ll tell it as if it was really happening to someone else I know. I won’t tell them the whole story, and I’ll ask them to guess what happened. I’ll ask them how they think my “friend” had been affected by a certain event that I had written about but couldn’t quite complete. Hearing what other people thought would happen or could happen gave me clear, realistic idea’s as to how I could alter my story.

Sometimes when you’re writing, you become very attached and maybe a little near-sighted when it comes to your own work. Having others read your work over can always be helpful, as well as reading other author’s work. I also find that sometimes I can gain inspiration from other short stories or novels (And no, not plagiarism- I’m talking about a root to an idea that you expand on yourself). Sometimes, digging deeper into a small comment a minor character in a book made, or a certain gesture or tick can set you off on a writing rampage, and result in a great story.

J.K. Rowling, who is my favorite author, said that “You have to resign yourself to the fact that you waste a lot of trees before you write anything you really like, and that's just the way it is. It's like learning an instrument, you've got to be prepared for hitting wrong notes occasionally, or quite a lot, ‘cause I wrote an awful lot before I wrote anything I was really happy with. And read a lot. Reading really helps. Read anything you can get your hands on. I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can.

Narrating and Symbolism - Writers, be your own Catcher in the Rye

Narrating and Symbolism - Writers, be your own Catcher in the Rye

By: Sophia Tsinas

ASSOIATING A POINT OF VIEW TO A NARRATIVE:

Ever wondered why an author chooses to write in a specific way? Why one chooses to use certain words over others? Why symbolism is evoked subtly into the lines of a novel? Are these elements relevant? Do they even matter? I assure you, they do. An author doesn’t just sit down and type up a series of random words to compose a story that lacks imagery, symbolism and practicality. Of course not! Depth, emotion and individualism are what navigate novels and permit the longing of the main character’s personal development. Also, the point of view of a novel is essential to the way the audience can perceive its story and the way it unfolds itself. Depending on who is telling the story, the audience gets insight as to what is happening from different perspectives. For instance, as you may already know (and if you don’t, you should) there are three types of points of view an author can choose to use when writing: the first person point of view, the second person point of view and the third person point of view.

First-person point of view: With this point of view, the author does not participate in the action of the story. Seeing as though everything is recounted through a particular character’s perspective, the readers are limited to certain specifics of the story. Due to the fact that one character cannot know everything about what the characters are thinking/feeling, the audience needs to recognize that not all that is said is the absolute truth. (In order to identify this point of view, the use of the words “I, me, my” and “mine” are what stand out).

Second-person point of view: In this point of view, the narrator talks to the reader and refers to him/her as “you”, making it seem as though he/she is talking directly to them. It is also the least used viewpoint in literature, seeing as though it is hard to describe a particular story when the audience is not a part of it, meanwhile the narrator makes it seem as though he/she is talking about them.

 Third-person (omniscient/all-knowing) point of view: the narrator does not participate in the action of the story, but lets us know what the character is feeling, experiencing. Told through a omnipresent figure, like a supernatural force such as God, the narrator can dip into any character’s mind and reveal things about them, even matters of their past. This point of view is also known as the “all-knowing point of view”, seeing as though the narrator actually knows everything that is inside each character’s mind.

Everyone has a certain writing style, a way to vacate a story in his or her own terms. However, people generally tend to focus more on the content of a story rather than the storyteller. When it comes down to it, the base of a story is the way it is told and the voice it is told through. Everybody has their preferences, their favorites. I for one adore the first-person point of view, because it leaves way for a little mystery, due to the fact that we can’t always trust what the narrator is saying, leaving us to deduct our own conclusions from what is being told. A good example of the use of this point of view would be in J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. The main character, Holden Caulfield, is also the narrator of the novel. Caulfield does a good job of recounting the story through his experiences, his thoughts and his viewpoints on life. He is s a young, depressed adolescent scampering the streets of New York, looking to find a sense of purpose, of belonging. Considering he is depressed and believes that most people surrounding him are fakes, phonies as he puts it, we the readers cannot always believe how he depicts others. He even states throughout the novel, that he has this uncontrollable need to lie, even if it is a tinny fib; he can never truly be straightforward.

Remember that anyone of these points of views can be good and useful when writing. However, you have to make sure to follow the rules and conventions of the appropriate point of view, when it comes down to choosing one. What I mean by that is that if you choose to incorporate the first-person point of view, for instance, than you have to make sure that the narrator uses pronouns such as “I, me, my” or “mine”, this way the reader can be sure of what type of narrator is being used (this way he/she knows if the narrator can be trusted). That’s a good thing to have when you’re an author: being able to fool your audience. If you’re able to write a story where the audience is constantly wondering “Is this real or will there be something lying ahead?” then you’re on the right track.

ATTRIBUTING SYMBOLIC MEANING TO OBJECTS:

Not only is the narrator’s point of view important, but also the incorporation of symbolism is crucial to a novel’s development. Keep that in mind for whenever you decide to jot down ideas. Why is symbolism important, you may ask? Because it challenges one’s perspective of a particular sequence, that’s why. What would a great novel be if the reader weren’t invited to challenge what the author was saying? A novel is never straightforward; you have to dig for the deeper meanings behind things in order to properly understand what is happening. For instance, in Catcher in the Rye, Salinger does a great job of inserting symbolic meanings to ordinary objects, leaving the reader to deduct what that meaning could be. For example, Caulfield possesses a bright red hat, resembling one that a hunter wears when going outdoors. If you aren’t a careful reader, you’ll skim through the pages without noticing its relevancy and you’ll probably think it is solely “a red hat.” However, that hat is a symbol of individualism in Caulfield’s eyes:

“I put on this hat that I’d bought in New York that morning. It was this red hunting hat, with one of those very, very long peaks. I saw it in the window of this sports store when we got out of the subway, just after I noticed I'd lost all the goddam foils. It only cost me a buck. The way I wore it, I swung the old peak way around to the back—very corny, I'll admit, but I liked it that way. I looked good in it that way.” (3.3)

He is insecure about wearing it in public, but wears it anyways because it defines him as his own person and reflects how he sees himself; different, real. This can be associated to the everlasting theme of “not being fake” that courses through the novel. By him wearing this particularly odd hat, he can consider himself to be real and not fake as he believes everyone surrounding him is. See what Salinger did there? He subtly integrated the theme of individualism through the presence of what seems to be “just a red hunting hat.” Read and learn, writers. Take notes!

Salinger also uses the ducks of Central Park as symbolic means to identify change. Now, I know what you’re thinking: can ducks really represent anything other than just ducks? Of course they can, pay attention! In the novel, Caulfield is preoccupied with the ducks and where they are migrating to, seeing as though it is around Christmas time. Where are they off? Why do they leave? This bring forth the feeling of “people always leave” whether you want them to or not. This saddens Caulfield, seeing as though he wants them to stay; he doesn’t want anything to change; he wants sameness. The ducks represent his longing for things to remain the way they are and for people to stay in his life. Even though he is comforted by the fact that their absence is only temporary and that they will return in the spring, he is discouraged by the fact that his deceased brother, Allie, will not return, permanently. If you really want to analyze it to the T, Caulfield’s first name, Holden, sounds like the verb holding if you say it fast enough, which can be associated to holding on, not letting go. Bet you didn’t think you could get all that from ducks, huh?

Finally, one of the most important symbols of the book is the theme of childhood innocence. Now how can one depict innocence through materialist objects? Hope you have your notepads and pens in handy. Although Salinger does a good job of portraying this theme sporadically through the pages of the novel, I’ll state concrete examples of how he portrays a theme as such. At the end of the novel, Holden goes to visit a museum where he reminisces on his childhood visits:

“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move… Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you.” (122)

This quote reflects that Caulfield does not want to change; he does not want to grow up. Now how can a building represent such a thing? How can a physical object represent a psychological belief? That’s the beauty in the novel! He tries to explain that even though the objects inside the museum remain the same, the people who go back to visit it, change. This reflects Caulfield’s wish for kids to remain innocent and to not grow up. He relates sameness to innocence due to the fact that he himself does not want to grow up, because he believes grown-ups are phonies. And in order to avoid becoming a fake, he must remain young forever.

So you’ve got it! If you can properly master the art of integrating a proper narrator point of view while simultaneously applying symbolism to the story, than you’re set to write a proper narrative. The key is to read, read, read and I couldn’t stress it more. By reading, you grasp what other writers have accomplished and what their writing style is like. But remember to always be unique: learn from others and apply I in your free-minded way. Believe in yourself and you’re halfway there!