Critique Groups

The way we, as writers, first knew that we were writers was from the comments of others – first our grade school teachers and later, in high school and college, our peers. I suppose if no one had ever encouraged us, none of us were ever have “become” writers. I think that’s why it’s so hard for me – even after a career of having my non-fiction work edited and worked over – to have my fiction critiqued by other writers. I care about their opinions. Perhaps, even, their opinions could show me that I’ve just been fooling myself: I’m no writer. Critique groups are worth it, though. We write to be read, and it really helps to have readers, knowledgeable readers who have struggled through the process of putting words on paper themselves, tell you what they think. My novel has improved so much from the input of my two critique groups. Thanks, guys!

More Research

Well, my research kicked into a different gear last week. I started attending a local schizophrenia support group. At first, the woman at the agency was a little dubious, concerned about whether my hoped-for novel would perpetuate stereotypes about mental illness. The person with schizophrenia is my protagonist. He is a Mormon missionary. When he starts his mission, his schizophrenia begins manifesting itself. He hears voices and sees things – both of which he takes as “revelations” from God. The novel tells the story of how he and the local church deal with his revelations and how he ends up getting treatment/meds and learning to live with schizophrenia. I’m not writing this book to “advocate” for schizophrenia – like some sort of “AfterSchool Special” -- but I want it to be highly accurate. I told her, yes, I know how people have many misunderstandings about mental illness. (Twenty years ago, when I had started taking my meds for OCD, I had to get over that stigma just to be willing to take psychotropic drugs. “Only crazy people take medicines for their bran,” I told myself. As an aside, when I first started taking the meds, clomipromene, it wasn’t legal in the US, so I had to drive to White Rock, B.C., every so often and then smuggle the meds back over the border.) Anyway, she asked to meet me first, which I did. Then she let me sit in on a support group meeting. It was amazing. It gave me insights that reading books never could. The people there talked about the “voices” they hear and their struggles to maintain sane-ness. I plan on going each week. Stay tuned for more updates.

I Hate Prompts

Photo by Mark Monlux

I know that the writing part of "writing a novel" is going to be tough. Leaders in my writing group keep telling me, “Just because you’ve spent your career writing non-fiction, don’t think you can automatically write fiction effortlessly” – and I believe them. I just want to get started writing. I don’t want to do any writing “exercises” or “prompts.” The photo above reminds me of a writing prompt. My friend, Mark Monlux, sent it to me because he wanted to teach me how to post a photo on my blog. The photo rubbed me the wrong way. I have no patience for writing prompts or writing "exercises." Reason being: I already know I'm creative; I already know I know how to string words together. (I hope that doesn't sound smug. I don’t mean it to be. I've just written a ton of stuff -- probably 20,000 dramatic non-fiction/feature articles in my career. For the best primer on writing Dramatic Non-Fiction, see Writing for Story by Jon Franklin.) What I need help in is story structure. That's where I feel lost. I've read a number of books of creating plots and they all leave me flat. I think what I'm going to do is take my writing group out for pizza -- my treat -- and ask them to help me brainstorm a plot from my premise. The other not, we created a three-act plot structure for an idea our instructor brought to class. It was fun -- and pretty darn quick. For $100 for pizza and beer, I could end up with a plot outline. That's a bargain.

Research, Cont.

Now I’m reading The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. It chronicles a study that was done on three schizophrenics in 1959 – right about the time I was born, as a matter of fact. All these of these men thought they were Jesus Christ. The purpose of the study is to see what these men do when they meet each other. The book unfolds over the course of twenty-five months. The researcher/author assembles his protagonists daily, at first with the intention of bringing about a collision of their “primitive beliefs,” in the hopes of shocking them into some kind of recognition of the truth. I’m about halfway through the book. The three men look forward to their meetings, but each is convinced that the other two are incorrect in their self-assessment. That is, contrary to their strongly held belief, they in fact are not Christ. Each thinks the other two men are deluded, in other words. (One of the men tells another one, “You are just an instrumental God.” That’s crazy talk.) It’s interesting to see these men deal with the cognitive dissonance they encounter through their meetings. Cognitive dissonance will feature in my novel, as the protagonist has his “world view” shaken.