Tripping the Muse

Writing Tips and More for the Aspiring Writer

What is Your Vehicle of Expression?

Not too long ago I sat down to write a novel. I had a concept that I was in love with. The characters had somehow developed themselves with very little input from me. I saw the beginning of the story I wanted to tell straight through to the end. It had everything. When I finally sat down to begin writing the first draft I blew through the initial five pages. I was on fire. I returned to it the next day to pick up where I’d left off. To my utter shock and despair I discovered something awful.

The fire was gone.

Not only was it gone. It had been completely extinguished. My characters were frozen in time never to move again. Their lips silent. Their words never to spoken. I think they were in as much pain as I was at that moment. I stepped away from them and returned a few hours later. Nothing. What went wrong?

A few days later I was at a play. The play was Art by Yasmina Reza. As I sat there watching the characters on the stage move about, reciting lines that were as funny as they were profound I had an epiphany. Suddenly I saw my characters on stage also. They had mysteriously broken free from the invisible bonds I had left them in and stood before me on the stage in front of me with new confidence. The next morning I put my characters in a lifeboat, sunk the ship they had first begun their voyage on, and built them a new one. Within a few days I had nearly completed work on the first draft of what would become my first play. There’s a Man on the Moon went on to win an award for a new, unpublished play a few months later. I had never created a play before but I had found a new vehicle of expression. I have yet to write another play, and since then I have written two novels, but I have no doubt that one of these days I will find myself with a character who will demand that he (or she) be allowed to strut their stuff on stage instead of on paper.

What about you? What is your favorite method of expression when it comes to your writing? Or have you ever, like me, found yourself switching expressions, or leaving your comfort zone, to breathe life into your characters another way?

Technorati Tags: Art, Characters, first draft, method of expression, novel, novels, play, stage, yasmina reza

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