Creative Writing
Learn how to organize, plan and create your most engaging and compelling life story with the creative writing skills of bestselling fiction authors.
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Fish-heads and Hooks
What’s a fish-head and what does it have to do with writing? I heard this term from an author friend who heard it from her first writing teacher, forty years ago. This teacher used the metaphor of a fish-head to warn her students about a common situation that happens when a writer’s in the earliest stages of creating a story. She said writers often begin writing a scene, thinking it’s the start, but it’s not in fact, the true beginning of the story. Instead, the fish-head is the scene or scenes that the writer needs to write first, to begin bringing the story into focus. You have to…
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Lying to Yourself — Self-Integrity 101
“This above all: to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.” — William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” Self-integrity What does it mean? Is it the meaning of the Shakespeare quote above, or does it mean something more, something deeper? Perhaps it’s our conscience, speaking to us in the “still, small voice” about right and wrong. Perhaps it’s our core values telling us about our most profound self-identity. Or perhaps it’s a limiting belief, attempting to keep us safe in trying times or confusing circumstances. Or maybe it’s a lot simpler than any of those. Maybe…
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Autobiography vs. Memoir
What’s the Difference? Autobiography? Biography? Memoir? Story? Creative Non-Fiction? Personal Essay? All too often, when a writer decides to “write their memoirs”, they are thinking about an autobiography — the story of their entire lifetime. Calling it a memoir is a misnomer. Autobiographies and Memoirs are not the same. So, what is the difference? Autobiography “Auto”, from the Latin, means “self”. “Bio” means “life”. So an autobiography is your own life story written by yourself. A Biography, on the other hand, is a life story written by someone else, like a ghostwriter. “Bi” meaning two or dual. An Autobiography is an author’s complete life story,…
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“Kindness is Never Wasted” — Anonymous
At this time of year, most people’s focus is on Valentine’s Day, and while romantic love is a valid point of interest, there’s another point I think makes a lot more sense for us to celebrate. February 17th is “Random Acts of Kindness Day”, and to my mind, is a much more relevant and valuable quality of being, as well as a better focus for our behaviour. In fact, why limit it to one day a year? Why not build a habit of doing one kind thing for others every day? Think about it…when we engage in an act of kindness, either as giver or receiver, we experience…
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Writers! Stay On Topic!
How often have you started off writing a memoir, an article, a blog post, chapter or scene and found yourself wandering off-topic, down a fascinating rabbit hole, or chasing squirrels? Your story gets off-track and lost in a muddle of ideas. You end up frustrated and discouraged because the piece is nowhere near as dynamic and insightful as it appeared when the ideas first occurred to you. It’s easy to do when you’re in Flow, the ideas spilling out faster than you can keep up with them and you feel like a conduit for an unending outpouring of inspiration. You don’t want to leave out even one of these…
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Use Clichés to Find Your Theme
How Do You Start Your Memoir? You start with an idea — that magical moment when something sparks the desire to write. It might be a title that suddenly pops into your head, a concept that lights you up, a lightbulb moment, a realization or epiphany that lets all the puzzle pieces of your life fall into place. However it happens, you are inspired and you want to write your story. For the most part, you likely already have a rough notion of what story you want to tell. It’s about a character (you) who has experienced events which illustrate a universal truth, a life lesson or message you…
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The Joy of Structure
When we first begin writing our memoirs, more often than not, it’s dull. Boring. A recitation of the facts of our life. Devoid of emotion. A bland telling of the stuff that happened without any of the emotional involvement that makes a story great. Meh! And that’s totally okay. First drafts are supposed to be a dull recitation of plot, without all the bells and whistles that make a story come alive for the reader. First drafts are meant to get the ideas out of your head and down on paper or screen so you can do something with them. It’s only as we revise and revise and revise…
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When It’s Okay To Act Out
Okay, so you’re writing away and you have no idea what motivates your main character (or yourself at age twelve). Or you can visualize your MC’s best friend, but you can’t hear her voice. Or you’ve finally finished your fifteenth draft and you’re ready to share with your beta readers or your writing group or your editor or (gulp!) your publisher, but you have a niggling feeling there’s something missing. Take a step back and try a couple of editing techniques that are a little different. When we read, we tend to “hear” the words in our heads. If the story’s well-written, we “see” the…
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How Not To Be A Wimp
Using Blind Spots and Limiting Beliefs to Power Your Memoir In my memoir classes, one of my favourite things to do is ask questions of my students to get them thinking more deeply about their stories, their characters and ultimately themselves. One of my students brought up the topic of fear of success the other day. She mentioned that she had a crippling fear of being successful, ie. “a public figure”. When I asked her what she thought was scary about that, she couldn’t tell me exactly, although, for her, it was tied up with public appearances, maybe interviews or readings of her work. They terrified her. It came down…
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Just Who Do You Think You Are?
One rainy day many years ago, while I was still in college, I was stomping along the street, resentful and annoyed, on the way to buy some milk since nobody at the house had even considered what happens when you use up the last few drops. Somehow, it always ended up being I who ran these little errands, and I was sick and tired of it. Suddenly, out of the blue, I heard a voice in my head say, “I am me.” Wait, I thought and stopped walking. What does that even mean — I am me? I know that. Who else could I be? The words held vague overtones of self-awareness, integrity,…