Angel to You, Devil to Me

Well, I think we might almost come to our final session.

At some point of time, when you think that you've done a lot of sacrifices for your writing, you might start questioning yourself: Am I a good writer?

And the devil inside yourself will answer loudly: No, you're not. You're nuisance, by following something that is against common senses.

It's time to kick out that little unhealthy and destructive devil, and start making alterations to boost your self-esteem. You are a good writer, you can write a good story, and there's a publisher somewhere who'll publish your book. Trust me. All you need to is create a list so that you can alter what have gone wrong. Act as an editor for your own story, before you allow the publisher to edit it. First thing first, list what you want:

• As a writer, you want to write something
• Something worth to read
• And finally, you want your story to get published

It's easy to list things that you want, but it's even easier to list the obstacles that prevent you to achieve it. Admit it, it's when our procrastinator part speak up:

• 'You have no time' is the first and the most popular excuse
• You are lack of imagination
• Fear of failure
  
• Don't know where to start

The list might go on and on... but I'll stop it by telling you that you've an angel beside you: desire. Remember the reason why you write once again. To fulfill that burning passion on your head? Yes. To share untold experiences with readers? Yes.

So for now, leave you laptop behind, prepare a pen and a note book beside your bed, then turn off the light. Turn on that Feist album (or whoever your preference might be) and let loose. Sleep warm, sleep tight. Rest your head on the pillow. Let dream weave you a spell. And when you wake up, take your pen and note book. Then write. Write anything you want, you don't have to think about any plot or any specific character. If you ever wonder what to write, start with this sentence: 'I remember...', and let your angel guide you through. You'll be surprised with what comes to your mind, and mostly... you'll be surprised that deep within you, you have a capability and talent to actually write something.

Time After Time

I believe that writers are artist, because they — as many other artists do — dedicate their time to construct something from scratch. At first, I treat writing as a self-indulgent. I would go home as soon as possible from school, then stuck in front of my desktop until my mother called me for dinner. Now as I grow older, I find it hard to dedicate my time to write one chapter. To be honest I haven't finished writing a single book ever since I enrolled in college. I have re-written one of my novel for almost five times, but still did not manage to finish it. That's when I realize that I've to take my writing into a more serious level, and dedicate my whole time for my writing. Oh no!

Yes, yes, and yes... I'm not kidding. You need a dedicated time just to sit down in front of your Microsoft Words, without worrying about your laundry, your grocery, your housework, and another annoying stuffs that always pop up as your routine. It's either go back to your routine, or write. The choice is all yours.

Writers are rare. I often find myself isolate from the other side of the world while writing. I ignore my friends who have been nudging my MSN. I abandon my heaping projects. I am becoming very selfish when I start writing, when I feel the burning passion of writing. But the good thing is, when you start making sacrifices, you'll then grow to love your artwork. Your dedication to your writing, which departed from something that was against common senses, has become an integral part of your life. And I, for once, hope that we'll somehow arrive in that point. Someday, someday.

Writers Are Different

So you've designed your characters. So you've built your short story. But how to make the readers believe in things you write? Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that 'a novelist can do anything he wants to so long as he makes people believe it'. As a writer, you are responsible to make something new, alive, and pure, something that will convince the readers to flip through another chapter of your story.

How do you make people believe in something that basically comes from your imagination? Something that utterly fictional. I know, I know it's difficult. I have no solution, all that I can suggest is that you must at least try to believe in what you are writing. Passionately, full-stop! Live high! Laugh and cry as your plot flow. Make readers believe as if they've been sharing some experience with your characters.

This is what makes writers different from other. They are real, but at the same time they are in charge to construct something which might not be real at all, and try to convince people with their writing. Isn't it interesting?

Tell Your Story !

Think about moods. Think about starter sentences. Why? Because now we're going to start writing your first short story. I'll give you some starter sentences, moods, and objects to trigger your imagination. Good luck! :)

Starter sentences:

1. They all reach for their mobiles
2. She wakes and finds him gone
3. It was hot, but she wore a scarf
4. His face was a study in despair
5. "You did what?"

Moods:

1. Action
2. Comedy
3. Tension
   
4. Drama
5. Nostalgia

Objects:

1. Glasses
2. Box
3. Flower
4. Books
5. Key

Point of View

I assume now you have chosen your characters. Now you need to raise the matter of the story's point of view. The point of view acts like a narrative voice of the story.

Some of you might ask: Why should we bother? We're writing for ourselves.

I myself do not believe in such statement. You write because you want somebody to read your story. If not, why bother to write it down? You can keep them floating on your mind if you want to keep them as your own pleasure.

The so-called-point-of-view is believed to be divided into 3 main categories: first and third-person narratives.

Third person point of view:
It is a safe way to choose this point of view, because we believe that we are being told a story, and the writer is in control of the material. The writer will lead them safely until the story ends. To make this technique succeed, you need to know what you are going to write. You need to take a good care of it, to make it interesting, so that people will 'listen' to your story. Here is an example for a third person point of view:

Spencer Hastings should have been sleeping at six thirty on Monday morning. Instead, she was sitting in a therapist's blue-and-green waiting room, feeling a little like she was trapped inside an aquarium.
— Sara Shepard, Perfect

First person point of view:
I'm Rose. Rose Greta Patricia O'Neil. Rose. Not short from Rosemary, Rosa, or Rosanne. Just Rose. The name is an embarrassment. I'm not beautiful or delicate or sweet smelling. I'm not even pretty.
— Maureen McCarty, Rose By Any Other Name

There is no right or wrong when it comes to decide which point of view you'll pick. The aim is to achieve the effect you would like to achieve. Love your material first, thus it'll come alive without missing any single details.

In Their Shoes

One of the most integral part of a story is a character. Most people argue that story grows as the characters evolve, and so the other way round. There are many ways to shape characters, but there are not many ways to live them up as real as they could be. First of all, give your character a name, age, and gender.

Then, let's think about the circumstances of your characters. Who are they as human beings? Are they asking for help? Are they tempted by money, power? What are their hobbies, interests, passions, religious beliefs, sexual preferences? Don't forget to give them values and emotions, likes and dislikes, as well as their strength/weaknesses/flaws/fears. You may want to give your fictional characters qualities that you or your family possess. Remember that interesting characters are the key to tell a story on their own.

Put yourself in your characters' shoes. Care about your characters and what happens to them, even the unlikeable ones, and your readers will follow suit. To make them even more real, listen to and observe the people around you, and this will help you to create characters on the page that are as realistic as possible.

Haiku

In this post, I will try to encourage you to create stories through poem. Some of you might not like it, even I don't like it as well. There is a very limited space when dealing with poem, some people find it frustrating to build a story in such a tiny 'space'. What is poetry, anyway? What makes it so limited?

Well, here I try to describe poetry by using my own words. It can be images, moments in time, evokes mood, expression, lyrical, humor, ambiguous, verses, succinct, story, onomatopoeia, alteration or repetition of consonants, rhyme, short lines, or symbolism. There are endless type of poetry in the world, but now we will only focus on haiku, a form of Japanese poetry written in the pattern of 5,7,5 morae (partially similar to english syllables). Haiku is a modern revision by Masaoka Shiki of the much older hokku, the opening verse of haikai no renga. It contents seasonal words, describing the changes of seasons every year.

One of the most famous haiku writer is Ryunosuke Akutagawa:

Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering