Interesting thing I've finally learned about writing: you really can't force it. And it really doesn't pay to try.

If you're writing fiction, no matter if it's plot driven or character driven, you just cannot force your characters to do your bidding. You can try, but they will occasionally rebel or stage sit down strikes if they don't like the direction you're making them take.

Non writers will not understand this. You are to be forgiven.

The worst is when you get blocked. If you've been guiding them through a story, micromanaging, calling all the shots and forcing them to go places they don't want to go... then when (not if) you suddenly hit a dead end and don't know what direction they need to take to move the story forward... don't just stop writing.

People who get micromanaged and are not trusted to make their own decisions will freeze when left to their own devices. If you've been pulling your character's strings for too long, then your story stalls and you don't know their next move, they will probably just hang in their strings like abandoned marionettes. How can they make decisions if you've never let them try before?

If you keep writing-- a word here, a sentence there, maybe throw a paragraph to them like a bone... they might just wake up. Hope for that. Put a roadblock in front of them, throw a snowball at their heads, stir things up, and-- believe it or not-- they might come to life and surprise you.

I've spent roughly three years working-- in fits and starts-- on Deathe and Taxes, the third in my Yoopernatural Mysteries/Tales of Life in Deathe series. I saw in my mind the beginning and the hook, and I created some amusing diversions, envisioned a resolution, and then spent many random, stolen (from "real" life) hours working toward it. But when I came to the end...

Well, I knew how it ended, but I had programmed my characters to just stand around and wait for me to hand them the next page of the script. And when I didn't feel it, when I couldn't deliver... they did nothing. They couldn't act without a script. I'd spent a couple years getting them to this point, then many months puzzling over the mechanics of the climax. Weeks-- months-- passed with me cringing when people asked me when #3 in my series was coming out. I didn't know. What I didn't say was that my characters weren't telling me anything, but that was only because I wasn't asking them any questions. I was waiting for them to act while they were waiting for me to tell them what to do. There is no progress to be found in this scenario.

Then, in only one day (specifically, Wednesday, November 25, 2011), I set them free. One took off running. Two leaped up and attacked, another defended, shots rang out, fireworks ensued, and (almost) everyone lived happily ever after to move forward into Tales of Life in Deathe #4.

Of course this is all subject to the approval of my editors. The primary one did not like the situations I forced my characters into in an earlier draft, any more than the characters did. We will see. Even if this ending is wrong (I don't think it is), I hope this lesson sticks with me, and Deathe Warmed Over will not linger three years in production like #3 did. To paraphrase a famous demand: Set my characters free!

shocked

I am shocked-- SHOCKED I tell you!!! that this blog is still active. Maybe I can safely post all my personal rants here without danger of them being found and disparaged.

Yoopernatural alert!

Shameless plug: visit my Yoopernatural page at www.yoopernatural.com and treat yourself to a cheap download of "Bedderhoff Dead" via Smashwords or Amazon Kindle. That will have to do till I plumb the depths of Print on Demand. (Coming eventually. I hope.)

Election Year Again

I'm at an age where I can look back on election campaigns of the past and remember, seeing ads on TV, thinking: "I like that guy! I want to vote for him!"

(Of course about 90% of the time the guys I see on TV were not in my voting district, hence not on my ballot, so I couldn't vote for them, and the names that were on my ballot were totally unfamiliar to me. But that's another story.)

But for the past few years I have not been able to say, or think, or even consider thinking, "I like that guy! I'm going to vote for him!"

I don't like any of them! I loathe them all, every single one of them. They are vicious, muckraking, lying, cheating, stealing, mother-selling, monomaniacal sociopaths to the last one. We all think we know that negative campaigning doesn't work. But obviously it does. Or if it doesn't, who can tell? It just gets worse every year, and in the end one of the lying, boorish sociopaths eventually wins, and they they can all look back and say "well, our campaign worked!!!" No, it just won by default. Would that there were a way to make them all lose!!! Go home empty-handed, whipped, beaten, chastened, crying for their mothers, and hanging their heads in shame. But unfortunately, someone's always going to "win," and the egomania will feed on itself, and they'll go out and do it again. (Too bad they can't just chalk up victory to wearing the same lucky socks every year.)

It ain't a Republican thing. It ain't a Democratic thing. It's embarrassing. It's a disgrace. And if any one of them had any conscience at all, any sense of propriety or decency, they would just stop. Now. Is there no shame?

Back to Deathe

I think it's time to get back to Deathe, the little village in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where strange things happen. Maybe something new will happen. In the meantime, maybe it's time to report on things that have already happened. The U.P. calls.

A Moment of Silence, please

Today marks the two week commemoration of the passing of my best friend in the world, Boomer. A long and rambling obituary and eulogy will be forthcoming, linked to my website www.markwolfgang.com. We still come home expecting to be met at the door. Saturday morning I dreamed that I opened up the door into the garage, and Boomer dashed in and past Kim and down the hallway, and I said "Boom Boom!" and Kim said, "No..." And I said "Yes, he just went past you down the hall..." and vanished. And Kim said "No...." And I remembered and knew that if I hadn't watched him die I still wouldn't believe it. And this morning Kim woke up at 7:30, thinking how surprised she was that The Cat let her sleep so late.

Classics!

I think it's great that our local Celebration Cinemas is showing classic movies on the big screen, like "Road to Morocco" with Hope and Crosby on March 17. Followed by "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House;" "The African Queen"(!!!); "San Francisco;" and the one I'm anticipating seeing on the big screen: "Frankenstein" on April 14!