Dust in the Wind

The secret to good writing is to stay in the moment while you're doing it. Doesn't matter which draft you're on - the first or the twentieth, you have to stay in the moment - the eternal NOW.

When you think about it, the past is a figment of our imagination.

We're tempted to believe our past has substance and influence over us - that it is somehow important, relevant, filled with meaning - or not.

The more memories we have, the more human we feel. Experience somehow gives us status, wisdom and power.

But really, to be honest, our past is a dead weight - and an imaginary weight at that. The past is gone. It is only as real as we want it to be. It is only our minds that give it substance. Without our memories, the past does not exist.

Like dust in the wind, the past dissolves, as it should.

Holding on to the past - and all the good and bad emotions it engenders may be useful to us when we try to create believable characters and scenarios but really, what else is it for?

If the past pulls you down and prevents you from moving forward - either by filling your head with disillusion, trivia or self importance or by placing boundaries on what you think you're capable of - then surely it's a curse rather than a boon.

Without our brains to tell us that we're on a human based time line, there is no past, no future even - except what we imagine. Without imagination and the vast recording mechanism that is our minds, there is only now, this moment, and all the other now moments that follow.

Think on this for a while and you should start to feel liberated.

Because without the reality of your past or the imagined pressure of a possible future, you are free. Free to be whatever you want, to experience whatever you want, to write whatever you want - now.

Right here. Right now. You are free.

Now is all that matters - everything else is a rationalization based on imaginary information.

There is nothing you cannot do - now, in this moment.

Now has no memory. Now has no ambitions to crush, no enemies to quash, nothing to prove.

Now is the eternal stillness at the heart of consciousness.

A place where nothing is important except your next impulse - the momentous spark of intention that creates and sustains life.

In order to write well - indeed to do anything well - you need to train yourself to live in the now and not get distracted by concepts of time, memory or ambition. You can only be as good as you want to be by totally committing to the moment, this moment, now.

Writing is not about showing off your flair for words or expression, it's about capturing the essence of what you want to say, the scene or person you want to describe. To do that well, you need to submerse yourself completely in the moment.

The most successful of our modern authors - James Patterson, Dennis Lehane, Stuart MacBride, Lee Child - know this and write accordingly.

To describe a character or a scene with any veracity you need to be there in your mind, to see every nuance, to be experiencing it fully - so that you can, with words, communicate its essence perfectly to a reader at some nebulous point in the future.

There are moments when the creative urge sweeps you up and you are intoxicated. These moments are few. Most of creativity is about sustaining passion for these moments that have passed. And the only way to sustain that passion is to re-immerse yourself in the now each time you write and edit and polish.

When you write in the moment concepts like show don't tell make much more sense. Most new authors write from the objective authorial viewpoint - some cold and distant observer recalling the past.

Good writers of experience know that this viewpoint is often passive and lacks engagement. Far better to make the reader feel like they're in the moment with the characters, the action and the experiencing the emotional impact of the interactions...

All this is a preamble to my next writing course.

I want to teach you how to create suspense in fiction.

Suspense encapsulates so many of the necessary ingredients to good quality fiction in all possible genres.

Suspense needs good characterization - but not too much. Good suspense requires disciplined pacing, and a great feel for what information to reveal and when. All essential elements in effective thrillers, romance, horror and fantasy novels.

Soon I want to invite you to become part of of my latest writing resource: "The Write Stuff: Suspense in Fiction"

I know I said that I could be moving on - into publishing, film and music production. And I'm doing all that...

...but the lure of my first love, my mistress: writing, is too strong to give up on her hold on me just yet.

Hopefully you know exactly how that feels.

Keep Writing.

© Rob Parnell

Theme and Premise - What's the Difference?

I was asked this question by an esteemed subscriber this week and thought it might make an interesting article.

In the publishing and movie industry the terms theme and premise are bandied around liberally - and it's assumed that writers know the difference, even if agents, publishers and marketing people are not so up on the precise meanings.

Basically the premise to a story is your starting point. It's the idea behind it - its reason to be.

I've seen members of writer's groups ask the question: "Can you write a story without a premise?" I would have to say you could try - but fairly soon you'd run out of things to say. You need a premise to give a story legs.

Besides which, most writers are able to sum up what their story is about - or going to be about - in a short sentence of two.

So what makes a premise?

Mostly an intriguing idea, a what-if scenario or a justaposition of two disparate notions fused together.

The premise is usually an 'original' idea - in that it's sufficiently different from other ideas - already written and explored - to warrant further interest.

Theme is altogether different.

The theme is the overall thrust of the story - what it explores. It's the end result and may have little to do with the premise.

Unlike the premise, your theme doesn't need to be particularly original - there are only around a dozen or so themes to explore anyway.

How about some examples - to help clarify all this rhetoric?

Take Romeo and Juliet. The premise is two young people from warring families fall in love. The theme is star crossed love leads to tragedy.

What about Harry Potter? The premise is a young boy discovers he's a wizard. The theme is anyone can become a hero.

The Da Vinci Code: the premise is that the Catholic Church has a secret agenda. The theme is that it's time to change the way we feel about organized religion.

Pride and Prejudice: the premise is that a feisty young woman needs to find a husband. The theme? Love conquers all.

The premise to Crime and Punishment: a young man kills an old lady for her money. The theme: sin leads to redemption.

As you can see, theme and premise are usually related but not always in a way you'd expect.

When people ask you what your story is about, they normally want you to explain the premise first, followed by your theme. Writers have a tendency to think in themes - especially when they're working on a story - but themes are fairly dull to relate. The premise is the interesting part - the thing that excites a listener or reader.

When pitching a novel or a screenplay to a publisher or producer, focus on the premise.

Consciously write and rework a sentence or two to get the premise into a short and snappy description of your story.

If you don't have a compelling premise, chances are you won't generate much interest in your story, no matter how good it is.

That's the reality of the modern world: distillation.

Learn how to distil your story ideas into sound bytes, and you'll go far.

Robyn and I have had to do this a lot in the last couple of years, since we've been involved in heavily pitching our ideas to publishers, agents and producers. It has a downside.

Sometimes you'll be talking to a movie producer and she'll say "Got any ideas for stories?" So you pitch the premise to your most beloved story.

Time passes while she considers it.

"What else have you got?" comes the eventual reply.

This is not because the idea is bad but more to do with their personal bias or commercial expertise. You can pitch another premise and she'll like that one - and will then listen with interest to its theme.

The modern media focusses primarily on the angle - the sidelong glance at a topic that piques the interest quickly. This is not such a bad thing for the writer, so long as you understand it and use it to your advantage.

It's not unusual to end up working on a project where you pitch a premise that you haven't begun writing yet. You're encouraged to develop the idea because the premise is compelling.

You may, like many writers, have only one or two themes that you explore in all of your work.

But the trick is to make those themes seem fresh and exciting by having a premise that makes readers want to read on.

Hope this helps.

Rob Parnell's Writing Academy

What's Hot and What's Not

I get asked this question all the time.

Writers everywhere want to know what's popular, what will sell now and in the future. They think there might be some great oracle out there that can answer this question - or that maybe publishers and agents on the inside might know this information and are somehow keeping it to themselves.

Would that this were true!

Think about it. Five years ago could you have predicted what you are doing now?

Most of us don't know where we're going to be living in five years time - and even if we think we do, events conspire to change our plans. Life is organic, some might say unreliable.

Even two years ago, is there any way you could have foreseen today's news? Could you have known which celebrities or politicians were going to be in the spotlight? Or which ones had faded from view?

Of course not. It doesn't work that way.

The bestselling books and movies that are with us today were conceived and written AT LEAST two years ago - many much more than that.

Sometimes an artist, writer or director may have been working on an idea for decades before it reaches the public.

What's hot now may have seemed a completely naff idea five years ago - but the idea was pursued until it was fully formed and ready for the public.

Writers have a responsibility to write what's important to them - without forever casting nervous eyes at the marketplace and wondering if they're misguided or somehow missing the boat.

Because it's the writer's vision, dedication and enthusiasm for her chosen subject that will eventually resonate with the public.

It's simple really. People like good ideas that are well expressed - no matter what genre or subject matter is currently trendy.

Think about the books, movies, writers and artists that you like. They have a timeless quality, right? Being a slave to the market doesn't make a creative person better or even more successful.

We see many people who try to jump on bandwagons - but do we respect them for that? Do they last?

Rarely. It's a person's work or personality, their uniqueness that we respect, relate to and cherish.

Your personal integrity is important. It's your love of a subject and your faith in your vision that will carry you forward. It's these things too that will inspire publishers and producers to believe in you.

There's no point in thinking, oh, JK Rowling and Dan Brown are successful, therefore I should do something like that - because that's precisely what publishers don't want writers to do.

You have to think in terms of yourself. Not, is there room for another ---------- (insert author's name here), but is there room for ---------? (Insert your name here!)

It's being passionate about your work that will - if you're serious, willing to work hard and okay, get lucky too - that will make YOU the next big thing, YOU that hot new trend that lesser writers aspire to.

Life's too short to be forever trying to predict trends. If it were at all possible to know the future, we'd all have won the lottery by now - or we wouldn't have wasted time with all those nasty people we wished we hadn't met!

The best we can do is write from the heart, and keep on writing to the best of our ability.

Accept rejection as positive criticism, rewriting and reworking ideas until they're strong and incontrovertible - until they shine with an inner light that can't be doused or ignored.

Most of all, believe in yourself and your work.

Do that, and the rest will follow

Keep writing!

© Rob Parnell

Writing Resolutions That Stick

Probably the most consistent problem I'm asked to help with is sustaining the momentum required to finish writing projects.

Writing a book is apparently the secret wish of 90% of the population - as though writing a book somehow validates us as humans - and perhaps makes us a little more immortal. But only around 5% of people will ever rise to the challenge - and even they will falter more times than not. Of these would be writers, less than one percent will ever finish their books - and just to be depressing now, only a handful of that one percent will ever be published.

Faced with this punishing reality, how do you find the strength to carry on writing?

Let me answer by telling you a story.

Once, a very long time ago, I asked a practising motivational guru how I could become rich. I say it was a long time ago because in those days I was very cynical and I asked the question as more of a challenge than a query. The guru gave me a quick answer:

"Want to be rich."

I gave a dismissive grunt at this and asked, "Yeah, so what if that doesn't work?"

She smiled when she said, "Then you didn't want it enough."

At the time I took this to be a cop out. I congratulated myself, smugly, that I had exposed her phoniness.

Now, of course, I know better.

Because this is precisely how life works. In order to make anything happen, to get things done, achieve results, you have to want them enough.

But, but, but...

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Knowing this isn't getting you any closer to the 'how'.

How do you get yourself to want something that much? I mean writing success is one thing - but all that work! Isn't there an easier way?

Well, yeah there is actually - and all it requires is a little shift in your perspective - and a whole lotta dreamin'...

Now, I could list a bunch of 'things to do' to help you create a little writing success but - that can wait for another day. Today, I want to tell you about the single most important aspect of success.

Today's the Day

Success is not a place or a time or a circumstance.

It's a state of mind.

And it's happening right now - all you have to do is to reach out and grasp it.

Take a few moments - actually the rest of the day - and imagine that you are rich, fulfilled and able to do anything you want, whenever you like.

Pretty cool, huh?

Now ask yourself: How would you feel? What would you do?

This is the shift in perspective I was talking about. You're never going to help your subconscious deal with writing success unless it believes it's already happening. Because it's only when success is actually happening to you that you will begin to make the right decisions for your writing career and enable yourself to perpetuate the writing life you want.

Writing for a living requires commitment. Some things will work out, some things will not. That's the reality. You can't wait for the good times and then expect everything to be fine from then on. It doesn't work like that.

Achieve Your Writing Goals This Year

You need to decide, right now, that you are a writer - and will continue to be a writer from this moment on. And while you're about it, tell yourself you're already a successful writer - dwell on it, dream on it, and make it real.

Because it's believing that you are already a good and talented writer that will get you to finish writing projects.

I know this is true because, no matter the actual talent of the writer, it's the one's that believe in themselves and dream about the writer's life that make it. Every time.

I also know because a long time before we had houses and cars and money, Robyn and I behaved in this way. Though we may have been naive and perhaps not that good to begin with, we never stopped believing we were meant to be successful writers.

And believing made it so.

Believing made us write more, made us read more, made us study writing, made us take courses and keep on learning as much as we could.

We still do it today because writing is a lifelong education. You don't just wake up one day and say "Ah, now I get it, now I know enough."

Writing is a way of life and it's when you immerse yourself in it totally that you gain the necessary resolve to finish things - and then get them out there and published!

To Your Success.

Keep writing!

© Rob Parnell