Who's the Writer?

Who's the Writer?

by David Kopycinski  

Writing is a mixture of many things; it’s not as simple a vocation as putting words on a page. No, it’s far more complex. It can be objectively important and good, and also subjectively small in purpose and shallow. It really depends on the writer and the reader; there’s no sense writing if there is no one to read what you have to say. The world is shaped by words, positive or negative. Wars have been started over words; peace has come from words. Words are a construct with no shape, and at the same time it’s shapable into anything. The writer creates the shape and directs its path on how the story will go. One of the keys of writing is understanding: it doesn’t matter if you write the best story to date if there’s no one to read it.

On one hand you write for yourself; you write the story you want to tell. On the other hand, there is the reader, and if you don’t have any engagement with your story, then it doesn’t matter how well it’s written if no one is interested in the story. Deciding to be a writer can be simple; you wake up and you say to yourself, “Yes, I want to be a writer,” and that’s it. For others it’s a long journey, with many paths; in the end, they chose to be a writer. Whichever the case, it all helps towards being a writer and what kind of writer you’ll be.

Writing is like people— there are good ones, bad ones, and everything in between. That also includes morally as well as ethically. It’s a living thing; it has the power to change the world if the words are spoken or read by the right person at the right time. Words can be honest and dishonest; it comes down to the person and their goals. Which brings on the idiom, “Read between the lines.” A phrase that still holds relevance today and will remain into the future. It goes without saying, words are a key to the past, present and future.

Understanding how important words are is key if you want to put on the cap and say, “Yes, I’m a writer.” It matters when you want to decide what kind of writer you are and what you want to do with this skill. A common occurrence is the unique experience of seeing other writers of varying degrees of skill; one person can write well but can’t tell a story, and another person can tell a story but can’t write. To work out which one you are is to be honest with yourself and learn what flaws you have. Writing well doesn’t mean your story will be good by default, and vice versa. In writing fiction it’s very important to see the differences between a good story and a bad one; you need to remove all bias and see the story for what it is. Books, movies and games don’t become classics for no reason; having the skill to understand why they’re good is vital if you’re to write a publishable novel or a masterpiece.

Analysing good art is a good way to solve the problems you’re having in your story. A problem which can occur is moving the plot along in a logical way. You might have an idea in your mind which you want to get to, but if you rush, you can fail to complete the scene if it doesn’t make sense. Readers will pick up on when things don’t follow a logical path; some readers will accept it anyway, but it’s best to focus on making the story flow logically. That’s not to say you can’t have emotion in your writing; you need that too, but first let’s examine a logical plot.

Sometimes, when writing, you come up with an idea for a scene. It may be good for the scene, but the information it provides contradicts or isn’t explained earlier in the story. So, you need to go back and insert the prerequisite information into an earlier scene to make the new information in the later chapter make sense if it is to remain logically consistent.

Getting back on point, you need to delve into the minds of the characters and their motivations, then write a way for them to go on a set journey. In Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough (1999), James Bond is motivated by revenge at first to seek out the person responsible for attacking MI6 (the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service). Later he drops the desire for revenge once he sees what kind of person he will become, like Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) and Renard (Robert Carlyle). When James Bond discovers Elektra and Renard have teamed up for their hatred of her father and the world it changes the goals and motivations of James Bond to stop them. In short, the revenge motivation is what governs his actions, which leads him to make the choices he makes throughout the story. Peering into the James Bond persona further is examining who he is on a psychological level; he is also a government agent and is trained to pursue his goals and to keep fighting no matter the pain. He won’t stop until he gets his answers, good or bad; it’s what makes him who he is. This analysis of James Bond explains the plot progression through the character; if he doesn’t act, the story doesn’t move forward. It’s something to think about when you’re stuck or looking for the next step in the story.

An enjoyable moment in writing isn’t always the action scene; it’s fun to imagine the epic battle at the end and the victory of the protagonist. The excitement of the scene can be fulfilling, another element of a scene which can be just as thrilling is the emotion behind it. The feeling you get when you think the protagonist is going to say one thing but instead does the opposite of what you thought. And the actions they took during the scene lead to more strife. You’re reading, and you’re talking out loud like you want to tell the character to go in the opposite direction or to make a different choice. The emotional investment in the character is equal to the character itself. To remove the emotion of the character(s) is to have no emotion at all; by having no emotional element to the scene and what’s happening within it, you remove what makes them human. To tell an effective story, you need both logic and emotion; take out either one, and the story falls apart. Exploring what makes your character tick opens the story in new ways you might not have thought of at the beginning of the story.

What comes next, though, is a detail modern writers miss, especially when it comes to the female characters, and that is character flaws. Rey Skywalker, or Palpatine if we’re being accurate, is the modern representation of a character with no flaws, known as a Mary Sue. With multiple characters in a story, each one needs to participate with a skill in the group dynamic. Examining the primary skills of the trio, Poe is the pilot, Finn is the soldier with intel on the First Order, and Rey is the Jedi with the Force as her ally. If written well, each character would have been given a chance to highlight their skills, which helps them through their journey. Instead, Rey can and does do everything they can do, and better. She can fly the Millennium Falcon better than Poe or Han; she can break out of the Starkiller base after she is captured without the help of Finn, and she is a stronger and a better fighter than Ben Solo. That’s a flawless character; if you take out Poe and Finn from the end of the movie, you lose nothing, because she fills all their roles, making them pointless in their own story.

What this is getting at is your character needs to be flawed in order for them to be real, because humans are flawed, and this flaw needs to be relevant to the story and play a part in the narrative. An example of a flawed character is Mike Harrigan from Predator 2: in the beginning he is arrogant, believing he knows best and the rules don’t apply to him. After the predator kills his friend Danny, he is called out by Lambert with his own words, “The door swinging both ways”. From that point on he slows down and stops to listen to others and accept their support when offered. It’s this acceptance that he has this flaw, and his willingness to change which allows him to beat the predator in the end. If he didn’t listen to Keyes about its technology and goals, then he wouldn’t have understood the enemy, allowing him to have the advantage; thus, he wins in the end and becomes a better person.

These are some of the techniques and key elements that make up good storytelling. Being able to write well is only half the knowledge. Storytelling is to put fairly what writing is, especially if you're telling a story. To ensure you find the right mix of both, a simple method to find where you might need help is to be honest with yourself. Reading published authors and comparing their work to yours will aid in this goal; watching classics or high-quality movies will also help. Recommended older movies for better examination of their work compared to yours to ensure a better gauge of where you stand.

There are many elements of writing not covered here; the use of metaphors and similes, creating a world, the tone, and how to be original are other areas of vital importance. It sounds like a lot; it makes it clear writing isn’t a simple thing, and for you it could be as simple as picking up a laptop or sitting down at your desktop and starting to write, or you’ll study and plan first before you put anything on a page. However you start, it comes to you on how it ends.

Not trying to sound inspirational, corny or cliché, only being honest on what it is to write. Depending upon perspective, writing is a simple thing — it’s words on a page. It’s also complex, as demonstrated here. By the end of it all it can be put simply, and it’s to use common sense and logic in how you’re telling your story. It doesn’t matter if you can write like J.R.R. Tolkien or Frank Herbert but don’t know the first thing about writing a story. Both writing skill and storytelling are needed; if you’re watching a movie and you stop to think about what you just saw, then it’s fair to say what was written on screen didn’t make sense. Which isn’t to say you can’t have emotion in your character, only that the story must make logical sense from start to finish. If you make a universal rule in your world that certain people with certain traits can have magic powers, then only those people can have magic powers. If the rule you set changes, then it needs to make sense, and it can’t happen at a point when there is no time to justify it. There would need to be something or an event earlier that gives an opening for the reader to accept the possibility that someone who normally wouldn’t be able to use magic now can. It needs to make sense as to why the rules have now changed, they can’t just change to fit the image in your mind. A story needs to have logical path where A leads to B, and B leads to C. Without it the story will collapse.

There’s a lot covered here, and all of it is important. If you know these things already, then good. It can’t hurt to have a refresher. If you didn’t know of these things, then it can’t hurt to have a little guidance on your writing path. In the end, it’s writing, it’s your story, and you’re the writer.

If you loved David's article Who's the Writer? as much as I did and feel compelled to read more of his amazing work, I've hyperlinked his LinkedIn and his, now live, website.