An immediate disclaimer: Morning Pages never worked for me, too.
Now that I made this bold confession, there is nothing left for me to lose. I hope :)
So here’s an intro publication about the Unscripted Chats stack. Or, why it’s not about writing how-to’s.
In the About page and in my first post, I said that this Substack will feature chats between the writer (me) and her characters. I feel at ease saying such a thing here, among writers, because we all know that having convos with our characters is absolutely normal. Right?
Anyway, this is the only writing technique that works for me. I tried them all! As a Capricorn, I’m very disciplined when it comes to my passions. Meaning: I dig deep and practice everything related to my urgent interest/endeavor. And whenever universal rules failed to serve me, I get frustrated thinking that something is wrong with me. That’s exactly how I dropped lots of my passions. But writing was resilient. It lingered. It followed me.
I decided to give it another chance. At that time I was re(re)(re)(re)reading one of Agatha Christie’s stories. There was a character - a writer who practiced the following technique: he immersed into a character, taking a walk in their shoes, seeing things through their eyes, hearing and listening to their voices.
I loved that technique. Perhaps it reminded me of acting classes I took and enjoyed immensely. Our professor, a renowned stage actor, told us the same thing: you have to completely immerse into your character’s skin. Even if this character is an object.
“Imagine yourself being a chair with one of four legs broken. Perform it.”
That was the very first exercise we had at acting classes. Geee, how I loved doing weird stuff like this! So, why not apply this fun thing to something with which I struggled? To creative writing.
And!!! It worked. It finally worked.
Writing first thing in the morning didn’t.
Writing every day didn’t.
Planning didn’t (in fact, it almost killed my desire to write!)
Outlining didn’t (I even tried excel as an outline tool - the horror! I HATE excel with all my creative heart)
NaNoWriMo didn’t work.
What if… and other writing tricks/prompts didn’t work.
Freewriting for 20 minutes (and for any other time) didn’t work.
Walking (swimming, weight lifting, dancing of all things!) didn’t work.
Etc etc etc
Acting did it for me. I felt like my characters were impatiently waiting for their turn to jump into my body and start living through me. At some point I thought my mind would blow, because of all people it inhabited (my poor family and friends back in those days! On the other hand, I truly believe our cat enjoyed it).
That’s when my Capricorn discipline came in handy. I forced myself to structure (dreadful word) ideas for novels. In other words, the loudest voices got the priority treatment. Yep, just like in real life :)
I think at some point the two characters I was impersonating, decided to bestow their total trust on me. They started to share stories with me. Thanks to practicing immersive-ness, I was on alert 24/7: for hints, for signs, for details my characters shared with me. I was hungry to hear, to see, to know. Writing was going on with an amazing ease.
After we exhausted each other, I got back to other characters. The same technique worked again. Successful impersonation was rewarded with intimate conversations.
So, that’s the idea behind this publication: to keep those chats going. Chats are happening in different settings. Whenever they’ll occur in places I know very well, I may share some “local” tidbits about them. After all, most of convos are happening against the setting of the mythic Cote D’Azur.
Thank you for reading!
Please be aware that:
English is not my native language
I keep «author’s style» intact (including grammar mistakes) as a proof of authenticity (no ai involved)
I’m a coffee maniac
Victoria, we're almost one and the same. I also don't follow rules, techniques, practices, etc. I can't, not even with recipes. My mind just doesn't work that way. It's cool how you immerse yourself in the characters and speak to them and it works for you. I haven't delved into character development as deeply, but with future fiction writing, I think I'll try that out. Thank you!
To think I might not have found you and your ways had you not commented on my little vote for Knausgaard! Looking forward to reading these conversations of yours, meeting your characters... Bravo