My dear Readers Who Write,
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV at your service, author of the science fantasy classic (or SciFan as we cognoscenti prefer to say) ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. Mummy was the one who identified the genre for me when she had been sipping on her fourth pernod and organic Greek yoghurt smoothie. “Moons, if you think that anyone is ever going to call that poop science-fiction you are living in a frigging fantasy.” I recall she spat the stone of an olive she had fished out from the bottom of her glass with the final words, so they impacted me deeply.
Today mes estudas, after our brief plunge into the murky pond of reviews and reviewing, we will return to the primrose paths of prose preparation. To those of you who have had the supercalfragilistic fortune to be winnowing worth from my words of wisdom I say welcome back, and to those who have only just discovered my delightful calligraphy I say sit quietly at the back of the class and be sure to revise later.
And thus, my happy followers, my RWW, I propose to you the finest flora and bejeweled gems of my inestimable intellect. Read carefully, learn assiduously, and ingest intestinally that you may benefit from the experience of one whose writing skills are superior and sans pareil.
How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Character
When creating fantabulous fiction, one of the building blocks one should consider perspicaciously is the characteristics of one’s characters, the pontification of one’s protagonists, and the mentality of one’s mendicants. May one humbly suggest the ritualistic dismemberment of the dichotomy of despair is the first essential in the realisation and roundaboutification of perfect protagonists.
As we are fast becoming closely intertwined, one feels comfortable in sharing some of one’s own little ritual-ettes for the construction of credible character traits. Place upon the table a virgin sheet of the most beautiful of papers and upon its sensitive surface inscribe certain informations about the person growing in one’s psyche. Once you have these facts inside your cranium attempt to dress your shrinking physique in the insubstantial anatomy of your putative creation. Once having assumed this physical envelope, model it as carefully as if you were a supermodel on the catwalk and allow it to permeate every pore of your being. Only then can you begin to set it down with its contemporaneous companions inside the delicate framework of your histoire. Tread gently and allow each one of your persons to speak in their own tones, to walk in their own shoes, to listen with their own ears, to feel with their own hearts, and to expostulate to you of their hopes, dreams, passions and personalities.
Never, mes enfants, permit yourself to press your own expectations upon the psyche of those who inhabit your writings. Rather let them fly on their own wings and listen with your inner ear as they speak to you of their lives and their loves.
Ah mes estudas, quel excitement, quel bonheur, as your little people walk the pages of your magnum opus and clamber around in the canyons of your consciousness. Let your creativity be as verdant as the grass, and allow your imagination to be impregnated by the words of those persons who have grown up to inhabit your worlds with the organic ossification of their beings.
And there we will leave the characterisation of Calliope and her sisters until next time when we shall consider the impact of those most precious people of our imaginations on the mundane and dour dross of everyday life.
Ecrit bon!
Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV
You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.
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