Of Characters & Coffee (or what starts writers writing)

Different writers have different styles of writing. That’s a given. Starting from the very basics of narrative voice to the inspirations behind the story, what makes up a writer’s style is a question of influence, taste, and personal voice. It’s their literary fingerprint. It’s why even the best ghostwriters will always be slightly paler imitations of their author’s voice (regardless of how well the chameleon blends into the background, he’s still not part of it right?).

Yet one element that has always fascinated me but readers and aspiring writers don’t necessarily ever see is the writer’s style of creation.

Oh we’ve all heard about the peculiar ones, the quirky habits: the hoarding of postcards, the walls of notes, the lucky chair that squeaks, the writer who, like some method actor, cloisters himself away in order to experience the same crippling isolation as his protagonist. I’m not focusing there today.

I’m focusing on the stories and how they begin, where they come from, what makes a person pick up their pen and write. It’s the initial spark that I’m curious about and thought I’d discuss.

The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons. 

All together, those neurons contain about enough electrical energy to power a small lightbulb when you’re awake. In fact, our human brains are so fast that it takes the world’s most powerful super-computers 43minutes to process what we do in a second. So with a ton of information flooding the brain at any given moment, it’s no wonder it has to organise everything somehow nor that it does so in story form.

Stories are how we make sense of the world.

Implying all humans are innate storytellers, why then doesn’t everyone tell stories? Why don’t all humans fill up the hours by writing down their ideas? After all, doesn’t the saying go something like: ‘everyone has a story inside of them, waiting to be writ?’

For one, it’s a matter of interest – not everyone cares enough to write and others not enough to finish. More importantly, in this sense, writing isn’t about solipsism and the grand tangle of ganglion cells passing information neuron to neuron. Writing is an opening of one person to another person, a door from one mind to another.

Human language didn’t develop just so we could think in more complex ways, but so we could develop socially. Through ‘social development’ we learn about ‘self’ and ‘other’, and through understanding those things we develop stories because they help us comprehend the barriers, links and blended spaces between persons.

Ok, moving away from my degree in neuroscience, if not everyone has the interest or the determination to be storytellers in the commercial sense, then the writers that succeed, the ones that write and write and regardless of monetary achievement keep writing, must have something that triggers their ideas, that sparks them into action.

Talking to writers you’ll hear about all their different methods. One of the best writers I know (and who I mention frequently – check her and her writing partner out on Nerd Cactus) is a ‘world-builder’. More often than not her inner historian creates a ‘what if’ situation, a world that is transformed by a single decision, and then she comes up with characters to populate it, a theme that drives it, a plot that underpins each sequence of (often unfortunate) events.

My purpose as a writer is to loot my life to the very walls. THOMAS WOLFE #amwriting #writing pic.twitter.com/GPgv79kWO6

— Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters) August 21, 2015

On the other hand, despite working really well together on literary projects (our best is Renegade Earth, the trilogy) I almost always come from a completely different angle. I start with a character. Often just one, who I ‘hear’ in my head. They become part of a scene. That scene develops. We have a discussion: what’s their story, who are they, why should I care. If they fall down in any of these areas, I then investigate whether there’s another person I can talk to instead. I build up from the people, figure out their world, then start on the actual plot and idea.

The way we work together might seem strange. We start in such completely different spaces at times. But it functions because where she can become bogged down in the background, I can pull it back to the people; where I can find myself stuck in one character’s head, she’ll drag me back to the story we’re telling. As part of our development as writers, we’ve learnt from each other and so whilst my ‘initial spark’ is a character and hers more a question, the process is beautifully balanced.

When I put the question to some of the folk on Writer Unboxed, the answers came back with similarly disparate ‘starting points’ for writers. For some it’s when ‘an image blows up’ in their mind – a scene, a moment, complete with words and concepts. For others its all about concepts – they see a thing, remember it; read something, discover a new angle to develop. Some might prefer working with a relationship or a situation.

Most of the writers I spoke to, however, also mentioned that it’s far from being ‘kissed on the ear’ by the muses.

Inspiration might fall into an empty mind, or one that’s so full the idea of fitting more in hurts.

It also can shift. Whilst characters might instigate eight out of ten ideas, later finding an interesting idea in a book of conspiracies or in someone else’s writing is hardly unusual. No two stories are completely the same and no two writers seem to have identical processes.

Seeing the world in different ways is crucial. So whilst we may all claim a coffee habit, or a need for a nicotine fix (this is actually neuroscientifically explicable due to the dopamine dependencies curated by writerly minds that also link to the deficit disorders, depression and creativity associated with them), how we create ideas or start stories is almost entirely distinct from story to story, person to person.

So yes, writers work in different ways and have unique starting points that are as individual to a writer as their literary voice. It also means that if you're writing one way and your favourite writer works another - don't panic. No one really works the same way.

Your artist antenna can be trusted even if it’s not receiving the same signal as everyone else. In fact, that’s probably the best news you can hear.

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
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Scare Tactics : Why Don Draper Had It Right

Scare Tactics 

 ‘Fear’ as a Successful Communications Tool

The value of emotion in selling products, and papers, is more or less indubitable.

Christmas: every advert pulls on the heartstrings. Headlines about fairness and altruism pepper the pages of our newspapers.

February: roses are red, violets are blue and romance is in the air for every marketing campaign and headline that can possible squeeze in an iota of an excuse for doing so.

Yet this is not just a gimmick of once-a-year holidays. It is a strategic part of brand narratives from McDonalds to Nike, Virgin to Jack Wills.

And one of the most effective emotions is fear.

Take as an example the full-sized polar bear released in London this past January. It disrupted tube-commuters’ usual routine of ‘studiously minding own business and ensuring zero eye contact with anyone’ with a potential panic attack.

“Is it real?!” People begged the cameras recording their mixed reactions of fear and curiosity.

Twitter went crazy. Videos and photos spread across the Internet.

I love the part were the girl says "is it real??" : Polar Bear Roams London [Sky Atlantic, Fortitude]: http://t.co/mn05nnCdca via @YouTube
— TheAnswer (@AtTheAnswer) February 2, 2015

 As a stunt it grabbed headlines – partly because a giant white bear on the Jubilee line makes a great photo – but it also embodied the new television show it was publicising, Fortitude, by using a bear that is something of a sinister motif for danger in the show to create a similar threatened feeling in the British pubic.  Moreover, considering Sky’s current adverts saying ‘not all television is created equal’, which suggests their programmes are somewhat more challenging, more intriguing, this stunt certainly seemed to capture hearts and minds with a comparable emotive thread.

An ‘Emotion Factor’ constitutes a central part of helping a consumer to bond with a brand, a business, a product, a person.

Hardly a new concept, Dale Carnegie identified emotions as key for business people who want to appeal to their customers back in 1936 and it has been linchpin in communications of all kinds ever since. There are books dedicated to it, and academic studies.

Those who have never watched Mad Men might be forgiven for wondering then why I’m talking about fear. Almost everyone has been told sex sells as demonstrated by Davidoff cologne or Virgin Atlantic adverts. Many will have experienced how feeling empowered makes that totally unaffordable car sound like a good idea, or how humour makes one website seem simpler and friendlier than the other.

But to quote Don Draper: “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? … It’s freedom from fear.”

The same applies in building a narrative in public relations.

Telling a story for a business is an integral part of PR because it’s all about looking for the story that will bring a brand’s message to life. A story can build or bulldoze a reputation, manage or frustrate consumers. So whether it’s through a message, a logo, a CEO or even a product, telling a superficial tale is not going to win over a busy journalist or capture the attention of a digital audience. Only a quality, sophisticated story can do that. Preferably one that’s succinct and can fit into the required column inches.

"What you call ‘love’ was invented by guys like me to sell nylons." – Don Happy Valentine's Day, #MadMen fans. pic.twitter.com/RQX1IwMAD5
— Mad Men (@MadMen_AMC) February 14, 2015

This is where fear comes in. Good stories need an element of fear.  Something for a hero to overcome. That hero might be the consumer or the product or the business as a whole. But if all is happiness, simplicity, friendliness, and humour, what’s the point in being a hero, of wanting more than this? How can you feel powerful driving that car, or sexy travelling on that flight, or clever because you chose this brand, if there’s nothing to fear?

Nike do this well, painting the consumer as both hero and villain. Their base, lazy self doesn’t want to wake up, to run, to push up that hill. Can their strong, inner hero win out? Yes they can. Likewise, the anti-bank narrative taken up by new financial technology (fintech) companies often paint themselves as ‘Jack’ characters going up against fearsome ‘Giants’. A traditional story becomes a strategy rooted in the potential to conquer fear.

By identifying what seems scary, the opportunity to expose ways to overcome the monster emerges. This encourages people to believe in the story, to come to their own conclusions and hopefully align their opinions with that of the brand. Since they value this self-made deduction more than those shoved down their throats, the business’ story then becomes their story. Loyalty is created. A reputation with consumers established.

Crucially different from the fear inspired by some political propaganda or scaremongering, it’s important to note that this kind of fear is also distinct from manipulation. Using fear is not a way of coercing consumers into falling for a web of lies.  It is, however, a means of a businesses connecting on a human level with the people it needs to connect with and a way of cohering a brand with both left-brain ideas and right-brain emotions.

So whether it’s by tapping into the fear of missing out, the reality of heart disease, the creepiness of unseen germs, or just the Very Dangerous World – businesses need to really start thinking about what people fear and what story they want to tell in the age of anxiety.

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
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