Day: May 12, 2017

Friday Fun-Day Writing Prompt: Opposite Characters

We all have a tendency to write characters that are like us. Whether we use our personalities, our political and religious views, our appearances, or our social relationships, some part of us weaves into each of our characters. That’s why I’m presenting you with a particularly hard challenge today: writing opposite characters.

What do I mean by “opposite characters”? I’m talking about characters that are completely the opposite of ourselves. Gender, sexual identity, political views, religious views, personality, attitude, appearance, the character is entirely what we would consider to be our opposites.

The prompt is to write a story or scene using an opposite character as your main character. It can be a flash story, short story, scene from a novel, whatever you like so long as the main character is completely opposite from you. Let your imagination run wild and have fun with it.

I tried a less drastic version of this exercise as an undergrad; we only wrote stories about characters who were opposite from us in personality. Looking back, that exercise did not go well for me. The character had an opposite personality from me but her actions and attitude felt very disingenuous and unnatural. It was all forced. That’s where the difficult lies: making the characters convincing as people when we start out not having anything in common.

It’s a real challenge to write a character so different from ourselves. However, the challenge can help us grow as writers. It makes us think in ways that we don’t normally think and imagine perspectives and obstacles that we’ve never considered before. As a human being it can also increase our empathy and allow us to see everyday arguments from all angles.

Did this exercise teach you anything interesting about yourself? About how you write? Did it change your perspective or how you approach your writing? Leave a comment and tell us about your experiences.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Dealing with the Writer’s Worst Critic

Some people think that the writer’s worst critic is his/her audience, that negative reviews destroy him/her from the inside. It’s true that readers and reviews are important to most writers but they are far from writers’ worst critics. Honestly, readers and reviews only have the slightest influence in comparison to writers’ real worst critics: themselves.

Meme retrieved from this Twitter feed

I know it’s cheesy to say that we are our own worst enemies but there’s a reason phrases like that exist. In this case the saying exists because it’s true. It’s true for any person but most especially artists. Painters, drawers, sculptors, actors, and, yes, writers are notoriously hard on themselves. We expect perfection and if we don’t get what we consider to be perfect, it won’t matter what anyone else says. We’ve already failed ourselves.

How do we deal with these inner critics? As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t know. I can barely get mine to shut up long enough to get any work done, and lately that’s required a combination of anti-depressants and two kinds of anti-anxiety pills. Nevertheless, learning to live and work with the writer’s worst critic is key to being a writer.

Writers can benefit from some self-criticism. The important word there is some. We need to be critical of ourselves and our work so that we can produce the best writing that we can. It’s especially helpful during the editing/rewriting phase. However, there’s a point when enough is enough. If the voice inside your head is telling you that you can’t make it, that you will never make it, that your writing is garbage, that’s when you need to take a step back and reevaluate your situation. Been there, done that, probably will be back there again tonight as I work on my end-of-year portfolio.

Despite what people may try to lead you to believe, it’s not so easy to just turn the inner critic off. Believe me, I’ve tried. It slips back into your thoughts as soon as you think you’re in the clear and you let your guard down. My inner critic especially loves to appear when I’m in the middle of first writing a story and when I’m in the midst of editing. Yes, it can help me edit and improve my work but it’s often in hyper-drive and tries to derail the entire project. I’m sure I’m not the only one. There’s a reason why the stereotypes of writers with addictions and mental disorders have gained traction.

The important thing to remember is to write despite this critical voice. It’ll probably still shout in your head and make you want to curl into a ball, but you can show it who’s in charge. You’ll feel much better if you just get a project done even with the doubt. Sometimes you’ll have to stop and give the voice a bit of a credence–after all, it may actually have a point about the last passage you wrote–but you also have to brush aside comments along the lines of “you’re a failure.” I know, easier said than done. If we don’t at least try, we’ll never get anything done.

 

Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011

Yet Another Writing Contest: the Bridport Prize

TGIF, readers! I’m here to inform you of another contest with an upcoming deadline: the Bridport Prize. You can find all the necessary information on their website, but I will provide some highlights here:

  • The Bridport Prize was founded by the Bridport Arts Centre and raises funds for the center
  • The three categories are poems, short stories, and flash fiction
  • Although based in the UK, the contest is open to anyone of any nationality writing in English and who is 16 years of age or older at the time the contest closes
  • You can enter online or by post
  • There’s a small entry fee: 8 GBP per flash fiction, 9 GBP per poem, and 10 GBP per short story
  • The prizes are as follows (copied directly from their site):

Poem: 1st prize  £5,000, 2nd prize  £1,000, 3rd prize  £500, Highly Commended  10 x £100

Short story: 1st prize  £5,000, 2nd prize  £1,000, 3rd prize  £500, Highly Commended  10 x £100

Flash fiction: 1st prize  £1,000, 2nd prize  £500, 3rd prize  £250, Highly Commended  3 x £100

  • The results will be announced October 2017
  • The deadline is May 31st

I hope you’ll consider entering this contest, and I wish you all the best of luck.

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Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011