Thinking

The people who annoy me most when it comes to reading and writing are the people who think too much about it. It's one thing to be reading an article or an argumentative piece, and be fully analyzing it and discerning how much details and accuracies are involved, what the author was thinking or trying to say, and so on and so forth. I understand that, and I accept it. But all too often, when it comes to fiction, I believe that there are people who just dig too deep, are thinking too hard about what there is and what there isn't, and I feel like they're losing something. When I'm reading, I'm not thinking about how the story is set up, and how each sentence relates to that.

To me, that's a thing that you feel. If something is good, than you can feel it inside you, like it's tugging on your heart strings, begging you to come closer and to experience it. There is no thought about it. You don't think to yourself, "Man, I want to read more of this." Instead, you feel in your brain, and in your bones, and in your heart, "I have to keep reading."

I admit that as an author, I don't fully understand how to make this happen. If I did, I'd probably be a published multi-millionaire. I don't think any author fully understands how to make that happen. And the reason for that is that different things pull in different people.

The only way I know to make that happen is to let the story make that happen. I'm not a creator when I write. I don't try to force things to be beautiful and to pull in readers. I am a catalyst for the story, a way for it to tell itself, and if that story wants to pull people in, then it will. At least, that's how I think of it.

And you still need a decent amount of skill in order to make that happen. When picking a catalyst, you would always want to choose the best one. Think of a science fiction movie where the bad guy has the ability to inhabit a person's body and make it their own. They don't choose the weak and useless people for the final battle. They may choose that person on their way in, but not when it's important. When it's important, the pick the biggest, strongest, most capable people.

A story doesn't have to sneak in. It's the final boss from the get go. It wants to punch your face in and throw you against the wall, pick you up and carry you face first to the other side of the arena, and fling you in to the air, kneeing you in the gut and breaking your spine on the way down. It makes it so you can't look away. It makes you focus on it and only it, and it wants you to never forget it. It can't have you be thinking about your next move. The only thing it wants you to think about is "What the hell is going to come next?"

But for that to happen, its catalyst has to be in tip top shape. They have to have the skills, the determination, the shear strength of body and mind to pound that story out in the most incredible way. So if you want to write, it's not about knowing all the techniques. It's about using them. Making them second nature. Understanding them so intuitively that you don't have to think about them. You just feel them in every fiber of your being.

That way, your reader won't have to think either. They'll feel the blood, sweat, and tears that you put in your story. And it will move them.

Well. Hopefully.