Inspiration Point



Introduction

How many times have you thought to yourself, I'd love to do some creative writing but:

I don't know how to begin.
I don't have any good ideas.
I haven't got enough imagination.
I can't think of what to write.
All these statements are common reasons why we never sit down and actually start writing. In this session, we asked two of the writers of the Canterbury Tales series - Olivia Hetreed, who adapted the Man of Law's Tale, and Peter Bowker, who adapted The Miller's Tale - how they find inspiration and begin the writing process.

In this session we will cover:

Writing from life
Writing from personal interest
Inspiration triggers
Getting started



Writing from Life

All human life is utterly fascinating. Whether you are a countess in revolutionary Russia or a housewife in Middlesborough, the ebb and flow of life is a remarkable thing. Writing about your own life is an excellent way to work with material you should know best - your own experience.

OH: I think it's essential and inevitable that a writer draws from their own experience; it's the ultimate resource that you have. It doesn't have to be autobiographical at all; what I use is fragments - little bits and pieces. It can be my own personal experience, or other people's experience. I'm a kind of magpie - I simply pick out bits that have some use to me at this particular moment. There's nothing I wouldn't use, but I would be very careful about how I used things.



PB: Basically, I use any little encounter. For example, I was on the bus the other day and there were these two white kids from the local school sat behind me who spoke in a kind of black patois for the whole journey; really loudly. And then another bus passenger, because the bus was running late, swore. And one of these kids said to him, 'Oh, hey - don't use language like that in front of us!' And I thought, what's going on here? Was he just having some fun with that? He seemed quite sincere. What are these two kids like in school? Do they go home and talk like that? I then spun a story out of that. Actually, these two kids didn't dare talk like that at school. They were quite thin and weedy kids, and this was the only time they could share this secret. So the idea was that these two fairly isolated kids, their equivalent of having a secret club in a tree house was talking in the style of American black rap music. And one day I'll use that somewhere - it might not be the central story, but you can store that away. That's why you should never abandon public transport - or all your characters will talk like taxi drivers!




Writing from personal interest

Another source of material is to investigate and research a subject that you are passionate about. The story could be historical or contemporary, but there will almost certainly be aspects of it, which are beyond your personal experience, that require research.

OH: I felt that I needed to know the facts even though quite a lot of them wouldn't be in the story. This isn't a story about immigration or about asylum-seekers. It's a story about someone who happens to be in a situation of being a refugee. It's a love story. It's about xenophobia and people's reaction to an outsider. So while it's very much background to the story, if I didn't know what the rules are and how the system works then I couldn't be confident about deciding what to ignore and what to use. I like to do enough research to feel sure about things. But I try to write free of it. That may mean that what you see in the script is the tip of an iceberg, but at least the rest of the iceberg is there under the water!

The other major area of research that I did for this was into Nigerian culture. My family lived there for a long time. But I wanted to talk to Nigerians who are living there at present. I did a lot of talking to people, and you get wonderful things. So often, truth is more extraordinary than fiction. I could talk to someone for two or three hours, and maybe all I get is a fragment, but it goes into that background.

There is nothing more important than getting all your facts straight. Chances are that your readers will be equally passionate about the subject (which is why they're reading your story) so will be able to call you out on mistakes.

OH: If I happen to be reading a story about something that I happen to know about and it's full of stupid mistakes, I find that off-putting. I read a supposed climbing adventure a while ago, and as I'm a small-time climber I knew at least enough to know that the writer knew nothing about climbing.


Look for ideas in:

Newspapers- Is there an event that could be fictionalised?
Biographies- Is another person's life good material?
Plays/Movies- Is there a scene or character that could be expanded into a whole new story?
Activities- Does a sport or activity contain a whole world of people with interesting stories?



PB: If you use popular culture in your work, it's a tricky one, because you can look horribly dated. It was the knowledge that the Canterbury Tales would be a very quick turnover, and that it's a safe bet that Pop Idol 2 will be a hit. But then a bit like Big Brother, it might fade from view. I'm normally quite wary of using direct references. The Nicholas character could be any pop music bullshitter, right back to Andrew Loog Oldham. I'd be reluctant to put it out there as a parody of Pop Idol. Yes, there's always been talent shows and a desire in all of us to get on stage. So I don't think I'd use the trappings of popular culture, but I use the relationships that you see developing in them. If you're tapping into popular culture and you're a forty-five year old man, which I am, you have to be very careful or you'll embarrass yourself badly. Which is why you'll find that most writers of my generation stop writing about popular culture after about 1977.

The key thing is that you have a burning curiosity about your subject, getting it right and sharing it with other people.



Inspiration Triggers

Our writers for the series were set the task of updating the Canterbury Tales. Adaptation is one way of finding inspiration from existing material, but making it your own.

PB:When I looked at Miller's Tale again, which I thought I knew and I didn't at all, the thing that struck me was that it's quintessentially a con trick story. And basically, no honest person would ever get themselves conned; we get conned because we want to get something for nothing. What also interested me was the major pre-occupation of the times that Chaucer taps into, the belief that the second coming and the second flood were imminent. Anybody who could talk religion convincingly could use that to get their desires. So I was casting around for a modern equivalent of that kind of bullshit around something that appears credible. It struck me that the whole Heat/ Pop Idol/ Simon Cowell kind of thing operates in a space where, if you say something with enough certainty, people are sure to believe you. If I sit in a pub and tell somebody with enough certainty that they have star potential, not only is it quite flattering, but it's very hard to disprove.

It must be one of the first written-down con stories. A con man or con woman has to tap into what the current obsession and hysteria is. No longer are we concerned with Paradise, but we're concerned with a one-month record deal.

OH: When the idea was suggested to me and I went back and read the tales, there were a couple that I was really interested in of which the Man of Law's tale was one. Part of what attracted me to it was a good character at the centre of the story, someone who has a very firm faith who is put through trials. That's a very old-fashioned idea and I wanted to see if there was something we could do to make a contemporary story out of it. The Man of Law's tale is particularly exciting because it's about Christian/Muslim conflict and xenophobic reactions. That's so much of our time. To do something that's based on a 14th century story and yet seems so completely relevant and so interesting.

Searching for a story often starts with finding the right characters.

PB: The Miller's Tale provided everything I needed in terms of characterisation - there's a hopeless fop, there's a very confident talker, a young woman who's full of sexual desire but not for her very old husband, and there's the very old husband who's very jealous and possessive. If you can't cook up a story from those four ingredients, then you shouldn't really be doing it.

Stories grow out of characters. I've never sat down and thought of writing about a big situation; I start out thinking, 'Who's the character? Would it be interesting if this happened to them?' If I don't know the character, then it's hard to generate a story. They appear in the form of half-remembered relatives, or somebody on the city bus.

OH: What's essential for me in a story is that you feel that the central characters are in a situation in their lives where they have to change. And whether those pressures are politics or personal just depends on the story. But the character should be under pressure to make things happen.

Inspiration can also come from other storytellers.

OH: Other writer's work is a huge influence all the time. If I'm doing a first-draft, I don't read because it's too worrying that something might push you off-balance. Or I'll read something that's so completely different, that I feel there won't be any danger of cross-contamination! Otherwise I'm a very voracious reader, and I think you should the more you read of everything, the better.



OH: My abiding memory of my family is people chatting - people telling jokes and stories. I realise in retrospect that several of my uncles were probably embellishing the truth. So the first thing I tried to write was a comic with my brother, and I never stopped.




Getting Started

As you begin to spot ideas for scenes or characters around you in your daily life, you'll need to start getting them down. Like exercise, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

OH: The starting point is never to have a blank sheet of paper. That's the death of inspiration. I like to sidle up on things. In this case, I started with the story and began to explore quite openly different areas where these characters might go. I tend to take copious notes, long-hand notes in a big notebook. I don't look back at them very much, but I can look back at them if I need to remember the different stages process. I don't carry it with me when I'm out and about, I just carry it with me when I'm working. It's not a notebook that I go around writing scraps of conversation in. I do file those things in my head. But notebooks are more to do with the shaping and forming of material and so I can jot a lot of my research in it.



PB: I've got about three notebooks on the go, and they're completely random. I might write down the emotional experience of an argument I've just had, or it might just be writing down that anecdote. My experience of keeping a notebook is to wait three to six months before you use anything. After six months you can tell the wheat from the chaff. Everything seems brilliant in the moment - like ideas you have when you're drunk, you should wait till you sober up to see if they're any good.

Once you start writing things down regularly, you can begin to shape it in the way that you want. You can choose whether to write about your situation or characters in a play, a short story, a novel or a poem. Some people find one medium more natural than any other.

PB: I never realised that people like me were allowed to write for television. I tried novels, I tried plays, but it never occurred to me to try writing in the medium that I knew best until I was thirty-one. I'd been writing radio plays and getting them rejected, novels and poetry and getting them rejected. I just didn't see what was in front of me. It seems the most unlikely thing that you would get something on the telly. It took somebody else to spot that in my writing.

I was doing an MA in creative writing as a novelist, and by Christmas I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. I would have to come off the course and go back to teaching with a massive debt. And a fellow student said, 'Your novels read like scripts. You don't like describing things and you can't wait to get to the dialogue.' There was a scriptwriting component taught by Bill Gallagher, so I went on to that and it was like coming home. I like contemporary fiction, but I can't write it. It's taken me ten years of rejection slips and somebody else's intervention to realise that.




Final Word

Still staring at that blank screen or piece of paper? What do you do?

PB: Write anything at all. Because it can be the biggest pile of crap in the world, but then you'll begin to know why it's the biggest pile of crap in the world. If you've got nothing on the page, you've got nothing to fix. Just write anything at all. Start with a monologue from the point of view of the oldest relative in your family - or anything!



OH: Find a space or a style that's physically comfortable for you. If you're used to writing on a keyboard, then write on a keyboard. If you like to write long-hand, then buy yourself a really nice fountain pen and nice notebook, so that the act of your hand on the page is a pleasure. I think if you're not physically comfortable with what you're doing, then it's not mentally comfortable.



PB: And the other thing is don't have a kettle close by. Don't make tea. Without that temptation, I would have written twice as much. Lose the kettle and write something down.




Further Reading



Books
Books on finding inspiration range from new age waffling to the commercial write-by-numbers manuals and everything in between. Opinions on what is good are very subjective, but here are some books you might find helpful.

Bradbury, Ray - Zen in the Art of Writing
Classic tome on finding inspiration for your writing from the science fiction master.

Cameron, Julia - The Artist's Way
A twelve week programme of opening your mind up to creativity. Good advice on working through creative blocks.

Stanek, Lou Willet - Story Starters: How to Jump-start Your Imagination, Get Your Creative Juices Flowing, and Start Writing Your Story or Novel
Writing exercises providing lots of story ideas and situations with which to practise writing.

Found other books more useful? Discuss them at the Round Table.

Useful Links
BBCi Books - http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/
Filled with interviews with top authors about how they find their way to a story.

BBCi History - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/
Sift through the annals of history for ideas.

Half-bakery.com - http://www.halfbakery.com/
Site devoted to new (and often half-baked) ideas contributed by the public.

More on Writing
Got inspired? Try out Develop Your Voice to find out how to choose the right tone and style for you. Got a story to tell, but not sure how to do it? Try out Anatomy of a Story to get the scoop on what makes a good tale.

You can write and edit your work online at My Portfolio. Don't forget to submit your works-in-progress to a Review Circle for maximum feedback.

Find out more on how Olivia Hetreed, Peter Bowker and the other Canterbury Tales writers adapted their stories here.

Good Luck!



Tip: Earwigging
Go somewhere you can eavesdrop on people without getting arrested. Supermarket queues are a good bet. Try to pick up soundbites to put in your notebook. When you read these back you will be faced with 'real' speech. Is it interesting, dramatic, banal? How many exchanges start with: 'How are you?/Fine, how are you?' How often do you see that written as fiction dialogue? Writers dramatise speech by cutting through to the heart of the action: 'I'm far from fine. We just got the neighbour from hell. I think he's going to kill me.' (There's a story in this exchange!) (UOE)

Tip: Getting Started
Don't expect to get it absolutely right in your first draft. Concentrate at first on getting your idea down as simply and clearly as possible. Then build it up and pull bits off as you need. Be open to the possibility that it may not be about what your originally thought, or that characters may be different people to what you thought at the beginning. (LU)

Tip: No limits
Don't feel limited by the old adage about always writing from personal experience. Whether you write historical fiction, science fiction or stories in a contemporary setting, human emotion is basically the same and that is what interests readers. (UEA)

Tip: Collecting
Use your notebook or similar to record notes on any of the following: Newspapers and magazines (particularly tabloids and local newspapers) - pay particular attention to human interest stories, obituaries, exclusives, news in brief, lonely hearts and classifieds. Radio programmes Television documentaries Myths, legends and folk tales History Family stories Local gossip Memory and experience Photographs Music or song lyrics (UEA)

Tip: Collecting II
The fact that you've noticed things that wind up in your notebook makes them important, even if the reason for their importance is not immediately apparent. Your unconscious mind has flagged them up, and you would be well-advised to leave it to work on the connections. It can take days or years. Writers have different storage and retrieval methods - such as indexed card files or even shoeboxes - but why not invest in a few loose-leaf folders and a pack of A4 plastic pockets? You can keep separate folders for different projects - plus a general folder, for things that don't yet fit anywhere else! File, sort and resort the material to your heart's content. (OU)

Exercise: Dreams
Keep a dream diary for a week, recording any memorable incidents or images, and feeling free to elaborate from the starting point of a dream. (UEA)


Exercise: What if?
Lots of stories and ideas start with, 'what would happen if??' What if the Germans had won the Second World War? (Fatherland) ;what if a ship's captain was obsessed by a huge white whale? (Moby Dick). The 'What If?' start to a story is a stone thrown into the pool of your imagination. Watch the ripples and see where they go. Some will work, some won't. Make a list of interesting 'what ifs?' Pick one and write the first page of a story using the 'what if?' as the central idea. Make a list of the possible consequences of the situation. (LU)


Exercise: Personal Experience
One of the easiest ways to begin writing is to write about personal experience. Choose a memorable event from your life (something you did wrong as a child, your first date, an argument with someone, etc.) and write it down. Try to be specific and consider the realisation as a result of this event (did it change the way you viewed someone/something?). Leave it alone for a few days and then rewrite it from someone else's point of view - preferably someone completely different to you (opposite gender, much older/younger, etc). (UEA)


Exercise: Clip and Go
Just for practise, try these strategies which use other works for inspiration. Take the first lines of poems or novels and write on. Or take last lines and write towards that last line. Or find a word at random from a book. Write for ten minutes about that word, without censoring or controlling your thoughts. Write faster as the minutes pass. After ten minutes, stop and read back your scrawl. Identify themes or ideas you might develop into crafted work. (UEA)


Credit: Open University
Thanks to David Stephenson, Derek McTravers, Anne Stevens and Derek Sheills for these tips and exercises. For more information on OU courses: (OU)


Credit: University of East Anglia
Thanks to Lisa Selvidge and the continuing education department for these tips and exercises. For more information on UEA continuing education courses: (UEA)


Credit: University of Exeter
Thanks to Anne Morgellyn for these tips. For more information on UOE lifelong learning courses: (UOE)


Credit: Lancaster University
Thanks to Hilary Thomas and the Department for Continuing Education for these tips and exercises. For more information on LU continuing education courses: LU