Welcome to the Easy Writing Newsletter, a weekly blast of inspiration to help you and your writing – creatively and financially. ============================================ Greetings I hope this message finds you well and full of creative juices. Has it ever occurred to you that everything starts with writing? Every plan, every organisation, every building, every piece of equipment, every movie or new idea starts with somebody sitting down and writing out a few words in a form that can be read and understood by the people who build these things. Every great religion started with a book. Every civilisation reaches its peak through its writing. In effect, everything we create as human beings is made possible by the simple act of writing. Humbling thought, isn't it? Especially when that means the world as we know it has been created by writers - by people just like you. As always, contact me for any reason at: rob@easywaytowrite.com ======================================= Mythologizing your characters. Here’s a trick I learned from Shakespeare. The next time you’re putting a fictional story together, have a good look at your characters and their relationships. What are they? Friends? Work colleagues? Strangers? One of the ways to “raise the stakes” in drama is to “connect” your characters more closely. For example, sisters and brothers fighting is more interesting than strangers doing the same. Husbands and wives trying to kill each other is much more intriguing than psychos stalking unknown victims. Always try to up the ante. Now - see your characters as even bigger! Not just sister and brother but Queen and Consort. Not just husband and wife but God and nymph. Not just employee and boss but janitor and CEO. It’s a theatrical technique as old as Ancient Greece but it still works. In order to make your characters “classic”, you create archetypes that are larger than life. Why have a girl in a dead-end job hating her boss and eventually winning through when you could have a successful businesswoman, with millions to lose, fighting against a multinational conglomerate? You see, readers like the big fight, they like stories where it’s do or die. For instance, you have a story about a schoolteacher fighting to preserve a gym facility. Good, but take it further – mythologize it. Make it a struggle between good and evil – between the oppression of the authorities and freedom of speech. Never be afraid to take on the larger issues in your work. Try to get to the core of human values. Shakespeare did it well. On the surface he wrote about Kings and Queens but beneath, he wrote about all of us. Hamlet is a case in point. On one level it’s a play about a King who’s not ready to take the throne. On another, it’s a thesis on adolescence. Think through the opportunities that life and death issues might offer your writing. Reality is good. But bigger is better – take it from Shakespeare! © 2004 robparnell Author of the Top Ten Internet bestseller: “The Easy Way to Write a Novel” http://www.easywaytowrite.com ======================================= Featured Resource You can now pick up free copies of the 10 ‘Becoming a Better Writer’ lessons off the Net. Use them for your website or post them to friends! Click here: http://www.easywaytowrite.com/freearticles.html =========================================== Inspiration, Which Rock is That Under? Look closely at the following words: LOVE LOVER OVER Think about how incredible it is that just five letters can evoke three very different emotional states in a reader – and how miraculous it is that the combination of just three words can tell a wonderful story. Meditate on the significance of the above statement for any length of time and you’ll never look at words the same way again! =========================================== Thanks for reading, Keep well and happy, Yours ever, Rob@easywaytowrite.com Creating Better Writers http://easywaytowrite.com ========================= Make Money Writing - The Easy Way http://howtobeaninternetguru.com ========================= The Easy Way to Get Published: http://magellanbooks.com ========================= One-Click Safe Un-Subscribe http://secure.MakeBuyingEasy.com/r.cgi?ID=55591 Powered by MakeBuyingEasy.com http://MakeBuyingEasy.com/x.cgi?id=730