Writer’s Brain – Whose Brain Is It? by Raina Schell
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Raina Schell as she shares with us “Writer’s Brain – Whose Brain Is It?” Enjoy!
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Sometimes writing is like being in a trance. How else can it be explained? When people have experiences, like taking the kids to the zoo for the first time or falling in love; we remember them. We may even remember what our lover was wearing the first time we laid eyes on him or her. We may remember how they wore their hair, what jewelry they had on and even what they said. The emotions we felt and some of their physical aspects are burned into our memories like a hot poker or more apropos, like a brand.
For me, writing is the opposite of that. Many times I write a scene, a chapter or even an entire novel and then I re-read it and have no recollection of writing it. I noticed this strange phenomenon starting with my first novel a few years back.
Last month I was re-reading a scene I’d written a week or two earlier. As I was reading it I actually gasped and said aloud… “He’s adopted?” The two writers in my writer’s group looked up quizzically because they both knew I was reading my own work. Then they laughed.
I asked, “Do you guys ever forget what you write?”
They responded with, “Sure sometimes, but not key elements like that.”
In my defense even though I’d plotted this book, I’ve allowed myself a lot of leeway. I may know the GMC (goal, motivation, conflict) going into each scene but I may not know how that’s achieved until it happens. So in this particular scene my secondary character, the hero, suddenly announced that he was adopted. This happened close to the end of the second act, not at the beginning of the manuscript. And thus, I had forgotten and was shocked to re-discover the bump. Plus, so much about his character and choices earlier in the book suddenly made sense.
Even more recently I was writing a scene, the one before “the black moment” and during it I got really bored. I don’t have to point out that this is not a good sign. I stopped writing and thought about it for a few days. Suddenly a quick fix came to me but I didn’t think out the details. Instead I sat down to write and the details blossomed beneath my fingertips. I still have no idea how the correct words “came to me”. Maybe that’s called “being in the zone”.
I wonder if there’s a word for someone who is both, a pantser and a plotter. A plantser? A plotster? Regardless, my point is to pay attention to that delicious moment when it feels like you’re reading someone else’s book because you are completely surprised, even though you wrote it. That’s a delicious place to be.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raina Schell is a vagabond. She lives where the tide takes her. The only constant in her life is her trusty laptop. She doesn’t live in a tidy little house. Her dreams aren’t surrounded by a white picket fence. She has no family but spends her free time with a black and white bunny rabbit named Fred.
www.RainaSchell.com
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