My life is pretty hectic at the moment. I’m doing a journalism program and contemplating a career in the field. It’s daunting, because I feel like it might be a really stressful career, but man, can you think of a better career to grow as a writer in?

On the other hand, in response to Randy’s post: I agree–you can certainly pull off writing awesome fiction if your life is dull. There are many ways to draw inspiration from the world. I like the example of the priest who writes about darker issues, because it makes sense in a funny way: who better to speak know about all the morally perverse things in life other than the one who knows how to live morally proper?

Inspiration can come from more places than your social life, but it does help to have interesting social experiences. If your life is a little boring, I’d recommend trying something new. It’s almost always beneficial to get out of your comfort zone and explore new perspectives, and that’s one of the main reasons I love this site.

But when I read, I want to smell the air of the place, taste the foods of the place, see the sights of the place, hear the music of the language of the place. You get the picture.

So when you are Googling the information you want, be sure to get all the information you need. All those sensory experiences will round your characters and set your scene.

What I wouldn’t give to have had a completely vanilla life. Some the the extraordinary things that happen can be very bitter.

But when I read, I want to smell the air of the place, taste the foods of the place, see the sights of the place, hear the music of the language of the place. You get the picture.

So when you are Googling the information you want, be sure to get all the information you need. All those sensory experiences will round your characters and set your scene.

What I wouldn’t give to have had a completely vanilla life. Some the the extraordinary things that happen can be very bitter.

My life is fairly plain as well, but I find it gives me ample time to improve my writing (using much of Randy’s advice) and let my imagination wander.

Sounds like you may have a similar problem I tend to have - you are going too deep and trying to build characters based on psychology theory.

Sure, understanding the deeper psychological reasons for behaviors or different personality types can be helpful, but it’s 100 times more helpful to read personal accounts directly from other people. In many areas of my writing, I have a tendency to try and understand the deeper theory in order to generate believable traits & facts. However, I can find countless direct examples of believable traits & facts MUCH faster than trying to generate them from theories.

For example, for my PhD, I am studying a lot of neuroscience and psychology, and one aspect I have been looking into is autism. I have been reading journal article after journal article on all of the differences neurologically and in cognitive abilities and so on. However, then I found a blog written by someone with autism. The first 20 minutes reading that blog taught me more about what it was like for an autistic person than spending the past year reading the latest research.

It’s sort of like trying to understand theoretical physics and structural engineering so that you can describe a plane crash. It is FAR easier (and more likely to be realistic) to cut out the middle man of theory and just research actual plane crashes. You want corporate intrigue, you would just read through the many examples in the news rather than going out and getting an MBA and reading book after book of business ethics, right?

So for realistic characters very different from yourself, just read personal writing by people different from yourself. You can learn far more far faster that way than by reading all sorts of psychology books and trying to build characters based on psych theories. Thankfully, in this day and age, there is certainly no shortage of people talking about themselves.

James Patterson’s insane villains slaughter victims mercilessly while his hero negotiates calmly with the villain, then takes care of his ten sick kids, and makes a perfectly toasted, buttered bagel for his grandfather, the parish priest.

The contrast is so completely over the top but hell, it works.

I often find research a frustrating challenge! Randy mentioned interviewing people online. I’d love to hear some tips on going about finding these sainted people. Also on researching fields and details of “how things really are” in general. I often exhaust my untrained, limited ability to search online for what I need. My fear is that I’ll have to find & study dozens of textbooks or technical (= foreign lingo to me) books and articles for one nugget of solid info. I can’t tell you how many medical articles I’ve read to find out about a genetic disease, most of which I didn’t understand and wished for a cardiac geneticist to translate. I’m afraid that I’ll be halfway to a degree in diesel mechanics or social services before I find what I need and overload my tiny wee brain (& novel) with stuff I don’t need. I would love to see some articles or workshops devoted to teaching the basics on how to research without causing brain damage.

And I couldn’t agree more on getting critiqued. Some of us would send absolutely everything we write to the recycle bin if it weren’t for others who find the work passable (or so I’ve heard). Others send untested work off to an agent or publisher and suffer crippling rejection whiplash.

What I’ve seen:

1. The acknowledgements page in the various novels (often mystery or detective genre, such as Grafton or Paretsky), where they thank the various individuals they’ve run stuff by.

2. Somewhere Stephen King wrote about one of his novels (the one about a space portal in the trunk of an old Chevy that was parked in a police garage). He basically said that he made up the police procedure part of things until he finished the novel. And then he talked to local state police. [I don’t read a lot of King, but that one is very good.]

3. The famous career change guide “What color is your parachute” has a great section on research. Apply that to writing fiction.

Lastly, didn’t Hemingway live the way he did on the theory that doing so was useful or even necessary to be a great writer? Though judging from the end, maybe not a great model for living.

In my writing group we are coming to terms with challenges writing believable/likable/just-plain-interesting characters, right now. You might be interested in one of the cool exercises we’ve tried:

- To start, create a Quick Note list of one character’s attributes (physical, main beliefs/world view, a couple of defining life moments)
- Next, write a scene from that character’s point of view (it could be anything from taking a bath to knifing someone)
- Finally, read this bit out to your writing group, and be prepared to answer questions as if YOU were that character. If you’re lucky you’ll get questions like: “But why did you knife that guy when you had access to your father’s gun collection?”

Then you’ll answer something like: “I just…hated him. I wanted to feel his blood on my hands.” And suddenly you’ll know more about this character than you ever thought possible. The character is given real breath, and the opportunity to come alive - which is great, because it’s much easier to write a character when you “just know” how they’d react in any given situation.

An advantage to knowing your characters well is that you can avoid having the action part of the writing hijack the show (I’m sure you’ve seen movies like this; they abound) because now the characters will actually influence what happens in the story in a real and believable way.

Good luck Tammy! Loved how you phrased your question; you’re a writer for sure.

I have known talented novelists who self-destructed by falling off the straight and narrow. They decided they wanted their drama in their personal lives instead of in their fiction. This did not lead to increased output or professional success.

I’m grateful that I have an interesting past to inform my writing now that I live a much happier, more stable life. But you don’t have to own a colorful past to be a good writer. You just have to be sympathetic and observant, as Randy and the other commenters have said.

For example, writing about someone who has just experienced the death of a loved one. I have yet to lose someone really close to me, so I have never experienced that. However, I just had to put my 12 week old kitten down after he suddenly became paralyzed and could not move. I used the feelings I felt of helplessness, of anger towards a broken world, and aching grief that I could not help a little kitty (yeah, I love cats) to write a scene where my character asks the same things about God.

But Tammy is taking to heart the “write what you know” catch phrase, and she views her life as boring. The unique trait a writer must develop is the ability to see the ordinary and boring in a new and interesting light.

Some of the short stories I’ve written in the past: a pack of cigarettes thrown in the trash because the wife was upset about the husband’s smoking habit, a grown son’s realization of his father’s vulnerability, planting mums in a flower bed, walking the dog through the local neighborhood, a lost pre-engagement ring, etc., etc.

All pretty innocuous, but it is the spin we as writers add to the everyday to bring about a greater truth. It is the everyday, the ordinary that allows the reader to connect with the character. Even Camille’s oil rigger, no matter how different from her own personal life, is somehow–if she really thinks about it, I believe–is somehow rooted in the ordinary–even if it just the emotional backstory of the character.

Anyway, just my two cents worth of IMO.