Broken Frontier

“… We writers share in the godlike power of the shamans. We not only travel to other worlds, but create them out of space and time. When we write, we truly travel to these worlds of our imagination. Anyone who has tried to write seriously knows this is why we need solitude and concentration. We are actually traveling to another time and place.

“As writers we travel to other worlds not as mere daydreamers, but as shamans with the magic power to bottle up those worlds and bring them back in the form of stories for others to share. Our stories have the power to heal, to make the world new again, to give people metaphors by which they can better understand their own lives …”

So true are Christopher Volger’s words, as written in The Writer’s Journey – Mythic Structure For Storytellers and Screenwriters, that I feel completely justified in ending this edition of The Story Factory after only three paragraphs.

Next: Working With Writers.

Only kidding! Well, I am addressing that topic next week, but I am not letting you off that easily!

Are writers truly mystical conduits able to distill from the mass of time and space the true meaning of life? Is some part of our mind hotwired into an otherworldly supernova exploding with story? Are we mad men and women who, through our insanity, channel deep and meaningful messages?

Writers do travel a solitary path. We walk into infinite shades of light and dark and we impart what we see in our dreams and in our nightmares. We dig deep within our souls to react to the world around us at the same time as trying to alter the shape of the universe. We are no less than people who grapple with concepts, emotions and events that others would prefer to ignore.

“Come on!” I hear you cry. “Do you mean to tell me that the writers on early Image books were grappling with The Meaning Of Life?!” Well, yes, that is what I am telling you. Perhaps they didn’t understand what they were channeling, or perhaps they were not able to effectively bridge the space between the subconscious, the conscious and the computer keyboard … I don’t know.

Writing is hard. You can wake up in the morning after the strangest dream and have the entire plot for a 12 issue maxi series intricately laid out in your mind only to hit the keyboard and type dreck; this happens all the time, even to me! You can see your story starting and Point A and ending at Point B, but even though you can see the finishing line, you may have absolutely no idea how to get there.

You can, as I have, start writing a novel with a certain protagonist around which everything turns, only to find that a side character evolves into being the Hero. You can presume that The Great Tragedy will send a character here, when they end up there instead. Story is and should be a fluid construct because, just as everything in life is susceptible to change, so is everything in story.

Imagine working in a constantly shifting paradigm where each emotion, each action, each event can be a pivotal turning point in your story. Think of what it is like to be the most senior manager at your work, responsible for dozens of people below you and you will realize the responsibility of the writer; you have to manage the fictional lives of dozens of characters.

As you progress your work, you come to see your characters as being real. This is all well and good until you have to KILL them! I have a story in which I have known from the moment that I created it that the protagonist has to die in the final issue. The Hero is not evil, she has not betrayed those closest to her, she has not stolen anything … but part of her arc is death, she cheats it a number of times, but in the end Ol’ Grimm will catch her! Writing this fantastic character and her struggles and trials is made no easier by knowing that no matter how many times she wins, in the end … her number is up!

Killing characters is one thing, dealing with their deaths is the flip side of the coin. Unless the death happens in the last panel of the last issue, then you have to reconcile their passing with their world and all its inhabitants. As writers we are the guardians of our characters from the moment they come to life; even if they enter the story at age 35, in that context it is as if they have just been born. My characters may be real and familiar to me, however my job is to make them tangible to you.

The weight of responsibility has not been lifted from our shoulders yet. If we are responsible for the lives of our characters who we know so well, writers are also challenged by having a duty to many people who we may never meet – our readers. What we put on the page affects us, no doubt, but the story will also have an impact on all those who read it. Plus, that reaction will not be uniform; some people will laugh, some will cry, others will hate your story with a passion, some may be outraged by the morals of your tale or your characters and yet others may hail you as a visionary – but no one person will react in the same way.
So, what is our responsibility? Well, you have to write for your audience; kids’ comics read very differently to those aimed at adults – so they should. Just as superhero comics should read differently from romance or funny books, each should be written to reflect the genre and the audience to which they are targeted.

Writers need to see the world through many different Mind’s Eyes; one month you might be writing a science fiction tale, then a superhero story and then a noir tale. Each have their own nuances. Every writer needs to be able to write across a series of genres, you won’t have much of a career if you are a one trick pony!

Writers are complicated folk. If there is one thing that I want to leave you with in this column it is this; true writers, whether they write soap operas, musicals, espionage novels or superhero comics, don’t bash the keyboard for a paycheck – we do it because we haven’t got a choice.

I fell in love with fantastical story and with writing in my youth. I was very sick as a child and it is my view that comics, stories about dragons, and writing about flying to the moon saved my life. As a result of my illness, I never played much sport, instead I read and I wrote, all the time building my imagination to a pinnacle that I truly wish I could reclaim (school destroyed my imagination – maybe there is another column in that?). Twenty-six years after my last heart operation I still trace my love of writing to that single point in my life.

I also write because of my obsession with legacy – to me, being a published writer ensures that, in some way, I will live on (if only in words) long after I pass from this Earth. Maybe I should show this column to my wife and maybe then she will finally understand. I know why I write and create – do you?

Next: Working With Writers.