Something Wicked this way Comes

Genesis 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
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Something Wicked this way Comes...

Just so you know, I write spiritual stuff. I embrace the light and everything that means to you and me. I try my darnedest to walk in an upright manner sharing and giving love where it might lack. But as for my writing, now that’s a totally different story. (Pardon the pun.)

Most of the time when I’m writing a short story, I start off with my heroine as this upstanding epitome of the highest perfection, then as I’m sitting there writing, something takes over my character and things start to happen. It is as if she has been overcome by the dark force and then my story heads down a path of unknown.

A discussion began in the f2k class when a woman asked if she was the only one where her ‘people’ seem to take charge and the story basically writes itself or is written by these people (aka characters.) Many of us writers piped in to assure her that not only do our characters claim full reign but that what we had intended on the story being took a turn somewhere along the line and we came up with something utterly different than what we proposed the story line to be about.

I’m wondering if this ghost that takes over is our conscious turning off the internal editor. You see, we all write with the internal editor on. We backtrack every paragraph, we spellcheck a page, we’re constantly checking for consistencies and inconsistencies. With that mind, remember, you lose something along the way. You’re so worried about everything being right, you miss the point of where you went wrong.

As writers we can not try so hard that we lose sight of the story. I’m telling you, when you try to write a story, when you try to get it perfect, when you keep trying so hard to make everything right, it is at this point that you’ve lost the basis of your story. You’ve allowed the characters to quiet down and hide in the shadows. You have essentially put tape over their mouth’s and you, the writer creator of the work, has taken over to make your work perfect.

Guess what? Nobody is perfect! I bet that was enlightening wasn’t it? You need to put tape over your brain! ha ha. Turn the internal editor off. Don’t tell me, but, but, but it is too hard. Tell me, okay I will and see what kind of story you write. You’re characters will come out of the shadows, they will become people who are shaped by your fingers but their conscious. They will carry an air of mystery with them as good verses evil challenge each other to a duel. The characters will become people, no longer cardboard cut-outs. Living breathing entities.

In essence, something wicked this way comes.