Before You Begin Writing

Paul Tomlinson

Note: This is a chapter from Character Creation that was deleted from the final book.

Don’t Write What You Know

What type of story do you want to write? Romance? Fantasy? Science Fiction? Mystery? Western?
Comedy? ‘Mainstream?’ We’re talking about categories here – the different sections labelled on
the shelves of the bookshop or video store. Which set of shelves do you see your book or movie
sitting on?
It might seem we’re getting ahead of ourselves here since we don’t have a single word down
on paper yet, but deciding on the genre of your story – or deciding to write a ‘mainstream’ rather
than a genre story – needs to be done up front because (a) it’ll help when you come to try and sell
it; and (b) the accepted conventions of a particular genre will affect how you plot your novel or
screenplay.

There are no rules when it comes to writing fiction. Here’s the first one:

Write the kind of story you enjoy reading.

You are going to spend six months, a year, maybe longer working on this thing: if you choose an
idea or a genre that you don’t really enjoy, but you choose it because you think it will sell, well,
chances are you’ll never finish it. And even if you do, editors and readers will pick up on the fact
that you’re faking it.

Here is the second of the non-existent rules:

To sell what you write, you need to write with passion, and you can only be passionate about
something you care about.

Writing instructors down the years have been telling us to ‘write what you know.’ This is wrong,
unsound advice. What they should have been telling us is ‘write what you enjoy,’ ‘write what you
care about,’ and ‘write what you feel.’ In fact, as we’ve already pointed out, we shouldn’t be writing
about things that we already know, we should be writing about things we don’t know, things we
want to find out about; aspects of life we want to try and understand. One of the things which
attracts readers to stories is that they want to share your attempt to explore some aspect of the
human condition.
So early on you ought to pick a genre you want to write in. Or to decide that you don’t want
to write in a genre at all.
A word here about ‘formula’ fiction before we move on. Some people think that genre fiction
– romance, detective mystery, western, etc. – is somehow second rate, written to a standard
formula, with cardboard characters and clichéd situations: these people are either snobs or
they’re ignorant. There are some fine works of ‘literature’ in every genre, and there are many
‘mainstream’ novels with clichéd plots and characters, or which are just plain dull. So if you enjoy
genre fiction, write it: don’t ‘go mainstream’ simply because you think it is somehow better, more
worthwhile. Write what you enjoy.
Of course, if ‘mainstream’ really is the way you want to go, the ‘formulas’ in this book can be
applied in just the same way: a decent plot and good characters are put together the same way
no matter what kind of book you’re writing. And if you want to write for the snob audience, you
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

don’t have to let them know that you used these techniques: if we don’t tell them, they’ll never
know…

What Do You Want to Write?

Okay, so you might know by now which genre you want to tackle – you can figure this out by
looking at your bookshelves or DVD collection, or by listing your ten favourite movies or novels,
but maybe you aren’t really sure what you’re passionate about yet, what you care about. You’re
not really big on ‘issues,’ you’ve never joined a protest march or signed a petition, you’re not a
member of a social minority, you’ve never been a victim – so what have you got to write about?
You might even feel that you’re not old enough yet to have experiences to draw on, you haven’t
yet had much of a ‘life.’ Why should anyone want to read what you, of all people, write?
You are supposed to have a burning ambition to be a writer. In fact, you are not supposed to
be able to stop the flow of words from your pen. You are meant to be obsessed. A victim of creative
diarrhoea.
But you’re not. You’re constipated. Frustrated. Not sure whether this is what you want to
do or not. You’re afraid people will laugh at you. You just have this vague feeling that you might
like to write something – but you’re not sure what. Maybe you have a notebook filled with bits
and pieces, fragments, ideas. Or maybe you have an unfinished novel tucked away in your sock
drawer.
Or perhaps you’ve completed several pieces, even had one or two published, but you feel
they’re derivative and you somehow haven’t quite found your own unique ‘voice’ yet.
Or maybe you’ve got everything ready: you’ve got the notebooks and pens, the 3 x 5” index
cards, the word processor, and a shelf full of books on how to plot, create characters, and write
sparkling dialogue, and all you’re waiting for now is for inspiration to strike.
If any of those sound familiar, you’re not alone. I’ve been all of those people at some point,
and many other writers have too. One of the most reassuring and inspirational things I read as
a beginning writer was in Lawrence Block’s book Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print. 1

During the first of my several vexingly undistinguished years as a college student, a cartoon hung
for months on the English Department bulletin board … It showed a sullen eight-year-old boy
staring down an earnest school principal. “It’s not enough to be a genius, Arnold,” the man was
saying. “You have to be a genius at something.”
I recall identifying very strongly with Arnold. I had known several years before college that I
wanted to be a writer. But it seemed it wasn’t enough merely to be a writer.
You had to be a writer of something.

Here was one of my favourite writers, creator of the Bernie Rhodenbarr ‘Burglar’ series and an
author with several novels turned into movies, admitting to feeling just the way I had. So we’re
in good company.

Where do we go from here? We need to prime our ideas pump, to find our muse, our inspiration…
Almost every ‘how to write’ book gives the same tired old advice: ideas come from your own
life; from magazine articles; from history books; from an overheard conversation; from newspaper
headlines… blah, blah, bleergh! Okay, it might happen, but what I think these people should
really be saying is that ideas come from anywhere, and there’s hundreds of them coming at you
from all directions every day. And they don’t tell you that what you really need to do is become
receptive to ideas, to recognise them when they appear; and most of them don’t even tell you how
to evaluate an idea to see whether its any good or not, and – more importantly – if it is a good

1 Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print, Lawrence Block. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1979. (pg. 27)
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

idea, is the idea right for you? Books on screenwriting tend to be better on this than ‘how to’ books
for novelists.
What most of these books also fail to tell you is that often the best way to get an idea for a
plot is to steal it: more on this later, but first let’s concentrate on this nebulous concept of ‘ideas.’
We’ll begin with a few fundamental questions so that we can get to a point where you have a
grasp of what your areas of interest are, and of what types of idea are most likely to spark your
imagination. We’ll look at developing ideas into stories in the next chapter, but for now we’ll
concentrate on ‘becoming receptive to ideas.’

First up, you need to tell yourself that you are going to write. This is not the same thing as saying
that you are going to be a writer – you’re not a writer until people begin to read what you’ve
written: write first, become a writer later.
Writing is not that difficult: if you can write a letter (remember them?) or an e-mail of more
than a few lines, you’re well on your way to having what it takes. The difficult part is learning
what to write and how to structure it in the best possible way. And you do have to learn this.
Most writers are self-taught, and they learn by trial and error, but writing is a skill, a craft that
has to be learned and practised like woodworking, dressmaking or painting.
The actual writing part of the process isn’t that difficult, providing you’ve mastered the
basics of English grammar – by which I don’t mean all that dull stuff you had to memorise at
school, only that you know how to write in paragraphs; how to use full-stops, commas and
question marks; and how to write dialogue so it looks the same way it does in books. Check out
the appendices which cover the format for dialogue in novels, and also list a couple of items for
your bookshelf.
Getting the words down on paper isn’t the hard part, the hard part is the planning, the pre-
writing part. Writer’s block is usually caused by not having done enough pre-writing preparation.
The more planning you do, the easier the actual writing becomes. Get the preparation right, and
you should never be stuck waiting for inspiration to strike, and you should never end up tossing
a manuscript aside because you’ve written yourself into a corner and don’t know what to write
next.
This book is all about getting the planning right: there are lots of practical tips and tricks –
‘formulas’ if you like – for getting all the pre-writing stuff done. So let’s look at some tips and
techniques for finding ideas for stories, and picking the ideas that you feel passionately about…

Finding the Writer Within?

As we’ll find out later, there’s no such thing as an original plot. There is only a limited number
of basic plots and they’ve all been used over and over for thousands of years. In fact, there is
really only one plot with two possible endings, and everything else is just a variation on that
plot. No one is expecting you to come up with an original plot, so stop worrying about it.
What you bring to a story that is fresh and original (and saleable) isn’t a dazzling new plot,
it is … you. There is nobody quite like you. Nobody sees the world in quite the same way you do.
Nobody’s life has been exactly like yours. You are unique. Even if you have an identical twin, you
will have had experiences which your look-alike sibling did not. That is what you bring to a story
– subjectivity. What you think, what you feel. What you believe is right, important, true…
Readers want to know how you see the world so that they can compare it with their view
and see where the two are similar. Reading and writing fiction is a way of sharing your attempts
to make sense of what is, in fact, a very complex world. Your ideas are just as valid as anyone
else’s: there are no right answers.
Playwright and Professor of Theatre Louis E. Catron believes that writers need to identify
what is important to them before they begin writing. In his Elements of Playwriting, he says that
becoming a playwright “starts with developing a keen insight into your personal beliefs,
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

attitudes, and standards. These provide the subjects and themes for your plays. You also examine
your beliefs about human behaviour, deciding what you think are admirable or disreputable
traits. These concepts lead you to create characters you’ll believe in and care about. Those two
steps give your plays special meaning and make them original works.”2
Catron believes that a ‘journey of self-discovery’ is necessary before you begin writing, and
that you should spend as much time as necessary to identify your deepest convictions, beliefs,
and standards, to come up with a personal credo, because it is better to ‘write what you believe’
than to follow the old advice to ‘write what you know.’
If you follow Catron’s advice, the exercise – if done properly – “may take several weeks and
result in several dozen pages, but the investment in time and effort will be repaid: this credo is
a rich resource which can be used to create effective characters and situations in your stories.”
Dorothea Brande offers similar advice: “If you can discover what you are like, if you can
discover what you truly believe about the major matters of life, you will be able to write a story
which is honest and original and unique. But those are large ‘ifs,’ and it takes hard digging to get
to the roots of one’s own convictions.” 3 She also offers a number of questions to help writers
explore their own beliefs, including: Do you believe in God? Do you believe in free will or are you
a determinist? And, Do you consider romantic love a delusion and a snare?
You have probably never really thought about what you feel is right, important, or true –
never written down what it is you really believe or care about: there’s no reason why you should
have… The exercise at the end of this chapter – based in part on Louis E. Catron’s methods – is
designed to help you learn something about yourself – to find out what is important to you; what
excites you; and what experiences you have had that have shaped your unique view of the world.
We’ll return to the second of Catron’s areas of discovery – human traits, admirable and
disreputable – in the chapter on creating characters.
You might be wondering what we’re aiming for here, particularly if you’re planning to write
a ‘formula’ detective story or romance, but bear with me: getting to know who you are and what
values are important to you will help you come up with stories that editors and readers will
recognise as having ‘emotional truth.’ We’re going to try and uncover the real you – and hopefully
you’ll discover that you know, feel, and have experienced a lot more than you thought you did.
I don’t really like ‘exercises’ in how to write books, I usually skip them, and any I include
here are optional: use them if you want to, or if you’re using this book in a ‘how to write’ class.

But this next ‘exercise’ is one you must do if you want to progress to the next stage. Of all the
secrets in this book, this one is probably the most important. Please take some time to work
through it, take it seriously, and do it properly. Write down the things you come up with, refine
them and rewrite them. Put what you have written aside, and think about the exercise during
the next week or two, at times when you’re feeling relaxed. Come back to what you have written
after a week or so, add to it, refine it some more.
And once you have finished, you will have written something, something important that
should give direction to everything you write in the coming weeks and months.
Trust me, it is worth a try. You might surprise yourself.

2 The Elements of Playwriting, Louis E. Catron. New York: Macmillan, 1993. (pg.3)
3 Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande. London: Papermac, 1983. (pg.123) (Originally published 1934)
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

Exercise One
This is not some form of psychological test where you add up your score at the end to find out
whether you have some kind of personality disorder or are compatible with dark-haired
Aquarians with tattoos. Rather it is a series of unconnected questions designed to encourage you
to think about things on an emotional level. There are no right or wrong answers, and you don’t
have to share any of this with anyone else: its purpose is to give you some insight into your own
thinking, and maybe to give you some material which you can take forward into your writing in
the future.
You probably won’t want to tackle all of the questions at a single sitting: in fact, you would
probably be better answering them over a period of several days, adding to your answers to
previous questions before starting on new ones. Be honest in your answers – the only person you
would be fibbing to is yourself. And if there is a question that you can’t answer, or don’t want to
answer, then write down why you can’t or won’t answer it instead: your reason will probably give
you more insight than answering the original question.

1. What makes you angry? Make a list, and add to it when things occur to you. People
who drop litter, people who hog the fast lane? Racism, prejudice, poverty, homelessness…
think political issues, think family, whatever.
When you are done, look through the list you have made: there should be a dozen or
more items if you have been honest with yourself, ranging from ‘important’ social issues,
through to things your partner or your little brother do that drive you nuts. Can you see
any pattern in the items listed? Are there any common themes?
My own list boiled down to two things: injustice and selfishness. I hate to see people
treated unfairly, and I hate to see people doing things without any thought of the
consequences for others. Both of these came out of the social issues I’d listed, but on a
more personal level, they came from the behaviour of a particularly unpleasant boss I
had in my first job after college.

2. Make a list of your favourite movies (or television shows) and a list of your
favourite books. Try to come up with at least six of each, and include things you really
do like, as opposed to things you feel you ought to like! For each of the items on the lists,
jot down what it is that appeals to you about the story, whether it is a character, a setting,
or the way the plot works out, or the humour. Again, look for a pattern. Can you tell from
these lists what genre you should probably be writing in?
I ended up with about twenty movies and a dozen books. I seem to like books where
the underdog triumphs; where an individual takes on a big organisation and wins. Many
of my favourites have thieves and conmen as their heroes. I like stories which are big on
suspense and macabre humour – both Hitchcock and Stephen King score highly. Robots
and artificial intelligence also feature. What these things tell you about me as a person I
hate to think, but who cares? I learned something useful about the way my mind works.

3. Do you have a secret? Something you’d never reveal to another soul? Was it something
you did? Something that happened to you? Was it something that had a profound effect
on your life? Has it affected the way you view the world?
You don’t get to know my answer to this one: it’s a secret, remember?

4. What scares you? What’s the worst thing you can possibly imagine happening to you?
Don’t go for the obvious ones like death or cancer.
My examples? Losing my sight or the use of my hands. Running over a child in my car.
Being publicly humiliated. Insanity.
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

5. What do you like least about yourself? What would you change if you could? Think
about physical aspects – your face, your body – but also about character traits: Are you
selfish? Prone to depression? Do you eat too much?

6. Who do you wish you could be? A movie star for their looks? A historical figure for their
achievements? Does this relate in any way to your answer for (5) above?

7. Do you have any regrets? Things you wish you hadn’t done? Things you wish you had?
If there was one thing that you could go back and change, what would it be? Why? How
do you think your life would be different if you could do this?

8. When was the last time you felt jealous of someone? Why?

9. What is your best physical feature?

10. What are your most admirable character traits? Your loyalty, or honesty, or…?

11. When was the last time you wanted to physically harm someone? Why?

12. Have you ever thought about ending your life? When and why? How did you get over
this feeling?

13. When was the last time you were deliberately cruel to someone?

14. When was the last time you lied to someone? Why did you feel you had to lie? Was it
a polite ‘white lie’ – You look lovely in that dress, and no it doesn’t look frumpy! – or a
selfish lie?

15. Have you ever felt that you were being victimised – either by a bully or in some
other circumstances? If so, what was the situation, and what did you do about it? What
did you wish you could have done?

16. Have you ever thought about running away and starting a new life somewhere
else? If so, what made you feel this way? If you could start your life over somewhere else,
what would you like your new life to be? Where would you go? What kind of job would you
do? What name would you choose? How would you alter your appearance?

17. Look at the clothes in your wardrobe: Are there any clothes there that you bought
but will never wear? If so, why did you buy them? And why do you think you won’t wear
them?

18. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you fulfil
this childhood ambition? If not, why not?

19. What other unfulfilled ambitions do you have? Why do they remain unfulfilled?

20. Do you have any secret ambitions? Things you would like to do or places you would
like to go?

21. What is the kinkiest sex you have ever had or imagined yourself having?
 © Paul Tomlinson 2018 www.paultomlinson.org

22. When was the last time you cried? What made you cry? A movie? An argument at
home? A news story?

23. When was the last time you lost your temper? What made you lose it? Who else was
there? How did the situation develop, and what happened afterwards?

24. When was the last time you had to apologise for something you’d done? What had
you done? Did you choose to apologise, or were you made to? How did it feel to be in front
of someone making an apology?

25. When was the last time you made a mistake? What was it? Did you admit to it? Did
you try to hide it? Or did you try to blame someone else?

26. What television show makes you laugh most regularly? Is there a certain style of
humour that you prefer? Or a particular comedian or writer?

Once you have completed the above exercise, put your notes aside and forget about them for a
while. After a few days, take the notes out and read through them. See if you can pick out the
answers to the following questions: write the answers on a new sheet of paper.

a. From your answers, can you see what kind of stories you might most enjoy
writing? Look particularly at your answers to questions 2 and 26.

b. From your answers, can you identify any strong beliefs that you hold? Or any
issues which you feel deeply about? Look particularly at your answers to questions
1, 11, 22 and 23.

c. From your answers, can you identify any experiences which have had a
profound effect on your life and/or which have deeply affected you on an
emotional level? Look particularly at your answers to questions 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 16
and 19.

d. From your answers, look for the answer to the following question: Are you
comfortable with the kind of person you are and the kind of life that you
have? Look particularly at your answers to questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18,
19, 20, 22 and 25.

Looking at what you have written under the headings (a) to (d), have you discovered anything
about yourself which you didn’t know, or didn’t want to admit, before doing the exercise?
Have any of your important experiences, strong emotions, or deeply held beliefs become
clearer to you as a result of doing this exercise?
Have you discovered that there is a great deal of complex and unresolved stuff going on in
your head? That there are many things about your life and your emotional responses to it that
you’ve never really explored, and which you’d like to learn more about? If so, you’ve just taken
an important step towards being a better writer.
Oh, and if doing the above exercise has made you want to go off and do something else with
your life rather than being a writer, then that’s a good outcome too.
One final note before we move on: when it comes to creating characters and ‘getting inside
their heads,’ you might want to come back to this exercise and answer the questions again from
the point of view of the character.
Now that we’ve stirred up all that murk from your subconscious, we probably out to move
on to using it to come up with and evaluate ideas for stories…