Steve Bartholomew
My publisher, e-Press Online, has asked me to do a short piece on the craft of writing, and to post it on my web site. I can not tell anyone else how to write, I can only tell how I write.
Now and then, someone asks me how I handle "writer's block." My answer is always the same: There's no such thing.* How could anyone possibly run out of ideas? My third novel, "Gold," demanded to be written. The original idea came from a book I picked up for free at a yard sale. The book was "Sea Routes to the Gold Fields," by Oscar Lewis, published by Knopf, copyright 1949. It was a collection of stories by and about argonauts of the California gold rush, and the ships they rode in. Like all good books, it made me want to learn more. I began to look up information about 19th Century steam engines and ship wrecks, and the people involved. In 1848, the United States was far from wealthy, and far from becoming a world power. There was even some doubt we would survive as a nation, a doubt that was not to be resolved until the Civil War.
A promise of sudden wealth and gold in California was more than merely a chance of economic advancement. It was an opportunity for people on the edge of survival to attain a new and different life. The promise was held out not only to Americans in the east, but to desperate people all over the globe. It brought thousands of English-speaking men and women to the newly acquired territory. It also brought people with dozens of other languages and cultures. Whatever the outcome, history would be different from what it had been.
Therefore, my own small retelling of the story took an obvious course: it was the story of desperate people trying for something better than what they had known. Marcus, the leading character, has a gambling problem. He risks all with a final, all-or-nothing throw of the dice. Many others did the same, and thus we are what we have become.
But this was supposed to be an essay on writing, not about the gold rush. My purpose is to suggest where ideas come from. Long ago, when I was first taking creative writing classes, I used to wonder how writers developed a plot. I have since come to see there are only two plots--in the first, a hero/heroine struggles against obstacles, is nearly defeated, and finally succeeds. This is drama. In the second, the hero/heroine struggles against obstacles, nearly succeeds, but then loses. This is tragedy. A comedy can use either plot. So, in writing, I ask who the hero is, what he/she wants to do, and what are the obstacles? The rest follows. I sit down at the keyboard, and begin throwing dice.
*There is, however, such a thing as procrastination, which is a whole other problem.
