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Although the Demontange Saga is fiction, St. Lucia is a real place with a wonderful story of its own. We are psychotherapists with an intimate knowledge of psychological processes and motivations. The columns in this section provide insight into the settings, culture and characters in our works as well as perceptions about the writing process... We want to share this material and our perceptions with other authors but believe that many of our readers will find these columns of interest as well.
Recently we took back all our rights to A Dream Across Time and are now self publishing the Demontagne Saga. It is very gratifying to have the entire publishing process under our control.
If you would like to see what we have been up to and to see some of what we are dealing with as we move to self publish, go to our blog at http://letmedigress.blogspot.com. We want it to be interactive so join in. The columns from the Author to Author section will also appear in the blog.
At the end of the latest column, you'll find clicks for past columns.
Column 11
Goal, Motivation, Conflict and Creativity
Early on we heard that it was crucial in the construction of a novel to be clear about and pay attention to goal, motivation and conflict. Without these components one could not conceivably write a workable and plausible story. Given who we are (obsessive, compulsive, anal - you fill in the adjective), we needed to do some exploration before we were able to refine the story and the elements in A Dream Across Time.
That meant when Roger worked out the details for an outline we thought we needed to clearly define goal, motivation and conflict so we could stay on a stable track. But something interesting happened. The story and creativity dried up when we tried to refine it along those specific lines.
Obviously something was wrong. We went back to look at the fundamental assumptions which were driving our story. Jamie was the obvious focus because she was so central. We determined that Jamie had a primary goal as A Dream Across Time began. She wanted a good marital relationship, a home, and children some day. Absolutely mindboggling! How unique! What motivated her in these unique goals? The need for love, security and fulfillment. Amazing. It seems we all shared those needs. It appeared to us there was nothing of interest so far.
We turned to conflict. Aha! Paydirt! Her marriage was falling apart. Should Jamie as a married woman violate her values and pursue a man who was engaged to someone else? Should she take the "safe" path and run back to the States? Those were at least two of the conflicts she faced. If you've read A Dream Across Time you can name several others.
Rescue came from an unlikely source. Stephen King. (Mala says she stopped reading his books after Salem's Lot as she had to sleep with the lights on which probably factored into the end of her first marriage.) In On Writing King shared not just his history but his thoughts about writing. We highly recommend it. We didn't realize that he wrote all that scary stuff while stoned - he wasn't recommending that budding writers follow that route but his story was fascinating.
What King had to share about writing was important.
He said, "Write the book you need to write." Sage advice in our estimation. You can't write something that is just not in you and if you try to follow fads it probably isn't going to work. If the current craze is women with zits you should only write that story if you're passionate about that topic. Also by the time you have your book written the craze will have moved on to women who date men with flat feet and you will be left flat footed yourself. But there was something else King said that we found even more fascinating. He talked about writing being a matter of "unearthing the fossil". That perception hit us right between the eyes. That is exactly what it has felt like to us. We constantly have the feeling that we know in a general sense where the story is all going but despite our detailed outline we keep unearthing parts of the story we didn't know were there. Minor elements included in A Dream Across Time turned out to be important in the second book (working title A Circle of Dreams). There were times when it was almost creepy. How did we know to do that? We didn't. We think it is part of the intuitive process of writing, the fossil is buried and the writing process unearths it. In fact, as we work our way through the saga, it seems that the saga has chosen us, not the other way around.
What does our experience and Stephen King's advice have to do with goal, motivation and conflict? If you are writing the book you need to write and are unearthing the fossil, then it is not going to do much good to try to develop a book using a formula. For most of us the process is intuitive and we will have all the key elements in the story as the fossil is revealed. Most elements of a good story can be found in mythology which is part of the reason writing often feels like an archeological dig.
In the end the wonder of a story is in the art of telling. Boy meets girl is one of the most wonderful experiences of life and the story can be told in countless ways. How it is told is what engages us and enriches our lives.
Past Columns
Column 1 - St. Lucia
Column 2 - Jamie Elliott
Column 3 - Andre Demontagne
Column 4 - Paul and Danielle
Column 5 - Marcus Deroche
Column 6 - Bertille Deroche
Column 7 - What It's Like Living in the Tropics, Part 1
Column 8 - What It's Like Living in the Tropics, Part 2
Column 9 - Taylor, Clarisse and Barbara
Column 10 - How Does Our Writing Partnership Work?
Column 11 - Goal, Motivation, Conflict and Creativity
Column 12 - Family Life is a Saga
Column 13 - Toward A Circle of Dreams; I don't believe in ghosts.
Column 14 - A Book Walked in the Door
Column 15 - Every Woman Knows This Story
Column 16 - The Bridge
Column 17 - Why the Mystical Element in A Dream Across Time?
Column 18 - Gaia and myth in the Demontagne Saga
Column 19 - Carl Jung, Mythology and the Demontagne Saga
Column 20 - Carl Jung's Concepts in the Demontagne Saga
Column 21 - Martinique
Column 22 – Janine-Yvette Demontange (Yvie)
Column 23 – Anne-Clarisse Demontagne (Lissa)
Column 24 - Philippe Diamant Demontagne (Philippe)
Copyright© 1987-2006 Annie Rogers LLC dba Bivens and Jensen Publishing. All rights reserved |
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