Address

PO Box 324 Ashburton VIC 3147

Email

info@dsmchristensen.com

January 2024…

In a previous blog I wrote about feeling bold enough to make a start with writing a story even when a fully formed plot is not apparent. One of the joys I have discovered since I embarked on developing my writing craft in 2018, was the discovery of the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction competition. The prospect of creating a story from a collection of seemingly random words and constraints, with a sparse word count and severe deadline, can be daunting. But the constraints add to the attraction of the competition.

I have found myself drawing on my engineering instincts to create a process to regularly produce submittable works. The competition releases the constraints on a Friday evening. That evening is spent mulling over the compulsory words and the basic theme. I use a brainstorming technique to write down many possible variations in meaning and nuance for those words. This usually happens on a blank page, often with no lines. I try linking various word meanings to experiment with possible plot ideas.

At this stage I don’t embark on any writing. Instead, I sleep on it. This follows the ideas discussed by Dorothea Brande in her classic reference Becoming a Writer. She encourages the budding writer to let ideas percolate and form in the tumult of the sleeping mind. A cohesive chain of ideas is revealed when you finally commit to starting the story. 

Saturday is then spent creating the first draft. Usually, it doesn’t require the whole day; just a few hours; enough to write something with a start, middle and resolution. There is a great satisfaction in getting to this point. Out of the disparate collection of constraints and pieces of ideas a unique story has emerged that I can claim to be my creative work. Again, I set it aside. Life carries on. Diverting the mind onto other tasks and events cleanses the mind.

Sunday is spent editing and refining through several iterations. My wife, Monique, is a great sounding board, having a great eye for grammar and punctuation issues. While many writers can be precious about their work and resistant to editorial feedback, I have discovered that her feedback highlights aspects where my vision of the story is not clear. It becomes an opportunity to take creativity to a deeper level – an opportunity to add more nuance and hone in on the use of precise words to propel the story forward.

Furious Fiction is, and has been, a great stimulus for discovering my creative spirit. It is challenging and intense, but deeply satisfying, giving me confidence to trust my own story-telling instincts.