Find Wonder Everywhere

Last week I spent a bunch of time in Glasgow, for (happy) family reasons.

Because of last-minute airline insanity we ended up traveling the length of the country from London to Glasgow on the train instead of flying over it, as we usually do, and it was glorious.

Every time I looked out of the window, there was a new landscape to examine: now flat and pastoral, now mountains and lakes, now industrial revolution-era towns tucked into river valleys…

This week a lot of writers and sci-fi/fantasy fans are in Glasgow for WorldCon, the big annual conference and i’m following along on social media.

I just saw a post from someone who said they were taking the same 5hr train ride I just took…and were watching The Matrix on their laptop.

I carefully put my phone down and took a deep breath. I try not to shout at strangers on the Internet, but the inside of my head was ringing with the words “Look out of the window!”

Take A Fresh Look At The World

Humans are creatures of habit. We do the things we’ve always done – like staring at our screens on long journeys even when we don’t have to.

As writers our purpose is to make readers experience things they don’t normally experience. 

To do that, I believe we need to be constantly curious. 

That’s easy when we travel somewhere new. 

But you don’t need a big travel budget to find novelty and wonder, not with the right attitude.

This week I challenge you to vary your routine and find the wonder in the place where you are.

  • Take a new route home from work and really notice your surroundings. Wind the windows down in your car and listen, smell, feel.
  • Take off your headphones and listen to the world as you walk through it.
  • Talk to a stranger. Try to find out what gets them excited, then stand back and watch how it changes their whole physicality.
  • Order a different type of coffee, then try to describe it in words.
  • Visit a museum in your hometown (even if it’s the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, WI)
  • Wander the non-fiction stacks at your local library and pull a book off the shelf at random. Grab a table and spend an hour leafing through it.
  • Stop and really look at the weeds growing on a free-growing patch of earth.

Celebrate the day-to-day and come back to your desk, refreshed.

What will you explore this week? Leave a comment and let me know – or come back and comment when you’ve done it.

University of Glasgow Spire from the Snow Bridge over the River Kelvin
University of Glasgow Spire from the Snow Bridge over the River Kelvin

[Write On Wednesday] Going On A Journey

This week’s writing prompt: Take Your Character(s) On A Literal & Figurative Journey

Enjoy the journey, not the destination.
Yesterday, I wrote about Richard Matheson’s classic short story Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.

It got me thinking about journeys as a vehicle (sorry!) for a story. In his story, Matheson included tons of detail about the plane travel in the early ’60s. The claustrophobic feeling of the setting wasn’t accidental: it mirrored the character’s internal issues beautifully.

Today I’m inviting you to do something similar.

The Prompt

Take Your Character(s) On A Literal Journey

Tips

  • Choose a mode of transportation that you can write about in detail. (Have a lot of time for research? Sure, write about Mary and Joseph on a donkey in Roman-occupied Palestine. Short on research time? Use the last trip you took as source material).
  • Think about the mode of transportation you have chosen. Does it represent freedom or escape? Is it comfortable or torturous? Is it difficult or easy? (Horse back riding sounds like fun, but if your character is facing his third day on a horse in freezing drizzle and you have a different story!). Is your character driving or at the mercy of others (literally and figuratively?)
  • What does your character want/need? How can you use a literal journey to pad out the significance of that?
  • What changes in the middle of the story? Can you use the vehicle/travel to raise the stakes? If the bus breaks down or the horse bolts, or the passenger tempts the driver to break the speed limit what are the implications for the character? How can you make it worse? Don’t be afraid to go deeper/further/more whacky (you can always scale back in the revisions if it seems too crazy).
  • In the end, does your character end up where he wanted to go? Literally? Figuratively? Did your character end up where they needed to be? Are those the same things?
  • Think about the imagery and language you use (see yesterday’s Reading Room post, about how Richard Matheson chose his words to enhance the tone of the coming story).
  • Write a quick first draft.
  • Go back through the story and see if you can heighten the sense of place with different senses, different word choice. See if you can make things worse (or better) for your character.
  • If you’re brave enough, post your story in the comments (but not if you’re planning on submitting it anywhere else).

Go!