DZ-Jay's Random Blog - Christmas Carol: A Short Story - Part VII

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I thought I'd talk a little bit about the writing experience. As I mentioned before, I am not a writer. I fancy myself as having a good command of the English language, and in my professional career I've had the opportunity to apply and polish my technical writing ability, but I've never written fiction before. In fact, other than two projects in high school, I've never even tried creative writing before.

I wouldn't count those projects as any kind of experience, though. They were absolute crap. I haven't read them in several decades, but the bits I remember make me cringe just thinking about them. Eek! I sucked at it. Of course, back then I thought I was hot shit, but I imagine that being more of a mechanism of defense to convince myself that I really wasn't all that bad. I was, tough. Ugh!

So this is the first time I try my hand at creative writing and I have to say that ... it's weird. I suggested in the previous post that the story has taken a life of its own, and I meant that. That's the weird part. Well, good weird, if there is such a thing.

Let me see if I can explain why I think it's so weird. In the past, when I write technical specifications or functional requirements (which I hate, by the way), the end result is something polished and useful and gives me pride. Whenever I read those specifications I can clearly see my hand and mind in it, and then I pat myself on the back for doing such a good job at expressing complex concepts in simple and accessible terms.

Creative writing -- well, this Christmas Carol story, whatever we want to call it -- doesn't feel like that at all. It doesn't feel mine. it feels more like recounting someone else's tale; like when you watch a really good movie and then attempt to describe it to your best friend, trying really hard to convey the same sense of excitement, thrill, suspense, or mystery you felt when you watched it.

That's what's so weird: I made it all up, it exists (in whichever form an idea can exist at all) in my head. It's pure thought-stuff put down on paper by my very own hand -- and yet ... it really does not feel like I created it.

When I wrote that Carol came up with a plan to trap the Ghost before he could steal a present from her, I ran to my wife and told her (and this is silly, but true): "Carol just figured out how to stop the Ghost from stealing her presents!" That's what it was. I didn't invent some new plot device for the story or came up with a bit of character dialogue, Carol had an idea and I was so thrill to discover it.

This is the reason why I say I have little agency in the story. I don't know where this stuff is coming from, and even if at a more practical level I know it comes from my own imagination, it does not feel at all like it does.

This lack of conscious agency affects the direction of the story directly because even when I have a clear idea of what I wish to describe, the final passage may say something completely different.

Take for example the passage in which Carol meets the Ghost for the first time. As I originally wrote it, Carol gets terrorized by the Ghost, she is panicking because she doesn't know what's attacking her, and she screams. When the Ghost bumps into her and steals her present, she is scared and frustrated and at the edge of tears, so she whimpers a little before recomposing herself.

I read that over and over and over, and it bothered me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to humanize Carol and scare her so much to bring her to the edge of tears. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me because I thought that Carol was a stronger elf than that. So I decided to go back and fix that passage to make her more resilient.

Only that, instead of elevating her, I doubled down on the drama: Carol is no longer at the edge of tears now, she breaks down and cries!!!

It was at this moment that she realized the present she was carrying was nowhere to be found. “He took it!” she gasped again, now at the edge of tears. “That nasty, mean Ghost stole the present right from my hands! Ooh, what a rotten, rotten place I’m in!” she sobbed. Then, defeated, she crumbled to the floor with her hands to her face, and cried in frustration.

OMG!!! What have I done to that poor elf?!

Of course, she picks herself up with even more determination, and makes herself stronger by recalling her mission and everybody who's counting on her, and convincing herself that she must go on and complete her task. She is stronger for it, and I celebrate her even more than before. But really, where the heck did that come from?

So that's it, writing fiction is weird. Does that make me a writer? I don't know. Honestly, I feel even less of one. At least in this story, I feel like I am just the historian who is recounting an old folk tale, putting the myth to paper for others to enjoy. It feels good -- good weird -- and I'm honoured to be chosen for the job. Santa Claus would be proud.

See ya'!
-dZ.



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