Through The Glass: A Fresh View On Old Things

Part of being an author is looking at things a little differently. Training your mind to take an otherwise insignificant facet from the image of a leaf dancing in the wind or a documentary on alpacas and weaving it into the fabric of a coherent narrative is my favorite kind of hat trick, but this “oddball vision” can also be applied as an exercise in reevaluating popular media to gain a fresh perspective.

Not only can doing so be a creative mental exercise, but it can also lead to some new ideas for some of your future stories!

There’s an old adage that analyzing a poem is like dissecting a frog – you understand more about how it works but you kill the frog. That is not what I am advocating here. I want you to enjoy your media, I just ask you question why you enjoy it. It may seem simple but evaluating why things work is an excellent way to improve your own writing. Watching a movie and thought a love story fell flat? Why? Thought a hero’s comment to the villain was particularly biting? Why? It’s one thing to enjoy a book, and quite another to understand why you enjoyed it. That second part is what is going to be critical to your success as an author. By all means read the book but take notes on your phone or notebook about what it was that made something pop for you so you can revisit it later.

Once you have a general understanding of why you enjoy your media you can begin applying those lessons to your own work and (hopefully) craft something that can be enjoyed by others.

Find what you love, mine it, make it your own. Just be sure that once you’ve identified the components you love you don’t be a copy cat and instead harness them into your own work, your own voice.

You may like Star Wars but if your big reveal has your hero on a narrow bridge after getting their hand cut off and the evil space wizard with a glowing red sword and black armor tells them “No, Aiden. I am your father!” then you’re not paying homage to The Empire Strikes Back, your cheesing it.

Don’t cheese. Don’t be that person. Copywrite law ain’t no joke and people don’t want to pick up a book to see a knockoff- they want to see your vision and your take.

Be yourself, and show the world the colors with which you paint.   

Truly we did not deserve this man