Awake, O Sleeper

If we don't wake up to the physical world, we won't be able to have a meaningful human connection, and our lives and our writing will suffer.

One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves as writers, and those we love, is to wake up. Wake up the to reality around us, the people we come in contact with, what is affecting our five senses right now in the physical world.

This requires effort and focus, and discipline. It means no social media, internet, or ESPN for large portions of the day. Or for many days. It requires us to get off our laptops at coffee shops and talk with the people around us. Instead of texting our spouses, we get up and speak to them in the next room.

Technology is not bad—the problem lies in how we use it. If we don't wake up to the physical world, we won't be able to have a meaningful human connection, and our lives and our writing will suffer.

Writing is about moving hearts and minds; to do that, we must experience people for who they are in the flesh, not who they present themselves online. 

When we take the time to talk face to face, we see their eyes and the emotions that lie behind them. We see the lines on their faces, how they take shape as worry, joy, or fear passes through their bodies. We watch as they form their words, how the corners of their mouth turn down or up. We hear the inflection in their voice, the question at the end of the sentence, or the confidence in their statement.

There are a lot of avenues to discover what people think, but we have no real idea how someone feels by reading the words they craft and post online.

Characters, whether they are biographical and real, or created and fictional, can only come to light as we study other people and use what we have absorbed from them.

How?

Being in the moment when your mother talks about her latest illness. 

Putting ourselves in the story as our grandfather retells his childhood stories we’ve heard before.

Slowing down to allow a friend or co-worker speak their mind, and not dismissing their thoughts or feelings.

Writers are sponges who soak up other people's sights and sounds, feelings and words. Then we envelope, fold, and wrap them into stories to make order out of life's chaos.

Being quick to listen to others is challenging when we have so much to say. But doing it will make your character interactions deeper and richer.

Slowing down to hear the meaning behind a son or daughter's words helps us gain empathy for them, and equips us with the compassion our characters need to feel natural and multi-dimensional.

Considering what we say before we speak and not jumping to conclusions will stop a lot of arguments and open up a new level of listening. We will begin to hear conversations in our head before we have them, making writing dialogue much more accessible.

Despite all the tools we have around us, we are humans, men and women, and we need the one-on-one connection with others for our art and for our souls.