Conjuring the magic with Deborah Macgillivary

When we sit down to start a writing a book, how do we go about it? You know the answer, it is a thousand different ways. I am personally somewhere in between a plotter and a pantser. I have a lay out of the beginning, middle and end. I always find it interesting to know how others go about the process.

Deborah: 

Recently, reviewer-author Jacqueline Lichtenberg questioned me about my process for Alien Romance blog, where she was discussing using Tarot cards as a means for helping create a character.  She asked why I had the first love scene at a particular point in my story.  I am very able to explain the process after the fact.  But there is simply no planning on my part.  It’s magic, I suppose.  At least, my personal form of magic.

How do you go about creating characters?

Deborah:  I create characters, place them in a setting, with specific goals in mind, then I simply sit down and begin writing. For me, the characters tell the story.  I have tried charts, or setting down in which chapters conflicts happen, when the “black moment” occurs, etc.  Sorry, when I try this method I stall out.  I lose all the spontaneity.  While that style of process works for some, to me it’s dancing in cement boots.

People repeatedly point out how they ‘see’ the scenes that I write.  They feel they can easily step into the book and watch the characters and places come alive for them.  Perhaps, it stems from my way of writing.  If I cannot see the book like a movie playing inside my head?as real as watching any of the adventures of Laura Croft or Captain Jack Sparrow on my VIZIO television ?then I cannot write it.  A large part of my creation process is spent conjuring that ‘movie’, playing it over and over again in my mind, so I learn what my characters are doing, saying, feeling. 

I hold the belief that ability comes from my own conception of what I am:  I am not a writer?first and foremost I am a storyteller.  Ages ago, my ancestors?and perhaps some of yours?stood before fireside and spun tales of magic, of heroes, beautiful ladies, quests and battles of good against evil.  They spoke words, crafting fables to enthrall their audiences.  They didn’t worry about many of the bugaboos modern storytellers must, such as dangling participles, passive or active verbs, gerunds, point of views, and all the endless lines of current taboos in professional writing.  Their only object was to make their audience ‘see’ these tales, myths and legends.  They provoked the listeners to use their imaginations.  That is what I set out to do with my books.

But where does that pure essence of weaving a story come from?  Writers can learn to polish their craft, but how can one search to learn the ability to conjure magic?  Possibly, probably,
I think it’s something you are born with.  Some people are excellent singers or dancers.  Where does the desire to be a surgeon come from?  Others excel in painting, composing music or sewing. 

Some spark exists within us that defines how we do it?it merely exists in us, drives us, compels us.