OUTSIDE INFLUENCES
TYLER DILTS / PAUL BISHOP
Recently, my writer friend Tyler Dilts posted an attention
grabbing comment on Facebook. In essence, Tyler had been asked what outside
influences – other than literature – had been the most practical use to him as
a fiction writer. His response contained four specific points…
Acting taught me about
character development, subtext, beats, and dialogue.
Improvisation taught
me how to be present in the moment of a scene and how to use that awareness to
develop conflict and story.
Standup Comedy taught
me how to construct sentences, paragraphs, and scenes with setups and payoffs.
Film editing taught me
how to make meaning through juxtaposition and focus, and maybe most
importantly, what you leave out is at least as important as what you put in.
Tyler then put out a call asking what outside influences
other writers found useful in creating fiction. The comebacks were many and
varied. Below is an edited collection of the responses…
People watching. I saw a man the
other day at a fish market sitting at a table alone with a opened bottle of
white wine , a untouched plate of food, his head in his hands, reading some
novel off his phone. I just observed him and basically wrote him a backstory in
my head and character traits. We're always writing. By observing the world
around us and trying to make sense of it, we write.
Music, for pacing, crescendo, rests,
and several voices telling one story.
Bartending (this one was a personal favorite)
Pro Wrestling, which taught me the
best bad guys have some truth on their side, no matter how despicable their
actions might be.
Drama. Learn how to
visualize scenes and reveal character one pixel at a time using dialogue and
behavior.
Screenwriting. Not
necessarily the three act structure, but understanding concepts like inciting
incident, key incident, and plot points helps to shape characters. Also
dramatic need – A character who doesn't want anything is just furniture.
Journalism teaches you
how to write a sentence economically.
Have a career / work a
job / do something other than write.
Painting. Learning to recreate a
visual scene teaches you to see the whole of an image and its constituent parts
simultaneously.
Farming teaches patience and
diligence, along with how to accept the parts of creation outside of your
control and effort.
In psychoanalysis, everything is
multi-layered and everyone has competing desires within them.
Semiotics/Post-structuralism – individual words have cultural power.
Yoga for balance and discipline.
Yoga routines have a satisfying narrative flow
Parenthood. Because humans are so
strange.
With knitting, everything is a
composition, a medium arranged in a pattern. You can rip out stitches and start
over. Nothing is perfect. Perfection is boring and for machines.
Comic books teach imagery and
writing from the gut. Plus, everyone wants be some kind of hero.
Gardening. Because sometimes you
have to dig through piles and piles of manure to get a flower.
Studying martial arts and boxing
have been great for writing fight scenes and understanding fear, anger and
fight psychology.
Listening. To everybody. Even the idiots.
Blindness, which taught me how to
engage the other senses more significantly in my work.
History, because it
teaches how seemingly insignificant events can contribute to life-altering
consequences.
Wine and perfume
appreciation, which teach awareness of senses other than sight and hearing.
Like the above comments, my own responses come from the
influences in my life, all of which have influence my fiction…
Police work, which taught me truth is a variable – life is
full of gray areas. Also taking no action is the worst possible choice.
Playing soccer taught me about narrative flow and strategy.
It taught me how my characters had to be team players to succeed.
Book collecting, which taught me about obsession, anguish,
and pursuit – all parts of a good story.
I’m sure there are many other outside influences that teach
us things we can apply to the fictional worlds we create. What are yours?
TYLER DILTS:
As
a child, Tyler Dilts dreamed of following in the footsteps of his policeman
father. Though his career goals changed over time, he never lost interest in
the daily work of homicide detectives. Today he teaches creative writing at California
State University in Long Beach, and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles
Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Best American Mystery Stories, and
numerous other publications. He is the author of A King of Infinite Space and
The Pain Scale, the first two novels in the Long Beach Homicide series. He
lives with his wife in Long Beach, California.
PAUL BISHOP: Novelist,
screenwriter, and television personality, Paul Bishop spent 35 years with the
Los Angeles Police Department, where he was twice honored as Detective of the
Year. He continues to work privately as
a deception expert. His fifteen novels include five in his LAPD Homicide
Detective Fey Croaker series. His latest novel, Lie Catchers, begins a new
series featuring top LAPD interrogators Ray Pagan and Calamity Jane Randall.
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