GREAT ESCAPES
During our last meeting, one of my critique partners said something that’s been resonating in my mind ever since: “I used to read for escape,” he said, “but now I write for escape.”
This
insight stuck with me because I’ve had much the same thought—and more than
once. When you write, you create a whole
new world, with new people, new places, new happenings, all of which you
control and willingly enter. It’s your
own special place where everything goes accord to your plan—except for one
inconvenient fact. The characters often have
minds of their own and take turns and detours you never anticipated. That might seem to contradict the idea that
writing is escape, but on further thought, it doesn’t. Not knowing what happens next is part of the Big
Escape.
Case in
point: When I began The Design is Murder, #5 in my Murders by Design Series, I had no
inkling that a little five pound dog named Charlotte 
Charlotte
And
then there was boorish Stew Hawkins (that is not him above!). No
manners, no couth, he bought a trophy wife who three weeks later ended up
dead. Yet halfway through the book, I
started thinking, “You know, I’d go out with this guy.” Who’d have guessed that? Not DH. Not even moi. The thing is Stew was so outrageous, so over-the-top
that the more I wrote about him, the more he drew me into his life. And the more I fled, however temporarily into
his world, the more the problems of the real world faded.
As
for reading to break away from the everyday—which most of us do as well--here’s
a radical view by memoirist Mary Kaer.
In The Week Magazine, she’s
quoted as saying. “Reading
Hmm.
I wonder which drug Ms. Kaer would compare writing to? I refuse to say Viagra.
How about you? Have you ever experienced writing as escape? If so, when in the story did the realization
strike?
Jean Harrington is
the author of the award-winning Murders by Design Series available on
Amazon. Link is: http://www.amazon.com/Rooms-Die-For-Murders-Design-ebook/dp/B00F942VL8
6 comments:
I find both writing and reading to be fabulous escapes. In fact, when the writing became too much like work this past year, I knew I needed to take a step back. The story is so much better when it feels like an escape. And I do love when the characters surprise me! :D
Yes, those surprises are wonderful. The characters, as it turns out, do have minds of their own. So it's fun--and sometimes exasperating--to see what they're up to.
Good post, Jean. Yes, writing is escapism. When it fails, I walk away for a while, like Anne Marie (happy birthday, Anne Marie!) because, really, if it isn't fun, why do it? Distance and time always refill the the well.
Marcelle, I wish I could agree that writing is fun. For me, sometimes the fun is there, big time, and then there are days when the fun disappears and every sentence seems like hard work. But in both instances, the game is still exciting and still carries me off to that special world.
Oh! Yes! A thousand times yes. I can escape into a made up world and make events turn out how I want them. What can be better than that?
Rita, I know. It's addictive.
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