Why Daydreaming…?
In my spare time, I like to teach. Wait. Sorry. In my spare time, when I’m not teaching, I like to write. Okay; it gets complicated. Not least because the two professions share so much in certain ways and, in others, are almost diametrically opposed to one another. When teaching children how to write a story, the teacher is encouraged to crack down on any daydreaming and ensure all children are working. However, in a lovely example of do as I say, not as I do, in this post I’ll be talking about…
Sorry, drifted there for a moment. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, I was talking about what I wanted to talk about. So, I wanted to talk about… how could I put it? I guess I could say it’s the obvious and intrinsic value in allowing one’s consciousness to alleviate itself of linear thought processes, falling or soaring (take your pick) into the wider, less concrete world of uninhibited thoughtless thinking.
In other words, why daydreaming is good.
While I’m certain daydreaming isn’t for every job, nor am I saying that children in a classroom should be allowed to do it (there’s that teacher training kicking in), I think it’s invaluable to writing, or at least writing that gets into the heart of what the story is really about and into the very soul of your characters.
I was aware that daydreaming could be useful, but hardly indispensable. I’d come up with a few decent ideas whilst sat on my backside doing nothing. But then, being the lazy man that I am, I was willing to give this ‘doing nothing’ thing another shot.
I had collected, as I’m sure many other writers have done, copious notes on the characters in the story. I had everything, from their past histories (as opposed to their future ones?), their spiritual beliefs, their political leanings, all the way to things like the name of their favourite aunt and their financial plans for the next five to ten years. I had everything planned out in other documents when it came to the role they’d play in the story. What would happen to them, what they’d say to other characters at certain points, how the world around them would react and what would therefore happen afterwards. It was all so well planned. But something was missing.
Afterwards, I realised I had focused so much time and energy on the what and the how. What would happen, Event A, to then force Event B to come to fruition, which then led to Event C, which involved characters 1 and 2. Don’t get me wrong. The pieces all made sense and, on the surface, it was a completed puzzle that seemed to give off the impression of being a good story, complete with what I thought were important themes and some coal-black humour that made a commentary about the world as it was today.
So I rewarded myself with a walk to the park. Event A, my having created a plan for my story that even featured highlighting, different fonts and a key to go with it all, led to Event B, my being rewarded with a sunny day on a park bench. Kind of like how a child at school might be rewarded if they’d stopped their daydreaming.
Like a lot of writers, the change of scenery helped refresh my mind but as I was writing more notes down about this one character, this character that I hadn’t spent as much time on, my mind started to drift. Event C, my finding it difficult to come up with anything good for this character, happened because I was struggling to put myself in their shoes.
Did you spot the difference there?
Event A, my planning, led straight to Event B, which led to Event C. But what I’ve also included is why Event C happened. Apologies if this part seems condescending, but I think it’s a point a lot of new writers like myself might be forgetting to do, which is to actually think about the reasons behind the actions. I know I’d been neglecting character motivation up until that point.
I guess, in not really thinking about what I was going to write in this post, that this is really about why your characters’ reasons for doing something are so much more important than what you think should happen. As I sat on that park bench, watching the branches sway gently, the parent playing a game with their young child, the man scooping up an enormous dog turd, any thoughts on the character were far away. Not invisible, of course. But they were on the periphery, as if I was aware of them but not really paying any attention to them. Because I wasn’t paying close attention to them, they, like unsupervised children in a classroom, started exploring and doing their own thing.
Before I knew it, this character was sprinting up to me, bellowing at me with a gleeful look on their face about why they acted the way they did. They didn’t perform Event O and Event P because that’s where I needed the plot to go. Instead, she didn’t listen to her boss because he’d been treating her the same way she’d been treated by all her other bosses, as well as her brothers. And the reason why she joined a friend and refused to follow any more orders wasn’t because she really wanted to set up my plot twist for me. She did it because her colleague had listened to her. And because she found the way to finally break that cycle she’d been stuck in for the past decade.
Sometimes a character’s motivations might lead in the opposite direction to where you want your story to go. At that point, I believe a writer has two options:
- Force your character to not act like themselves (in other words, rejecting the character you yourself have created), or…
- … listen to your damn character and let them get on with what they want to do.
I’m not saying what I came up with was the most eye-opening, mind-bending, face-melting story of all time. But it’s already more interesting. Instead of ‘Now they’re doing this thing, and now they’re doing the next thing. Wow. Now they’re doing this thing’, I had at the very least come up with real reasons why this character would definitely do something. And that’s how you can get people to get involved in your story and love it, because humans have had this power of empathy for, oh, let’s say a few hundred thousand years, and it’s what can make a story feel real. It’s the key to all good relationships. It’s how you can sit there and read, or watch, or listen, to a story that’s about a character who isn’t like you in the slightest and yet at the same time you can imagine yourself in their situation.
Anyway, I’ve digressed. What I’m trying to say is that instead of sticking every character you have under a microscope, 100% of the time, what could give your story the something it needs, as opposed to what you think it needs, is allowing your mind to wander and to simply trust that it will eventually give you the answer. In this day and age of having everything we want immediately, sometimes the adage ‘good things come to those who wait’ can sometimes be applied.
Oh, also, never leave children unsupervised. One of them will have something stuck up their nose by lesson’s end.
