Imagine a tasty stew.
Savory meats, root vegetables, maybe some thick noodles or dumplings, a fine rich stock all simmering for hours on low. The aroma and unctuous anticipation of slipping some of that luscious meal down your throat just makes your mouth drip like Sobaki, Pavlov’s favorite dog.
That is how I think writing becomes art.
When you can savor your characters, mull their foibles, their idiosyncrasies, taste the strange way they walk, sit, talk, sleep — then you can simply write them into your story. There is no work. You sit there within your story stew, nestle up to a potato and describe its grainy texture, its bitter skin, the way it appears to take over the bowl but with the press of a fork, crumbles.
Imagining all of your characters, in the story scenarios you want to eventually place them within, is, I believe, a necessary stage in writing a truthful story. True in that your characters are true to your notions of them. That how they react and respond to the story’s plot events is not forced or unnatural. But smooth like a saucy soup.
I’m trying to live with the eleven characters who will make up the story “Iced”. That’s a bunch of people, and I have to slip them in gradually. Only I can’t. They all wake up together. And, of course, every one of them is a murderer… So, I have this stew being unpleasantly hot at times, and laced with shards of splintered bone in others. But, hopefully, no one will choke and die. Well, no reader will expire while slurping this sumptuous stew.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
Brilliant advice and brilliantly written…
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I’m about to introduce the term “nanovangelical” on a permanent basis in my story. I’ll give you a shout-out if I do. BTW, your friend and mine Phil Houston loved the term! Just sayin.
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Good enough for a stand alone short? Thanks. That represents progress. That post is down but I wanted to acknowledge your comment. BTW, Dan Brown must be getting tired of writing the same book over and over…
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Re: Dan Brown — sheesh, “here guy, here’s a dollar, go buy a new style. I think you’ve worn this one flat-out.”
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LOL!
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I think that’s called “brand extension.” In the vernacular, known as “milk that cow until it dies.” It IS dead already Dan!
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And Dan got all that DNA stuff from Richard Dawkins. Start with “The selfish Gene.” Paul will be thinking about this subject as well…just FYI.
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Origin. Took your advice. Read the first five, then the last six. I got it. Now thumbing idly through other chapters…
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An interesting comparison.
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Simile, metaphor, analogy!
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