A writer with nothing to write about

January 26, 2010 by Writers, Artists and Insiders
Filed under: Authors and Books 

Mary Hooper_half_col_208A guest post from author Mary Hooper. Mary writes for children and young adults. Her historical novels including At the House of the Magician and The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose have a huge fan base, as do her contemporary novels for teenagers.

I used to write hard-hitting teenage books about modern problems: teenage pregnancy, the dangers of going off to meet internet friends, how to cope with family break-ups and so on – and then, after a good number of years, I ran out of ideas. Everything that could happen to a teenage girl seemed to have happened in one of my books. What on earth was I going to write next?

I thought for a long time, began various things and gave up on them, then bought a pile of teenage magazines and read through the problem pages – usually a fail-safe source of story ideas.

After more deliberation I started a new book about a girl who was adopted into a large family and found herself with a mix of new brothers and sisters. Getting bored with this after two chapters, I began again: one about a girl who tries to trace her birth mother. Discarding this with a yawn, I started a third about a girl who discovers she was born a twin.

Good themes in other hands, maybe (feel free to use them yourself), but I couldn’t seem to make them work however much I twiddled, changed viewpoint or began from a different beginning. Whatever I tried, my characters sat on the page as dull as ditchwater and when I read back what I’d done, I found my critical self responding with a “So what?”

For a moment, a long moment, I was scuppered: a writer without anything to write about. I could find themes all right, but my heart wasn’t in them. They didn’t ring true. Why not? Because they weren’t true. I’d tried to use modern jargon, but the kids I was writing about didn’t have ipods, or use Spotify, or constantly text, Twitter, or Facebook. They didn’t do these things because I – their creator – didn’t know how to.

What was more, I didn’t want to know how to. I didn’t want to be brought up-to-date and to have to incorporate all that techie stuff in my  novels.

So what was I going to do? I’d been a writer for 20 years and it was the only thing I was any good at.

To be continued… in an upcoming post from Mary Hooper.

Have you ever been at a loss for themes?

Fallen GraceMary Hooper’s latest book, Fallen Grace, is published by Bloomsbury in June 2010. It is set in the reign of Queen Victoria and features an illegitimate baby, the Necropolis Railway, an undertaker’s business and a stolen inheritance.

Want to know more? Read our Q&A interview with Mary Hooper »

Click here to visit Mary Hooper Online

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Comments

8 Comments on A writer with nothing to write about

  1. Cressida Downing (Editorial Consultant) on Jan 27, 2010 at 11:14am

    2. This is an interesting post Mary – I often think if you’re boring yourself, you will probably bore a reader!

    I write reports which I sometimes just can’t get started on, and I find it helpful to promise I’ll write a certain number of words in a time-frame, even if I then end up deleting or changing most of them, just to get the action of writing going.

    Cressida

  2. Goldstein on Jan 27, 2010 at 12:39pm

    3. Fallen Grace has a lovely front cover. There’s something Saloméish about the whole thing. I empathise with the blog, yet my problem seems to be: having many ideas, but finding it hard shepherding them into one coherent story. Getting there though, I think (sigh.)

  3. Pete Ford on Jan 28, 2010 at 11:24am

    4. It won’t be for everyone, but I’ve found recently that instead of struggling to come up with a specific story (how my block plays out), just outlining a world can be good. You can have a theme in mind or not, though one will present itself, the important is to make it complete – at least to the degree a “Series Bible” is in TV circles. The world needn’t be fantastic either, just a bunch of people in a place will do, long as it’s interesting.

    I did this for fun, but ended up with some fairly unique ideas. Not all ones I wanted (no interest in sci-fi), but the point was to get creative juices going, whole worlds under my belt.

    Anybody else do this? i’m new to writing, really. Hope I’ve not reited a standard exercise as my own invention…

  4. wordsmad on Jan 28, 2010 at 19:07pm

    5. I’ve created a world within a character in the book I’m writing. As for themes, I’m forever coming up with ideas to write about, the problem then is getting on and writing it. A combination of laziness and fear of failure I suspect, even tho I don’t necessarily need to show them to anyone. Does the bad writing you do benefit the good writing I wonder?

  5. Gus Glassborow on Feb 3, 2010 at 20:54pm

    6. i find that if you just write whats in your head, even if its utter nonsense, you will find and idea hidden amongst ‘gobble gobble’ (rubbish) also try looking at other people for ideas, like some times I’m sitting on the under ground and i think “whats their story?” try it. if it doesn’t work, its makes a great game.

  6. Malina on Feb 4, 2010 at 16:47pm

    7. Hi :)

    Why not write about a woman your age and the difficulties and obstacles someone in your situation may face?
    Eg the mother of a teenage girl – learning about today’s girls, technology and tribulations?
    Wishing you much luck!

  7. dejisgirl on Feb 4, 2010 at 18:29pm

    8. My favourite site so far is creative writing prompts.

    I like to change the ideas and make them my own. It’s an amazing site!

  8. Superzig on Feb 7, 2010 at 17:53pm

    9. It is tough isn’t it?
    If you write about something and it doesn’t interest you – you stop.

    Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) was once interviewed and he said that even the likes of Paul Macartney will have written songs – which could be decribed as being crafted.

    In writing terms this would be a book that you write on the basis of an idea that now longer ‘inspires’ you. It may still be good, those that are deeply gifted are I am sure able to turn an idea into a good book and hide from the readers the distain they feel to the original idea.

    but what is lacking I guess is the verve and excitement in the writing that could come out of the words on the page. This kind of thing is present in all creativity.

    How many records have been inspired never to be followed by the same level of inspiration in other releases, or worse that sound very similar.

    Perhaps like a song with lyrics and music but melody saddly missing.

    Might still be a hit on the basis of the original or the fan base already generated by earlier incarnations or incantations even.

    SuperZig

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