'Good' Writing

What makes a good writer? I have determined that without personal experience, writing will never be what you want it to be. As I sat out at the ocean this weekend, I took a few moments to look out across the water and into the sea. I mean I really looked. It's not like standing in one spot and scanning the horizon for something interesting, but it's really opening your eyes and taking every sight in. What I found about the world, and myself, was more surprising than I thought.

For one thing, I learned a few new things about the ocean and how it works. Naturally, we all know the ocean is as unpredictable as a storm or where lightning is going to strike, but there are some thing I came to expect from watching the water. The sky was gray, the winds were gentle, but the water rolled and turned every which way as if trying to escape the confines of the land it's on. With every wave that crashed into the stormy water, it set off a chain reaction. I'm sure this sounds logical to everyone who is familiar with water, or the ocean, but for me I never took the time to appreciate the bounce of the water as it surges towards the shore.

The waves are captivating. Even standing with closed eyes brought back times of being young and carefree. It was like the waves took every bad feeling, every bad thought, and buried it with the ebb and flow of the water. I was standing knee-high in the ocean, in my shorts and tank-top in about sixty degree weather. The clouds looked ready to dump water on us, but I've never felt more relaxed in all my life. 

When those little waves reached the shore, the sand would float over every surface that was in the water. Clothes, skin, shells, ground, sea weed; everything was covered in it. When the water is gone and it's all settled, the sand bulges with the weight of your body; as soon as you move your feet it's a puddle of mud again. Amazing how something can be solid one second and liquid the next.

The toss and turn of the ocean kept my mind preoccupied on only it. My body was captivated in the movement, the sound, and the feel of the water running back and forth along my ankles and feet. This experience gave me the knowledge to utilize it in future writing. I was able to test the limits of the beach, of the waves, and play with the feel of water as it slides through your fingers as it rushes back out to the ocean body. At one time, I never understood how an ocean could be "playful" or "embracing", but spending those few hours on the beach taught me just how "playful" water can be. It can also be terrifying, gentle, and sporadic.

If you don't get the personal experience, if you don't go out and live, the words on the page are going to be just that. There will be no emotion or passion behind them because those things being written about are unknown to the author. Exploring and living, research and reading; these things shape the written word. An author must create more than just a story, they should create a life. A three dimensional human being with experiences, feelings, and thoughts. That's the only way to bring someone into your world; to make them feel the same things the people in your story are feeling.

A lot of people get the misconception about writers staying home and writing all day; that's how movies and shows often portray them. In reality, writers should be exploring and learning from real life. Books should be a hypothetical, 'what if'. Plots don't exist in real life, nor should they on the page. The only way you're ever going to succeed in finishing that 'what if' is going out and experiencing it.