I watch very little television but did see an episode of a show called Walking Dead recently. I like apocalyptic type shows but this one was a bit much for me and I didn’t finish it. Too many zombies shot in the head with graphic results. It confused me for one thing. If zombies are dead, why do they still bleed so colorfully, and splatter so much?

Last week I had a discussion with some writers about the emotion in our work. One woman had written a poem that she felt might be too powerful for the rest of us to understand. Another said that even if a reader didn’t understand the words, people react to the underlying emotion in a story or poem. Which makes the poem personal for that person, even if they read into it a different message than another reader, or even the author, gets from the same piece. It’s similar to modern art that has different meanings to different viewers.

How does that relate to bleeding zombies? Well, I got to thinking that every generation seems to have its version of the apocalypse. I remember as a child it was the Cuban missile crisis and the atom bomb. People had bomb shelters in their basements. I remember a time when it was the swine flu, sarin gas, mutant viruses, and so on. It’s as if each age needs something that is out of our control, that scares us, that makes us feel the need to prepare. Right now it’s a hurricane that’s making me think about super storms and how nature is changing and how I want to make sure my Bug Out Bag is stocked.

But, as with writing, it’s not the virus or the zombie that we are afraid of. It’s those underlying emotions. Fear of no control, of not being able to protect our family, of being exposed. Each apocalyptic theme dips right down into those deep feelings. And good writing does the same thing. It’s not the plot carrying the story, it’s all those underlying emotions that suck a reader in and keep them turning pages. Whether that emotion is fear, laughter, or anger. If we, as writers, can bravely dip into our own fears in order to pull them out and place them down on paper, we can touch our readers. Well, that’s not a profound statement. All writers know it. I’ve just been thinking about it since that show creeped me out and since I was told I might not get something powerful. It makes me want to face all emotion in order to impact a reader.

So while I may not understand the words (and might be a tad insulted when someone points that out), I definitely will react to honest emotions underlying the words, whether that’s in a song or a poem or a novel…or a zombie television show.

And by the way, my emergency pack is packed.

My teenage son and I have interesting conversations during the 45-minute (one way!) drive to school. I love hearing his views on everything from physics to politics to peace.

So this morning as we’re driving ‘down below’ out of the mountains and into the city, I was talking about a story idea I’m intimidated by. And my son mentioned, so very casually, that he has this idea he’s been working on but he can’t seem to get past chapter one.

I’m so proud of myself. I calmly continued, as if we always talk writing, about the reasons a story can die early. We talked about giving away too much, too soon, about characters that we don’t really know, the lack of conflict, all those things that people who have been writing for any length of time have struggled with.

But inside, there was this joyful shouting going on. My son writes!!! And not only is he writing, but he’s talking to me about it, and not only is he talking to me about it but he’s perfectly relaxed and comfortable doing so.

When I was his age, I also wrote, but as many of you know, I did so very privately. My closest friends (Sue and Mariane) knew that I wrote  and thinking back on it, probably more people knew than I realized. But when I mentioned it to my mother, she suggested, strongly, that I learn a different trade. She never flat-out told me I couldn’t write or would never make a living at it, but that is the message I took away. So instead I pushed the writing back and took the classes she wanted me to. And I never shared any of my writing with her, and never admitted to her that I kept going. Hence the sense of shame, of doing something wrong.

But now, I am feeling very strongly that I’ve done something right. My husband and I have managed to give a kid confidence enough to talk to us without being afraid of ridicule.

And he’s writing! I want to shower him with pens and paper and books on writing and my boxes and boxes of notes and resources, and beg to see what he’s done and…you get the idea. I want him to soar, without shame, without an inner critic whispering to him that he’s going to fail. Whether that’s with writing or with any of his other dreams.

And I wonder if storytelling is genetic?

I don’t outline my stories, something I used to never admit to because it felt like I wrote ‘wrong’. Now I know that everyone has their own unique style of getting words on paper. Plus a friend of mine said I wrote ‘organic’ and I love that phrase. In this day of expensive things labelled ‘green’ and ‘organic’ I feel stylish.

I also used to use character dossiers when I first started writing. I would religiously fill out all fifty pages for each character, and then never refer to them again. Recently I started wondering if there was a way to develop characters also organically, since I discovered that a dossier is, for me, a mini outline.

There are a lot of internet resources out there on organic character development. Some still felt like outlining though. For instance, one had you make lists of the significant people in your life, as those are who your characters come from. I love lists, but not with writing.

One thing I read about though was something I have always done. The resource suggested keeping a ‘faces folder’ where you collect photos of faces that fascinate you. I started doing that many years ago as personal writing exercises. I would find a face in a magazine or newspaper that caught my eye, clip it out, and try to describe it. A nose, a chin, etc. Then I would read the description and see if I could match it to the face. That evolved into using the folder to remind me visually of characters. I would lay photos out around my laptop. As I wrote, if I struggled with a scene and how a specific character would react, I could glance at the photo as a physical reminder.

I have learned that in organic character development, many people do this. Wow. I thought I was just weird.

My teenage son is a huge fan of McDonald’s. When I allow him to eat there, I have to avoid staring at one of the employees. She has the most amazing, non-traditionally beautiful face I have ever seen. As I wrote The Memory Keeper, her face became the character of Jess. When I struggled with the character, I’d allow my son a trip to McDonald’s. I could never figure out how to approach a real live person and ask to take their photo.

I would love to know how others develop characters. For me, after all my research, I have decided to return to what works best for me. Simply writing the story and letting the character tell me who he is.