Tag Archives: writing

Book reading, flyingstories

The characters

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The soul of your story

Welcome to the most exciting writing journey part: the creation of characters. This is the moment you were preparing for, the two minutes of glory for your never forgotten underlying schizophrenic side. Yes, because if you are a writer, maybe you experienced speaking by yourself multiple times and not necessarily under the shower.

Characters, by Daniele Frau.

In the middle of the night

Correct me if I’m wrong, ok? You wake up suddenly in the middle of the night with the urge to scribble an idea. Ordinary people keep a water bottle close to their bed, but you don’t. Oh no, you have a piece of paper and a pen/pencil, right?

That sensation, the urge to put your idea down, is so intense that you cannot wait until morning. Then, if you’re lucky, you go to sleep. In your dreams, that story you had in mind, that tiny seed starts flourishing, growing slowly in your deepest fantasies. But it gets all trapped there, unfortunately.

True story, true characters

When you wake up in the morning, you take the piece of paper as written by an alien hand. True story, once I woke up with this written close to my face:

“G. is a spider born in a butterfly body. He ruminates about his former life while she sees a spider going slowly down to eat her. She doesn’t remember the spider language. Death.”

I remember it made me sick the whole day. I was writing something else, and suddenly I heard the screaming of the poor butterfly trying to remember her old language to save her life.

All this to say that all writers, deep inside, are troubled. We have so many issues and we’re not shy to put them on paper for strangers to judge us. However, there’s nothing more exciting than creating new, compelling characters. One thing I really despise is when an excellent plot has a flow in the characters’ construction.

You notice that, strangely, all the characters start meeting up only between themselves. Sometimes some new character arrives, as a cameo or a funny twist as in Friends and then it disappears.

Yes, I know I don’t have to expect much in a serial with pre-recorded laughing. Still, you can see when the characters are just flat figures moving their lips automatically.

Suppose a character is a poor skill-less actor. In that case, the best twist possible is to make him completely different, not indulge in his poor skill quality and stupidity until the end of time. And that’s precisely what happens.

The reasons?

People love these flat characters, they say. I don’t know about that. You can be lucky once or twice if people really start loving those characters for what they are and don’t want them to change. Though, most of the time, you just start digging your grave. 

So, now let’s start working on our character building and we’ll do so follow a book that I believe is one of the best in the market. For sure, it was a life-changer for me for many reasons.

A simple, economical way to auto-psycho-analyze your tiny writer’s brain.

I’m talking about the book Getting into the character by Brandlyin Collins.

Keep reading my stories here

See you soon!

Daniele Frau

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Book reading, flyingstories

Build your tree

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Start from the roots

We realize how easy it is to start writing a story, having the right tools. But what is the content of your story? It comes from your everyday life, inspired by something you witnessed once, or some social problem? You need to ask yourself where the inspiration comes from to realize which tone is better to use. 

Your roots

Roots, image by Daniele Frau.
Roots, image by Daniele Frau.

These are your roots, the base from which you will build your story and the way you find inspiration afterward. Let’s talk about the inspiration for a moment. We’ve grown with the idea that we need a specific sparkle to write, a magic moment. Without that, we imagine the writers sitting in their rooms, desperate, in front of their typewriters. It’s not exactly like that.

Yes, you can have some blank moments, periods where you have nothing to say. Well, that’s the best moment for you; take this as a vacation, write ideas, and make your life full of experience, so then you’ll start writing again. Inspiration is a myth, solid and difficult to erase from people’s imagination, but still a myth. When I don’t have anything to say on a certain topic, I switch to another one. I start writing about mathematics, science, and economics. I write about topics far from my usual niche, and an idea naturally pops out.

For instance, a few days ago, I wrote an essay about international investments and wham! Something strikes my mind, an original idea about a real estate man that lives in the streets. The main secret here is the first rule every writer always has to keep in mind: 

Write, write, write.

If you don’t write, you won’t be able to clearly understand your limits, your common errors and as we said, you’ll feel increasingly tired of writing. See it like you were going to the gym. The more you go to do sport, the more you want to, because you feel your body is responding immediately. It’s precisely the same when you start writing, then you want to write more and more. 

Solid roots

So, you have an idea of a real estate agent living in the streets. Now you need to understand which tone you will use to describe the situation. It will be something like Jean Claude Izzo in Les soleil des mourants, or you would try a political angle? Do you want to write in a sarcastic-dark humor tone, as Jonas Jonasson? After you realize that everything will be easy, your pen will scribble so fast on the paper, faster than your thoughts.

Then, it’s time to write your characters. But this is a story for another time.

See you, people! As always, send me messages or comments here below and I’ll be glad to answer all of your questions.

Do you want to read some of my stories? Check them out!

Daniele Frau

Book reading, flyingstories

Let’s play with words

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There’s nothing like playing with words

In my previous article, I spoke about the most challenging part of writing a story. In the beginning, the beginning. So, how to go over this first scary step?

Snowflake

Yes, the snowflake method was one of the most helpful methods I’ve ever tried as a beginner. You have a story in mind and that story is nothing more than some vivid sensations and a bunch of perfect phrases you noted. But that’s not enough, clearly.

What happens next?

Most of the time, what happens next is you staring at a blank page. It seems you have everything in hand to start, but the key doesn’t turn and the engine is stuck. You check the gasoline (ideas) and discover the tank is full. So, what’s the problem? Let’s open the hood of the car, shall we? Hm, that’s the problem, you’re missing all the cables that connect the engine to the car. That’s why it wasn’t doing anything when you turned the key.

Let’s find the cables

The cables are easy to find. We just need to put them in the right place. Let’s leave the car similitude for a moment. For example, the best place to start is to write down in 15 words what is your story about. Suddenly, you realise you didn’t think it through. Your story is somewhere in your head, but it isn’t clear. Not having a straightforward plot in mind from the beginning is why you cannot move from your parking spot (oh, I’m back to the car simile).

Play with words

Play with words, write your story.
Play with words

We all know how difficult it is to write an entire story in 15 words. Too many things are missing! Plus, you have to write it in a way that sounds interesting to a reader and seems even more complex. I can tell you two of my favourite exercises to improve your 15-words writing:

  • read as many movie descriptions as you can and try to describe movies that you know by heart 
  • try to write epitaphs about people you knew or famous people

For example, this is how Forrest Gump is described in Britannica.com:

“Forrest Gump, American film, released in 1994, that chronicled 30 years (from the 1950s through the early 1980s) of the life of a intellectually disabled man (played by Tom Hanks) in an unlikely fable that earned critical praise, large audiences, and six Academy Awards, including best picture.”

How you can make it in 15 words?

The chronicle of 30 years of the life of an intellectually disabled man (1950s- 1980s).

Yes, there are a lot of things missing. This is precisely my point. Now you need to add. Divide this 15-words-description into 4 parts (beginning, development, middle, finale).

  1. Forrest is an intellectually disabled child who discovers he can do some extraordinary things.
  2. Forrest goes to war, understands he loves one girl and loses his best friend, Bubba.
  3. The girl he loves continues to escape from him. Forrest is lucky and gets a millionaire.
  4. The girl he loves returns, they have a child together and then she dies.

I know what you’re thinking: “where is the bench, that famous beautiful bench?” 

Nowhere, now, but the exercise isn’t finished here. We need to make each part of the story divided into 4 phrases, 15 phrases long. In this way, we can start speaking about him sitting on a bench and speaking to a stranger, his disabilities and his single mum believing in him, and his crush on Jenny. Step by step, your story starts to be interesting. 

What’s next?

Start doing some exercises, put some ideas together and write your famous first 15 words. Your story will start growing on an excellent base.

Read some of my stories here and tell me what you think about them.

To be continued!

Book reading, flyingstories

What is the most challenging part of a story to write?

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What is the most challenging part of a story to write?

The beginning in the beginning

When you first start writing, the easiest part is the beginning, or at least it’s what you think. Words flow so quickly that you feel you have a gift, and maybe you actually have. The issue is, when you let someone (not your mom and dad) read it, most of the time, they do THAT face.

Which face?

You know what face I’m speaking about, the lost look. Why is that? You start wondering if the story has a sense at all, and then you start questioning everything, even the editor trying to help you. The only solution is to take a step back and re-read everything, following the advice of the experts.

Beginners

So, I answered the first question, I think. The most challenging part of a story to write is the beginning when you are a beginner. The first line is so difficult to write that it takes 25% of my time, even nowadays. That line presents your book to the reader, and nothing will change that. The reader will understand your style and what the story is about just by reading that first line.

Now, I went to a book presentation a few days ago. Friendly atmosphere, cool people. Then, I bought a book copy and sat waiting for the discussion to start. I arrived there without preconceptions, open to discovering a lovely book and a new author.

Then, I opened the first page

The book was well-edited; no problem with that. I focused on the first line. Horrible, simply horrible. I closed my eyes, breathed and I tried again. Nope, still horrific. A nightmare for anyone who had ever written something, that first line told me, “run from this place”. Still, I tried my best not to run. I thought, “maybe I’m wrong; let’s give her another chance”. 

And I did

The most useless hour I ever spent, believe me. The writer and the other two presenters started speaking about how skilled the author is. Also, they couldn’t avoid talking about how magic was the love story (apparently, if there’s no love story, there’s no book, they said) and other incredibly dull things.

What did I discover?

I discovered that you need to read many good books, but even more bad first lines, too. First, a bad first line wants to tell you something clever but doesn’t show you anything. Something like “George was walking in a garden full of roses, the smell of the paradise and the colour of passion”. After a while, you will understand how important the first line is. Phew.

If you’re still asking yourself what is the most challenging part of a story to write, here’s the answer, then. This doesn’t mean it’s always the most difficult part. In the example of the bad start, the author forgot to mention something important, questions. Questions are something you cannot forget when you’re writing anything. Questions bring answers, and answers get other questions. 

Show, don’t tell

Show, don't tell, graphic by Daniele Frau.
Show, don’t tell.

In an excellent short video by Film Courage, Glenn Gers gives the six questions that you never have to forget when writing fiction.

  1. What this story is about?
  2. What is that they want?
  3. Why they cannot get it?
  4. What do they do about that?
  5. Why it doesn’t work?
  6. How does it end?

These macro questions lead to many others in something similar to fractals or the famous snowflake method. 

What is this story about? A man in his forties that never left his room. 

Why did he never leave his room? Where does he live? Does he live alone? How is it possible that he never left his room? How big is his room?

And so on, you got my point.

Let’s continue to speak about it in the following article!

In the meantime, have a look at my stories on Flyingstories.org.

Read, write, explore!

Daniele Frau

Book reading

Writers from Sardinia?

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How big is this island?

Every day I meet people from all over the world (yes, even now that we’re living in Covid-19times). The question that people ask me more often is:

How comes you have your own language in Sardinia?

Yes, believe me, this question has been asked so many times that if they gave me 1 penny for each time I heard it… well, you know Bill Gates? He would be just a poor guy selling shoes if compared to me.

A complex island

The answer is yes, obviously. Sardinia has its own language, an history so complex and different from the Italian one, not to mention it is enormous. I mean it, it’s huge. When I think that the most famous nations-islands in the Mediterranian Sea, as Cyprus or Malta are respectively 9251 square km and 316 square km, I think it makes sense that we have a peculiar language in Sardinia (which is over 24 thousand square km). This idiom is called Sardo, or Sardinian.

Sardinian writers Daniele Frau graphics

I’m not going through with the history of Sardinia and its language. There’s so much literature about it that it would take my entire blog just to start the topic. Let’s summarise what Sardinian produced culturally in the last 100 years or so.

The star

Let’s start with the star: Grazia Deledda. She was born in 1871, and in 1926 this amazing woman received a Nobel Prize for literature. If this information doesn’t shock you, think about the fact that at the time she was only the second woman ever winning the prize. Furthermore, she was the first Italian woman in history to receive it. Interesting, huh?

Many others

You can quickly check the incredible number of writers Sardinia produced over the centuries. They spoke about what being a shepherd means, or to serve in the countryside since you’re just a child. They also wrote about the First World War, and more recently, with Accabbadora by Michela Murgia, you can jump in the reality of Sardinia in the Fifties.

Furthermore, these fantastic writers wrote in Italian, considered for a long time a second language in Sardinia. When I was a child (not so long ago), it was easy to meet old people speaking broken Italian, but fluent when they had to talk in Sardinian. Even though Sardinian was considered illegal to be used in schools for a long time, it was still used in everyday life. Nowadays, Sardinian is coming back to life, thanks to the hard work of many historians, linguists, and intellectuals.

What it means to come from an island?

As everything else, being from a fantastic island as Sardinia brings positive and negative outcomes. One of the negative ones is to be isolated from everything and culturally marginalized. The percentage of Sardinian with a university instruction level is one of the lowest in Italy, and with the crisis, the situation would only get worse.

That said, I hope next time you’ll hear in Sardinia they have their own language you won’t ask the same, one- penny, question.

Which stories Daniele Frau wrote? Have a look!

Book reading, flying, flyingstories

How to write a matryoshka

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Everyone knows what a matryoshka doll is. The name means precisely what you see when you set your eyes on this strange object. You see a Russian woman, and the shape reminds you of an Egyptian sarcophagus. So, you’re expecting to find a mummy, inside?

And now something completely different

Searching in our Matryoshka

What happens is that, when you open your matryoshka, you find out it contains the same one but slightly different. It’ll remind you that present you received for Christmas, once. You got deceived by the size of the pack, but then the more you open it, the less you find. From a huge packet to a tiny present. But, what if the last one is a ring set with a diamond?

Next level, next stop

You remove as much layers as possible, one small Russian matryoshka after another. Yes, in the end, you want to find something important, you want to feel that all that fuss was necessary, the diamond is there waiting for you! And yet, after removing the last copy of your matryoshka, you realised that the last gift is an exact copy of the rest, but smaller.

I need to get upset?

Think about it, how many movies, piece of theatre and also books end up exactly as we expected from the very beginning? We remove one layer at the time, but we continue to see the same thing. Same characters, same flat plot, just smaller and smaller, but nonetheless the same. Nope, there’s no diamond awaiting for us most of the time, but just the old same matryoshka!

How to avoid matryoshkas

It’s quite easy to answer that question. Open up any book, read the first twenty lines and wait. Something inside yourself has to tell you that you’re not waisting your time. The style, the way the characrers are presented (or they’re not), how the plot is open under your feet to walk through it.

You are a Sherlock Holmes, and now in twenty lines, you have all that you need to understand if that book is right for you. At least book are honest, you don’t have to buy them to understand if you like them or not.

To be continued…

 

 

Book reading, flying

A dirty job

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How to be hooked

A few months ago, I was reading an exciting book called Hooked, by Les Edgerton. While I was hooked by the book, discovering new techniques to engage a reader, I find out something else. I found out a book that, in a few lines, was able to take me deep into the writer’s world. And it doesn’t happen every day. The book was A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.

When I finished it, I asked myself: it would be the same if I’d rather watched a movie instead of reading this story in a book?

Literature vs. Movies

Which one has the most significant “hook”?

I don’t think it’s an easy question to answer. First of all, both books and movies are, and they will always be connected. All the best movies come from a fantastic book or script. And many books are more and more “visual”, citing and referring to movies. What changes sometimes is the audience they’re referred. In some cases, when people want to lay down on a sofa and relax, they don’t want to do it with a book in their hands. Maybe they’re with their wife, and they want to spend their quality time watching something together.

A book is private

Yes, this can be a first answer.

A book is a private game between you and the author. He never had to know how much time and effort the author had to put together to give birth to a single phrase, sometimes. The reader has to jump into the new world she has to discover, and the only way to do so is to forget there is a writer there, somewhere. In this sense, it’s obviously easier for an excellent writer to hook a reader. What a writer has to do is to whisper the right words in the ears of the reader, and he will be tempted to turn the next page.

A dirty, dirty job

Coming back to A dirty Job, you can it’s the quintessence of what I said before. You turn each page thinking:

“And now?”

Your precious key enters in a new keyhole. And this is a magic sensation, something rare, captivating. You feel like the first man entering a pyramid after thousands of years.

What is the story about?

The story is about a beta male who, after losing his wife, finds himself trapped in an unwanted and quite crazy job. Eventually, he will adjust to his new life and routine, but you won’t know who the enemies are and who the good boys are there until you turn the last page.

A world in which souls can be exchanged through an object. A book that profoundly influenced me when writing my book Souls Alive.

Thanks, Christopher Moore.

If you want to read another great book, have a look to The queen’s gambit.

Daniele Frau

Book reading, flying, flyingstories

The urge to read

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A book is a journey

I was six years old, I was sitting in my room when I realized that reading was the indestructible boat I needed to explore every ocean in the world. It didn’t mean I didn’t need to move. Most of the people start with the assumption that reading is quite dull and static activity, although I thought the opposite. I felt it back then, and I still believe this is true.

A book makes you travel

Reading must be more than just taking ideas passively from a stranger. It must be a journey, an adventure. And as any traveler experienced, you end up penniless (tickets costs, as well as books, have a price), but empowered. The experience, the travel you just made, must give you memories you’d use in times of need.

A good book

What a good book is, then, it’s all about your taste. A few days ago a colleague of mine told me: 

My favorite writer ever is J.K. Rowling.

This is the kind of reader I’d call an emotional reader. It doesn’t matter the style, the message of the story, the layers the writer carefully put one over the other. No, the essential part is how she felt when she was young, and she read those lines for the first time. That journey never ceased for her.

What a great book looks like?

So it’s time to see another critical expression: this is a great book. Think about the travel, which travel do you remember as a great one, and what do you recollect as being just ok? The same stands for reading a book. The great books are the ones that, for different reasons, opened a small door, let us cry or laugh, comforted us like a good friend.

The lake

I called the book a journey, but I can say it’s a lake as well. What a story and a lake have in common?

And a matryoshka? Keep reading, and you’ll discover soon!

Daniele Frau

Flyingstories

flyingstories

Flyingstories

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Flyingstories

My new project

FlyingstoriesSeagulls in Dubai, Flyingstories

https://youtu.be/kY4FfefQygY

Every now and then I was thinking if it was right to put new stuff on this big ocean called Internet. With flyingstories I decided not to put anything else if not some stories from our travels around the world, some languages courses and some stories coming straight from my fantasy. What else? Just have a look!