The Author’s Superpower #amwriting

The world around you is filled with ordinary people, each going about their ordinary business, working ordinary jobs. When you meet these accountants, homemakers, engineers, programmers, and baristas, you would never know that among them are a few with a dark secret—they are possessed of dual superpowers.

What incredible feats are they capable of? Unfortunately, unless they are Doctors,  First Responders, Firefighters, or Astronauts, their dual powers are not likely to visibly shake the world.

But their powers do bring change, working subtly, opening minds to possibilities hitherto unconsidered.

They are authors. When no one is looking, they create entire worlds, fill them with people, cultures, political systems, religions, and with each paragraph they write, they start these worlds spinning.

The first superpower is the gift of “what if.” “What if” is an ability latent in all sentient creatures, but only storytellers seem able to tap into it at will. This is the author’s first superpower, but it is useless without the second gift.

A moment of “what if” was the spark that started the fire in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

“What if” started Bilbo Baggins down the road to the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit.

Many people have that nagging idea, that moment of “what if,” but few also have the other gift, the “power of perseverance.” While many will imagine, and many will begin to write, few will go to the trouble of finishing their book.

Imagination and perseverance are the author’s superpowers.

They are the gifts of the few who have the determination, the will to learn the craft of writing so that their moment of “what if” can become a reader’s moment of “You have to read this book!”

So, you have the imagination, and you believe you might also have the perseverance. You have a book about to burst from you, and you want to get it right. What do you do? Every superpower must be trained, or who knows what havoc you could wreak?

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR SUPERPOWERS:

1. Write new words every day. Revise old words as needed.
2. Read books that inspire you.
3. Read books you hate.
4. Dissect books to discover what makes them great or awful.
5. Write new words every day. Revise old words as needed.
6. Go to writers’ conferences if you can.
7. Attend writers’ seminars if you can.
8. Join a local writers’ group.
9. Buy and read books on the craft of writing.
10. Write new words every day. Revise old words as needed.

Superheroes must work at training their powers, or they become flabby and useless.

Suggestion 9 is the most affordable of the suggestions.

Writing is not a one-size-fits-all kind of occupation. No one style guide will fit every purpose. I use Bryan A. Garner’s The Chicago Guide to Grammar and Punctuation to answer my questions about grammar and punctuation.

The following is the list of books that are the pillars of my reference library:

• Damn Fine Story, by Chuck Wendig
• Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Story, by Robert McKee
• Dialogue, by Robert McKee
• The Writer’s Journey, by Christopher Vogler
• The Sound on the Page, by Ben Yagoda

My reference library grows daily. I talk to writers every day about the craft, about their lives, about their approaches to what they do. I want to know what inspires them, what books they got advice from, what books they read as children that lit the fire that burns inside them.

Writing is my superpower, and I am constantly in training.