The Soup of Life: A Personal Reflection

In my lifetime, I've come to realize that soups full of many things, are usually the best soups. The ingredients, taken individually, may not be to my liking, but blended with many ingredients and simmered adequately, they make a satisfying meal. Life itself is much like that. Each occurrence in our lives are like the individual ingredients, some good, some not so good, but in reflection, the soup was pretty good.

As my wife and I celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary today, I couldn't help but reflect on that soup. As this year has unfolded, we've experienced some good and bad ingredients, and the combination has been rather bittersweet for me. The good has come in the form of the realization of what I want most out of life in personal growth: to pursue my writing, my passion. The completion of my first book, and the trails, errors and growing pains that a writer must endure, has been every bit as frustrating and satisfying as I would expect life to be. The excitement I feel now, as I write my second book, is fulfilling on a level that I've never had the pleasure of experiencing. My wife has been an solid supporter of this dream, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The bad ingredients, on the hand, have truly been bad. Yes, the bad has come in the form of the realization that we will lose a lot this year. As I stood on the shores of life watching countless people being swept away by economic disaster, I was blindsided by a disastrous wave of my own. The only consolation being that our children are making their own way now, building their own lives, and are no longer dependent on us.

Remember that soup? I'm not writing this to complain about those bad ingredients, or to toot my horn over my love of writing. Life is like a good soup. It will come with good and bad ingredients, but blended together and simmered over time, that soup will taste just fine on reflection. A soup full of those ingredients will be a life well lived. As for my wife and I, we will move forward and eventually reflect on how good the soup was in 2011. We will have each other, and we will survive. But one thing is certain and constant from this point on: I will write everyday, I will write with passion for what I love, and I will do it for the rest of my days. And if the first 29 years are any indication, my lovely wife will be there until the end.

Repetitive Phrases: Are they always bad?

Most writers will eventually hear the criticism “you’re using such-and-such (a phrase) too much”. You know, things like “{dialogue}, or so I thought.” Or “He could have left it like that, I guess.” There are thousands of examples, but let’s just say any group of words that are repeated throughout the manuscript.

But is it always such a bad thing? Well, I would say if it occurs like 238 times in your work, it’s probably excessive. But 50-60 times? It depends. In my opinion, the one place where you have to be really careful with repetition is in 1st person POV stories. While repeated phrases are generally not good, in 1st POV such phrases may be part of your character’s make-up. Or to be more precise, the “voice”. Like a person that says “you know?” at the end of most of their sentences (or at the beginning, as I did above). Sometimes it’s just part of who they are.

So, if you're paring down those repetitive phrases in your 1st person POV novel, be careful not to strip the “voice” from your MC. Find a good balance, one that minimizes but doesn’t sanitize. Try to stay true to your character.

Our writing characters...where do we get them? Every writer has a process of developing characters in their stories. And like every story, our characters are made up of bits and pieces, if I may, of characters we've used in the past, or read about, or saw on TV, etc..


But do you ever use bits of yourself in your MC? Or maybe in a supporting character? I think we all do, whether intentional or subconsciously.

But sometimes the evolution isn't as subtle as that. In my first book, my MC was a boy named Pete Travers. Pete actually started out as me. He was me. And the setting was the town I grew up in. But over time, the book evolved. The town got a new name and Pete, well Pete evolved into someone that only Pete could be.

I must admit that somewhere along the way I felt just a little sad when I realized that I had been replaced with another character. But the fact was, Pete was much better at pulling off this story than I was. (Yes, I know. This is getting borderline weird:-)

So, how do you develop your characters? I'd like to know!