Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?
The first story I ever wrote was called "My Flatmate". You can read it in one of my collections called "Inappropriate Behaviour and Other Stories".
I had done a bit of writing before this. I'd been very successful in getting letters published in newspapers. But writing fiction always seemed too difficult. I was worried about how to make a story both interesting and believable. I could write a believable account of everyday incidents in my own life, but that wouldn't be interesting. A mystery or spy story set in some exotic locale would be interesting, but the amount of research I would need to do to make it believable when I've never been to such a place or done such things seemed too big a challenge.
At this time I was a fan of a sexy Asian girl named Kris who had a website called The Shy Exhibitionist where she posted pictures of herself getting naked in various public places. One day she held a story writing contest. "I could probably write a story based on a sexual fantasy of mine," I told myself. This seemed to be a way around my dilemma. I could set the story in an ordinary location which would require no research to present convincingly and the story would hopefully be interesting to readers because it was sexy.
My story didn't win anything, but the writing of it did unlock my creativity in the realm of humorous erotic fiction. The key was that I was writing "trash" and that was liberating. If I were writing something I had to take seriously then I would worry about whether or not I was "getting it right". Writing humorous erotica is just a game. That doesn't mean I don't think I do it well, but the secret to any creative endeavour is to remove the barriers to creativity, and for me the major barrier was taking the idea of writing fiction too seriously.
What is your writing process?
At the heart of my approach to writing fiction are the principles of improvisation laid out by theatrical improvisation teacher Keith Johnstone in his book "Impro : Improvisation and the Theatre" (London : Eyre Methuen, 1981). When everything is going well, a story writes itself.
A lot of my stories have been written as a response to writing challenges in which some word is provided as a prompt and the story is written in a limited time. I begin with an idea I think may be amusing, then I use the process of association to come up with other interesting ideas which would link well with it. The basics of the story grow out of the process of problem solving. If I want a scene to occur then that requires characters and a process which will lead to that scene. What kind of characters I create and how I bring them together is partly a matter of practicalities and partly something open to the free expression of the imagination. A practical solution to a plot difficulty often opens up even more amusing possibilities for the story. And there is no knowing where any idea will lead, so there is a strong incentive to entertain even the least promising ones. When the process is going well it feels as if the story already exists and all I'm doing is uncovering it.
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