My experience as a writer fresh out of university.
Hello everyone! My name is Oliver Stanley, and I am a freelance Writer and Journalist in training. I have been generously given this guest spot to talk about my experiences as a young writer so you can see my creative process and learn the reasons why I decided to become a writer in the first place!
When did I decide to be a writer?
I went to University for Drama and English with the goal of becoming an actor. However, while I was there, I realised that it was the writing and creating aspect of theatre that I loved the most. Most of my prior experience of Drama was devising work, so I was always working on building characters and creating pieces from scratch and it was extremely satisfying! However, while backstage at university during one of my major projects, I realised I didn’t enjoy performing anymore. From difficulty remembering lines to the competitive pressure of entering the professional world, I realised that I didn’t have the drive to work on the stage, and that what really drew me in to movies and TV was a love of character and narrative! Finally, my experience during my course’s directing module made me realise that I wasn’t the actor I wanted to work with. (Maybe I will be in the future, but right now, I still have a long way to go.) I reached this conclusion during the pandemic and returning to third year to complete a script writing module made me confident about my newfound resolve! I had discovered myself, and my passion!
Realising why I write was an important moment. It made me take a step back and see what it was that drew me to enjoy the things I did. My love of character. My love of people and emotion. And my long-lasting love for narrative! I want to write fiction, and to tell stories of emotion and intrigue. To explore character and what it is that makes a person! I suppose in a way, I write for the same reason I act; to expand my understanding of what it means to be human. The voice within us all that makes us do what we do! I realised that my writing centred around voice and the human experience. I am drawn in by how a character feels. I want the chance to explore their emotions as well the ways they react to the events unfolding around them, and this is reflected in my writing process!
My process:
My works most often begin with a character. I think about how they would act in certain situations and how interesting that would be. From there, I try find the setting that fits them most, one which would allow for the situations in which their personality can shine! The setting then gets built around them and as other characters develop from the interactions and challenges, I invent to draw out their best moments, their own motivations begin to manifest, giving the work its conflict, cast and depth. In this way, character is literally central to my process.
From there, after the overarching plot is constructed, I then think through dialogue in character. In a way, this is the same as my acting process; with me playing each of the characters in my head, letting them develop and grow. In terms of refining this into the final dialogue, I would previously edit as I go. However I’ve learned recently that after a certain point I take so long re-reading what I’ve written every time I go to continue, that I am too exhausted to write more by the time I finish! (In my currently untitled fantasy novel, this point is right around chapter 3…)
Staying motivated:
Self-motivation can be a difficult hurdle. This time last year, I was still coming to terms with leaving university and still feeling unprepared for it to all be over. I remember asking myself too often: “Did I use my time well enough?”, “Should I feel more prepared than this?” and it was a very unpleasant headspace to be in. In order to push past this, I began by Setting myself a schedule. However, I quickly learned that trying to write when I didn’t feel like writing only resulted in me not enjoying myself and producing mediocre results. If you want to make something good, don’t force it. It important that you stay motivated and enjoy what you do. Enthusiasm is key.
I also found that collaborating helps for getting things done, as doing things with others will incentivise you and help all involved keep the creative energy flowing! I collaborated with a friend from university on a few podcast episodes, writing short horror scripts for YouTube, and I learned that If I work alongside other people, I can give myself the pressure I need to complete a project! I also realised I work best if I have a deadline! However setting one myself is less effective, and something I still need to figure out for a projects that are solely mine to complete.
Finally, I would often find myself distracted from writing by my own guilt at not working. I felt like I needed to use the time I had to write to paying work, All the while asking myself ‘where should I be?’ / ‘What should I be doing with my life?’ However this changed when that I got my first writing job as an editorial writer. Here, I learned a lot about online content writing, and by the time my contract ended I decided this was what I wanted to do for a living while I wrote my own fiction in my spare time.
From there, I decided to return to university to complete a master’s in journalism. This way, I could train in the discipline of professional writing, get myself more use to writing more often, and expand my horizons into different mediums, not just for journalism, but for the development of my own works as well!
What should you take from this?
I asked myself while I wrote this, Should I just go on about my own experience without anything helpful to end on? I don’t have any advice beyond sticking to it throughout all the trial and error. Quite frankly, my last year was a bloody mess! But throughout that year, whenever I was feeling low and I’d talk about it with my friends in the creative industry who were going through the same things I was, it always made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my confusion. And I realised that that’s what this blog post is for! It’s so that every aspiring creative has access to that reassuring conversation. Because this part of life doesn’t come with a syllabus or a how to guide. It’s up to you. And you’re not going through it alone!
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