In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* A New Short Story
* Writing Fiction and Acting: 2
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“Take the work seriously but don’t take yourself seriously.” Clint Eastwood during an interview on Inside the Actors’ Studio (see Of Interest)
“Once you’re in the character you can do anything.” Clint Eastwood, same source
A New Short Story
“Death of a Persona” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
Actually, there are a lot of mistakes in that one. Point them out to me if you want. There are also a lot of story ideas. Feel free. “The boss” in the story is me. The other major characters, other than the pastor and the undertaker, are my personas. It was fun to write.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.
Writing Fiction and Acting: 2
In yesterday’s Part 1 of this topic, I wrote that like many who write into the dark, I become the POV character as I’m writing, and that excellent stage and screen actors do exactly the same thing. (See the first Quote of the Day above.)
I’ve also mentioned before that the main reason I write fiction is so I can live other lives through my characters and vicariously experience situations, solutions, and outcomes that are interesting to me and that I haven’t experienced in my own ‘real’ life.
If I may wax philosophical for a moment, I’ve often wished, just before my human spirit imbued my physical body either in the womb or at birth, that spirit—that essence of who I am—could have split into a dozen or so spirits and imbued a dozen or so physical bodies.
I personally believe the spirit is energy—think of light—and as such splitting it into different parts doesn’t diminish it in any way.
And who knows? Maybe that happens.
But I would want that split to happen in such a way that this particular version of me, the fiction writer, could access the memories and thoughts and personalities of all of those separate physical bodies (characters) and experience what they experience in real time.
Again, who knows? Maybe that happens. Maybe that’s where ‘inspiration’ or characters and their stories come from. It doesn’t really matter, does it? But it’s fun (at least for me) to think about.
Whatever you believe regarding the above, you can prepare (just as actors do) for your ‘role’ in the fiction.
The only real difference is that actors are preparing for a role in a story that’s already happened and been scripted.
What you’re doing if you WITD is more like watching a film you’ve never seen before as it unfolds in your mind. You write down what happens and you write the characters’ reactions to that through their dialogue and action.
You’ve even prepared in advance for some parts of the POV character’s role through your own past experiences and through other experiences you’ve read about or watched in real life or on TV.
But again, the story’s unfolding as you write it. So sometimes the POV character whose persona you’ve slipped into will encounter situations or do things you haven’t experienced.
That’s okay. You can stop writing, go experience that aspect of the role, then come back. Your curiosity will have been satisfied and you can keep writing.
Deborah LeBlanc, a very good horror writer and storyteller, once had herself locked in a coffin so she could experience what it would be like to be buried alive.
Note: Don’t try this at home. The experiment was supposed to last for maybe a minute. But her ‘friend’ left her in there for 10 minutes. (It wasn’t me. I don’t find that sort of thing humorous at all.)
In one of my own novels (probably an early story in my Wes Crowley saga), the POV character was in western boots and descended a hill that was covered with loose bits of shale. He slid down the hill under control and—I assumed by using a combination of varying his speed and occasionally digging in his heels—he never slipped.
But I wasn’t sure that was plausible or likely, even if it was possible, especially since the character was in a hurry and the hill was steep.
I’d never done that in real life—sliding down a shale-covered hillside—and something about that mini-scene seemed important to me.
So I took off my grippy, rubber-soled sneakers, slipped into my semi-slick leather-soled western boots, walked about a quarter-mile out behind my house to a hill covered with loose, sliding rock, climbed to the top, and then slid down with the same sense of urgency the character had conveyed in the story.
I repeated that mini-scene three separate times, always climbing up one slope of the hill and then sliding down on a different ‘virgin’ slope to maintain the integrity of the experiment.
And yes, when I went back to the story roughly an hour after I’d left to go climb the hill, the actual experience informed the scene.
In the final presentation of the story, the character still didn’t fall, but now I knew why he didn’t fall. Because I’d actually experienced the tension in the knees and hips, the (usually involuntary) flexing of certain muscles and muscle groups (some even in the upper chest) at certain times, the balancing of the arms and hands and even the fingers, etc.
Of course, you can’t always do that. For example, you’re probably not gonna go out and rob a bank to experience the tension a ‘real’ bank robber would experience.
And you’re probably not gonna shoot someone to discover whether ‘blowback’ actually occurs when a bullet strikes a forehead, for example. (It does.)
But you CAN run your hand under hot water, then fling that water at yourself from the appropriate angle and experience warm bits of stuff hitting your cheeks and nose and forehead. Just sayin’.
Is this ‘method acting’? I dunno. I’m not an actor.
But I am (and have been and will be) any number of characters. And for sheer entertainment value, authenticity and realism beat out unrealistic scenes and action and dialogue every single time.
That layering-on or weaving-in of realism, combined with appropriate, nuanced description, is what invites the reader into the story and then holds him there.
If you don’t already do this, I encourage you to try it.
For a time, as the story unfolds in your mind and you’re sitting there typing away, allow the POV character to completely absorb you. Soon it will become as easy as slipping into a t-shirt.
And if you’re successful, you’ll suddenly find yourself laughing or crying or shivering or your mouth gaping open in disbelief or your palms going to your cheeks or any number of other physical expressions of emotional nuances—all without realizing in advance that the physical expression is about to happen.
Not to mention it’s great fun.
Any questions, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Clint Eastwood interview on Inside the Actors’ Studio (I found this well worth the hour and a half.)
An Actor Prepares A book on acting that can help you be a better fiction writer.
Vellum 1— Dean 0 If you design your own book interiors (novels or collections) or want to, read this and the comments.
Patronato in Franco’s Spain Story ideas abound.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 1250
Mentorship Words…………….. 200
Total Nonfiction…………………. 1450
Writing of Blackwell Ops 52: Sam Granger | Figuring Things Out
Day 1…… 4693 words. To date………… 4693
Day 2…… 3623 words. To date………… 8316
Day 3…… 3530 words. To date………… 11846
Fiction for November……………………… 64156
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 7261977
Nonfiction for November.………………… 19320
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 258790
2025 consumable words………………… 977418
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 17
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 121
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29