Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

In Greek and Roman mythology, a lot of the horrifying monsters that the demigods faced off against were little more than overgrown real life creatures made a bit tougher, like the Nemean Lion that Hercules killed, and whose skin he wore as a cloak thereafter. Others, like the Chimera, were composed of various parts of normal creatures stuck together in a random and scary way. Cerberus kind of straddled the fence there, being a giant dog wasn’t good enough, so they gave him three heads.

Before you go congratulating modern mad on being so much more creative, I did see a video for rent with a three headed shark apparently gunning for Machete, probably should have snapped that one up.

This penchant for taking bits of things and making something new with them isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Medieval cooks loved to take the critters they had lying about to cook, and sew them back together in interesting ways. Sure, the mermaid or whatever they’d just made probably tasted just like everything else, but at least it looked interesting. In a world without refrigeration, most spices, or even a lot of the common ingredients that give food flavor, this was a big deal.

Modern taxidermists have an entire art form based on this, which ranges from combining animals to create flying monkeys or dragons, to combining animals with things. Depending on which artist you’re dealing with, the results vary from fanciful steampunk, to gorgeously romantic, to downright creepy. Whichever direction they go, though, it is all art, and it feels very fresh.

So what do you do when you feel your writing is getting stale? Like you’ve been down this road before, and there are no surprises left?

You could , of course, drown your sorrows in rum, lament the end of your career, and become an accountant.

Or you could shake things up a bit.

If the problem seems to be minor, then perhaps there is no need to stage a major earthquake. Put the piece down, work on something unrelated, or go do something you’ve never done and then come back to it with fresh eyes. Mostly, though, we don’t stop for minor problems, we stop because we’ve dug ourselves so deeply into a rut that we can’t even see out of it anymore.

That’s where the Chimera exercise comes in. Like the Boxdancing exercise I described in a previous post, this is a way to get your subconscious out of its routine. I will warn you, it pushes you out of your comfort zone, so you might not enjoy the activity at first, but the results are usually well worth it.

Let’s say that you are a serious science fiction writer, and you feel stuck. Jot down a quick list of the genres you have nothing to do with, say romance, horror, true crime, and young adult. Close your eyes and drop your pen on the list twice, no cheating. These two are the donors for your chimera experiment. My pen marked young adult and horror, so I will be stuck writing a short story that combines elements from those two genres into something that isn’t either one, but is instead the science fiction that I want it to be. Generally, I stick to 1500 words, because that is a decent enough length to tell a short story, but not long enough to push more serious projects to the side.

You can choose elements from the genres you’ve picked that are clichéd, because they probably aren’t clichés in the new genre. All that matters is that you have chosen at least one recognizable element from each genre you don’t mess with, elements that you would not have previously used, and combined them to tell a story.

Usually one is enough to jolt you out of your rut. You can, however, apply like shampoo: lather, rinse, repeat.

Cheers,

Michelle