The Writer, or Life as a Petri Dish
The Free Online Dictionary defines a petri dish as ‘a shallow circular dish with a loose-fitting cover, used to culture bacteria or other microorganisms’. Named after German bacteriologist Julius Petri, this dish (in fact, a dirty discarded one) was where Alexander Fleming made the great discovery of the antibiotic, penicillin. In the annals of modern health, history was made.
So, you might quite rightly ask, what on earth does this have to do with writers and writing unless you’re submitting to the BMJ?
Well, I’ve often been asked how I’ve conjured up my characters — the good, the bad and the downright deranged. Did you heap revenge on people who have annoyed you? No, I can’t afford to be sued. Do you put in your friends? Dear me, no. I’d like to keep them — the good, the bad and the downright deranged (of which I have many). They’re precious.
What’s not so precious, is me. Every human body is a mass of bacteria. So is every human soul (if perhaps, bacteria of another sort). We’re all made up of parts that are light and dark, good and bad, rational and irrational. I’ve found if you isolate one of these components, keep the lid (ie, your control) on it loose, something — someone — else grows. This someone, in turn, spawns its own complex group of microrganisms: processes of thought and feeling, neurosis and logic. Because in letting one component of yourself breathe, others are free to flourish and someone entirely new is born. Sometimes someone essentially good, sometimes someone monstrous. But always someone with their own journey to make.
Many years ago when I first started writing, I naively thought it would be like playing God. I could manouevre characters this way or that through a preconceived plot-line and, voilà, the story I had in my head would come into being. Before I’d finished the first draft of my first book, I discovered how laughably wrong-headed this notion was. Psychology is much more devious than that. Instead, it was more like having children. Yes, you can see a bit of yourself in them — a hair colour, a gesture, some minor trait whatever it might be. But essentially, they are their own. They’re a new set of microorganisms and, as much input as you might have in kick-starting their life, they will go their own way, zig-zag their own progress through life, make their own mistakes, navigate their own victories.
So it is when you’re writing characters. They will grow, they will change, they will make their own history. You’re there as a conduit for their birth. You might be pleased or horrified at what they might do, but if you think you can make them do anything, well, don’t even go there.
From the petri dish of psychological bacteria inside, you’ll grow surprising discoveries and a far better story.
About The Knightmare (2013)Present, Formula 1 race, Magny Cours: Observed by the very same couple, Conor Westfield, a career-obsessed Scottish driver, is in a horrible racing accident. Miraculously, he survives what seemed to be certain death.
As he is recovering from his injuries Conor’s childhood nightmare recurs, a strange jumble of terrifying images that feel more like memories than dreams. Can it be mere coincidence that the very next morning he is informed a mysterious woman with whom he had very brief affair has died and left him as her heir? But this was no ordinary woman and no ordinary affair. Dogged by a niggling feeling of déjà vu, Conor travels to Amsterdam to identify the body. At her home he finds an illuminated book that transports him back in time, to a woman he left behind and a life lived in the shadow of a tragedy that cries out across 800 years for resolution.
Amazon USAmazon UKGoodreads About Deborah ValentineDeborah Valentine is a British author, editor and screenwriter who once lived in California but far preferred the British weather and fled to London, where she has resided for many years. She is the author of three books published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in the UK, and Bantam and Avon in the US. Unorthodox Methods was the first in the series, followed by A Collector of Photographs and the Ireland-based Fine Distinctions. A Collector of Photographs was short-listed for an Edgar Allan Poe, a Shamus, a Macavity and an Anthony Boucher award. Fine Distinctions was also short-listed for an Edgar. These will be available as eBooks through Orion soon. With the publication of The Knightmare she has embarked on a new series of books with a supernatural edge. WebsiteFacebookGoodreadsAbout the Author:
I was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England and have always been a bookworm and enjoyed creative writing at school. In 1999 I created the Elencheran Chronicles and have been writing ever since. My first novel, Fezariu's Epiphany, was published in May 2011. When not writing I'm a lover of films, games, books and blogging. I now live in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, with my wife, Donna, and our six cats - Kain, Razz, Buggles, Charlie, Bilbo and Frodo.
David M. Brown – who has written 793 posts on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave.