Often, due to the originality of the interpretation of the features of their professional activities by writers, there are many ridiculous, erroneous ideas about the essence of this type of creativity. In particular, you can easily hear from some representatives of the literary craft that writing books is, they say, a simple matter. It is enough, as they assure, to start writing and have only an idea of which direction the plot should develop, and the rest is a matter of muses and inspiration. But is it really that simple?
Fortunately, in addition to the great many selfish authors who strive not only to take to the grave the secrets of success that they managed to take possession of, but also to lead followers astray, there are those who willingly share the most important, basic principles of creating a complex artistic system, which is usually accepted distinguish as a work of art. Tutorials, books by their authorship, numerous articles and lessons can be easily found on the vast expanses of the Internet. However, much more popularity and respect are still enjoyed by those who dishonestly earn money by deceiving novice authors by giving completely useless, and more often even harmful advice from the series "how to write a bestseller." Everything from the fact that a person loves to be deceived, always seeks to get around difficulties and look for an easy and simple answer to a difficult question. So, for example, sometimes successful authors advise you to use your feelings rather than specific rules when writing a book. It happens that it comes to the point that from the lips of a completely sane person who has sold more than one book, you can hear advice not to come up with a plan, not write an annotation, not try to formulate a backstory for each character, but just sit down to write, relying only on the power of your own imagination. This approach to creativity can only be useful to the one who advises, but not to the one who decides to use this advice, since this is the best way to kill the author in himself and forever block the road to the literary world.
The work of the author, as can be judged from the words, sayings and fragments of biographies of eminent writers, requires no less investment of effort than any other occupation, or rather much more. For example, the notorious Stephen King wrote so many works before his creations began to be published that there was no more room for the refusal sheets that he hung on a nail. Naturally, for this it would not be enough to write a few works and get upset, giving up forever. The author himself indicates this case in his biography. But any aspiring writer should learn a lesson from this experience for himself. Indeed, even before Stephen King became famous for his creations, he managed to write as much as sometimes unscrupulous authors, blinded by the glitter of accidental success, do not try. Of course, one can imagine that such a talented person is constantly in a state of inspiration. But such an assumption can only be made by someone who is not familiar with the conditions in which the mentioned author had to work at the very beginning of his career.
Therefore, it is necessary to know and understand how any work is arranged and what can be derived from this knowledge. And this is not as difficult as it might seem.
The backbone of a piece, as a rule, is always an idea. The idea, or message that the author wants to convey to the reader, forms the plot, and the plot influences what the characters and characters should be like. But let's dwell on the plot for now and leave the rest without attention, since already from explaining all the subtleties of these concepts - ideas, plot and heroes - a whole book can be assembled. In this lies the complexity of the literary work, learning more and more, you plunge into it, as if into a bottomless depression, but so far there has not yet been found someone who would have reached the bottom.
And what characterizes the plot is logic. As mentioned, everything is simple. But here's a question that will clear things up a bit: why is linear plotting so popular? Why do authors so often resort to this particular method of storytelling, despite the fact that there are good works that are remembered and stand out precisely because of the extraordinary style, expressed through the inconsistent disclosure of the work in an arbitrary, it seems, order? And all because human consciousness is incapable of perceiving the world otherwise than through the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships. In fact, the logic is preserved even in works with a non-linear plot, but it is not revealed immediately, and not in the usual way, but using a non-standard narrative. If we go further in the reasoning, then we can safely say that in any work, in any book, in any film, story, poem there is its own logic, a framework on which the rest of the artistic project is built, no matter what area of creativity it belongs to. …
Actually, this helps to determine priorities for a novice author. Fortunately, logic is not the amorphous, shapeless, inspired-pseudo-creative definition of talent that some writers hide behind when sincere followers try to find out their creative secrets. Logic is a well-defined, formulated subject, which makes it possible to study it and use it in work. This makes it possible to determine the most important component of a literary work from the standpoint of the author, namely, the idea. In other words, a message. What the author is trying to convey to the reader. You should think well and formulate as accurately as possible what thought will be traced in each chapter from the beginning to the end of the work. Then you should choose the right plot, which will be most complete, accurate and, which is important, it is clear to reveal the author's idea to the reader. It is like picking parts, but if creativity is lost in such a presentation, then it really is not, because everything is just the opposite. Indeed, the author is tasked with connecting the details of the mechanism, only, but at his disposal there is an infinite number of both the parts themselves and the methods of their connection. It is only important to remember that in no case should the logical component be neglected.
From the first word to the very last sentence, the work must certainly be permeated with a specific meaning determined by the author, must obey the goal set by him. And all the rest is creativity, because so much is left to the author's discretion that you cannot go far with logic alone.
In the literature, there are many rules that can, and sometimes need to be broken, but you can never go against logic. After all, you can argue about what the house should be, whether it be made of brick, wood, stone, round, square, one-story or several floors, but it is impossible to agree with the statement that it is enough to arbitrarily throw off the material in one place on which the building will be built by itself yourself. Therefore, logic is a writer’s best friend.
