Darryl Dawson

The question is: What inspires you?

Well, a lot of things, really. (See what I mean?)

Going back a few posts, I told you about my brother’s pet snake and how fascinating it was to watch it eat a mouse, and more than once I’ve alluded to my love for a certain television show that fashioned my taste for horror. But what about The Crawlspace? What were the sparks of all those stories?

Like I said, a lot of things. Each of the thirteen stories had its own unique spark: “Hamburger Lady” by the song of the same name, “I Scream, You Scream” by my childhood, “The House With No Clocks” by a job I once had, and so on. But in the overall picture of the anthology and how it came to be, I guess one incident from my high school days was the trigger point.

In my junior year at Narbonne High School, I entered myself in a regional writing contest. It was for that contest that my very first short story was written, a juicy bit of lit-noir about a vampire prostitute called “Woman Of The Night.” I don’t recall much of it, but I remember the last line…”and plunged her fangs into his neck.” It won first prize, earning me a nifty little trophy and a spot in the school district’s exclusive literary magazine. I was so proud and so happy when I heard the news, I couldn’t wait to tear into my complimentary copy and read it, and I did, all the way to the last line…”and plunged her knife into his neck.”

Wait a minute! That’s not the line I wrote! There must be some kind of mistake! There wasn’t.

It turns out the teacher/coordinator in charge of all of the submitted entries from Narbonne (may she rest in peace, I’m sure) made an editorial decision on my story without first consulting me. “I just didn’t get the whole vampire angle and I thought the knife would make more sense,” she said. “Sorry about that. Anyway, you won!”

I was so upset that I didn’t even show up for the awards ceremony. I can’t tell you how much it hurt to know that something I had imagined and created was deemed so inadequate it had to be changed at the last minute by an uncredited second party before being judged for a major contest. But you could multiply that hurt by a thousand in the knowledge that the winning story had my name on it, but wasn’t mine.

From that day forward I never let anyone see any of the stories or poems I had written, and it wasn’t until many years later, with the help of Milli Thornton’s brilliant online class Fear Of Writing, that I overcame my self-doubt about my work and The Crawlspace was conceived.

I guess this book was born from a need for justice and a chance to set things right. No one interfered with the creation of any of these stories nor would I allow it. And you can be damn sure it’ll never happen again. I don’t expect to win a trophy for my book, but if fate deals me a steering wheel to the ribs or a heart attack tomorrow, I can rest knowing that a part of me will be left behind, unedited and uncensored. That’s what inspired The Crawlspace, and what inspires me as an author.

The Crawlspace

DARRYL DAWSON is the author of The Crawlspace, released in October 2009. Fear of Writing is very proud to once have had Darryl as a student of the Fear of Writing Online Course, where he unleashed his style of horror on us in all the best ways. You can experience more of Darryl’s writing on his blog, Blood Spatter – A Horror Writer’s Blog.

Currently, I’m in the second category mentioned in Write There (Part I): that of changing both genres and platforms.

For the past nine years, I’ve developed and expressed my style as the fear of writing expert—the “no critiques allowed/this is a safe place to explore your creativity” lady—and the prolific generator of writing prompts that give you a fun storyline to work with.

My chief genre up ‘til now has been self-help for writers. My platform has been my book, Website, workshops and online writing course.

But now I’m moving into new territory; reinventing myself as a screenwriter. The screenplay is my new platform. My new genre—at least for my first screenplay—is time travel/adventure/romance.

There’s a lot to learn! Not only about my new craft but about myself in relation to this new story-telling platform.

My Tele-Class “Ah-Ha!” Moment

Recently I attended a tele-class about asking carefully targeted questions to structure the genre of your screenplay. I’m a great believer in asking questions to help explore my characters and their dilemmas, and the tele-class was being taught by a respected screenwriting teacher, so I was looking forward to learning some insider secrets.

But I was not able to last the distance. What this call (re)confirmed for me is that these kinds of writing systems are too cerebral for me.

I know they work for others . . . but I am not those others. I have to know what’s right for ME.

What works for me is to write my first raw draft from a deep well of passion, plus an organic knowledge from within of what my story is about.

Once I have my first draft, I can go about finessing the structure (and other important elements) during my rewrites.

I’m a stickler for structure, professional presentation and rewriting my story until it’s the best it can be. So it’s not as if I repudiate the more technical sides of creative writing (in fact, I’m always reading how-to books about my new field). But, for me, it would kill the realness of my story to think in terms of “Act II Part II relates to Act II Part I, but not Act I or Act III.”

That’s just how I am.

The Silver Lining

Even though I knew in my heart I could not adopt this teacher’s writing system, I did not consider my time wasted. Sometimes, learning what’s not right for us can be just as valuable as finding where we fit.

It’s the same thing, if you get right down to it. The secret is to avoid using situations such as this one to make judgments about yourself as a writer.

I could just as easily have said, “I’ll never be good enough as a screenwriter! This kind of technical-sounding talk goes right over my head!”

But not only is that not true (I can pick it up easily when it’s presented in a style that resonates with who I am), that kind of self-talk can be cruelly self-perpetuating.

Recognizing I didn’t belong in that tele-class not only freed up my time to get back to my screenplay, my Ah-ha! moment even led (in a round-about way) to more self-acceptance for my own blogging style. Not to mention some deeper thinking about ’style’ that led to more self-expression as a writer.

Sometimes, it pays to be in the wrong place at the right time.

NEXT: Write There (Part III): Style Is Not a Mystery