Three things I learned while writing The Matisse Puzzle

When I started doing creative writing (focusing on The Matisse Puzzle, of course) I found it did not flow very easily. It seemed like hard work because I was trying to be clever, trying to get the plot right, trying to employ figures of speech that were hard to get at – all this, rather than simply going with a flow.

I was thinking too much, you see? But writing, as I found out eventually, needs to be more and better than endless reflection. Maybe it’s a bit like golf, where thinking too much about ‘getting it right’ is a recipe for frustration.  ‘Have I got my feet in the right position? Have I got the right club? Will my swing go through the right arc?’ These are not good questions. These are nightmares. They haunt you and never let you take a single step forward.

Sleep impediments and all, it took me a while to get into the flow. But once there, I started following the best advice any writer could ever get: JUST WRITE. I wrote and I wrote, sometimes like there was no tomorrow. And in the process I learned things only someone who’s written at least one novel would know. To me, the most important things I’ve figured out are the following three. 

You may have a lot of characters in your novel. Which means, you're going
to have to learn a lot of languages, to be able to address them properly.
Source: Character Animation

They were the guiding lines of The Matisse Puzzle, so I’ll mention them with the air of someone who’s reciting a mantra:

• Get to know the characters as if they were real people. Form a relationship with them, get inside their heads, and ask them to tell you what they are thinking, feeling, and doing. Most of the time, they will answer.
• Visualize the characters in the ‘movies’ of their life, scene by scene, and write down what you see, hear, feel. I found that this was a lot easier than asking things like: ‘This character is this kind of person, so what would they be doing? What would be good for them to do to generate or sustain a good plot?’ The point is, they know what they are doing, because the logic of the text is their own logic. So just ask them – yes, ask your characters as if you were asking real people. Don’t try to be brilliant on them, by employing some formulaic plot devices, which, if improperly handled, risk being clunky and inauthentic. Be natural. Be friendly towards your characters.
• Learn how to inhabit a place that exists inside your head. Obviously, it helps if you have spent some quality time there yourself. But I found that many aspects of my trips were hard to recall after a while. And then let us not forget: sooner or later, in most normal of conditions, memory dims. So one obvious approach is to take lots of photos and videos of the place when you are there. Take them with the view of using them as aids for your dimming memory. Take them like an author who wants to see details, specificities, realities.