We all have favorite authors. I have many authors who have written books that inspired me or held me captive, turning pages into the early morning hours.
What is it that these authors have? Where does one achieve that ability? Is it inherited? Only those who are born with the prerequisite DNA can pen(or type)words in such a way?
I have no idea. Whatever IT is, I want it. I want the same ability to craft a story, not just the plot, but to craft the words in such a way that the characters come to life and tell their story to a captive audience.
What I am about to tell you may seem like following Alice down the rabbit hole. Most of us have these connections in our lives. We may not think about them until one day we look back and see we have made choices leading us down paths where we intersect with people or movies, in my case, and arrive at an AHA moment.
Graham Moore. You may not know him, I didn’t. I did, however, know his work. The Imitation Game. I saw the movie and was inspired.
I might not have been so inspired had I not seen a BBC series called Bletchley Circle. The series was based on women who had brilliant minds and worked “under cover” for British Intelligence. This series lasted two seasons. The second season not near as good as the first.
As the Imitation Game story unfolded and the setting was Bletchley I immediately became invested in the story. The story is an amazing account of the workings behind WWII and breaking the German code. My mind whirled as the characters played their parts.
A week or so ago, while looking for audio books for purchase, I came across the title: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. The synopsis mildly intrigued me because of the mention of Nikola Tesla. I’ve been intrigued by this man since the movie The Prestige where supposedly, the main character sought out Nikola Tesla in his Colorado laboratory. I’d watched a couple of documentaries on the brilliant man to further satisfy my interest.
Back to Graham’s book. I used one of my credits to buy the audio version. It began slow with the set up of characters. Paul, the main character is a young lawyer and a wordsmith. The story is crafted in such a way, although I know Westinghouse won the war so to speak by using Tesla’s AC, this fictionalized version has me entranced.
I went to Graham Moore’s website and perused his three books and what he wrote about them. I clicked on his BLOG which hadn’t had a recent post in a few years. I didn’t feel so bad at my missing months. What further captivated me was the section marked OTHER. Here were a list of things he’d written on a variety of writing subjects.
I’m going to share this one, which hooked me into reading other postings. I hope as writers who want to learn more about writing engaging characters and plots, follow the link and read all of his post.
https://medium.com/@MrGrahamMoore/how-to-write-about-characters-who-are-smarter-than-you-c7c956944847