Find the Magic YOUR Way
Back in elementary school, my Grade 5 class put on a play, The King’s Creampuff, in which the Witch of All Witches steals the King’s royal recipe book, causing uproar in the royal kitchen when the chef can no longer make the King’s favourite creampuffs. The daring princess (ahem, me, in my theatrical acting debut) saves the day but not before the king tears apart a baked creampuff in a futile attempt to find how it’s made. To his dismay, he finds only crumbs.
Sometimes reading a book as a writer feels the same way. We find a book we love and we dissect it to learn how the author wove their magic. We know the ingredients—character, plot, setting, theme, etc.—but still, we’re never quite sure of the alchemy that creates the magical final story.
How, then, do we learn the authors we admire?
Trial and error. We know a creampuff is going to need flour, butter, eggs and, well, cream, just like we know a story will need a character, a plot, a setting and well, a point. You love the smooth taste of your favourite creampuff, so you experiment with how much cream to add, just like you love the colourful descriptions in your favourite book, so you experiment with your own colourful descriptions.
Your creampuff/book will never be the same as your favourite creampuff/book you consume—as it should be—but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the process of taking what you admire and reverse engineering it.
The creating, after all, is all the fun.