A Great Story Is Not A Hero VS A Villain

A great story is two heroes; they believe they're both heroes but on opposite sides. Of course, you're going to think that guy's a villain, but they're going to think you're the villain. In the movie the Lion King, Scar was right. Understanding character motivations is important. So, if I say Mufasa had it coming, clearly, if you're reading that or hearing that, you're thinking it's coming from Scar's perspective because Scar is the primary antagonist in "The Lion King."

But he's only the primary antagonist to certain characters in "The Lion King." If you're Simba, Mufasa, Timon, and Pumbaa, Scar is your primary antagonist, but not to Scar. Scar is not the primary antagonist to himself. He's not thinking, "I just want to start offing people and become king." He has other underlying motivations and goals that make Scar, to himself, not the enemy or antagonist in the story.

So, if you're going to write a poem or a story from that person's point of view, it's incredibly important that, from their perspective, they are not the enemy. That's really hard to do because if you're thinking about somebody you consider to be bad, the villain in the story, you're attaching all your negative emotions to that person, image, or character. It's really hard to see clearly from that person's point of view.

There are some questions I would implore people to ask when writing their characters. When it comes to your poems and individual pieces, think:

Why did your character act in such a way?

Whatever your character did, why did they do it?

Why did your character think the way they did?

So, it's not just the actions; we're taking it a little deeper into why they thought those things. How did they treat other characters and why? What's the proximity between your character and other characters, and why is that relationship? Lastly, in general, what leads the character to those specific character motivations?

See the full video: https://youtu.be/PCU2UgkwENM

Willie Lee Kinard III Explains His Approach To Writing

"Discipline-wise, I don't necessarily have to write every day because I'm thinking and imagining every day. So, for me, it's like giving myself enough time to be silly, goofy, imagine creatively. Maybe 15 minutes a day, maybe an hour. I take my morning cup of tea, which is fairly new again in my life, sit with whatever I'm thinking about, draw, doodle, give myself space to release it. And if it feels like it starts to be something, then perhaps coaxing it towards something that's a little bit bigger. Maybe a poem, maybe a portrait, maybe a song, something of the sort.

Most of the things that I'm thinking about kind of blend into the rest of my life. If grief appears financially, it's also appearing spiritually or emotionally. If anger is appearing physically in your life, it's probably going to weigh on you mentally. And so, in that case, it kind of infiltrates all the other creative processes. When I'm mad, sometimes it's a poem about pepper. Sometimes there's a poem about glass breaking."

"I think what you just said really hit me when you said, 'I might not write every day, but I'm thinking and imagining every day,' because that's another kind of fault line for a lot of creatives. They're thinking about production in a very linear way. They're thinking production means that I've written the poem today. Maybe there's some areas in your life that that is what it means.

But I think a lot more people would be really benefited with that thought process of, 'Yeah, some of these days that you are thinking about production, the thing that you should be thinking of is, are you taking that time to really rethink, reimagine, just really kind of be free artistically?' And in that way, when the time comes and when it's been properly distilled, you can actually focus that energy into something tangible, like a poem or a portrait, like you were talking about. So, I really appreciated that, definitely."

"So, I also think it might be helpful to not think about production as having made something, as opposed to laboring towards possibly making something. I remember some years ago, I got the opportunity to interview Alicia Nicole Harris for me and my co-creator's slightly now-defunct publication, For the Scribes. And she said, 'Every day you write is not writing. Sometimes it's just practice. Sometimes it's just an exercise.

But every word that you put towards a project is a word that you didn't have before. If I had to think about a book being made of poetry, I would have no book. But if I had to think about a book being made of poems and possibly making a poem, if it takes an hour, if it takes a day, if it takes a week, or if it takes like five years, that poem's process is going to take however long it is. I cannot time it. It makes no sense to try to put effort on it like that, to me at least.'"

"So, I think if anything, for me, and I don't necessarily know for other folks, I think sometimes it gets to be helpful to not think about poetry as a process of completion as much as it is a process of discovery and allowing yourself to make tiny discoveries consistently until you find revelation."

What Is It Like To Be A Poetry Professor?

Willie Lee Kinard III, can you tell people what you do, like, what's your job?

"Okay, technically, I am an adjunct instructor of English, currently teaching critical reading, composition, and intro to creative writing at the University of South Carolina. I graduated from there in 2015. I am teaching as alumni faculty in my old Scholars Program through Student Support Services, which we collectively know at the University and throughout South Carolina's Trio services or through Trio programs. My specific academic Department was the Opportunity Scholars Program, which was an Initiative for first-generation college students who technically qualify for a Pell Grant, which is to say for smart poor kids who had never been able to get to college. I teach there now, English 101 for about, I want to say, 48, maybe 50 students right now. And I also teach intro to creative writing to about 20 students. They keep me on my toes."

"But outside of that and probably around that, I am a graphic designer and a brand designer. It's kind of like my alter ego, which is weird because I've kind of been doing that for about the same amount of time as I've been writing poetry formally now. But I make logos, color palettes, brand patterns, marketing schemes, mock-ups, and things for businesses, entrepreneurs, telephone viewers, media influencers, artists, and stuff now. I have a Bachelor's in graphic design. I've drawn all my life. It's been helpful. I think, in part, it has also kind of been one of the things that's helped me move into poetry a little more seamlessly."

"I feel like marketing and advertising come up all the time as it’s a relatively common field for poets. How do you think working in branding and things like that connects with poetry?"

"For me, my love of type is almost always forefront in my poetry, whether or not you really pay attention to it or not. I'm generally always cognizant of how my poems are designed, how their lines break, where their hyphens and other sets of punctuation appear, just as a general typesetter and editor. I'd argue I'm a better editor than I am a poet, which is saying a lot of things."

"To me, my basis for line breaks and understanding for readings of my poems are based on graphic design types and principles. Like, the less amount of words in a line, the quicker you can read it. If you end the line on an action word or a verb, it generally makes the person want to pull to the next line because it's interesting. General rules of, you know, try not to have too many rivers, try not to have too many widows and orphans. My poems generally look neat, and when I break rules, I intentionally break them. But I don't always give evidence that I've broken things. I'm the type of person who will open a line with an em dash."