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Why a Wild Boar Changed my Philosophy of Writing
How tension and a steady supply of acorns helps productivity
A wild boar is like a good story: secretive, wily, and always attacking from behind. Or if not the story, then a well-written character within it; boars hold grudges — 660 lbs of them, and have more moods than wicked witches in the Wizard of Oz.
Mainly, they bring tension, lots of it, and both suspense and surprise. There is another thing: though you may well influence the wild boar’s intent when he or he is barrelling through the forest towards you, in fact s/he is not controlled by you, like all best protagonists and indeed most well-defined characters in a novel. And the wild boar is well-defined; of that there cannot be any doubt.
The boar on your path always brings an interesting denouement to the given moment. That can be almost legally guaranteed, and it was thus that happened to me when meandering homeward one warm evening from town, coffee and concert to my simple abode at the other end of a 30 minute stroll through a forest, with a romantic encounter in my prescient book on my mind. Something was not quite right with it. Something was missing, to lift the scene, to give it meaning, ressonance, energy, pehaps, and to give it the ability to create empathy from the reader for at least half of the couple…
