Tag Archives: Writing

500 Club (3/8)

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What will your journey be like?

Dust off that keyboard, and sharpen those pencils. Today we’re going on a trip. More accurately, we’ll be writing about a trip, the journey. Here lies the heart of the heart of your story. A and B might be really cool points, but it’s how they get connected that will make the story memorable.

Road Writing rules for the trip:

  1. Write 500 words based on one of the two prompts below.
  2. Post it to your blog.
  3. Give us a small taste in the comments below along with a link to the full text.

For today’s prompts you can create whatever kind of character you like, and all points can relate to places or a specific life event, whichever you choose:

1. Take two seemingly unrelated points and connect them. Examples: A monastery and dangling from a parachute; spelling bee finals and USMC sniper; Bunk bed and Niagara Falls.

2. Take two easily relatable points and connect them in a way that you would NOT expect. Examples: Your house to the neighbor’s house via submarine; Your house to China via the center of the Earth; childhood to adulthood via a wormhole through Pangea.

Everything Feels Possible

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It’s a gorgeous day today. I’m listening to groovy music. My dog is napping in a shady spot and my head is swimming with ideas. I’m excited about the novel I finished. The veggies in my garden are growing. I have query letters out to agents. My house is clean. I just ate a super-yummy lunch. I’m working on a new novel (or four). I have super-secret projects in the works. My finger is stitches-free and healing. I launched a new site offering my graphic and web design services for authors. My family is happy. We might be getting a puppy. The sky is a beautiful shade of blue.

Today, everything feels possible.

How are you?

500 Club (3/1)

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It’s the first of March, so let’s bring this 500 Club in like a lion. Prompts wait below, warm in their lair and ready to play.

The Rules:

  1. Write 500 words based on one of the two prompts below.
  2. Post it to your blog.
  3. In the comments below, drop the first line or two along with a link to the rest of the story.

The prompts today have a qualifier. Think of your default protagonist. White, male, adult, straight? Today I want you to change at least two of those defining characteristics. If you always write men, try a woman on for size. If you always write about straight characters, hit up the LBGT spectrum. If you always write about white people, try slipping into the POV of an asian, or native american, or black person. And if you always write about people in their mid-20s, try an elderly or very young perspective instead.

(If you get absolutely stuck, try this: write as you normally would, then go back and change Paul to Pam, but leave in the girlfriend. The point is to stretch as a writer, and to realize you CAN write from the perspective of X Y or Z. Just write a person, know what I mean?)

1. Billy found the body in the river. 

OR

2. It all started when the cat came in. I knew it was bad luck, but nobody listened to me. God, I hate being right.

Happy writing!

When Is It Too Much?

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When is it too much?

When have you gone too far?

Too Much is one of those things I can easily identify in other writers’ works, but find difficult to see in my own writing.

Overwrought description. Dialogue that meanders into meaninglessness. Emotions that spill all over the page.

(Was that Too Much?)

There’s something about Too Much that ruins the illusion of reality that a good story creates. A bit like breaking the fourth wall in theater, Too Much has the effect of the author pointing out his or her writing. “Look at me go!”

The other night my husband was reading a book that shall remain nameless. “Listen to this,” he said, and he read a sentence so heavy laden with adjectives and importance it nearly drowned under its own weight. I groaned and thought, Really? In that book?

But I do it, too. I imagine we all get carried away from time to time.

During our workshops, Jim Sallis points out Too Much by saying, “This is too on the nose.”

Too Much does all the work and leaves no space for the reader. “Don’t you see?” Too Much says, “My story is about (fill in the blank).”

Some of the best writing advice I ever heard came from Ron Carlson. He looks at the subject of a story like a target. The theme or point of the story is the bullseye. He suggests writers circle the target, aim to the side, and never hit the mark dead on.

Such a great solution to the problem of Too Much. Unless of course you then move into the opposite territory.

Writing Too Little.

*sigh*

Don’t SPOILER your plot!

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THURSDAY BONUS POST! AKA, I don’t know why I try to use the Post Scheduler and write things ahead of time. That thing hates me. It steals my socks and puts nails in my tires and stands over my bed at night with a knife in its hand, just watching. FOR NOW. Anyway, let’s just pretend that we’re time travelers, and we’re going back to Monday’s post, to-day-ay-ay-ay-ay….

Why do we turn from page one to page two? Because we want to know what happens next. Therefore one of the worst sins a writer can commit is spoilering his own plot by telegraphing his plot punches.

If your hero’s wife, Daphne Camille Elizabeth, is a superficial and conniving shrew with no quality but beauty to recommend her, I know she will horribly betray the hero before the book ends. (And maybe he deserves it for being such an idiot as to marry her in the first place).

And yet, I will also know it won’t matter too much because it will free the hero to marry the equally beautiful young Mary Sue, introduced in Chapter Two, who is forthright, kind, fearless, and practically perfect in every way, just like that other Mary. (Except Mary Poppins is an arrogant commitment-phobe, which are the flaws that make her so delightful.)

Knowing what happens in advance of actually reading it sucks half the fun out of any given book. If I, the reader, can also figure out HOW Daphne Camille Elizabeth will betray the hero, so much the worse.

So how does this spoilering happen? For illustrative purposes, here is a short scene written two different ways, in which a powerful gentleman has just made an inappropriate proposal to an impoverished young lady:

 Figlips #1

“I say, my dear, no need to get your nose out of joint,” blustered Figlips, self-consciously adjusting his lavish wig. “Many young ladies like to ‘ride the ponies’. It’s a compliment to be asked, you know.” He smiled greasily, his rat-like eyes running slowly up and down her length. His ugly face screwed into a coarse, vulgar smile as he adjusted his belt, several sizes too tight for his unsightly girth. “I hope you do not tattle to Papa and sour our business venture. It would break his heart.”

 Figlips #2

“I say, my dear, no need to get your nose out of joint.” Figlips smiled, his mild brown eyes running over her. “Many young ladies like to ‘ride the ponies’. I only meant to pay you a compliment when I asked.” He bowed, his lavish wig tipping slightly to one side. “Forgive me, I beg. I meant no offense. You know I hold your family in the very highest of esteem; else I never would have aided your father in this perilous diamond venture. Please say all is well between us, it will break my heart if you don’t. ”

Don’t we all hate Figlips? But in that first example, we are being hammered over the head with hating Figlips. His threats are obvious and clumsy. He blusters, rather than speaking. We are shown he is vulgar and coarse, then told directly that he is vulgar and coarse. And there’s the use of ugliness and obesity to signal negative character traits (which, by the way, is lazy as hell.). This is just a short paragraph, imagine pages and pages of this mustachio-twirling. By the third chapter you just know he’s going to ruin Papa and try to rape our poor heroine for good measure. Why Papa is such a dumb-dumb as to get involved with an obvious monster like Figlips #1 instead of shooting him on sight is beyond me; certainly it lessens my sympathy for the beleaguered family.

In example two, Figlips is still creepy, but more ambiguous. Perhaps he really did mean well and is just socially awkward, but with a name like Figlips… probably not. Asking our unnamed heroine’s forgiveness also puts her in a bind; does she graciously accept his apology, with all its creepy implications, or does she spurn him, and appear a churl? Perhaps he will change for the better. Perhaps he will do something dastardly. Both seem possible… the author can take it either way, and I won’t feel betrayed. The truth is, I’m not sure what Figlips #2 is going to do next. I only know I don’t trust him.

So, how do we telegraph our plot punches, spoiler our plot, overplay our hand? By overusing adverbs and adjectives rather than relying on action and dialogue, drawing characters as caricatures, not people, and generally just not trusting the reader.  When you trust the reader, it frees you to be subtle, which in turn will keep the reader guessing as he turns those pages.

500 Club (2/23)

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Happy Thursday! It’s time for the 500 Club!

Before we get to today’s prompts, here’s a quick recap of the rules.

  1. Choose one of the prompts below.
  2. On your blog, write a 500-word story or scene based on the prompt.
  3. Post a teaser to your story in the comments below with a link to where we can read the rest.

Easy, right?

Here are today’s prompts:

1. Create a character who is the opposite of you and write a scene from his or her point of view. Be sincere. Honest. Don’t judge your character.

…or…

2. Write a flash fiction story with the opening: “The day the sun went dark…”

Happy writing!

Turning Your Rough Drafts Into Gems

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(I know it's not quartzite, but it's pretty.)

“Mom, what does sandstone turn into?”

My daughter recently finished a geology unit at school, and was quizzing me on the things she’d learned.

“Quartzite,” she said. “What does the sandstone need to turn into it?”

She didn’t really wait for me to answer. “Heat, pressure and time.” She launched into an explanation of the process, using her hands to illustrate the pressure transforming the metamorphic rock.

It got me thinking about writing. (Okay, most things make me think about writing.)

The process writers go through transforming a work from first draft to finished project is similar.

The writing process requires heat, in the form of energy, passion.

It requires pressure, in the form of revision. Putting each sentence under scrutiny, and making it do as much work as possible.

And it requires time. Time for writing. Time for letting a manuscript simmer. Time for critiques and revisions. Time to cultivate the next idea.

Remove any part of the process and you don’t end up with a finished project. You still have sandstone instead of quartzite. And what is sandstone, compared to quartzite? Weak. Brittle. Unable to stand the test of time.

I guess the takeaway is simple: trust the process. Provide the energy. Do the work. Give it time. You may just end up with a gem.

What’s inside the heart of a story? Slice it open and see.

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This week, we’re talking about the emotional core of your story. Tying back into what I was saying last week about endings: you can’t write a proper ending unless you’ve tapped into the emotional core of your story. Without an emotional core you might create something entertaining, but not something memorable.

The best thing I’ve ever read on the subject is this post by Chuck Wendig, who argues that while a story can be about any subject, and deal with any emotional theme, the core of the core is always sadness “like the black cyanide seeds at the heart of the apple.” He uses the notably un-sad movies Star Wars and Die Hard to make his point. I agree with him absolutely. Why?

Because in the end, everything dies, even you and I. It is only the hope that some force, call it God or love or the human soul, is so powerful as to fall outside the brutal entropy of time, only that blind, willing hope, that enables us to shuffle on as human beings.

The thought that we can create something outside of ourselves, a story that will touch others long after we have crumbled to dust, is what drives to us create. It’s the closest to immortality you can quantifiably get. I lived. I loved. Don’t forget me when I’m gone.

There is a desperate sadness in that; and your sadness may be leavened with joy or pragmatism or fear, depending on your personal beliefs, but the sadness is the one constant, the absolute universal, the pain of being human. And that is why it’s the core of the core.

Any story needs conflict. Conflict is two things: suffering, and resistance to suffering, which often begets yet more suffering. We are amused by this because we understand it intrinsically. (And comedians understand it best of all. You laugh, so you don’t cry.)

So the conflict, the plot, is easy. What’s harder is finding the grace notes; the killing line of dialogue, the expert conveyance of mood through setting, the tone of your particular word choice — every single sentence should do more than simply advance the plot. All these elements must work together to build your story’s broken heart. If you do it well enough, that broken heart will beat all the same.

Listen.

 

Endings Never Come Last

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For me, writing the ending of a story is the easiest. I think this is because it isn’t the last thing I write. In fact, I would go as far to say it’s the catalyst that gets me to write the story.

Let me break down my process, for the most part.

It’s the heightened physical reaction I get when I figure out the end of my story.

First comes the initial idea. Whatever it is, be it an interesting character, place, concept, or event. Doesn’t really matter which, as long as it’s interesting. Then I start writing. I just throw words on the page. Doesn’t matter if it’s clunky or chronological as long as I’m getting the words out. Then it happens.

Some might call it divine intervention. Some might say the muse spoke to them. Still others might swear that alien lizard people summoned them from another dimension to scry their inner-most secret plans. Me, I call them goosebumps. That’s right.

Goosebumps.

I get covered in them. It’s the heightened physical reaction I get when I figure out the end of my story. At this point I’m usually only two to three thousand words in. Put another way, that’s about eight to twelve pages into the novel. At that point, I have to write the ending or risk forgetting it.

After that, I’ll outline all the rest before I continue writing. Edit. Revise. Repeat.

I look for the goosebumps. I need the goosebumps. When I read the ending when I’m done writing it, the goosebumps have to be there. No goosebumps, no story.

There’s been a few times I’ve written through some ideas without a single bump. Not one raised hair. In those instances, I put the story down and moved on to the next story. That’s not to say that the goosebumps won’t come later. Better late than never. And since it got filed away (because we never throw things away), it’s easy to go back to it.
So when do you write your endings? At the end? Beginning? Or are you the Robert Jordan type and keep writing and writing and writing, without a care in the world for endings?

500 Club (2/16)

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Feel like you’re dragging today? Finding it tough to tackle that blank page? Sounds like you can use a little stretch, some creative calisthenics. A quick writing prompt will get you going in no time.

Here’s what to do:

  1. Write 500 words based on one of the two prompts below.
  2. Post it to your blog.
  3. Give us a small taste in the comments below along with a link to the full text.

And now on to the prompts:

1. Your Senses: Write 500 words focusing on the sense of touch.

2. Writing Challenge: Break outside of your comfort zone. Write 500 words from the point of view of someone unlike yourself. Examples: Little person, amputee, autistic, or deaf.

*Feel free to change the name or sex of the characters as needed.