Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
The Challenge of Description: First Impressions
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Previously I mentioned that I was having trouble with my new introduction for Shazemar, protagonist of my fantasy poem The Winds of Winter. I had a pretty decent description of him as an individual character — of the things that distinguish him from other Debroans, and give some sense of who he is; but I was having a hard time packing enough clues to Debroan culture into the description, because it was getting too long. And if you don’t get the culture, you don’t get the character.
Well, I could add the cultural stuff afterwards, couldn’t I?
Probably not to the best effect.
If you look at books from the Middle Ages, you’ll discover something that seems odd to us: they’ll happily put Hector and King David in medieval armor, as if they were 13th-century knights. That’s because medieval people had often heard stories about earlier cultures, but, unlike us, they mostly didn’t get to see illustrations of earlier peoples in their own dress. They filled what they didn’t know with things they were familiar with.
Modern people have seen many more pictures than they have, but still think exactly the same way. You can’t tell your readers everything; you haven’t enough room. Where you left a blank, they’re likely to fill it in — with something they associate with the details you did tell them.
If you’re a modern American, and the only thing I tell you about a character is that she’s got her hair in cornrows, odds are you’re going to picture her as black. You’ll fill in her hair color, her eye color, her skin color, and (in part) the shape of her face.
If I put her in hiking boots and a backpack, you may not only picture her footwear, but the trail she’s walking.
If I put her in a suit-jacket and pumps, you may move her to an office.
She could have worn hiking boots to the office. But odds are you’ll expect her to be doing typical things in typical ways, unless I give you enough information to make you imagine otherwise.
When I introduce you to an important character, I want you to form two impressions:
- A quick idea of the surface things about her: gender, age, race, era, and place in society. If I’m writing about a culture you’re at least somewhat familiar with, I may be able to present such an impression in a sentence, or even a phrase.
- A glimpse into who she is as an individual. What sets her apart from every other woman who shares the same superficial characteristics?
In most stories, I need to give you the surface elements early.
Why early?
Because I don’t (usually) want you to form the wrong impression of the character. If I write in such a way that you’re picturing a young woman, and then two chapters later you discover that the character you’ve been seeing as twenty-five years old is really sixty, the sudden, drastic revision you have to make may jar you out of the story. Most often, I want to give you a substantially correct (if necessarily incomplete) idea of the character, and then I’ll deepen it as I continue writing.
In writing, there’s an exception to practically everything. There are stories where the author intentionally misleads the reader about a character’s superficial characteristics, often by playing to stereotypes and associations. At the climax of the story, the author reveals that the associations the reader has made by habit are wrong: the character is of a sort the reader didn’t expect to see in that role.
And there are stories where the characters themselves intentionally play to stereotypes to mislead other characters.
But I’m not writing a story like that. I need my readers to form an impression of Shazemar that isn’t drastically wrong.
Avoiding Blogging Burnout
Monday, October 12th, 2009
I spent two of the last five days researching freelance writing options and approaches. I spent the other three largely avoiding the computer. Comes a time when I don’t want to see a computer screen, don’t want to stay in the comparative dimness of the house, and want to get away to look at something else.
I went to the library, and I spent three hours out on the porch, watching night fall. Happily for me, I live in a pine forest, so I can commune with nature by walking out the door.
When I wasn’t avoiding the computer, I was playing with a program called FaceGen, which I’ll tell you about in the next post.
Writers’ Blogs from #Writechat
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Here’s a list of blogs the writers of Sunday afternoon #writechat on Twitter have put up, for visiting and mutual support:
Pauline Campos — Aspiring Mama
J. Koyanagi — J. Koyanagi Unidentified
Georganna Hancock — A Writer’s Edge
Anthony James Barnett — Tell Me a Story
Elysabeth Williams — Musings from a Cheeky Wench
Nicola Morgan — Help! I Need a Publisher
Tamara Fox — Everything is One Thing
HeatherAyris Burnell — Frolicking through Cyberspace
Jessica Rosen — Girl Meets Word
Shannon Reinbold-Gee — 13 to Life: A Werewolf’s Tale
Rachel Blackbirdsong — Ravenwood
Peter H. Fogtdal — Danish Accent
Dawn Herring — JournalWriter Freelance
Jo Lynne Valerie — Living With Passion
Ann Marie Gamble — Notes From the Wordsmith Trenches
Brittany Landgrebe — The Words of a Writer
Jadore Brittany — J’adore This
Chris Solaas — ADHD Family Fun
Charmaine Clancy — Wagging Tales
Jennifer Tatroe – Another Place
Marisa Birns — Out of Order Alice
Nancy Wait — Nancy Wait Painting Little Man (Art Blog)
Sue Jeffels — Writing and Research
Meriall Blackwood — Blackwood’s Journal
If I missed you or you want to be added to the list, comment below, or reply to me on Twitter as @Mer_Blackwood. And don’t worry if my spam trap eats your comment — I check it regularly.
The “Rules” of Writing and How They Grew 2
Monday, September 28th, 2009
Continued from yesterday’s post on the “rules” of writing.
People who believe in writing rules as rules have heard comments like “But Tolkien did it!” In response, they have a few characteristic rejoinders:
- “Yes, but you’re not Tolkien.”
No kidding. But how does it follow that I shouldn’t use any of Tolkien’s techiques?
Maybe I don’t know how to use them well when I start. But my approach to improving is to take things that I once wrote badly and learn how to write them well. It’s not to forbid myself from ever using a technique I can’t execute perfectly on the first attempt.
A lot of unskilled writers write bad dialogue. Does anyone ever say, “Unless you’ve proven yourself as a bestselling novelist, don’t put dialogue in your stories. You’re not _____.”?
There’s only one time when this answer makes sense: when a published author has gotten away with doing something that made the story worse, merely because they already have a following. But if I think the use of a technique has made the story worse, I decline to imitate that usage no matter whose name is on the story. I don’t need a special rule to make the technique off-limits in all contexts.
- “Yes, but Tolkien wouldn’t be published today.”
There are authors of classic literature whose works, I suspect, wouldn’t be published today: the ones who seem to appeal only to literary academe. The ones I’ve never heard of anyone reading for fun. There are also works whose culture and language is now so obscure that they can’t be understood without study; they probably wouldn’t be published as commercial entertainment.
Mostly, though, people who say “But So-and-so wouldn’t be published today!” don’t offer any evidence to back the assertion up. And I doubt their claim, when they make it about a writer whose works are still selling to people who voluntarily read them for recreation.
- “Well, even if they were picked up by the small press, they wouldn’t sell well today.”
Most books published in any given year don’t succeed. That’s not a terrific argument for shunning any technique ever used in a work that didn’t earn enough money for the publishers to be interested in a sequel. If you’re consistent about eliminating all the tools from your writing toolbox that any author has ever used while producing a commercial failure, your story will read like this:
” “
The “Rules” of Writing and How They Grew
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
If you’ve been following the current post series, you may have the impression that I should have been putting the word ‘rules’ in scare quotes, because I don’t think “show, don’t tell” and its ilk are real rules of writing.
That impression would be entirely correct.
I have no quarrel with people who put forward such precepts as ideas to be applied judiciously, as approaches that are sometimes helpful but not necessarily applicable at all times to every work.
But if you go around to writing groups and collect rules — e.g., the Turkey City Lexicon — you’ll end up with an astonishing body of techniques that published authors have used successfully to entertain readers, but which are — mysteriously — forbidden to you.
What is it that persuades aspiring writers to believe that techniques used by successful authors ought to be eschewed?
Groups and Rulemaking
Part of the answer lies in group dynamics.
1. Groups, including writing groups, have a tendency to develop orthodoxies. There’s “the way we do things,” “the ways we tried that didn’t work,” and “the ways we never tried.” Over time, people have a tendency to think, “Well, if it could have worked, someone would have tried it, right? So it must not work.”
Thus, the group’s thinking tends to become rigid over time.
2. If you lose the chess match, you know it. If you knock down the bar at the high jump, you know it. But successful writing produces a subjective reaction in the reader: there are few obvious, objective markers of success in the work itself, once the writer has learned to write coherent sentences. Less-experienced writers often don’t have the skill to look at their work and guess what sort of reaction it will produce in many readers. If they fail, they can’t see the cause of their failure.
Consequently, it’s possible to persuade them that even attempting a certain technique is the problem, when it may simply be that their execution of the technique was faulty.
3. If no one in a group has the skill to do something, they may conclude that it cannot be done. Believing that something is impossible discourages anyone from attempting to learn it. Insular groups may have strange self-perpetuating gaps in their areas of competence.
Of course, the rulemakers have answers if you point out to them that published authors successfully use techniques the rulemakers claim are bad writing. On which, more anon.
Stomping on the Rules of Writing: Tolkien 3
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
In a previous post I discussed one of the major reasons why Tolkien’s opening for The Lord of the Rings works, even though it involves telling, not showing: Tolkien’s ‘voice.’ Today I’ll discuss the other reason.
The Likeness of Story and Music
Story composition and musical composition have an element in common.
Both sorts of composition maintain tension — a sense of instability — until the last word is written or the last note sounded. If you break a good musical composition off early, it will sound unfinished because the tension is unresolved. (Imagine cutting off “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the end of the third line in a stanza.)
In story-writing you also want to maintain a sense of instability until the end. The sense of instability is created primarily by posing questions and leaving them, for a time, unanswered.
Story Questions
The obvious questions stories pose are usually subsumed under the heading of ‘conflict.’ Will the character succeed at the task they’re attempting, though adverse influences hinder them? Will the character survive? What happens next?
Will the heroine resolve a misunderstanding with the love interest, even though appearances are against her?
Will the hero win the fight with the villain’s henchman? How will he cope if he doesn’t? How can he ultimately defeat the villain, since he seems to be overmatched? What will it cost him to win? What will it cost if he loses?
But skilled writers don’t wait until the major plot thread has been revealed to start posing questions. And they don’t stop with questions whose connection to the main plot is immediately obvious.
Tolkien’s Opening
Tolkien’s first sentence suggests the question “Why is Bilbo Baggins’ birthday party raising much talk and causing excitement?” His next paragraph begins to answer that question, but raises three more: ”Where did Bilbo disappear to? Just what did he bring back with him? And why is he so remarkably unchanged?” If you read The Hobbit, you know where he went; but the strange longevity is unexplained. You thought you knew what he brought back, but … what’s going on?
Within three paragraphs, we’ve found out that Bilbo is rich and charitable; that he’s generally well-regarded, but he doesn’t entirely fit in with his more parochial neighbors. There’s more to him than meets the eye — much more, and some of it must be deuced odd. We already have foreshadowing that something ill will come of it, in the villagers’ foreboding remarks.
And all of this is accomplished by telling — which means the questions have been laid before the reader quickly.
This is how to tell and do it right.
Tell, or Tell-All?
In contrast, when aspiring writers write telling openings, they often write tell-all openings. An amateur approach to Tolkien’s material might start out with the same opening sentence. But then —
- Instead of letting you wonder where Bilbo disappeared to and what he brought back, you’d be reading a too-complete summary of his journey to the east, and what he came home with,
- And you might well find yourself told, immediately, that the Ring is the source of his strange longevity.
This makes a complete mini-story out of the opening: all the questions raised are immediately answered. That invites the reader to put down the piece, not to keep reading to find out more. So the opening doesn’t work.
A critiquer who believes that “Show, don’t tell!” is a real rule of writing will always identify the problem as the writer’s narrating what ought to be dramatized. He will never correctly identify the case where telling is the right approach, but the writer has told the wrong thing.
Next: what those who believe in the rules say in response.
Stomping on the Rules of Writing: Tolkien 2
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
A couple of days back I quoted the opening of The Lord of the Rings, which tells and doesn’t show — a serious misstep, according to the “Show, Don’tTell!” crowd. Why has it succeeded, over decades, in drawing readers into the story, in spite of breaking this rule?
Because there’s really only one rule of fiction-writing: “Keep the reader interested.”
There are two ways to do this, and Tolkien employs both of them.
Voice
The eye-glazing opening likely to elicit “Show, don’t tell!” advice in critique circles is a bare recitation of fact. It may be story-present fact; it may be backstory. In either case, the writer is telling us what happened — and little else — in a dull manner. Bad narration or exposition presents only the elements the most commonplace mind would present, in a commonplace way, without individuality or much in the way of emotional reaction.
In contrast, the elusive quality agents, editors, and critics call ‘voice’ is a combination of engaging word choice and individual perspective.
Tolkien’s opening gives us a conscious story-telling tone. It conveys individual attitudes (a certain amusement with, and tolerance for, the foibles of the village hobbits; a definite affection); wordplay (‘tweens,’ ‘eleventy-one’); and — if you have The Hobbit — irony, because you know what Bilbo brought back from his adventure. He’s also worked some important information into the opening by implication: if you don’t already know what hobbits are, you’ll still have grasped that they’re very like us in some respects, but they’re not humans as we know them, for they grow up too slowly and live too long.
There is individuality here, a promise of a different way of looking even at ordinary things.
But that’s not all.
More anon.
Ezine Articles
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
I meant to finish the Tolkien post today, but I’m going to run out of time. Probably I’ll post it tomorrow.
In the mean time, I’ve got a new article live at Ezinearticles.com. I’ve decided to link to them, for reader convenience, whether it adversely affects the value of the incoming link or not. (I can’t tell. All of my links aren’t showing up in my Google Webmaster reports.)
Here’s the new article, just posted:
Tips for Writers — How to Evaluate Critiques
If you pass your writing around to first readers, you’ll often get critiques that disagree with each other. Some readers may spot flaws you’re blind to; others may suggest changes that don’t fit the piece. Here are some handy ways to sort out the feedback so you can best revise the work.
And here’s the first article, on a subject discussed here extensively:
Understanding Poetry: Accentual-Syllabic, Accentual, and Syllabic Meters
As always, you can republish these articles if you include the entire unaltered article, including the resource box with the links back here.
Stomping on the Rules of Writing: Tolkien 1
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Last week I wrote about how H.P. Lovecraft broke some of the most enthusiastically promoted rules of modern writing, and how the lasting power of his stories depends on those breaches of the rules. This time, as part of my assault on spurious rule-making, I’m going to write about the giant of all speculative fiction: Tolkien.
Yup, there are readers who don’t like Tolkien. No question. Tastes differ; there are no works, and no authors, that have appealed to everyone. But Amazon’s customers voted The Lord of the Rings the best book of the second millennium: his appeal is demonstrably wide and demonstrably lasting. (I’ll bet most of you my age and younger haven’t read most of the bestsellers of 1954, and wouldn’t recognize many of the titles.)
If you’ve hung around in venues frequented by amateur writers, you’ve read the kind of story that got people chanting, “Show, Don’t Tell!” Stories in which, during the opening or soon afterward, the writer gives us some eye-glazing exposition or narration of the hero’s backstory are all too common; and if it’s not eye-glazing narration of backstory, there’ll often be eye-glazing narration of the present story instead.
The common response to such failed stories, in critiques, is to fault the mere presence of background material, of exposition, and of narration — to tell the writer that the only proper way to open a story is to dramatize the present story. (That is part of what “Show, Don’t Tell” and “No backstory” work out to: “There is only one correct way to open a story.”)
Now, here’s the opening of the best book of the second millennium, according to Amazon customers:
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travel had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good things; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth.
‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!’
*
But so far trouble had not come; and as Mr Baggins was generous with his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good fortune. He remained on visiting terms with his relatives (except, of course, the Sackville-Bagginses), and he had many devoted admirers among the hobbits of poor and unimportant families. But he had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began to grow up.
The eldest of these, and Bilbo’s favourite, was young Frodo Baggins. When Bilbo was ninety-nine he adopted Frodo as his heir, and brought him to live at Bag End; and the hopes of the Sackville-Bagginses were finally dashed. Bilbo and Frodo happened to have the same birthday, September 22nd. ‘You had better come and live here, Frodo my lad,’ said Bilbo one day; ‘and then we can celebrate our birthday-parties comfortably together.’ At that time Frodo was still in his tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.
Twelve more years passed …
And so will two more paragraphs, before anything that even vaguely resembles showing appears in the story.
This opening doubtless it loses some readers; but over time it’s proven uncommonly successful at drawing readers into the story.
Why?
Part 2 soon.
Why I’m Not Chasing an Agent
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Right now, I’m not writing anything suitable for traditional book-publishing anyway. The Winds of Winter probably isn’t going to be long enough to make a book. And it’s epic poetry, for which there is a passing small market. But I’m not talking about Winter.
I mean that I’m not likely to submit the novel I’ll probably write, sooner or later.
Authors taking pay cuts of up to 50% — Bestselling authors may get increases, but advances for practically everyone else have diminished drastically — and they were already well below minimum wage for most new authors, when you consider how long it takes to write and sell the novel.
Redactor Agonistes — On the state of the publishing industry, from the perspective of a retired senior editor. (It is not good.)
Does it sound like traditionally published authors have a good chance of success?
By the way, you can expect to generate all your own publicity, during your book’s mayfly-brief six-week life on bookstore shelves, if you didn’t get a big advance. The crucial thing traditional publication gets you (if you’re the average writer) is distribution into bookstores. I understand it usually doesn’t do much to help sell your book to the public.
Wil McCarthy’s Speculative Fiction Career Planning Guide — It Ain’t Me, Babe — no, no, no! It ain’t me you’re looking for! I don’t want a career that works like that.
If I ever write a novel that ends up looking fit for public view, I’m not sure exactly how I’ll handle it. But I don’t see anything about this business attractive enough to make me want to go through the endless rounds of agent queries I see some of my friends undertaking.
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