Wordplay

It isn’t difficult to flip through my writing library and discover what passages have impacted me. My books are punctuated with a brilliant green highlighter pen. So, in hopes of sharing a little of this impacting wisdom with all of you, I flipped through my favorite books on the craft and chose a few of those green highlights.


Characters, Emotions & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

“Whenever you can, have your characters do something to depict their values and choices.” (p. 54)
“Ask yourself: How can I dramatize these things, not just talk about them? What can this guy do to show the reader what’s going on inside him?” (p. 75)

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamont

“I like for [protagonists] to have hope—if a friend or a narrator reveals himself or herself to be hopeless too early on, I lose interest. It depresses me. It makes me overeat. I don’t mind if a person has no hope if he or she is sufficiently funny about the whole thing, but then, this being able to be funny definitely speaks of a kind of hope, of buoyancy.” (pp. 50-51)

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas

“…avoid ‘aftermath’ scenes.” (p. 180)
“…it is essential that tension be present on every page. If your heroine and her sidekick are standing still, it ought to be because they disagree.” (p. 192)

Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich

“The plot outline is like a game plan in basketball or football. It can look good on a chart, but once the ball flies, it does not suffice. You must have the players. If a player trips, other players may have to come up with a new plan. The plan is not sacred: it shifts, depending on the position of the players on the field and on the flight of the ball in the wind.” (p. 91)

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

“…it’s important, as with every word we write, to be careful and sparing. If a gesture is not illuminating, simply leave it out, or try cutting it out and see if you later miss or even remember that it’s gone. Do we really need that cigarette lit, that glass of wine poured? Is it merely a way of passing time, of making space in dialogue, of telling mood and emotion? Does it tell us something specific about the character or the situation we are attempting to recreate on the page?” (p. 229)

45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

“Be creative with supporting characters. Change their age, sex and background until you find the best fit for the story. Make sure they’re capable of contributing something to the story whether it’s humor or expertise.” (p. 251)

13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley

“If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.” (p. 7)
“I think a good rule of thumb is that novel-writing will make happy a person who can tolerate and enjoy an ever-intensifying experience of himself or herself. Novel-writing forces the novelist to turn inward day after day, year after year. No consolations, in the form of praise, fame, money, or importance can compensate for that effort if it is painful.” (p. 42)

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

“Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract.” (p. 21)

Lights! Camera! Fiction!: A Movie Lover’s Guide to Writing a Novel by Alfie Thompson

“Introducing your character is like introducing a new friend to another good friend. You want the other friend—your reader—to really like or at the very least understand this new person you are introducing to him.” (p. 34)

The Soul Tells a Story: Engaging Creativity with Spirituality in the Writing Life by Vinita Hampton Wright

“Your creative work is in many ways your diary. It is how you process your own life.” (p.149)

What I’ve presented here is, of course, a very eclectic (and hopefully not too personal) sampling. If I were to quote all the great lines in these books, I’d fill up way too many blog posts and probably get myself sued a couple times for copyright infringement. Suffice it to say that I’ve gleaned a wealth of knowledge from all these books, and I heartily recommend each of them to any novelist pursuing the craft.

I spent the better part of last year, re-reading my “writing library.” The wisdom packed into that third shelf of my bookcase is too wonderful for me to horde, so I thought in the next two posts I thought I’d share a few snippets with you!


The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter

“To make anything interesting,” Gustave Flaubert said, “you simply have to look at it long enough.” (p. 30)
“These days, the best and most artful dialogue is marked by the inattentiveness of the characters.” (p. 67)

Write Tight: How to Keep Your Prose Sharp, Focused, and Concise by William Brohaugh

“Apply the ‘SURE’ test to big words. Joe Floren in his Write Smarter, Not Harder presents what he calls a ‘SURE’ test for big words.”

• Is it simpler than a small-word equivalent? For instance, ‘beginner’ is simpler than ‘tyro,’ ‘frivolous’ easier than ‘inane.’
• Is it unique—the only way to say the idea? Many technical terms qualify, as do nontechnical ones such as ‘civilization,’ ‘religion,’ ‘government.’
• Does it add richness to your writing? To ‘write like you talk,’ you must write in a way comfortable to you. Some of those rich, interesting personal words will be large ones.
• Does it provide economy, taking the place of several words? That usually benefits the reader.” (p. 100)

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

“It’s nearly always best to resist the urge to explain. Or, as we so often write it in manuscript margins, R.U.E.
“This tendency to describe a character’s emotions may reflect a lack of confidence on the part of the writer. And more often than not, writers tell their readers things already shown by dialogue and action. It’s as if they’re repeating themselves to make sure their readers get the point. So when you come across an explanation of a character’s emotion, simply cut the explanation. If the emotion is still shown, then the explanation wasn’t needed. If the emotion isn’t shown, rewrite the passage so that it is.” (p. 17)

Fiction Writer’s Handbook by Hallie and Whit Burnett

“Fiction writers must put themselves in their characters if their work is to have any value in interpreting and recording the state of man’s mind and emotions; it is more necessary with some characters than with others.” (p. 51)

“…the greatness of the writer has nothing to do with the subject matter, but has much to do with how the author is touched by the subject.” (p. 77)
“If there is rewriting to be done on the first part, do it now, before the last words have been written.” (p. 127)

From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler

“You’re going to sit or recline in your writing space in your trance, and you’re going to free-float, free-associate, sit with your character, watch your character move around in the potential world of this novel. … You’re going to go into your writing space, you’re going to go into your dreamspace, you’re going to float around, and you’re going to dreamstorm potential scenes in such a novel as this with such characters as these, with such yearnings as these. And you’ll try to float everywhere in the novel: beginning, middle, end—all over.
“You’ll have a pad of paper in front of you (and you can do it at your computer if you prefer; I do it by hand on legal pads); you’ll make a list. You’re going to write down on this legal pad six or eight or ten words, not many more, that represent a potential scene. Just identifiers of scenes. Don’t hesitate to put something down, as long as it’s coming with a sensual hook. You’re going to make sure that every scene you list has come to you with some—and it can be very faint, very fragmentary—but some sensual, concrete hook. A little vision of something, a little smell or taste of something, a little sound of something. Do not trust a scene that presents itself to you as an idea. Each scene must have an even fragmentary vision, some sort of a sense impression attached to it.” (pp. 87-88)

101 Best Scenes Ever Written by Barnaby Conrad

“Get to a good scene as quickly as possible in your story, no matter what with [sic] generalization you start.” (p. 3)

Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz

“Laird Koenig: ‘And remember—stories aren’t written—they’re rewritten.’” (p. 171)

Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life by Elizabeth George

“To avoid bad writing, think of events in your novel as dominoes. Let’s call them dramatic dominoes. The first event in the novel—and for that you can read ‘the first scene’—must trigger an event that follows. In a first-person narrative or a narrative with a limited third-person point of view, the first event will trigger the event that immediately follows it. In other words, something in scene one causes scene two to happen. In the types of books that I write, which have a shifting third-person point of view, the first event must trigger some later event in the novel, but not necessarily the one that immediately follows.” (pp. 42-42)

The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron

“If a character is not doing what you’d like him to do, assess your decision to have the character perform the action. Perhaps the action doesn’t feel right for the character because it isn’t right. If he must do the action for the sake of the plot, rethink the plot. Try to find another way to accomplish the plot goal.” (p. 161)

Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress

“…the Swimming Pool Theory. This theory says that structuring fiction is like kicking off from the side of a swimming pool. The stronger and more forceful your initial kick, the longer you can glide through the water. The stronger and more forceful your opening scene, the less your reader will mind a ‘glide’ through nondramatized backfill. In fact, the reader may even welcome the slow-down, as a contrast to a dynamite first scene. Explosives going off all the time can be wearing.” (p. 34)

More next week!

I admit I always laugh in my sleeve when I hear an author proclaiming we all must “write what we know.” This tidbit of advice is often touted as a cardinal rule of writing, with the inherent implication being that if you aren’t 1) a brilliant scientist/mathematician/geologist/linguist/ tactician/psychologist or 2) an uber-wealthy jetsetter with the time and money to fly all over the place and experience everything possible, you really don’t have any business writing books.

Whoever came up with this rule obviously didn’t credit imagination too much. In fact, it would seem said person probably didn’t have much imagination. Think about it. Fiction, at its very essence, is all about what we don’t know. Last week, I quoted William Styron, who said, “Isn’t all art a search for an answer to a question which can’t even be spoken?” I have little to no interest in writing about the things I know. Not only would that severely curb my pool of writing resources, it would also limit me to regurgitating my life.

And that would get pretty boring pretty fast. If I wrote only about what I know, all my stories would probably end up being about twenty-somethings who work at their editing/programming/graphic designing desk jobs eight hours a day, five days a week, spend Saturday mornings in bed reading, and encounter adventure and excitement mostly through their own klutziness and occasional stupidity. Not exactly what you had in mind for your next beach read, is it? Me neither.

I write about places I’ve never been, cultures I’ve never experienced, people I’ll never meet. The last time I checked, gunslingers, crusading knights, and dragons weren’t offering interview appointments. Neither can I afford to globetrot my way to Syria, Chicago, London, Nigeria, and points beyond, every time I need to start researching. (We won’t even mention the fact that one of those brilliant scientist people I mentioned in the first paragraph have yet to perfect a time machine that would send me back to the Middle Ages or the Old West.)

But I’ll tell you a secret: I like it this way. Writing novels gives me the opportunity to experience what I don’t know. If I lived in Chicago, rode the Metro everyday, and saw Sears Tower out my window every morning, I doubt I would have had any interest in writing about it in my fantasy novel Dreamlander. But, because I’ve never been to Chicago, never ridden the Metro, never seen Sears Tower—every moment spent researching these things was an adventure.

If fiction is about answering questions, then I certainly have no need to rehash my own life on the page. I live that everyday; the answers are right in front of me. I’d much rather experience the untouchable.

Now, that said, let me do a major 180 and mention that I emphatically believe that we should all write what we know. (Gotcha, didn’t I?) Knowing your subject matter is vital. But who says you can’t know it vicariously? That’s where research comes into play. If I wrote about the 12th-century Kingdom of Jerusalem and referred to all the natives as Israelis, I would promptly pop any knowledgeable reader’s bubble of disbelief and destroy my credibility as a writer. But, if I do my research, if I read the books, study the maps, and interview the experts, I’ll be able to write both what I know—and what I don’t.

It’s a bit of a mystery why we write. And yet it’s no mystery at all. “I write because I must” is the easy answer—the cop-out. I’ve always been interested in psychology, in the why behind actions and emotions and choices. When someone asks me why I write, the answer that immediately pops onto my tongue is a simple “because I love it.” But that, of course, begs the question why do I love it? And if we dig a little deeper, we realize that I don’t write just because I love it; I also write when I hate it. It’s a compulsion that goes deeper than just simple pleasure. And, even more interesting, it’s a compulsion that isn’t unique to me. It’s something in which the majority of writers seems to share.


So why do we write? Why do we have this deep need to put pen to paper and weave stories from our own experiences and imaginations? Most writers are also avid readers. We love stories. We love the wide-open horizons of a good tale, the endless possibilities, the vicarious adventures and relationships. It’s only natural that we should want to extend that love into a hands-on experience.


When it comes right down to it, stories are about figuring things out. William Styron asked, “Isn’t all art a search for an answer to a question which can’t even be spoken?” Stories are questions. They’re explorations of life and humanity. In her book Characters, Emotions & Viewpoints, Nancy Kress pointed out that:

[Stories] all create self-contained, imaginary worlds that make us feel the real world more vividly. After seeing Hamlet, hearing about George Washington and the cherry tree, or reading Anna Karenina, our world has been enlarged. We have not only felt things along with the characters (Hamlet’s rage, Washington’s integrity, Anna’s despair), we have received an additional lens through which to evaluate the world around us. This is true even when the stories are, say, a third-rate television sitcom. It’s still a metaphor for real life, and the reason we may reject it as “bad” is because we subconsciously decide the metaphor doesn’t fit life...

I find it interesting that so many writers, myself included, tend to be introverts. Here we are creating hundreds of in-depth human beings for the page, and yet we struggle to understand and communicate with other people in real life. Or is it perhaps the other way around? That we tend to take a step back from the frenetic bustle of life and ask the questions (write the stories) about people and relationships, which then allow our characters to resonate on the page? Is it because we are seeking more than the obvious that we are able to better illuminate the common emotions we all share? I’m no expert on any of this, and I’m really just throwing around ideas. In her writing-life memoir Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont says:

...so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, “Yes!” And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communion.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit in answer to my titular question that, really, I write for myself. I write because I want to find the answers, because I want to understand and be understood. But it is also a prayer of my heart that somehow my ramblings might find a place in the bigger picture, that they might resonate with even just one reader and form that invisible, ineffable line of connection between my soul and the soul of another. My heart hurts for people who disparage art, including fiction, as a waste of time. They are missing so much. Life is a story; stories are life. Lamont again:

[Our writing matters] because of the spirit, I say. Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or our life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.

That is why I write.