Wordplay

Whenever I crack open a hefty volume of Dickens, I’m inevitably overwhelmed by the realization that this entire 800-page novel was written by hand. The writer’s bump on my middle finger throbs just thinking about it. Without doubt, our 21st-century technologic additions are a decided blessing. But we’ve also lost some things along the road to the future. We’ve amped up distractions and made it far too easy to stifle creativity by editing and tweaking before a thought is even half-formed.

Returning to the caveman technology of pen and paper can have a surprisingly freeing effect on our muses. Although I write my first drafts on the computer, I’ve learned to free my imagination in the first rush of creation by writing my outlines longhand in a notebook. In the process, I’ve gained a number of benefits.

Writing longhand…

1. Discourages the tendency to censor or edit. Removing the temptation to glance up at a previous paragraph and switch out words and phrases allows my raw thoughts to flow onto the page. I don’t judge them, I don’t edit them, I don’t censor them. I just pour them out.

2. Brings writing down to a primal level. There’s something about the tactile experience of ink on paper that is inimitable. It presents a return to writing in a purer, more instinctive form, without the intercession of complicated electric tools.

3. Removes us from our notes. Moving our writing away from the computer also means removing ourselves from our notes. Instead of relying on old scraps of inspiration, we’re able to produce what the story needs as it needs it from the well of our subconscious. The results are often startlingly cohesive and powerful.

4. Provides a change of pace. When we’re stumped by a tough story problem or even general burnout, changing our location and our methods can sometimes be just the trick for jumpstarting our creativity.

5. Frees imagination by allowing sloppiness. Something about the near illegibility of my handwriting seems to break down my need for perfection. Instead of toiling over word choice, I’m able to dash down my thoughts as quickly as they come to me. I find this particularly vital in the early creative stages.

6. Frees us from distractions. Pen and paper physically remove us from the computer and all its distractions, including the siren song of the Internet.

7. Allows a critical editing during transcription. The necessity of transcribing our notes onto the computer allows us the opportunity to apply a critical eye to what we’ve written, once the first rush of creativity is past.

8. Gives us an instant hard copy. Unless your house burns down, your handwritten hardcopies aren’t likely to randomly self-destruct as computer files are known to do. Even if you lose your notes after you’ve typed them up, you’ll always have a hardcopy as backup.

I love my technology. I love typing. I love the clean look of my Times New Roman letters appearing on the virginal white of my screen. Sometimes I even love that taunting blink of the cursor. But writing longhand is an invaluable technique my writing would suffer without. In a recent Writer’s Digest article, freelance author Dick Dickinson agreed:

In today’s stream-of-consciousness world of e-mail, text, Facebook and Twitter, initials become sentences and words take flight before thoughts are well-formed. What to do? Well, are you ready to turn the clock back, oh, a few centuries? To hone concentration and put consideration back into your writing, and for a striking change of pace, try using a … pen. Consider the advantages: There is no insert, spell check, cut and paste, or delete; just your words drawn on paper with an ancient technique.

Related Posts: The Benefits of Outlining

Conscious vs. Unconscious Creativity

My Writing Toolbox
_________________

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version.

This week’s video suggests some remedies to the common pitfalls of confusion that befall readers who are muddled by your large casts of characters.



Video Transcription: You ever read a book in which a slew of characters was dumped in your lap in a short amount of time? In a historical book I just finished, the author bombarded readers with one name after another, and then expected us to remember all these characters when they’re mentioned rather casually in further chapters. In large books, with large and complicated casts of characters, it can be deeply frustrating for readers to try to keep everyone straight. 
Here are a few tips for implanting character recognition in your reader’s brain:

1. When possible, space out character introductions. Doing so not only prevents character overload, it also allows you the space to let each character show at least a little of his personality when you first bring him on stage. If you can give readers time to visualize each character, and attach the proper name to the proper person, they’re much more likely to remember who’s who.

2. If you absolutely must introduce more than a few characters at once, make sure you give them all defining personalities, so they don’t blend together. This can be accomplished through distinctive dialogue or reference to an interesting physical characteristic.

3. Pay attention to character names. Memorable names make characters memorable (although you certainly don’t want to go overboard with them). Avoid giving characters names that start with the same letter or sound similar to one another. Characters are the life’s blood of your story. Don’t trip up their effectiveness by making it difficult for readers to connect with them.

Lots of exciting things are underway around here. A complete overhaul of my main website is in progress, complete with new developments that I’m thrilled to be able to start sharing with you.

I’m working on several projects to expand Wordplay in new ways to help writers, including a member network, which will include an online consultation of your story, a free audio CD, great discounts on all my books, a supplementary newsletter (which several of you have been asking for), and monthly contests for some great prizes.

So keep your eyes open over the next couple months as construction continues. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on how I can improve my site and my blog to better meet your needs, please leave a comment or drop me a line using the contact form.

Related Posts: The Name Game by Terry Odell

Naming Characters

Describing Characters

Top 7 Reasons Readers Stop Reading

Fiction is about the specifics. In real life, we may get away with being ridiculously vague (“Gimme that thingamajig over there”), but only because the specifics are staring us in the face. In fiction, we must hit the specifics and hit them hard. Years ago, a sentence in an article in a writing magazine (the author of which I’ve regrettably forgotten) popped off the page and revolutionized the way I looked at fiction. What was that sentence?

Generality is the death of the novel.

We can easily write passages in which the characters pick flowers, pour themselves a drink, or put on some clothes, and, in all likelihood, these general descriptions will get the job done. But how much more evocative, how much more memorable, when we write that the characters picked dew-wet daffodils, poured a lukewarm cup of Earl Gray tea, or put on a threadbare cardigan? Just by switching out words and adding a few tiny details, we can move from dull to dazzling.

This is a principle that reaches far beyond just basic descriptions. When we force our characters to live in a specific city, a specific neighborhood, a specific house (even if all these places are 100% imaginary), we are refining facets of personality that would never have been visible had we not taken the time to fine tune the setting.

Give your character a specific occupation, even if his job has nothing to do with the plot. Make him live within a definable time frame; don’t let him drift through his days with no thought for what time it might be in his world or what day of the week it is. Give him a specific vehicle, not just “a car.” Let him have a pet with a name and a personality.

The difference between specific fiction and general fiction is the difference between stories that come to life and stories that lie dead on the page. But it’s true we can’t be specific about everything in a novel. That much attention to detail would require an excessive word count and more patience than any reader is likely to give you. Readers aren’t going to care if the plant thrown away in the neighbor’s Dumpster is a philodendron—unless the plant is important to the story.

The amount of specificity we expend on any object depends greatly on the size of its role in the story. That cup of lukewarm tea probably occupies no more than a passing moment with no bearing on the plot itself, and as a result it deserves no more than the five words I gave it. The vehicles the main character passes on his way to work in the morning matter not at all and can exist under the general description of “cars whizzing by.” But when the character’s world is rocked by his mother’s heart attack, sifting every detail of his trauma becomes important if we’re to help the reader share the character’s experience.

In large part, fiction is an exercise in capturing details and sharing them with others. If we’re capturing only general details, we aren’t going to be able to offer anything valuable or unique. But if we focus on the specifics, we’ll be able to keep our stories from ever dying under the weight of ambiguity.

Related Posts:  Details: Bringing Fiction to Life

Branded: Negotiating Consumerism in Fiction

How to Make Your Prose Sing
_________________

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version.

This week’s video explains a few simple tricks for perfectly adjusting the pacing and tone of your novel.


Video Transcription: You’re probably familiar with the common wisdom that writing shorter sentences during action scenes contributes to a sense of tension and speed. Controlling paragraph, sentence, and even word length is a common and easy way to affect the pacing of your story. If you want a scene to move quickly, think short. If you want it to move leisurely, lengthen the rhythm of your writing. The same holds just as true for scene and chapter length.

Terra Incognita, the second book in Ruth Downie’s boisterous, tongue-in-cheek historical mystery series, features extremely short chapters. Some are barely longer than page. In no small part due to this simple trick, her story rushes along at a madcap pace that perfectly suits her humorous tone and her hapless main character. In contrast to the 50 plus chapters in Downie’s books, the similarly sized books in Patrick O’Brian’s lauded Aubrey/Maturin seriescustomarily feature no more than ten chapters. His decision to use chapters of fifty or more pages fits nicely within his series’ historical tone and lends gravitas and a feeling of importance to his characters’ seafaring adventures during the Napoleonic War.

Downie’s and O’Brian’s respective decisions on scene and chapter length effortlessly contribute to the fast-paced, modern tone of the one and the historic, slightly detached perspective of the other. Consider the needs of your story and apply this simple trick of pacing to control to your overall goal of tone and energy.


Related Posts: 5 Ways to Pace Your Story

11 Killer Chapter Breaks

Make Every Scene Matter

In order for us to disappear into the worlds of our imaginations, we have to carve out a spot in the real world that allows us the right elements for slipping into our creative zone. Those elements vary from writer to writer. Some of us prefer peace and quiet; others like the bustle of a corner booth in the local coffee bistro. Some of us would rather work right out of our homes; others are more productive if they they drive to work. It’s important to discover the atmosphere that best encourages your creativity and foster that atmosphere as much as possible. This week, I thought I’d share my own writing station:




So what makes your writing station special? What would you change if you could?


Related Posts: My Writing Toolbox


Opening Yourself to Inspiration


Fighting Writer's Block
_________________


Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version.

This week’s video warns against the pitfalls of bragging on your characters.




Video Transcription: Just like good parents, writers are often so certain their stories and characters are the cutest little thing that ever breathed. We may not carry pictures around in our wallets or brag when our baby takes his first steps before the neighbor’s kid does. But we still want everyone to understand how brilliant/brave/beautiful—you fill in the blank—our characters are. So we make sure to tell our readers, at every opportunity, just our marvelous our characters are. You know the drill: The character pauses to admire his gorgeousness in a mirror or, as in a historical mystery I just finished, is congratulated for his brilliance or bravery by another character. In this particular book, the secondary character croons that the protagonist has “a way of cutting to what’s true, an’ making sense of it.”

The problem with such a declaration is two-sided. On the one hand, if you’ve managed to create a character that has, indeed, done something extraordinary, the reader has already seen the character’s actions. If the reader already knows how wonderful the character is, he hardly needs to be told—and, in fact, harping on the character’s brilliance, even if it’s true, can alienate readers because it skews the balance of strengths and weaknesses.

The other pitfall of this technique is that, as in the book I read, the character really hasn’t done anything worth bragging on. As a result, when the author starts patting her “brilliant” character on the back, the reader is likely to scoff in disbelief and reject the book and the character alike as unrealistic and perhaps even just plain irritating. The best way to handle your character’s strengths is to let them speak for themselves. If he really is brilliant, brave, or beautiful, your reader should be able to grasp that through the story itself.


Related Posts: Describing Characters

It’s What Your Characters Do That Defines Them

Character Competition: The Saint or the Sinner?

In a market as competitive as the writing world, we’re all striving to be the best writers we can be. But would you be surprised if I told you that the only way to be a better writer is to be a better person?


You know all those admirable self-improvement goals that always end up on your resolution list? Lose ten pounds, clean the garage, learn to play foosball. At first glance, they may not seem to have anything in common with writing, but, in fact, they’re related in several ways, most notably in that they all require discipline, hard work, pragmatism, and a long-term vision. Every single one of these things is a trait we could all probably do with a little bit more of. We’ll be better people for possessing them—and, as a result, we’ll become better writers.


We can get into the habit of looking at our writing separately from our life as a whole. But if we hope to be dedicated to our writing, we have to establish corresponding habits in every corner of our lives. We might like to think we can eat Twinkies for breakfast, leave our homes and workspaces in a state of disarray, and knock off commitments without a second thought—and still somehow be ace writers. But chances are good that the patterns we establish in other areas of our lives will spill over to our writing.


We might possess all the talent in the world, but if we’re not willing to back it up with 110% effort, we can hardly expect—or deserve—success. Ecstatic as the pinnacles of inspiration may be, writing, at its core, is more grit than glitz, more work than riches. It’s the same in all art fields. In his article “How to Be a Professional Cartoonist,” Hugh MacLeod makes five points that every serious author would do well to take note of, including the unappetizing “wake up early in the morning, head straight to the studio and crank stuff out relentlessly…”


If we were to make a list of “Qualities of an Author,” the traits I’ve mentioned above probably wouldn’t be the first to pop to mind. Our list would include words like “beautiful prose, sharp characters, mind-bending plots, and zinging dialogue.” And rightly so. Every good author needs to have these in his bag of tricks. But they won’t do us a lick of good if we don’t also possess the ability to apply them. In A Writer’s Space, Eric Maisel, Ph.D., makes a note on the list of qualities every serious writer needs to possess:

Of course, [you] already knew what those qualities were… You just needed to heroically listen to your conscience… Become more creative by improving your character.

Millions of people want to write stories, and a good portion of them do. But only those who are willing to cultivate a responsible lifestyle will be able to take full advantage of their talents and their dreams. So here’s to a little self-improvement for all of us!


Related Posts:  10 Habits of Successful Authors


Why You Should Stick With a Story


Mental Illness, Angst, and Creativity


_________________


Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version.

This week’s video demonstrates why less is usually more when it comes to descriptions, character actions, and more.




Video Transcription: In our desire to make our scenes come to life for our readers, it’s often tempting to throw onto the page as many tantalizing descriptions and vivid metaphors as we can think of. If one vibrant image is good, then two should definitely double our money, right? Ironically, however, just the opposite is true. As Jane Lebak, author of Seven Archangels: Annihilation and The Guardian, once pointed out to me, Sometimes 1+1=0. Two is bad. Give the reader one thing to concentrate on. Pick the better of the two.

I stumbled across a good example of this in a recent reading of a young adult book. In it, the author describes the vivid nightmare of a dying World War II vet, who dreams that while in the middle of battle, his body starts to fall apart. The author writes about the “body breaking into tiny bits, crumbling off his trunk like cheese being grated from a slab—or like a leper, unraveling.” Her first image, of the cheese grater, is a marvelously powerful bit of writing that conveys her meaning perfectly. But the tacked-on second image of a leper adds nothing to the scene and, in fact, only detracts from the power of the first image. It’s almost as if the author were afraid her readers wouldn’t get the first description, so she threw in a second as a safety net.

The strength of vibrant images is that they are capable of standing alone. If it needs propping up with a second or third description, then it probably isn’t that vibrant to begin with and needs to be rewritten. Trust your readers to get what you’re saying the first time around—and enable your word pictures to stand on their own by remembering that, often, less is more.


Related Posts: Metaphorically Speaking

Details: Bringing Fiction to Life

Describing Characters

How many times have you come up with a brilliant idea—a story so dazzling, a character so real, a snippet of dialogue so scintillating that it knocks you breathless—only to have it fail to live up to your vision when you start putting it on paper? If you’re like me, then the answer is every single time. The hard, cold truth is that the stories we put on paper—no matter how good we are at writing them—rarely if ever live up to the stories in our heads. Bestselling YA author Gail Carson Levine acknowledged:

Ideas are ideas, and words on paper are words on paper; they’re not the same thing, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves.

Stories on the page have a mind of their own. As soon as we start forming our characters into letters and words, we’re cementing them into reality. They’re no longer the airy, changeable, ethereal creatures that wisp about in our minds, flashing in and out of our lives in snapshots of color and dialogue. They’ve solidified, and with that solidifying comes both a loss and a gain. We lose the lucent perfection in exchange for a satisfying, if flawed, substantiality. In his manual Fiction Writer’s Workshop, acclaimed short story writer Josip Novakovich explains:

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…. 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.

Chances are good that our stories will never quite live up to our expectations, but the challenge of bridging the chasm between idealized concept and finished product is one of the joys of the craft. In her insightful free e-book Nail Your Novel, book doctor Roz Morris advises that:

The reason first drafts seem to be so difficult is that there’s a big gap between expectations and reality.… The version in our heads is warm, twinkling and faultless. But when we try to write it doesn’t come out that way. This is because for most mortals getting it all right in this stage is impossible…. In a first draft we feel we’re writing rubbish – and we probably are.

But, as award-winning radio personality Ira Glass points out, the very fact that we always expect our work to be better is a sign of our “good taste.” If we can see the flaws in our stories, if we can identify where they fall short, we have the opportunity to make the next story that much better. As time passes and we continue to gain experience and grow as writers, we will inevitably begin to shorten the gap between the perfection of our imaginations and the flaws of our execution.

Related Posts: Writing With Joy

Knowing When a Story's Ready

Why You Should Stick With a Story
 
_________________


 Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version.