Wordplay

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Conquering Writer's Block & Summoning Inspiration CD

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In lieu of the usual video post (as I continue my week off), I thought I’d share a reader’s response to the post “The Importance of a Fabulous Setting” from a couple weeks ago. David Taylor emailed me the following, and his thoughts were too good not to pass along:

I watched your video and wondered if you have ever considered how wonderful an awful setting can be? In the novel Storm Warnings, a group of German sailors as well as civilians set out a on a voyage aboard a sailing barque, going home during WW2. In the book, there is a scene where a novice nun who is the love of a German sailor is trapped aboard a sinking vessel during a winter storm. He cannot free her but chooses to not escape himself, instead holding her hand till overcome by the sea. In the horror of the surroundings, beauty won out because those last seconds for that sailor were enough to exchange for a lifetime then maybe he exchanged survival for a lifetime.


The book All Quiet on the Western Front comes to mind. There, in the awful scene of hellish trench warfare, a slight thing of nature becomes something of a magnificent beauty as it is illuminated by the squalor of waste and destruction. The man [the main character] wants so much to be a part of it, he forgets his place, and his soul soars upwards. But like Icarus, he is cast down, his body broken, wasted, a part of the carnage he sought to escape.


Using your distinction between writers and authors, would not an author accept a greater challenge? Even crave the challenge to take the ugly or unattractive, making it somehow beautiful or magnificent? Many tread the path of the mundane, but the exceptional blaze a different trail.

Tell me your opinion: Have you ever chosen to use an “ugly” setting to intensify a scene? 




Related Posts: One Thing the Movies Can Teach You About Setting 

Are You Using Setting to Deepen Your Characters?


Juxtaposition: The Power of the Unexpected in Fiction

I’ve decided to give myself the week off. Instead of today’s regular post, I hope you’ll enjoy the following collection of posts on the all-important topic of editing. With National Novel Write Month winding down, I’m sure many of you are itching to start refining those rough drafts. Below, you’ll find some tips on general editing techniques, accepting editorial suggestions from critique partners, and acing your rewrite. Enjoy!


How I Edit






Putting Your Ego in Your Back Pocket








Killing Your Darlings









Embrace Your Inner Editor








Rewriting Made Easy








10 Ways to Write Skinny Sentences









Should You Edit As You Go?

This week’s video shows how Paul Volponi’s unflinching honesty in Rikers High created a strong piece of fiction.


Video Transcription: Writers often have to address issues that make them uncomfortable. Whether it’s violence, questions of morality, or thematic elements, the nature of conflict inherent to fiction means that authors are often forced to write about hard subjects. It can sometimes be tempting to write our way around these issues, to whitewash or soft-soap the ugly facts, in order to spare both ourselves and our readers. But what we have to realize is that doing so is a fast track to weak and forgettable fiction.

With the undeniably tough subject of juvenile detention, and all it entails, at the center of his young adult novel Rikers High, Paul Volponi gives us an unflinching example of how honesty, verisimilitude, to stare down the unsavory details of life and use them to produce a powerful and unforgettable piece of fiction. Every page of Rikers High resonates with the truth. As a man who spent several years teaching high school at Rikers Island, New York’s main jail complex, Volponi knows his subject matter firsthand, and he’s not afraid to lay it all out for the world to see.

Had Volponi chosen to do otherwise—had he decided he didn’t want to write about all the horrific happenings inside a youth prison, or had he decided he didn’t want to face the possibly negative responses of a reading public that wasn’t ready for the hard, cold truth—he would have gutted his story’s impact and resilience. If fiction is to have any significance beyond mere entertainment value, it must be willing to face the truth and share the truth, no matter how ugly, how beautiful, how painful, or how liberating. Look through your latest story and see if you can find any areas that make you uncomfortable. Face them bravely and lay the truth out for all the world to see. Your readers will remember.

Related Posts: Emotional Honesty in The Great Escape

Should Stories Be Soapboxes?

Who Says Readers Don't Care?

Pretend you and I are face to face. Pretend I’ve asked you what you’re writing right now, and you’re telling me the title and the plot and maybe a little about the characters. When you’re done, I look you in the eye and ask, “Why are you writing this story?”

What’s your answer?

Most of you can probably snap a response right back in the face of my impudence. But if you can’t, or if the answer isn’t one that immediately comes to your tongue, you should probably take a step back and do some thinking about why you’re devoting such a huge chunk of your life to this story without understanding your motivations.

In a superb interview in Writer’s Digest (“Masters of Their Craft,” November/December 2010), thriller maestro David Morrell offers solid advice:

When I write a book, I write a letter to myself. I say, “It’s going to take you this amount of time, probably, to write the book—why is this project worth a year of your life?” And there has to be something about the material, the research, the excitement of the research, maybe the way the story is written, that would make me, when I was all done, hopefully fuller and better.

Presumably, most of us begin a story because something about it fascinates us. The characters, the setting, the thematic questions, the plot twist at the end. For me, my interest in any particular story can usually be encapsulated in a single subject: in A Man Called Outlaw, it was the western land wars; in Behold the Dawn, it was the Middle Ages; in Dreamers, it was the idea of dreams coming to life; in The Deepest Breath, it's Kenya. In each of these stories, I found these subjects (and the resultant characters and thematic questions that sprang up) fascinating enough to devote years of my life to them. On the other hand, I’ve had many ideas that no doubt could have become interesting stories in their own right, but which lacked the central idea, the passion, the guiding star necessary to inspire me through the ups and downs of roughly three years of storytelling.

Writing (particularly when we’re writing something as lengthy as a novel) is a lot like a marriage. A story idea that catches our attention and gives us butterflies in our stomachs is one thing. A story that harmonizes with our interests, beliefs, and personalities is another. The first is just an infatuation and probably won’t offer the stability to last past the first blast of writer’s block. The latter, however, is the kind of true love that allows us to build a solid commitment, so that we can weather those inevitable moments of angst, confusion, and doubt.

Writing isn’t all warm fuzzies and sweet nothings. Like any realistic relationship, it encounters its rough spots. Even the best stories reach moments when their authors are pretty sure they never wants to open the file again. That’s why it’s so important we choose stories that are worth the struggle. Not all of us will follow Morrell’s example in going to the trouble to actually write ourselves a letter of justification at the beginning of a new story. But don’t ever let yourself get away with beginning a story without knowing why you’re writing it. Figure out what makes this story more worth writing than any other story, and let that reason empower you in every subsequent word you write.

Related Posts: Strengthen Your Story by Writing the "Perfect" Review

The Importance of Pleasing Ourselves in Our Writing

Should You Write for a Specific Audience?

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This week’s video warns against inserting unnecessary deviations into your story.




Video Transcription: Sometimes it’s easy for authors to believe that just because they have something interesting to say, readers will automatically be interested. Unfortunately, however, it’s not that simple. Readers are sensitive creatures who require delicate handling and a minimum of distractions if they’re to read our stories all the way through. One of the quickest ways to allow our overestimation of our raw storytelling abilities to interrupt readers’ interest is to insert unnecessary and irrelevant deviations into our main stories.


A recent historical novel offers a good example. Right smack in the middle of his rip-roaring medieval tale, the author plunked an entire chapter featuring a long, meandering, and generally incomprehensible fable, told as a veiled allegory by one of the characters. You can almost see the wheels of his story throwing sparks as it slams on the brakes. So much for rip-roaring. Most readers will skip right over this chapter to get back to the juicy parts; a few will give up altogether and put the book down, never to pick it up again.


Even if the story-within-a-story in this particular novel had been gripping in its own right, readers would still have suffered distraction and impatience, as a result of being ripped from their what’s-gonna-happen-next mindset into a lengthy period of delay. If you have pertinent information to share, realize that you can probably find a more effective—and more succinct—way to present it. And if, after analyzing it, you realize it really isn’t all that pertinent after all, it’s probably time to start killing some darlings.


Related Posts: Skip the Boring Parts


Why Narrative Isn't a Bad Thing


Fictional Gimmicks That Work

As conscientious writers, we work hard to get the details of our stories right. We want the language our characters use to reflect their lifestyles and personalities. We want their books, movies, magazines, and music to ring true in our recreations of the real world. And we need all the references and explanations of technology, style, and even health care to shine with accuracy. When we’re able to put a proud red checkmark next to each of these items, we have every right to be pleased. But we also have reason to proceed with caution.

As someone who reads classic literature on a regular basis (I’ve made it my modest goal to read all the classics before I die), I’ve had cause to ponder the fact that the history I’m reading about in these books was as fresh as a just-peeled banana to the likes of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. No doubt, these authors lavished attention on bringing their modern worlds to life—and yet their work (for better or worse) strikes 21st-century readers as decidedly dated.

To some extent, I find this a grand thing, since it allows me, as a reader, to glean a firsthand glimpse—untarnished and unvarnished by the opinions and suppositions of historians—into previous eras. On the other hand, many a book by a lesser author has lost all hope of timelessness thanks to its heavy use of “cutting-edge” references, which may be fresh today, but which will have grown stale and flat in ten years. In Michael A. Banks’s article “Avoid dating your work with overused words and phrases” (The Writer, August 2010), he “argues against using slang and jargon in your writing—at least, jargon that’s likely to be transient”:

…today you won’t hear or read, “Oh, what a tough sweater!” Ditto, “That’s a boss song!” Similarly, if readers encounter a character referring to his girlfriend as “a groovy chick,” they might chuckle and look to see if the novel bears a 1967 copyright. If it doesn’t, and it’s not a period piece, the usage may grate on readers or leave them confused. Like most trendy slang, those usages became relics of the past….

Pleasing both our present and future readers can seem like an impossible task. But with a little bit of foresight and practicality, we can sidestep the most egregious pitfalls by taking the following into consideration:

1. 1. If you don’t need it, don’t use it. If a particular line of slang or a pop-culture reference isn’t absolutely necessary, why include it? Modern readers probably will never miss it, and future readers can’t stumble over what isn’t there.
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3. 2. Let the context do the talking. When you do retain potentially dated material, make sure the meaning is evident from the context. Don’t annoy modern readers by going out of your way to explain, but take a moment to consider how what you’ve written will sound to future audiences.
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5. 3. Avoid branding. Generality may be the death of the novel, but utilizing brand names isn’t always the best way to be specific. Instead of “cherry Coke,” why not just “cherry soda”? Who knows if Coke will still be around in days to come.
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7. 4. Be aware, but don’t obsess. At the end of the day, we’re always writing primarily for our immediate readers, since without them we’re not likely to garner any future fans. Don’t feel as if you need to eliminate all potentially dated references (particularly since doing so is impossible). Just be aware that those you do use may be shorter lived than any of us now think.
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Related Posts: Branded: Negotiating Consumerism in Fiction

Generality Is the Death of the Novel

Details: Bringing Fiction to Life

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Image by Terry Fan

The romance of a tortured artist’s life aside, all writers are in search of the secrets that will allow us to keep the inspiration flowing through our lives. In my CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration, I discuss the best ways to keep Madame Muse at your beck and call—rather than the other way around. But, today, let’s take a look at ten essentials (some more essential than others) for any author wanting to live a consistently inspired life.

1. Coffee and chocolate. What’s a writer without a little caffeinated energy? There’s just something comfortable about any routine that includes two of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. Plus, they’re always good for self-bribery.

2. Music. As a breathing of the soul—a wordless story—music is an inspiration to all of us, no matter our calling as artists. Writers listen to music to calm themselves before jumping into a tough chapter, to jack up the adrenaline before writing battle scenes, or even just to catch a random bit of inspiration for that next story.

3. Effective and personalized tools. No two writers work in exactly the same way, so it’s no surprise we all prefer different tools. My tools of choice are a handful of notebooks, a scratchy pen, and a laptop. Whatever tools you choose, invest in something you’ll enjoy using. Writing can be tough enough without fighting an old clunker of a computer that freezes up every few weeks and endangers your work.

4. The arts. Artists of every stripe feed off each other. We refill our creative wells from the offerings of others. Don’t let your well go dry! Pile your nightstand with good novels, watch every good movie that comes your way—and don’t neglect other art forms, such as painting, singing, and even cooking. Absorbing this wealth from others is invaluable for any writer, but don’t be afraid to delve into other art forms for cross-pollination in your writing.

5. Strong goals. The occasional drudgery of writing can become overwhelming if we don’t have a strong focus on what we’re trying to achieve. Decide what it is you want to accomplish with your writing—whether it’s publication, becoming a bestseller, or even just finishing a story to share with family and friends—and keep that goal firmly in sight, especially on the tough days.

6. An encouraging atmosphere. We can’t always choose the kind of atmosphere in which we write; sometimes we just have to write whenever and wherever we can. But, whenever it’s in your power to do so, try to surround yourself with an atmosphere that encourages your writing. That might mean isolation, or it might mean a cheerful, busy bistro. It might mean a quiet office filled with your favorite things, or, like Hemingway, it might mean your kitchen table, surrounded by your children.

7. Acceptance of interference. Much as we might like the idea of retreating to our ivory towers to write in solace for twelve hours straight, we all know that real life doesn’t quite work that way. It’s best we learn early to accept the inevitable interferences (our day jobs, our kids, our plumbing emergencies) that thrust themselves into our writing days. Otherwise, we’re sure to go crazy!

8. Habits of consistency. The most important skill any writer can have—even more important than writing superb prose and gripping plots—is the ability to be consistent. Don’t allow yourself to get away with excuses. Don’t let your writing slip to the bottom of your to-do list every day. If this important to you, then prove it to the world by consistently giving it precedence.

9. A cat. What’s a writer without a cat? We all need a warm, furry body twining around our ankles, jumping onto our keyboards, and occasionally giving us supercilious looks to remind us that we are not, after all, Margaret Atwood or Stephen King.

10. Imaginary friend. Is it even possible to be a writer without invisible people running amok in our brains? Keep those special, magical people close by your side, and you’ll never lack for characters to write about!

We live in a world that is saturated with artistic creativity (some more artistic and creative than others, admittedly). If you’re a writer, this is a very good thing. It means that inspiration is all over the place. All we have to do is open a magazine, read a book, turn on the television, or switch to a new radio station. In my recently released CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration, I specifically touch upon how to use music to up our creative output. But we can tap into all kinds of media for an extra-inspiration boost. Following are some ideas.

This week’s video shows how fantasy author Brandon Sanderson brought The Final Empire to life with an exquisite setting.




Video Transcription: Setting is sometimes the neglected stepchild of the writing world. We lavish attention on our characters and plot, but sometimes forget how powerful a fabulous setting can be. Some genres, particularly those that fall within the realm of speculative fiction, tend to give more attention to setting, simply because their stories require intensive world building. We can all borrow a page from some fantasy writers and watch and learn from their detailed and engaging settings.


You’ll be hard pressed to find a better example than The Final Empire, the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. The world he creates in this story is exquisite in its detail and its verisimilitude. He offers a world unique from both our own and from that found in many similar fantasy novels. But the true power of his setting is grounded in a couple of hard facts. Fact number one is that this world plays a much bigger role than that of a mere backdrop, a two-dimensional painting on the stage behind the actors. If our settings aren’t intrinsic to our stories to the extent of almost being a character unto themselves, we’re wasting an important opportunity.


Fact number two is that Sanderson brings his setting to life through a deft administration of details: not too many, not too few. He highlights the details that are important—the unique and pertinent points—by exemplifying them through his characters’ interactions with the world. The lesson we all need to learn from this is how to find just the right telling detail to similarly bring our own scenes to life for our readers.


Related Posts: Are You Using Setting to Deepen Your Characters?


Use All 5 Senses to Bring Your Setting to Life


How to Use Details to Suspend Disbelief