Category: Lessons Learned About Writing

Weekend Workshop: Encouragement from King

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It seems to me all writers get a little nervous sometimes. They wonder if they have what it takes. Do they have the desire to hoe what has become a very long row to get anywhere in this business? Do they have enough to sustain themselves? Do they have enough ideas to write ten books before anyone notices they’re publishing their little hearts out?

Or am I just a talentless hack who should hang up my keyboard before I get any further behind?

Once upon a time I would have thought it was just me who felt that way, but I know better now. Art is by definition a soul baring, emotional enterprise. And laying yourself open for others to judge cannot help but cause you to question yourself.

Have a few quotes from Stephen King, culled from his autobiography On Writing, apply them as a balm to your aching muse or save them for when the words are mocking you…your choice.

Large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and those talents can be strengthened and sharpened. (18)

If a large number of people have talent, chances are good that you do too.

ambition, desire, luck, and a little talent all played a part. (18)

See a little talent. You only need a little. You just have to work at it. And be lucky. I’m hoping you only need the luck to be Stephen King famous and successful. I have much less ambition. I’ll be excited when my sales start to cover the cost that goes into the book and maybe a celebratory cocktail. LOL

if you write someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all. (50)

Oh, so the jerks just come with the territory, it isn’t personal. That’s refreshing.

Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit…(77)

When I read about a famous, successful author who feels like all he is doing is shoveling shit, I suddenly feel way better about my manure covered garden spade. And I think maybe I should get a bigger shovel?

The hours we spend talking about writing is time we don’t spend actually doing it. (144)

Point taken, oh wise one, I’m off to write.

In case you’re bored this weekend, why not check out OddMall in Everett. It’s the festival of everything odd, geeky, or weird. Not to mention FreeValley Publishing will be there and you can grab a copy of my book, Scripting the Truth, or any number of awesome sci fi, fantasy, or romance novels written by my compatriots.

 

 

Weekend Workshop – Nano to Publish

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

Last weekend was Nano to Publish at the North Bend library again. We are really getting somewhere as a group. I am so excited about this. And the breath of genres and styles…I’m already planning some events next year to show case these new authors.

We spent the entire 90 minute session playing First Page Idol. I read everyone’s First Page for them, out loud, and we parsed it as a group. What worked for us? What didn’t and why? What is a stylistic choice and what’s bad grammar or some other form of mistake. I am struck yet again by the sharp devisions in what people like as readers. Things that bother me, others find charming and vice versa. You really have to know your audience.

This of course forced me to consider just who I am writing my spy novel for. And it’s a smart reading audience. One who wants to think while reading not just be entertained. It’s the first time I’ve ever really understood who my audience for this book should be. And now I’m wondering if I am writing for too small an audience. LOL.

If you’re following along at home, your beta reviews should be back by now, or almost all back by now. Try to read your first page to as many people as possible. Those words are what sells your book or doesn’t.

To write or not to write

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

that is the question at hand. I play this game called The Red Dragon Inn. I like it a lot. It’s a fun drinking game and the characters are amusing. Some thought has gone into it’s creation. Then one day I was reading a blog post about where to get plot ideas and blogger linked to a web page about black holes and suggested that you could write a novel about falling through a black hole and ending up somewhere.

Suddenly I knew, they were falling through the black hole and ending up at the Red Dragon Inn. So I jotted the idea down in my email draft box (where all ideas go to die) and walked on.

Only the damn idea wouldn’t flipping die.

It kept coming up behind me, tapping me on the shoulder, and saying excuse me but I think I want to …..

Fine, here’s a snippet I wrote at the character’s insistence. It is not meant to be the opening line or anything grand, in fact I’m pretty sure this is at least the second time she’s landed in the bar. You tell me whether I should let this be all there is or if I should feed this beast and let it live….

I landed on the lounger again, out of breathe. These landings weren’t getting any softer. As I lay there surveying my surroundings, a tiny bell rang. The passing serving wench paused, her hands full with tankards of mead. As she opened her mouth to speak I expected some sort of humor regarding angels getting their wings but instead she said, “You might want to move,” and glanced towards the darkness above me.
Defying her suggestion I lay back to look at the aperture I had recently fallen through. Then I dove for the floor. 
An ogre landed on the lounger with a grunt, all he had air for. He sat up quicker than I had learned to and nudged my leg out of the way of his foot before standing. I chose to see this as a polite gesture. 
He crossed the flag stone floor to belly up to the bar, roaring for a drink. 
I sat up slowly pondering his position in my quest. Was he my competition or my salvation?
Feed it or let it die?

Weekend Workshop/Discussion

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 7 Comments

This might be more of a discussion than workshop but I recently read Stephen King’s On Writing and I noted down a million and one things he said and I want to talk about them a little at a time.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. (145)

This makes perfect sense to me. Whether you read good prose or bad, fiction or non, you are learning the skill, the art, the process, as you read. This cannot help but transfer to the words you write. And the more you write the better you must get from sheer practice.

10, 000 hours=mastery.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you. (146)

I’m not sure about this one. Mainly because I think what sweeps one person away irritates another.  Just because you are swept off your feet by a sparkly day glow vampire stalker doesn’t mean I won’t drive a stake through his heart first chance I get.

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. Simple as that. (147)

Ok but….

The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate – four to six hours a day, every day (150)

And here is where he loses me. So if I can’t find four-six hours a day to read and write I am not a writer. Or I don’t have the tools to be a writer? Isn’t that a bit rigid? Who says I have to do the 10, 000 hours in one year? If it takes me five years, am I any less a master? Or maybe this just rubs me the wrong way because it’s an impossibility for me now in this place in my life and I don’t want to give up my efforts because I can’t meet his impossible guidelines.

Thoughts on how much time one should devote to reading and writing to be a writer? Do you think reading is an key aspect of writing?

Weekend Workshop – Nano To Publish

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

The Nano to Publish workshop happened in April even though I was busy posting for the A to Z Challenge. We talked mostly about how to find beta readers and what kind of readers we should be looking for.

First thing to consider, writers will give you write it better feedback. They might even give you feedback that focuses on how they would have written the novel. This is marginally beneficial. Another set of eyes is always good but don’t get all writer feedback on your beta, that’s what your critique partner is for.

Get readers for your beta. Ie, People who READ. In a perfect world you’d have two who read your genre and at least one who doesn’t. Readers tell you how they as a reader experienced your novel and that’s ultimately your focus.

You also need at least one eagle eyed, anal retentive line editor to catch every oops. Every double space, wrong punctuation, misspelling, incorrect word choice, etc.

I also spent a bit of time talking about your mom. Your Spouse. Your best friend.

They all love you. Ergo their feedback is less useful. Why? Because they will like your book because you wrote it. And even if they honestly think its the best thing ever, will you believe them, give the whole love thing? And if they do hate it, and they’re honest, how will that effect the relationship long term? Think carefully before using this avenue.

So where to find these bastions of honest virtue? Well if you have a blog, you can try asking for readers there. Your followers already like your style. At least a couple of them might like to read something longer from you.

How much beta do you like as a writer? Do you use the same readers every time? Where do you find them? Inquiring minds want to know.

Nano to Publish March Workshop

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

I had this grand idea about the March workshop where I would move about my hard working cohorts helping them get their novels ready for beta with wit and compassion. Are you rolling on the floor laughing yet? I am.

In reality, every one has it already. They are either moving forward on making their first pass critique changes at a solid clip or they are done. No one needed me. No one.

What ended up happening was all these fabulous conversations occurred. We talked about blogging, about pen names, the greater nature of art, ways to handle multiple books in multiple genres.  The group convinced me it was OK to abandon my murder mystery. Guess they had that compassion I was envisioning.

I helped one guy a little with his blog. I heartily suggested people jump on the A to Z blogging challenge as a way to get their blog rolling with a bang and to get a quick readership. As you may have noticed I am participating in the A to Z blogging challenge this year. For the month of April I will be posting what I learned at norwescon (I’m there right now), in the A to Z challenge format. My normal posts will be suspended for this daily challenge in the month of April.

If you’re at Norwescon, stop by the Clockwork Dragon table (#37 in the vendor room) and check out the incredible indie authors, including my novel Scripting the Truth.

Weekend Workshop

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

This barely qualifies as a weekend workshop worthy book, but since I skipped a weekend or two and have nothing for the upcoming weekend, I’ll post it. LOL.

I picked up Write Your Own Mystery Story by Tish Farrell when it caught my eye while I was picking up a different book on writing from the shelf next to it. I thought I might find some useful tid bits for the kids version of Nano to Piblish which I may or may not teach at the coop next year.

As I have found with out “junior” how to books, it’s a little insulting to kids. This one calls it a burger joint rather than the Malt Shop but it’s still out of date and vaguely condescending. “Write” takes a youngster through a generalized plan, develop, write, edit, and publish run down. Guess no one needs my class after all. LOL. But it’s really, really general. Really general. Although it does say not to use the word really or very for that matter and to edit out all extraneous adverbs. (Is there anyone who hasn’t been influenced by King on adverbs and the road to hell?)

The book leans heavily on plot. On working it all out ahead of time. Plotting each scene. Fully knowing your characters before you start. And I maintain you need to leave room. Room for your characters to develop as you write, for the characters to grow. You can’t plan their growth arc. Anymore than I can plan my six year old’s growth arc. And you need to leave room for story to find it’s own way, for your characters who are growing and changing to show you the cool stuff that matters.

I did make note of some suggested writing exercises and then modify them for my class notes for next year. I’ll tell you about one here. I took a book suggestion and decided I would have my class invent a character and provide a short sketch of the character, just three lines. Then I would throw those into a hat. Each student would randomly select a character. Then I would have another hat of situations I had created and the students would randomly select one of those. Each student would explain either how the character got into the situation or how they are going to get out of it. I think it will be fun.

Nano To Publish February Edition

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

One of the things I always noticed when I was getting edumacated was there are two kinds of teachers. Those who have a plan of what to cover and stick to it like glue and those who have a plan but follow the organic flow of the class. I always liked the latter because you never know where the discussion might go when you just let people talk about ideas. I had a plan for last weekend’s workshop. And while things somewhat went according to plan the detours were really fun.

I started off talking about my feedback from my critique partner. It was pretty harsh. My book is just not that good. And even though I felt that the whole time I was writing it in Nano, finishing it off post Nano, and doing some edits to get it ready for first pass, it still kinda hurt. My critiquer knew within ten pages of finding the body who killed the victim. Ouch. What was the point of laying my pain open for everyone? Well, by asking more questions of my critiquer I found out one line in my novel gave it away for him. One line. One line I meant to be a little odd, to make the reader think just a pause, but apparently I overshot the mark. Then I turned them loose to talk to their partner and find those little extra nuggets of information that might help rework their novel.

Then we talked about what they had heard. I wanted to identify places where they felt overwhelmed by the criticism or had no idea how to address what had been presented to them. And what do you know, almost everyone felt really good about what they heard. Everyone had something to share though.

Which lead to a fabulous discussion of erotica versus romance as a genre and what might be contained in those type books to make it fall into one category or another. The librarian on duty actually came and closed the doors of the conference room on us. Oops. LOL.

Another writer was concerned about time line clarification. Her reader was confused when in the story he was. One suggestion to fix that was to read through how an author you admire handles that sort of notification subtly and then apply it to your novel.

I think if February Nano To Publish had a theme it would be that. If you don’t know how to do something but know an author who does it well in your opinion, read their works. Model the changes you need after them. I’m not talking about changing your style to match theirs, just using their toolbox when you discover your tools aren’t working for a particular problem.

If you’re following along at home, get to work on making the changes your first pass critiquer suggested to you. Ideally you want your novel ready to go to Beta readers in April. You have two whole months. Get to writing.

Weekend Workshop Part Two of How NOT to Write a Novel

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Amusing advice from Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, written in a tongue and cheek style designed to make your next novel totally garbage. Last week I covered Plot and Characters, onto Style, Research, and Special Effects.

Style

flaunt your vocabulary, use the biggest words you know. Extra points if you don’t actually know the words and use them incorrectly. “The harder you try to be clever, the more momentum you will have when you arrive at that line(the one between clever and stupid), and the less likely you are to notice when you cross it.”

use common expressions, but change them just a little to give your reader a thrill. “She was the apples and oranges of his eye.” Fabulous. Don’t worry a thing about your reader falling out of your story while he tries to figure out just what you mean. All the cliches you add in will carry you through, as many as you can fit in there, right?

The exclamation point is your friend. And you can never have too many friends!!!

Substitute synopsis for description or lists. Lists are good! Your reader really wants to know every book your protag has on her shelves!

if you have a strong knowledge of legalese by all means, write in that. Better yet, write ad copy instead of a novel. Then your marketing will be done ahead of time.

don’t consider the fracturing of time to be a bad thing. No one wants to know what actually took place between finding the bomb and sipping margaritas on the beach later. Go back and forth using flashback/flashforward/present without any tags to notify the reader in a sort of collage of words. People like to have to think to figure out what they are reading. This won’t make them fall out of your novel at all.

write only your characters reactions to their world, don’t describe the world, that would be giving too much away.

Never, ever use the word said. Your dialogue tags should explain how things are said and what your characters are feeling every time. If you don’t know what your character is feeling then tell your reader what they should think of your elegant prose.

Use the same voice for all your characters. This will give your novel a sense of confusion, which readers love. Be sure to include all of their conversations, even the every day casual phrases.

Use your characters only as they are needed. If Julia and George want to have a private conversation in front of all the other actors from Oceans 11, go ahead and pretend Brad and Matt aren’t there.

make sure your characters announce things about themselves in conversation. It’s the only way your reader will know Julia is an art historian. And Julia should say this to George, just because they were married, doesn’t mean George knows what Julia does for a living.

If you need to bring in a non English speaker, just use his native tongue for the easy words you already know. Who has time for google translate?

head jump point of view whenever you need to. continuity if for amateurs. If you need George to know Julia is thinking without her saying it, go ahead and make him psychic, but don’t explain the new ability, it’s more fun when it’s a game.

don’t give any thought to the tense of your novel. Change tense as you need to, at will. Or use a single tense no matter the dictates of the English language.

If you’re having trouble with plot or action, substitute emotion, the more dramatic the better. If you find yourself short of words describe every scene by going through each of your protag’s five senses. Heck, add a sixth or seventh sense just for fun. If you’re really pressed for words you can reassure your reader that the protagonist still thinks what you already told them he thought last paragraph. Keep reassuring them.

Setting

allow your passion for shoes, cars, or guns to completely over ride the action or dialogue the scene could have had. Describe all locations as blandly and generically as possible so the reader can imagine your novel as their favored location.

Research

Don’t bother to do any. No one cares if there were cherry lollipops at the court of Charlemagne. Just have people say what you like and use whatever best fits your story. It’s your story after all.

Dirty, Dirty Author

when you want to talk about naughty things but you don’t want people to judge you for your opinions, just create a protag who disapproves of everything sees and everywhere he goes. But make sure he goes there a lot and you describe everything repeatedly so the reader really gets how much you disapprove of this type of situation.

if you find yourself unable to express what you really mean, just borrow from someone else; a popular song, or poem, or even a quote from a popular author who’s done all the hard work for you.

Whatever belief you wish to espouse with your novel, you should go right ahead. Who needs a soap box when you have the published word. And speak in the language of those already in the know, people love to learn, and holding a dictionary while reading a book is always a good way to expand one’s mind.

Special Effects

Sex: all genres require sex scenes, it’s all part of life. Describe in lurid detail. And make it imaginative. If it doesn’t further the plot, all the better, sex for sex sake, every time.

Humor: make ’em laugh. Old jokes are the best, as your reader will have already heard it, possibly from their grandmother, and it will make them comfortable with the material. make sure your characters laugh uproariously at all humor in the book so the reader will laugh with them.

Postmodernism: defined as referring to the author within the work or to the work as a novel within the novel. Good luck to you, it’s a bitch to do it well.

 

Weekend Workshop Part One of How Not to Write a Novel

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In the last few weeks I’ve been reading How NOT to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. The pair are both authors and Mittelmark was an editor. The book is done tongue in check with suggestions and examples on how to make your novel the least publishable humanly possible. I really hope the examples aren’t from novels actually submitted to them for publication but it’s realistically possible…

Plot

your plot should be too slight to maintain a novel- example a long discussion on the type of plumbing in a join – because everyone cares about publishing joins.

Start the story as late as possible – example 100s of pages discussing the make up of a town, similar fun includes recounting the entire childhood before starting the protagonist’s adventure at age 45. We need to know his mom gave him grape juice to understand why he’s a paleontologist.

substitute location for plot – who doesn’t love to spend hours looking at a slide show from someone else’s vacation, without the slides.

don’t actually say what the heck it actually is even after saying at nauseoum how wonderful it is for thirty pages.

all main issues are to be glossed over. protagonist’s brother has PTSD, mention it for sure, but then don’t ever address it, why should he get help?

add in a relationship that’s suggestively inappropriate. Give the protag a little thrill while he thinks how much he loves his sister.

Don’t leave your reader worrying. Make sure the pay off comes from out of the blue. Or set it up so your pay off is revealed before your reader ever gets there. We don’t want them concerned about the life and health of the hero.

Be sure to explore every possible avenue. The reader never feels cheated when the novel wastes 60 pages only to drop the path the protagonist was considering.

Reminisce every chance the hero gets. Retell each and every story you already told as it happened, you want to make sure your reader was paying attention. Just in case have your hero do the same thing every day and be sure to describe it carefully. Make quadruply sure by having your hero tell someone about that thing he does every day, every day.

Be sure to paint the protagonist into such a corner you can’t think how to legitimately get him out, then cheat an ending so you are sure to surprise your reader. Further cheats should include the convenient death of a character, omitting crucial steps, or failing to place the win object until the second the main character needs it. All create surprise in the reader.

Characters

describe your characters in generic terms, better yet have them walk up to a mirror and describe themselves, especially talking about their breasts. Or you can have them see a picture of someone they know and stop to think what that person looks like. Or they could just compare them to a famous actor, George Clooney or Julia Roberts are fab choices.

make your hero perfect and then accessorize with politics. or sex. everyone loves to hear about your characters non stop masturbation.

be sure to give your hero lots of completely undeveloped side kicks that are disposable and dispose of them quickly, then introduce another one who is indistinguishable from the last one, dispose of this one too.

if all else fails plug up any plots holes with skin deep, appears just when needed, love interest. The warden’s stunning daughter is always walking through the jail unescorted and wants to have random hook up sex with your protagonist.

your villain should only be interested in doing as much evil as possible. Actual reasons are totally unnecessary but he should love his mother to make him seem more realistic.

the villain should reveal his plot to the hero in the most complicated way in the unknown universe possible so that no one even cares, let alone understands.

Tune in next week where I will recap the sections on Style, Research and Special Effects (not for the faint of heart).

I can’t wait to write my next novel using all these incredible suggestions. What do you think?