Writing is how you learn to Write (TM dept. of the obvious)

The best advice published authors give to aspiring writers -- write!  (also read, a lot, but the writing's the thing.) 

Truth, from Neil Gaiman.

Now, it may seem obvious, but there are many writers who are just talkers, or dreamers, wishing they had the time, the energy, the inspiration to write, but they just can't make time in their busy schedules. 

Don't get too pretentious, it's unbecoming.

There are also those who wonder how the mere act of writing can help one become a better writer.  I mean, don't you have to take college courses?  Or shouldn't you join a writing group?  Or, better yet, shouldn't you buy one of those "How to Write..." books?  Don't you need to learn how to write before you start to write? 

It's not a sprint, it's a marathon, and you might need those sweatbands.

Well, a basic knowledge of language is essential.  And if you've ever told a story, whether relating an anecdote from your past or conjuring up some horror around a campfire, that's a plus.  Certainly, as noted in the parenthetical above, having read a goodly number of books and stories can only help -- I think Neil Gaiman has said, on many occasions, that humans are storytellers, that it's something that sets us apart from other animals.  All of these are good building blocks for writing your own stories.  But if you don't write, you'll be stuck in first gear. 

Ellison.

So much goes into crafting a good story, worthy of publication, and there's much you learned in school that you can discard, but you'll never realize that until you start getting your own stories written and start submitting.  I admit, though it seemed obvious that one needed to write in order to become published, I did not truly understand how this could help my growth as a writer, in a general sense.  Now, I have a far better appreciation for this bit of intuitive advice.  

Sometimes, you do a pretty good job.

I've been writing for a number of years now, as a lark for the first part of those, seriously, now, for at least a decade.  In that time, I've managed to get some of my short stories published [see sidebar for where you can find some of those stories].  But even the stories that were not accepted for publication, along with the three abandoned novels and the first draft YA novel that I realize is a story better suited to a different medium, were beneficial.  Because in the writing of all these stories, and essays and comic scripts, I have slowly ingrained facets of the writing process that were "outside of myself" before, things that I needed to be reminded of, that did not come naturally--or more naturally--in the way they do now.  This would never have happened if not for my writing and revising and writing and revising and submitting and revising and writing and submitting, etc. etc. [cue dynamic writing montage]. 

Don't forget to revise, heavily, as well.

Two examples:  

1)
The first aspect of my writing that, at some point, I became cognizant of was the fact that I was writing in a passive voice.  Stephen King stated in his memoir, "On Writing," that he felt newer writers wrote in the passive voice out of a sense of fear and timidity.

Check.

The thing was, for the longest time, I did not realize I was doing this.  I don't think I was even fully aware of the difference between active and passive voice.  I must have had this as a topic of discussion in my language arts classes (we called it English...dating myself, here) in high school.  But if we did, I don't remember, and I certainly didn't retain it.

When I realized the difference between active and passive voice -- arrived at, on my own, through hundreds and thousands of pages of writing -- it was a revelation.  At that point, I would always make a note at the top of a manuscript to do a revision looking specifically for passive voice transgressions to fix them.  I had learned it, but I still needed to be made conscious of it.  Now, many years after this realization, it's something that sticks out, immediately, upon a re-read. It's become a part of my writing brain in the way that capitalizing the opening of a sentence and using a question mark for interrogatives, and I no longer need a reminder to look for it.  (caveat: if I use the passive voice in this post, it's either intentional or because I rarely do a hard revision on these; apologies if I fail to walk my talk)

In the end, you have a stack of paper that's a story.

2)
A second aspect, and one that I was aware of as a bigger hurdle for me as a storyteller, was the fact that I find it difficult to throw roadblocks in the way of my characters and, more importantly, am prone to a resolving any dramatic obstacles too quickly and too tidily.  It is something, as a writer, that I struggle with, but even knowing this about myself, it was a challenge to infuse this necessary dramatic tension into my stories, at least at a level I was pleased with. 

But, with the latest story I am writing, it feels like I've finally broken through.  Without giving too much away (and if the vagueness just makes things too obscure, I apologize):  I had introduced a character into the story that it had been intimated was dead, the ex-wife of my protagonist.  It seemed obvious, with the setting and the main character's state of mind, that they might end up in bed together, even though he's having feelings for an old friend he just reconnected with.  Since my protagonist and this reconnected friend lived an hour away, I knew he could get away with sleeping with his ex-wife but not get caught.  There would be the guilt he would have to deal with, but there would be no ugly confrontations because his ex-wife didn't want to get back with him, she did it to ease some of her own tension--easy-peezy.

EXCEPT, that would be too easy (the narrative road I feel I walk down too often).  Laying in bed, thinking this over, I realized I needed to have this quick tryst insinuate itself into this new relationship my protagonist was hoping for.  So, I have added a few other bits to the previous scenes that will spur this reconnected friend to surprise my main character, and she will catch him having breakfast with his ex-wife, whom she knows, and it will not be pretty.

It may seem a little thing, but being able to recognize that this was what was needed to heighten the drama of the narrative, while also finding a simple way to bring these three all together in a naturalistic manner, was another important revelation for me, as a growing writer.  Now, the hope is this lesson is another one I can add to my writer brain, in order to move onto whatever is next in my arsenal.  We'll see.  Either way, it was terribly exciting.  

-chris

EVOLUTION OF A SCENE

Yesterday I was working on draft one of the new novel.  The scene revolved around a small dinner with two couples---old friends whose lots in life took different paths (one couple lives paycheck to paycheck in a rundown apartment; the other couple has money and a nice house, the wife currently running for State Senator).  In the scene, one of the four—KERRY—is dealing with a recent bad experience.  She was intended to be aloof, quiet, not actively involved with the dinner conversation.  Except that, as I wrote the scene, she became combative when engaged in the discussion, leading to her storming out of the room when an offhand remark by her husband—TOMMY—strikes her the wrong way.  Tommy follows her to the kitchen, where Kerry is rifling through the cupboards: 

“What are you looking for?” Tommy said, irritation chafing his voice.

Kerry didn’t turn.  “The whiskey you hid away.”

Tommy let out a long breath.  “Do you really need that?”

A harsh laugh escaped Kerry’s mouth, she whirled on her husband.  “What are you, my overseer?”  She was yelling now.  “I don’t need your permission if I want to get drunk.  This is my house.  These are my cupboards.  And it’s my whiskey.”  She opened another cupboard, slammed it shut (as hard as she could) without looking. 

Tommy’s remark, which set this whole thing off, was directed at the wife of the other couple, an old friend of his from grade school.  He was offering financial assistance, if they ever needed it.  This enraged Kerry because, a) she is the one who inherited the money that has allowed them to live so well and b) she also knows that Tommy is having an affair with this woman, Nikki. 

As the conversation in the kitchen concludes, Kerry wants to get across that Tommy, like the house and the cupboards, also belongs to her. 

My initial attempt at conveying this, which is not unusual with my first drafts, has Kerry overtly stating this idea.  Here’s the first try:

Kerry’s voice was a low, sharp hiss, as she turned and marched on Tommy.  “And you are my husband.  Not my lover.  Not my best friend.  Not any of those foolish platitudes people share online.  My.  Husband.”

She didn’t wait for a response, stormed out of the kitchen. 

I continued on, from here, to finish the scene, but I wasn’t happy with it.  Which isn’t a problem.  I know I’m coming back to this, after I complete a draft, to revise and refine the text, and having a character’s feelings be overt, in this first pass, allows me to whittle away at the scene and push the “text” below the surface, to become subtext. 

But, when I finish writing for the day, that doesn’t mean I stop thinking about the story—whether it’s what I will be writing next or what I’ve just written—and an hour or so later, I re-opened the document and refined that part.  Here’s the second try:

Kerry’s face became all sharp angles, her eyes glared through Tommy’s center.  “And you are my husband.”

She didn’t wait for a response, stormed out of the kitchen. 

Better, more concise.  But still, Kerry’s feelings are sitting on the surface in big, bright letters, like an irritating neon sign blinking outside your hotel room window.  At this point, I figured I was done…but my mind kept rolling it over and over, working to fix it.  And finally, I came away with this, the third (and final) try: 

Kerry’s face became all sharp angles, her eyes glared through Tommy’s center.  “Everything in this house is mine.”

She did not wait for a response, stormed out of the kitchen.

It still gets the point across, but it’s not as on the nose as it was.  I like it.  Not perfect, but it’s pretty good, for now.  Maybe it will go through some more refinement when I open it up for revisions late next year, and maybe it won’t.  Either way, I think I’m ready to move on to the next scene and the next chapter. 

-chris

  

ON WRITING: short stories & how they develop (for me)

Harlan Ellison is my favorite author, and he has famously stated, on myriad occasions, that there is no magic to writing, no muse one must seek out in order to get the words down on the paper.  It is a job—like a plumber or a teacher or a banker—requiring a knowledge of, and dedication to, the craft, coupled with an imagination and a keen observation of humanity, in order to succeed.  (Of course, this does not guarantee success, but it builds a solid foundation)  To that end, Ellison has created roughly two dozen stories extemporaneously, sitting in the windows of bookshops across the globe, allowing patrons and passersby the opportunity to watch him work.  When people suspected he may have plotted these stories out beforehand, Ellison solicited ideas from friends, like Chris Carter and Robin Williams, having them offer the starting point at the beginning of his performances.  Start to finish, a new story written in one or a handful of days, with no forethought.  Impressive. 

That’s now how I work.

At heart, I am a planner.  I like to know where I’m going, the exact route to get me there, and the itinerary for once I arrive.   I like that safety net, whether it’s a physical trip or one across the pages of a new story.  As regards writing, I have needed to learn to back off the outlining—or, more to the point, to become more trusting of myself and allow for some gaps in my story’s plan.  A strict outline can stifle creativity, and if you already know what’s going to happen, the writing can be boring, and you may not reach the end. 

For me, when an idea hits, it’s like being flooded with information from varying aspects of the story—scenes, bits of dialogue, characters, all fight for dominance in my brain (and this often happens while I’m driving somewhere or laying in bed, away from a computer or pen & paper).  This is how I know I’ve got something I should pursue, as a story.  But, even with all these ideas sparking in my brain, many of the details, including details of character or setting, can be missing. 

This is why I tend to write my short stories over the course of days, or even a few weeks.  I slowly discover what the story is about and where it should go next.  Currently, I’m almost 4000 words into my latest story, which involves a man in the present, using his cell phone to speak with the past, to a boy trapped in the cellar of the home he now owns.  It’s been slow going, each scene teased out of me over the course of the past two weeks, and I’ve found myself questioning where the story was going on many occasions, and considered just scrapping it a few days ago, the writing was going so poorly—like pulling teeth without any anesthetic would be an apt metaphor.  The biggest problem, I felt, was that I didn’t know my characters well enough and, more importantly, didn’t understand why this old man, in the past, was keeping this young boy locked up in his basement.  The old man was evil, sure, but to what end? 

Then it hit me.  The old man wanted the boy for a sacrifice.  He was scared of the future he perceived in 1920s America, a world where other races were gaining power, meaning he, as an old white man, would be losing power, in his warped mind.  Once I understood this, all the rest fell into place, and the next scene I had to write flowed more quickly and smoothly than any other part of the story had, to date. 

It’s not a conscious effort, on my part, to allow these stories to unfurl over the course of weeks, in order to discover what they are about.  It is more a result of me not knowing, fully, what is to come next.  I have to work hard to figure out how a scene should be written, with many false starts.  It is a subconscious manifestation of my own ignorance of the narrative, pushing back at that day’s writing, slowing me down, saturating me with doubt, causing me to rework scenes or just scrap them.  It’s frustrating.  But, eventually, by working at the story and writing scenes that may get cut and fleshing out these characters without fully knowing how they work and think, that allows me to push through that murkiness to find the nugget buried in that initial idea and get to the heart of the story. 

Was it there, when I first envisioned the story?  No.  But I never would have discovered the reason behind the initial concept if I’d merely jotted down some notes and then pondered it for a couple of weeks.  There would have been no spine, however frail, to work from.  As the story slowly grew, it morphed into something else, for me, something more concrete and better realized.  Until I reached the tipping point, and my subconscious finally broke through to tell me why something, within this specific story-world, was initiated.  From there, it’s a matter of finishing up the first draft, at which point, I can let it rest, knowing that I can make it eminently better upon revising. 

The Idea of the Thing is Always Better

The idea of the man, or woman, eyeing you from across the bar is always full of passion and romance and a long life together.  The idea of the home you may one day own is always uncluttered and spacious.  And the idea of that story rattling around in your brain is always poetic and engaging and insightful.  But the reality, though it may come close, is never what you pictured in your mind.

"It’s never as good as it was in your head. When things move from the world of dreams to the world of reality, they stop being impossible and perfect.

But then, you never get to see the thing you made through other['s] eyes. And other people don’t know the perfect thing you imagined before you began. So it doesn’t matter. And you keep on making art."

-Neil Gaiman

This can be the problem with writing, and may be why so many people believe they can be writers and are willing to offer published authors their ideas, because they believe the idea is the hard part.  And sometimes … that is true.  But, if we’re being honest here, it is the crafting of that idea into something that resonates and engages and speaks to an audience that involves the real heavy lifting.  Which is why it is so difficult to become a published writer, let alone make a living at it (I’ve seen it stated, in a number of places, that 90% of working authors – regularly published authors – need a second job in order to make ends meet).  Too many people are unwilling to do the work. 

This gulf between the “idea” and “reality” of a story was made painfully clear to me this past week.  In working on the first draft of a science fiction short, I had reached a point where the protagonist was to experience a series of nightmares – horrors that would drive him mad on an alien planet.  It fit in with the overall theme and plot of the story and would propel him toward the climax.  I was looking forward to writing this scene.

Then I sat down at the computer.  And the writing was laborious.  I kept reworking sentences, sat and stared at the screen for minutes on end, and was generally unhappy with where I was going.  I finally got the first nightmare down, wherein all of his comrades have been decapitated in their sleep, and moved into the second dream.  At which point, I realized it was not working.  I saved the document and quit the program.  Then I got up and moved around a bit, did some other things, and let my brain shift away from this story. 

Except.  My subconscious was still working on that scene.  And, soon enough, it hit me.

I would scrap the ending as I had originally envisioned it and have that first dream become the character’s reality.  Waking to find his comrades decapitated, he is filled with dread.  But this quickly turns to rage, more in keeping with his character as it has developed through the writing of this first draft.  From here, the ending evolved to something that I’m far happier with.  Now I just need to write that down. 

The evolution of this scene, as well as the new ending for this story, goes back to the most important piece of advice I’ve found for writers.  In order to become a writer, you need to write.  If I had never bothered to try and get that series of dreams down, it would have remained a pristine idea in my mind, the perfect avenue to follow for this story.  Only when I finally sat down to write that scene, did I discover that it didn’t work, at which point I was free to craft an alternative that seems to fit nicely into the story.  You need to do the work.  Otherwise, you’re not a writer (or artist or athlete or educator or whatever). 

Just  

do   

it.

-chris

Writing Process - revising the first draft

I've finally gotten back into the swing of writing (though, admittedly, I was contributing quite a bit here at Warrior27 when I wasn't actually "writing" or working on my own fiction and such). I've sent off a short story to a few more publications (hoping to find that one editor who will "get" this story - not that the rejections thus far have been unexpected, nor do I feel I was slighted by not having this story accepted, but it can often come down to an editor understanding what the writer is going for and hopefully catching them on a good day, but I digress)

I also sent off a non-fiction manuscript (the first 30,000 words) to another publisher with fingers crossed.

And, I pulled out one of the many first drafts I've been sitting on, allowing them to percolate a bit before working to wrestle them into something resembling a good story. It took me twice as long to do the revision on this story than it took to initially write it, but that's because my first draft practice generally involves me metaphorically "vomiting" the entire story onto the page - or at least a vague outline/list of scenes, etc. - typing as fast as I can in order to keep up with the ideas coming into my head. Because of this pace, I very often am spelling out motivations and scenarios in far too much, and too dry, detail just because that's how it's coming to me and I don't want to lose my thoughts.

Of course, these less than poetic first drafts also come about because just as many days can be spent laboring over the words, being unable to find that one word I have skulking about the back of my mind, and I end up putting down some description of what I'm looking for rather than the actual scene. It can be equal "speed" and "labor" during this, but I always feel good after a day of writing (and can quickly become an ass when I go days without writing).

Anyway, as an example, here's a sample page from my revised first draft:



As Greg Rucka says (as I'm sure all, or most, writers believe), the real writing comes in the revising process. I'm in the process of applying my revisions to this draft and am anxious to see how many words I managed to lop off in the process. I know there were entire sections of this short that got the axe, so it should be - as is common, for me - quite a bit.

And then, I'm going to apply a new technique I learned from Joe Hill's blog and totally re-type this second draft into its third draft, "making every sentence and word earn its keep," to paraphrase Hill. After that, I hope to have something that will be worthwhile for the world (or at least some small publication of short fiction).

We'll see.

chris

The Call of the Sea: a bit about process

So, earlier I included the piece of flash fiction I had created based upon the following picture:


You can find that story here

That really was not a fully fleshed out piece of fiction. So, I've returned to it in order to expand it and make it ready for publication, hopefully. I did a second draft and let it sit on the hard drive for a few months. But recently, I finally pulled it up to get back to it.

This is the first short section of the new iteration:

The call of the sea was urgent in his ears. As long as he could remember, Jared had known that uneven sway beneath his feet, the rolling passage of the lobster boat over the Atlantic.

But Jared Ames was also a dreamer. How else to explain his going off to high school? That rarely happened on the “Ledge,” particularly for the boys. The one-room schoolhouse elicited visions of Laura Ingalls and Little House on the Prairie, attracting many first-year teachers from the mainland, the closest point to the island nearly twenty miles away. But there was little encouragement for children to go much beyond what was offered here. Ledge Island was a fishing island – every man either had his own boat and traps or was a sternman. Even the postman and the honorary mayor (at eighty-two, the oldest resident of the fifty who called the island home year-round) went lobstering on a regular basis. It was understood that the boys were just biding their time until they would become full-time lobstermen.

This was just the way things were. Which is why it had been a surprise to see Jared head to the mainland and Andrews Academy///, a private school in SOMEWHERE. It was his mother’s wish. And, with Jared’s father gone when he was six and his younger brother not yet one, there had been no counter-argument to be made.

Which did not mean that Jared gave up lobstering. Like most boys from Ledge Island, and the clusters of islands along Maine’s coast, he was a natural, which is to say that it was something he became familiar with at a young age. His father taught Jared about trapping lobsters before the boy even began school. And when Harold Ames left, others on the island took the place of teacher. They took young Jared, and his brother Eric, out on their boats most weekends and many afternoons. It was exciting, and every chance growing up Jared was hauling traps.

A month into his junior year at Andrews Academy///, Jared’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. She hadn’t been well for a while, though she’d hidden it well. But when she collapsed in the post office one afternoon, Susan Richmond (for she’d taken back her maiden name when Jared’s father left) had relented and flown to Fairhaven, the one island large enough and close enough to the mainland to have its own hospital. The doctor didn’t take long to view the x-rays before proclaiming that Susan only had a month to live.

Stephen King and Greg Rucka have both said that the first draft of any story - for them - is all about getting the ideas on the page. The first draft is the quick burn. And I've taken this to heart.

When writing that initial draft, I speed through as fast as I can, my fingers trying to keep up with the ideas and dialogue in my brain. If I can't find a word or come up with a name for a place or a person, I just fill it in with the closest thing I can come to. These I denote either with a few slashes (///) after the word, or by substituting the word with a simple descriptive placeholder in all caps. These are the places where the minutiae of the piece faltered, and I just needed to keep going or lose the ideas coming to me. You can see examples of this bolded in the above selection.

But these are just the parts I know I need to fix when coming back to revise. There's so much more that has to change when I'm editing subsequent drafts. I need to make sure I'm using the same tense throughout (something I never fully understood until I began writing seriously a few years back). I have to watch for continuity errors and internal consistency. I need to make sure the words flow and that I'm not repeating the same words over and over in a small space. And I need to make sure it's "good."


Below is the second (or third, if you like) draft of the previous section, by way of example.

The call of the sea was urgent in his ears.

As long as he could remember, Jared had known/// that uneven sway beneath his feet, the rolling passage of the lobster boat over the Atlantic.

Like most seaman, Jared Ames was a dreamer, but all his dreams did not reside on the water. He wanted something more and realized/// leaving the island for high school was necessary///. And so, when he graduated eighth grade, Jared set off for the mainland, to board with relatives he’d met once when he was seven. It was an occasion of note, something that rarely happened on the “Ledge”.

The one-room schoolhouse in the middle of the island elicited visions of Laura Ingalls and Little House on the Prairie, attracting a procession of first-year teachers from the mainland///. But despite the teachers’ best efforts, there was little encouragement for children to go much beyond what was offered in this tiny village twenty miles off the Maine coast. Ledge Island was a fishing island – every man either owned a boat or worked on one. Even the postman and the honorary mayor (at eighty-two, the oldest of the fifty year-round residents) went lobstering on a regular basis. There was a tacit understanding that the boys were just biding their time until they would become full-time lobstermen.

This was just the way things were. Which is why it had been a surprise for everyone to watch Jared head to the mainland and Andrews Academy///, a private school in SOMEWHERE. It was his mother’s wish, and with his father gone since Jared was six and his younger brother not yet one, there had been no counter-argument to be made.

This didn’t mean Jared gave up lobstering. Like most boys from Ledge Island – and the clusters of islands along Maine’s coast – he was a natural, which is to say it was something Jared became familiar with at a young age. His father introduced Jared to lobstering before the boy was four. And when Harold Ames left, others on the island took the place of teacher. Most weekends Jared, along with his brother Eric, could be seen racing across the Atlantic in one boat or another.

A month into his junior year at Andrews Academy/// Jared’s mother was diagnosed with cancer. She hadn’t been well for a while, though she’d been able to hide it. But when she collapsed in the post office one afternoon, Susan Richmond (for she’d taken back her maiden name when Jared’s father left) relented/// and was flown to Fairhaven, the one island large enough to have its own hospital. The doctor didn’t take long to view the x-rays before proclaiming that Susan only had a month to live.

It still has some unfinished bits and markers where I need to go back and really think about the phrasing or about a name or maybe do a bit of research, but it's starting to gel now. The next pass I do should include minor changes and amendments unlike this first overhaul. But, we'll see.

Which means, my later drafts often read very differently than the early ones. I've had my wife read a first draft, tell me that large sections DID NOT WORK, and then have her appreciate the new dialogue of a later draft. As Greg Rucka said, the writing isn't the first draft, the writing is the revising and polishing and working at making a story something to which others can relate. It's hard work, but it's one of the most fun things I get to do during my day. That's why I schedule, in my head, the late evenings for writing. And why I stay up past my bedtime to do it.

chris