More miscellaneous, so-not profound musings on writing: 4) If you are constantly doubting your work, ask yourself if you trust your own creative process. If the answer is anything but yes, add “TRUST” to your daily mantra. 5) You need a safe–some call it sacred–space to write, where you are free from interruptions and intrusion. That safe place might be your office, your car, the nearest library or cafe. If you write on a computer, you need to know others will not be reading your stories before you are ready to share. 6) You need psychic privacy to write–a sense …
Tag: writing basics
Advice on Writing a Bestseller–Beware Info-Dump
When I work with writers, often the hardest news I have to deliver about their manuscript is “Cut, cut, cut, cut the info-dump.” That’s the term some people in the biz use to describe the excessive use of backstory/exposition. You know it when you see it–paragraphs or pages of information delivered passively to the reader. Information served up on a paper plate. Information that dulls the reader out of the dynamic narrative now. When I say it’s difficult to tell writers they have to cut backstory that’s because they’ve usually spent hours, days, weeks getting those sections just right. They …
Writing Advice from Kurt Vonnegut: Be a Sadist
Kurt Vonnegut insisted that each writer be a sadist when it comes to your main characters. Make awful things happen to them so readers can see what they are made of. If you want to absorb 7 more tips from the great KV, enjoy this YouTube wisdom.
CHARACTERS’ ADVOCATE
I came across this quote from actor Holly Hunter: “I always feel that I am the advocate for my character. More than anyone else on the set, including the director. I’m there to protect my character, in any way.” As writers, we might consider it our job to find an inner advocate for every character on our pages, even–especially–the least sympathetic. Remember the fiction writers’ “P” word: parity.
KEEP THE ELEPHANT IN YOUR LAP
I turned thirty in a dinghy on the River Ganga, while a full moon and the fires from the corpses in the burning ghats illuminated the shores of the holy city of Varanasi. That trip to India years ago changed my life. I glimpsed my own mortality, dodged snake charmers and lepers, paid homage to living goddesses and glassy-eyed sadhus. I also met Ganesha, the elephant riding the mouse. Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati and one of the most revered and popular Hindu deities, is also known as the Lord of Success, the god of wealth, wisdom and …
THE CASE OF THE DREADED SYNOPSIS
When it comes time to find the right agent for you and your novel, you will need to compose a query letter and a synopsis. Your job is to make both of these documents tight, professional, and effective. To spare yourself needless pain and embarrassing blunders, seek help without shame. Agent Query has clear guidelines to help you come up with a dynamite query. Fiction Writer’s Connection offers excellent tips to help you draft and polish your synopsis. The good news: once you tackle your synopsis, the query will seem like a piece of cake!
PLATFORM ANYONE?
I was having tea on Canyon Road with literary agent Irene Webb and she mentioned a trip to New York to visit with editors. What are they looking for? I asked. Her answer boiled down to two points: 1) A writer with a unique voice; 2) A writer with a strong a platform. Voice? We know it when we hear it, when we read it on the page. It’s a sort of author’s thumbprint, and it lends the story its unique flavor, energy and tone. More about voice in a future post. Platforms? Does the word bring to mind discos, …
WOOING YOU BACK
One of the best essays I’ve read about reconnecting to your novel and moving past “stuckness” was penned by Gail Godwin and published in The Writer. Godwin suggests that a creative work in progress may react to the fear of abandonment like an aggrieved pet, giving you, the author, the cold shoulder or even turning its back on you completely. The provocation of this punishment may be as slight as a busy weekend you spent with your family or a missed writing session. It may be more dramatic–weeks of putting your manuscript on the back-burner. When disconnect occurs, you the writer …
TREBLE THE TROUBLE
Writing fiction? Then Les Edgerton’s nifty book, HOOKED, is a great choice for your holiday gift list. (If you’re like me, you play secret Santa and buy yourself a few pounds of libros for the holidays.) Edgerton covers well-traveled ground when it comes to the how-to of structure. But he does it by focusing intensely on the basics of story setup–the opening hooks and problems–that directly connect to deep story structure. Edgerton defines the Inciting Incident–a term often used in the language of screenplays–as something that “happens to the protagonist that creates his surface problem and introduces the first indications …
SCAFFOLD SCENES–Part One
Scenes are basic building blocks of narrative. A scene can be defined as a story episode rendered fully and dramatically in order to make the reader feel she is present and witnessing the action in real time. In effective scenes, things happen and the world shifts. Secrets are discovered. Adversaries are confronted. Revelations arise. Decisions are made. When you write–especially when you rewrite–you should know what each scene accomplishes in your story. Ask yourself what function it serves. Effective scenes do more than one thing at once, but a quick inventory will help you stay on track and in action …