WRITER TO WRITER: 12 Possibly Relevant Tips at Year’s End

Do not take your moods too seriously (exclusions to this rule include clinical depression, bipolar disorder, and the like; if any of these apply, seek expert help and do not skip your meds!) because the dark hole you inhabit today may well presto-change-o to a snowy peak tomorrow, and either way, you still have to face the blank page and write the next paragraph/page/chapter/repeat. Do know what makes your skin crawl, your stomach turn to mush, and your brain freeze because chances are at least some of your characters share your fears and, writers, this is useful knowledge. Do know …

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WRITING RULES

One of my favorite writing rules comes from Dwight V. Swain from his wise and practical book TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER (University of Oklahoma Press): ” 1) Separate creative impulse from critical judgement. The first a most essential step is to recognize the human tendency to mix the two. Then, walk wise around it. To that end, adopt a working rule of “Create now….correct later.” Promise yourself the privilege of being as critical as you like, as soon as the first draft of a scene or story is completed. Until the draft is done, however, stick with impulse. Let …

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ALL PLAY, NO PRESSURE

This November, National Novel Writing Month, offers the perfect opportunity to test out a new idea for a novel. After all, you can benefit from the energy of thousands of other writers. Just knowing so many people are sitting down to write every day can give you juice. If you decide to jump in, I suggest you make it fun. If you’ve been laboring on a novel for months or years (and it’s not flowing to completion), try setting it aside and working with a fresh idea, character, concept. You’ve got nothing to lose and you might discover new things …

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THE FORCE FIELD OF RELATIONSHIP

Writers talk a lot about viewpoint characters. The story is told from her viewpoint. Or his viewpoint. Or both their viewpoints.  Sometimes we become so focused on maintaining a strict viewpoint, we forget that narrative is about relationships.   Relationships. Interactions. Exchanges. Collisions. Between people. And between a person and her world.  When you write your next scene imagine an energy field or aura surrounding each of your characters. As you write, put your attention in the space where these energy fields collide.  Now imagine an energy field (or a thousand different fields) coming from the physical world–the birds singing …

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A NARRATIVE SENSE OF PLACE

“If character is the foreground of fiction, setting is the background, and as in a painting’s composition, the foreground may be in harmony or in conflict with the background…where there is a conflict between background and foreground, between character and setting, there is already “narrative content,” or the makings of a story.” Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft As an exercise, Burroway suggests writing a scene in which two characters are in conflict over their surroundings. One wants to stay, the other wants to leave. If you choose to do the exercise, you might try it twice–first …

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THE RANT!!!

When was the last time you had a really truly terrible sucky day? One of those worst days, when everything went wrong and you felt defensive and angry and backed into a corner? Maybe you really were backed into a corner–by your best friend or by the driver who cut you off in the parking lot and then waved a single digit your way. Maybe the bad stuff lasted a few hours or a few minutes; either way, by the end you were ready to blow your stack and rant! I’ve had my share of bad streaks and the rants …

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MAKING HEADLINES!

I learned one my favorite writing “tricks” from Charles Dickens, who often published his novels in installments. He used chapter headings, or, what I call headlines. Open OLIVER TWIST to Chapter 6 and read: Oliver, Being Goaded by the Taunts of Noah, Rouses into Action, and Rather Astonishes Him. Or Chapter 32: Of the Happy Life Oliver Began to Lead with his Kind Friends. But page forward to Chapter 33: Wherein the Happiness of Oliver and his Friends, Experiences a Sudden Check. And near novel’s end: The Pursuit and Escape. When I’m writing my first draft, I aim for scene …

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FICTION QUICKIE

You have a photo album, right? Those faded snapshots from childhood, the bad-hair-day graduation pic, the formal wedding portrait…and the next wedding shot from the chapel in Vegas? Or maybe you don’t keep any photos but your mom has scads. Or yours are on MySpace or Facebook. Or your ex posted a few on the net. Or (even more interesting) you’ve destroyed every likeness of yourself.  Your fictional characters have their own “Kodak moments”. Take ten minutes and daydream about one of your characters and those celluloid and digital snapshots of her life. Discover one that she keeps hidden. Picture …

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LOOSEN UP WITH SLAP, BAM, MUZZY, GLOVES…

In the 1970s, poet Kenneth Koch inspired school children in Manhattan to create verse freely and joyfully. To help them associate words and sounds he began with an onomatopoetic word–buzz–and asked them to come up with words that sounded like it–fuzz, fuzzy, muzzy, does, gloves, cousin. He also made noise! He smacked a chair with a ruler and asked them to put the sound into words–hit, tap, smack. He had them close their eyes and listen again and decide what word best recreated the sound. Whack! Snap! Cat!  Koch encouraged them to hear the most accurate word regardless of its meaning. Pap! …

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