The Heart of the Story

Though this is more about feature writing in a newsmagazine or some such publication, I thought this article was helpful for us fiction writers as well. Just um…whenever he writes “journalist,” substitute “fiction writer.” In general, it works out.

The Heart of the Story
by Jon Ronson, feature writer for The Guardian

Finding a Story to Tell
How do you begin your story? All journalists are, to a greater or lesser degree, paranoid conspiracy theorists. This is because stories do not have natural boundaries, every lead can take you to another lead, every thought to another thought, and eventually – if you allow yourself to become crazy – every story you write can incorporate the past, present, and future of all human civilisation. You don’t believe me? Okay, I’m going to pick a topic at random. The Paris fashion shows.

Every journalist is – at some point in their career – asked to cover the Paris fashion shows. The brief is this: we are slobs with no fashion sense. Wouldn’t it be funny to send us to this strange world, where we can be wide-eyed, sardonic innocents, making fun of the pomposity, the circus, and the expensive clothes?

So you start with that very brief, but the conspicuous, garish wealth on display starts to grind you down. Where are the clothes produced? Are they stitched together in some sweatshop where the workers are beaten up for complaining about their conditions? So it becomes a story about that. And you feel so superior in your slobbishness, and you think it’s all a con, but what if you’re wrong? I don’t like looking like a slob. Are they happier than me? What is happiness? How old is that girl? Oh my God, am I a dirty old man for finding her attractive? Why does the age of consent differ from country to country? Is the Law as fragile as a shifting sandbank? Should the Law respond to the moral climate or dictate it? Is she too thin? She looks ill, yet attractive. Why is that? Why did Ali McGraw become better looking the sicker she got in Love Story?

Playing with Structure

Using Foreshadowing
Heighten the themes of your story or increase the tension by using small incidents which echo later, more significant events, known as foreshadowing. Keep it subtle though, and the reader will be quietly thrilled to have spotted your literary trickery!

Multiple Viewpoints
Don’t be afraid to tell your story from multiple viewpoints if you feel it’s right, but be careful not to confuse the reader – make it clear which character is in pole position at any one time.

Question Your Decisions
Once you’ve decided on a structure (or as one develops while you write), ask yourself what your chosen structure adds to the story. If your answer is that it seemed like a good idea at the time, it might be worth reconsidering!

Article found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module15p

Quote: Write, Write, and Write Some More

Word Nerd: What piece of advice helped you out the most as a writer?

FFORDE: Do it for fun. Do it for yourself. Do it because you want to write. Writers write because they can’t stop. They scribble notes in books, write poetry, jot down good snippets of dialogue and generally exist in their own little world. Write, write and write some more. Write what you want to write, no matter how daft it seems. Don’t be frightened of dumping a sentence, character, chapter or book and starting again. When you’ve finished one book, write another. You’ll be surprised how much better the second one is to the first. Above all, enjoy it. Even if you never find a publisher, you’ll still have been on a wonderful adventure.

Taken from Word Nerd’s interview with Jasper Fforde (one of my favorite authors!)

On Giving Feedback

So, as writers, we are expected to be the paragons of all that is writing and editing, yes? Goodness, I hope not. Many of us have the same trouble editing another’s work as we do our own. Here is an article by Rebecca Swift about how to give good feedback, whether you are a reader or a writer, editing your own work or a friend’s. She mentions how your mood can change your feedback, how feedback is an absolute must, and more. Take a gander, tell me what you think.

Giving Good Feedback
by Rebecca Swift of The Literary Consultancy, former editor at ViragoRisking a Reader
So, you have written a piece of fiction. So far, you only have your own opinion on the work. On the one hand, you may be so delighted to have finished anything at all you think it’s brilliant and wonderful and be patting yourself on the back, even running around telling your friends you think you’re a genius.

On the other hand, if you’re a different kind of person, or indeed the same person in a different mood, you may be punishing yourself because you don’t think what you have written is quite what you hoped it would be. In fact, is it rubbish? What is it? I think that most people, when they have finished a work of writing, are not quite sure what they really think of it. You may also be worried that whatever you yourself think of your writing personally, another reader may not feel the same. Part of you may be dying to know what other people feel, and part of you is probably incredibly anxious about showing your work to anybody. What if they hate it? Will it put you off writing forever? Of course the degree to which you feel any of this will be altered by what you have written, and with what end in mind. For example, if you have written a short story for the BBC site you may feel differently than if you have spent five years on a novel. Either way, you will have had some hope for your work and it’s time to find out what will, if anything, happen to it.

Editing Tips

Tightening Up
You will probably find that the opening of your first draft has been more of a warming up exercise, a way of breaking yourself in gently to the often daunting task of filling that first blank page. Strangely, these initial efforts can persist through any number of drafts, and it’s only when you eliminate them and see that nothing’s been lost that you realise what has happened.

Similarly, the ending of the first draft – often persisting through version after version – merely reflects the fact that you are unwilling to let go of something to which you have become deeply attached. Sometimes you just have to be ruthless with yourself.

Sentences and Pace
Are your sentences long and complex, or short and pithy? If the length varies throughout the piece, are they randomly varied or does there seem to be some sort of correlation between sentence length and content? In general, there’s a tendency for long sentences to slow the action down, while short sentences speed it up. Many writers do this unconsciously, but knowing about it puts you in charge. You should aim for an equal balance of long and short sentences, but you can alter the balance to suit the pace of your work.

Passive and Active Voice
Compare ‘Arthur sharpened the axe’ and ‘The axe was sharpened by Arthur’. The first sentence is active – the subject of the sentence is doing the action and therefore more immediate and engaging. The second sentence is passive – the subject of the sentence is having something done to it and therefore more wordy and potentially more abstract. Always try to use active verbs – make the verb muscle the sentence. How else can you say ‘is’ and ‘was’?

Abstractions and vagueness
Although an image may be perfectly clear to you, to the reader, it may be abstract. ‘She washed the shrunken wrinkled green sheets, layered them into a bowl and decorated them with slices of iced cool eyes and pebble sized tomatoes.’ (cf. ‘She made a salad.’) Tell it as it is.

Article found http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module3p.

Romance Writing Tips

A Fine Romance
It’s stating the obvious, but romance is vital to any romantic fiction and needs to be central to your story. You can mix in other themes and genres, such as a mystery to solve or a pointed commentary on modern living, but it’s the passion between two (or more!) people which takes precedence. Don’t short-change your readers by starting out with what appears to be a romance, but ends as a political thriller.

Market Research
If you want to submit your stories to magazines, do your research. Read your target publications to see what kind of material they print, and contact the magazine itself to ask for their guidelines. You will undoubtedly get some rejections at first, but take note of any advice they provide in the rejection letter – if they’ve taken the time to give you a personal response, the chances are you’re on the right lines!

Spicing Things Up
Clichés are a fact of life, but try to avoid them at all costs. Play with the words to make them fresh and even a creaky line like, ‘He kissed her tenderly on the lips,’ can be spiced up with some imagination. Alternatively, make something unique about the setting or whatever happens next so that your work stands out. Be careful with comedy though – it needs to be carefully administered and a misplaced gag can ruin the romantic effect you’re trying to create.

Writing tips found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module26p.

On Writing Romance

Here is an interesting essay about writing romance that I found at the BBC – Get Writing website.

Writing Romantic Fiction
by Katie Fforde

A Broad Genre
The Brontës, Sophie Kinsella, Phillippa Gregory, Helen Fielding and Jane Austen – they all write or wrote romantic fiction. It’s a large and generous genre but while many books have a romantic element, they can’t all be classed as romantic fiction. For example, The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk has a wonderful thread of romance running through it, but the romantic aspect isn’t what the book is about.

Romantic novels are mostly aimed at and written by women, but not exclusively so – some books are also written by men. Some men found it expedient to write under women’s names, but nowadays I don’t think it’s necessary. Alan Titchmarsh, Tony Parsons and Mike Gale, for example, all fit comfortably under the umbrella. Books with a male protagonist have all the same elements but from a different angle, because men and women share many of the same doubts and uncertainties.

But think very hard about writing from a woman’s point of view if you’re a man – your readers will notice instantly if you get it wrong. Women writing from a male perspective are more likely to get away with it simply because most of their readers are women themselves and so are less likely to notice mistakes.

The romance in a romantic novel doesn’t need to be traditional, but there has to be some element of sexual desire. The relationship between a mother and son, however touching, would not qualify. The protagonists certainly don’t have to be a man and a woman, the man being older, cleverer and richer than the woman. Same sex relationships, older women with younger men, people of different races and religions can all work very well if you really know your background.

Keep Your Writing Sharp…By Reading A Lot

The following wonderful writing advice was found at Carrie’s Procrastinatory Outlet. Her original post is about why we, as writers, should analyze why we, as readers, decide to put a book down. This analysis should improve our writing and help us with our editing, is her main point. I decided to share her writing tips with you, but click the link above if you want to read the original blog post or start reading Carrie on a normal basis.

• Once you’ve made a point, move on. Don’t belabor, don’t get mired down in dialoge that doesn’t move the story forward. Especially in the beginning.
• When you’ve got a hook and when you sell the book to the reader based on that hook, get to the hook early. Don’t make us sit around and wait; that can make the reader antsy.
• Corollary to above: if the reader knows the hook is coming don’t make like it’s some big surprise to the reader. And don’t make that the only thing we’re reading for either.If we know the book is about the woman getting dumped by her boyfriend and so she has to go out and figure out her life (or whatever) don’t drag out the first two chapters when she’s all nervous cause she thinks he’s going to propose to her at the special dinner he planned when we all know she’s about to be dumped cause that’s what the book is about. Sure, make it a cute scene, but don’t spend too long.

  We already know what happens (this is my personal back cover blurb rule: if the reader will know something by reading the back cover blurb, don’t drag it out in the book – or at least don’t make that be the only reason the reader is turning pages cause there will be no payoff).

• Be creative with the middle of the book (so much easier said than done, eh?) Don’t necessarily go with the first idea that strikes you. I can’t remember who said to brainstorm 20 options for each big plot point because you never know what kind of crazy, yet appropriate, stuff you’ll come up with.I guess I’m trying to say that sometimes the obvious is good, but sometimes it’s boring. I think this is more important for plot based books: I like less obvious for plot based books. If it’s character based I don’t mind so much if the plot is obvious because I care more about the characters and how the plot is a reflection of them.
• Make every scene count. Don’t give the reader the option of putting the book down. So much easier said than done, eh?

Carrie’s original post written February 3, 2007 at http://carrie-me.blogspot.com/2007/02/putting-books-down.html.

Angela Booth’s Top 10 to Help You Write More

Top Ten Writing Tips to Help You Write More
- Angela Booth

Tip One: Pay attention to images
Your right brain thinks in images, and when you write, you translate images from your right brain into words. Usually this process happens so quickly that you’re unaware of it. If you can make this process conscious, you can goose up your own creativity. Stephen King calls this process “writing with the third eye — the eye of imagination and memory.”

Tip Two: Making mud/ laying track
Your first draft of any piece of work is “mud” — raw material. Julia Cameron refers to your first draft as “laying track”, another term I like. If the first draft’s awful, great! It’s meant to be. It’s only raw material. However, if you don’t create the first draft, or you wait until you have a really great idea that’s worth a first draft, you won’t write anything. Write. Make mud.

Tip Three: Just write — think on the page, or on the screen, NOT in your head
Thinking too much while you write is treacherous, because you can spend two hours “writing” and end up with half a page of work. Write-think. That is, think on the page, not in your head.

Tip Four: Grow your writing with lists
Listing is a form of brainstorming. It grows your writing, and it’s fun. Listing is an excellent technique to use when you get stuck in your writing, and it doesn’t matter what kind of writing you’re doing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction. Listing also helps you in the revision process, to add texture to your work.

Tip Five: Use your magical thesaurus
Your most useful listing tool is —- a thesaurus. Keep one on your desk to kickstart your brain. Your thesaurus and dictionary are perfect kickstarters. They’re also vital tools whenever you’re revising.

Tip Six: Make writing the FIRST thing you do each day
If you write at least page, by hand, as soon as you get up, you’ll find that writing comes more easily to you for the rest of the day. You’re also more focused and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Tip Seven: Set WIG goals — the best goals are always unrealistic
Writer Martha Beck calls unrealistic goals WIGs: Wildly Improbable Goals. In the September 2002 issue of Oprah magazine she says: “… learning to invite and accept your own WIG can awaken you to a kind of ubiquitous, benevolent magic, a river of enchantment that perpetually flows to your destiny.” A WIG is exciting. Just thinking about a WIG will get your heart pounding. Working toward your WIG (writing a book, writing a screenplay, getting signed on as a contributor at a mass-market magazine) takes hard work. Lots of hard work. And at the end of that hard work, as Beck points out, you achieve your goal, but there’s a twist. You never achieve it exactly as you envisioned it – you achieve something even better, something you could never have imagined. I’m a great believer in writing ABOUT your goals. This is because when you write, you’re using both sides of your brain, and are accessing your unconscious mind as well. You live in your left brain, which you regard as “you”, but you have a silent partner, your right brain, which is also you, and which communicates via images and feelings.

Tip Eight: Separate writing and editing
Writing comes first, then editing. If you try to combine the two, you will block. Writing should come as easily to you as chatting to a friend. If it doesn’t, you’re trying to edit in your head before you get the words on paper, or on the computer screen. If you’re not aware of the danger of combining writing and editing, you’ll make writing hard for yourself, when it should be easy. If you don’t have trouble talking, how can you have trouble writing?

Tip Nine: It’s good to struggle with your writing
In his book The Breakout Principle, Dr Herbert Benson (who also wrote The Relaxation Response) describes a struggle/ release process that leads to a new level of awareness. When you struggle, and then completely give up the struggle — just give up — there’s a chance that you can achieve a peak experience which leads you to a new level of functioning. How does this work in your writing? Let’s say that you’re writing a novel. This work is hard for you. However, you keep at it faithfully, working on your novel each day. You struggle with it for weeks. Then you give up. Although you keep writing, you say to yourself: “I don’t care any more what garbage I write. I’m just going to do it. I’m just going to write.” This release leads to writing magic. Suddenly you’re inspired, and you finish the book in a rush. Although you will still occasionally struggle with your writing (because struggle is a part of life), you’ve broken through to a new level of functioning in your work. This new level would not, and could not, have happened without the struggle.

Tip Ten: Good writing = truthful writing
Writing truthfully can feel like undressing in public, so many beginning writers worry about sharing their writing. Be compassionate. Firstly, to yourself. Write. Write for yourself. All writing takes courage.

Found here from Angela Booth’s Writing Blog.

Writerisms

Writerisms and other Sins: A Writer’s Shortcut to Stronger Writing
Copyright © 1995 by C.J. Cherryh

Writerisms: overused and misused language. In more direct words: find ‘em, root ‘em out, and look at your prose without the underbrush.

1. am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with “by” or with “by … someone” implied but not stated. Such structures are passives. In general, limit passive verb use to one or two per book. The word “by” followed by a person is an easy flag for passives.
2. am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with an adjective. “He was sad as he walked about the apartment.” “He moped about the apartment.” A single colorful verb is stronger than any was + adjective; but don’t slide to the polar opposite and overuse colorful verbs. There are writers that vastly overuse the “be” verb; if you are one, fix it. If you aren’t one—don’t, because overfixing it will commit the next error.
3. florid verbs. “The car grumbled its way to the curb” is on the verge of being so colorful it’s distracting. {Florid fr. Lat. floreo, to flower.}If a manuscript looks as if it’s sprouted leaves and branches, if every verb is “unusual,” if the vocabulary is more interesting than the story … fix it by going to more ordinary verbs. There are vocabulary-addicts who will praise your prose for this but not many who can simultaneously admire your verbs as verbs and follow your story, especially if it has content. The car is not a main actor and not one you necessarily need to make into a character. If its action should be more ordinary and transparent, don’t use an odd expression. This is prose.

   This statement also goes for unusual descriptions and odd adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.

4. odd connectives. Some writers overuse “as” and “then” in an attempt to avoid “and” or “but,” which themselves can become a tic. But “as” is only for truly simultaneous action. The common deck of conjunctions available is:
   • when (temporal)
   • if (conditional)
   • since (ambiguous between temporal and causal)
   • although (concessive)
   • because (causal)
   • and (connective)
   • but (contrasting)
   • as (contemporaneous action or sub for “because”) while (roughly equal to “as”)

   These are the ones I can think of. If you use some too much and others practically never, be more even-handed. Then, BTW, is originally more of an adverb than a proper conjunction, although it seems to be drifting toward use as a conjunction. However is really a peculiar conjunction, demanding in most finicky usage to be placed *after* the subject of the clause.

   Don’t forget the correlatives, either … or, neither … nor, and “not only … but also.”

   And “so that,” “in order that,” and the far shorter and occasionally merciful infinitive: “to … {verb}something.”

5. Descriptive writerisms.Things that have become “conventions of prose” that personally stop me cold in text.
   • “framed by” followed by hair, tresses, curls, or most anything cute.
   • “swelling bosom”
   • “heart-shaped face”
   • “set off by”: see “framed by”
   • “revealed” or “revealed by”: see “framed by.” Too precious for words when followed by a fashion statement.
   • Mirrors … avoid mirrors, as a basic rule of your life. You get to use them once during your writing career. Save them for more experience. But it doesn’t count if they don’t reflect … by which I mean see the list above. If you haven’t read enough unpublished fiction to have met the infamous mirror scenes in which Our Hero admires his steely blue eyes and manly chin, you can scarcely imagine how bad they can get.
   • limpid pools and farm ponds: I don’t care what it is, if it reflects your hero and occasions a description of his manly dimple, it’s a mirror. As a general rule … your viewpoint characters should have less, rather than more, description than anyone else: a reader of different skin or hair color ought to be able to sink into this persona without being continually jolted by contrary information. Stick to what your observer can observe. One’s own blushes can be felt, but not seen, unless one is facing … .a mirror. See above.
   • “as he turned, then stepped aside from the descending blow … ” First of all, it takes longer to read than to happen: pacing fault. Second, the “then” places action #2 sequentially after #1, which makes the whole evasion sequence a 1-2 which won’t work. This guy is dead or the opponent was telegraphing his moves in a panel-by-panel comic book style which won’t do for regular prose. Clunky. Slow. Fatally slow.
   • “Again” or worse “once again.” Established writers don’t tend to overuse this one: it seems like a neo fault, possibly a mental writerly stammer—lacking a next thing to do, our hero does it “again” or “once again” or “even yet.” Toss “still” and “yet” onto the pile and use them sparingly.
6. Dead verbs. Colorless verbs.
   • walked
   • turned
   • crossed
   • run, ran
   • go, went, gone
   • leave, left
   • have, had
   • get, got

   You can add your own often used colorless verbs: these are verbs that convey an action but don’t add any other information. A verb you’ve had to modify (change) with an adverb is likely inadequate to the job you assigned it to do.

7. Colorless verb with inadequate adverb: “He walked slowly across the room.”More informative verb with no adverb: “He trudged across the room,” “He paced across the room,” “He stalked across the room,” each one a different meaning, different situation. But please see problem 3, above, and don’t go overboard.
8. Themely EnglishWith apologies to hard-working English teachers, school English is not fiction English.

   Understand that the meticulous English style you labored over in school, including the use of complete sentences and the structure of classic theme-sentence paragraphs, was directed toward the production of non-fiction reports, resumes, and other non-fiction applications.

   The first thing you have to do to write fiction? Suspect all the English style you learned in school and violate rules at need. Many of those rules will turn out to apply; many won’t.

   {Be ready to defend your choices. If you are lucky, you will be copyedited. Occasionally the copyeditor will be technically right but fictionally wrong and you will have to tell your editor why you want that particular expression left alone.}

9. Scaffolding and spaghetti. Words the sole function of which is to hold up other words. For application only if you are floundering in too many “which” clauses. Do not carry this or any other advice to extremes.”What it was upon close examination was a mass the center of which was suffused with a glow which appeared rubescent to the observers who were amazed and confounded by this untoward manifestation.” Flowery and overstructured. “What they found was a mass, the center of which glowed faintly red. They’d never seen anything like it.” The second isn’t great lit, but it gets the job done: the first drowns in “which” and “who” clauses.

   In other words—be suspicious any time you have to support one needed word (rubescent) with a creaking framework of “which” and “what” and “who.” Dump the “which-what-who” and take the single descriptive word. Plant it as an adjective in the main sentence.

10. A short cut to “who” and “whom.”
    • Nominative: who
    • Possessive: whose
    • Objective: whom

    The rule:

    1. treat the “who-clause” as a mini-sentence.If you could substitute “he” for the who-whom, it’s a “who.” If you could substitute “him” for the who-whom it’s a “whom.”

       The trick is where ellipsis has occurred … or where parentheticals have been inserted … and the number of people in important and memorable places who get it wrong. “Who … do I see?” Wrong: I see he? No. I see “him.” Whom do I see?

    2. “Who” never changes case to match an antecedent. (word to which it refers)
       • I blame them who made the unjust law. CORRECT.
       • It is she whom they blame. CORRECT: The who-clause is WHOM THEY BLAME.
       • They blame HER=him, =whom.
       • I am the one WHO is at fault. CORRECT.
       • I am the one WHOM they blame. CORRECT.
       • They took him WHOM they blamed. CORRECT—but not because WHOM matches HIM: that doesn’t matter: correct because “they” is the subject of “blamed” and “whom” is the object.
       • I am he WHOM THEY BLAME. CORRECT. Whom is the “object” of “they blame.”

       Back to rule one: “who” clauses are completely independent in case from the rest of the sentence. The case of “who” in its clause changes by the internal logic of the clause and by NO influence outside the clause. Repeat to yourself: there is no connection, there is no connection 3 x and you will never mistake for whom the bell tolls.

    The examples above probably grate over your nerves. That’s why “that” is gaining in popularity in the vernacular and why a lot of copyeditors will correct you incorrectly on this point. I’m beginning to believe that nine tenths of the English-speaking universe can’t handle these little clauses.

11. -ing.
    

    “Shouldering his pack and setting forth, he crossed the river … “

    No, he didn’t. Not unless his pack was in the river. Implies simultaneity. The participles are just like any other verbal form. They aren’t a substitute legal everywhere, or a quick fix for a complex sequence of motions. Write them on the fly if you like, but once imbedded in text they’re hard to search out when you want to get rid of their repetitive cadence, because -ing is part of so many fully constructed verbs {am going, etc.}

12. -nessA substitute for thinking of the right word. “Darkness,” “unhappiness,” and such come of tacking -ness (or occasionally – ion) onto words. There’s often a better answer. Use it as needed.

    As a general rule, use a major or stand-out vocabulary word only once a paragraph, maybe twice a page, and if truly outre, only once per book. Parallels are clear and proper exceptions to this, and don’t vary your word choice to the point of silliness: see error 3.

Article found here: http://www.cherryh.com