Flying

I had a flying dream last night.

When I was young I flew in my dreams all the time. But every time I flew it was a result of running really fast. I had to work up to it. But once I started flying it was easy to keep it up. I use this as a allegory for working until I make it.

Last night, for the first time in my life that I can remember, I had a dream that I was flying and the focus of the dream was not the running. I had to start off the same way, but the bulk of the dream focused on where I could go because I was flying. And this time it was a dream about me in my underwear (according to dream analysis books I've skimmed, dreams about showing up in your underwear usually indicates a feeling of unpreparedness-if you believe in all that stuff). I guess that means that now that I'm getting close to flying, I should make sure I'm prepared for the results. I need to make sure I'm ready to be where I'm planning on going.

Either that, or I'm superman. Maybe flying around with your underwear on the outside isn't such a weird thing.

Book Review

So, I've been reading a book called The Writer's Book of Hope. It's a mix between a feel good book and a smack in the face, "Just get over if you big wimp."

So far I've really enjoyed this book, and it's been a useful book for me as a writer. One of the biggest concerns I've had in writing recently is some crushing defeatism about how I'll never make it. A lot of negative feelings come from writing, rejection, and soul bearing. My most recent novel was, I thought, complete. I felt very strongly emotional ties to the events and the characters in certain scenes, and overall it was a very fulfilling story. (On a side note, the idea of story is subtly different than plot and it surpasses, in my opinion, any other aspect of writing that makes a book sell. Interesting characters, sharp dialogue, meaningful theme, great descriptions, poetic words, engaging plot, all of these capture certain niches in the reader market, but if a story is strong enough it will pull us through failures in any of those. I'm don't know if I can back this up rhetorically yet, and I think that this is what I meant when talking about plot a few posts back, but I am convinced that a strong story is what most people who read fiction are looking for. I've got a lot of exploring to do as a writer before I can pinpoint what a story is exactly, but it's something that surpasses any of the individual technical elements that we usually associate with writing. More on that another time.)

So I was pretty happy with my novel, and then it was torn apart. My writing group chewed it up and spit it out. The general idea from one of my readers was that the book was so flawed internally that I wouldn't be able to fix it immediately and I needed to move on to another book (at least for now). They might be right. That's neither here nor there, except that it really put me into a downward spiral as far as my writing goes.

This book, The Writer's Book of Hope, presents the idea of writing so clearly as a real process that I find myself ready to approach the proverbial saddle with real intent of "getting back in". The basic idea of this self help book is that, writing is hard. Writing takes energy, time, and often rips the creator through various emotions without pride or pity. Writers are often equal part excited and terrified about their own work. But the successful writers keep writing. There's not a lot of incentive to keep a writer moving forward. There are dreams of success (like J.K. Rowling enjoyed), the joy of actually writing (when it is joyful), and the vague idea that someone might like your work. But these are all fleeting and often wrought with the equally powerful knowledge that J.K. Rowling's success is not the norm, the agony of starting to write, and the knowledge that no matter how good your work is it will always fail is some way.

Success is much more often achieved by those who have the tenacity to practice rather than those who have some innate natural ability. It's true in sports. It's true in business. It's true in music. It's true in love. And it's true in writing.

The Writer's Book of Hope, written by Ralph Keyes, basically says, "Just keep writing." It doesn't talk about specific writing techniques (which can be helpful), but focuses on, well....Hope. Keeping yourself motivated as a writer to keep writing, especially when it's hard. Because writing is hard work. Writing well is agony. But we know that it is possible, because people do it. But people rarely focus on the agony of the process (Apparently Rowling drew on her agony to create dementors).

The Writer's Book of Hope might not be a book for everyone. But it has definitely helped me. It's not sappy and full of saccharine promises of glory and fame. It's a hard look at what I've been living, and the hope that I needed (and ostensibly many writers need) to just keep writing.

So, just keep writing. It's sure not easy. But we can do it, you and me. We'll get there. Hopefully sooner than later, but either way we'll get there. We won't destroy our lives in the process, but we'll keep pushing even when it feels like there's no point. Because in the end, isn't that the point? To do something that we thought we couldn't.

See you there.

Hope

I grew up as the son of an attorney. I don't know exactly what that did to me, but one thing I knew for sure as I came out of high school was this: Love doesn't pay the bills.

Romanticism of any sort requires some sort of belief or hope that there are good things out there. I'm a romantic if ever there was one. So my father, though he never discouraged me (quite the opposite in fact), just by who he was led me to believe that real jobs were the kind that had letters after them. M.D., P.H.D., J.A.G., Etc.

Perhaps it was less my father's job, and more the mix of personality I got from my mother and father, my birth order, my upbringing, or something else. But even though I loved, LOVED, theatre and good stories, I never thought of writing as a real job.

Drama, acting, art, dancing, painting, writing, singing, these were all nice things, but they weren't real jobs.

I had no hope. I never even considered writing in any form as a job. My plan was to become extremely wealthy as a doctor and then write a great screenplay on the side. Because that's how I viewed the craft. Something that anyone could do...as a hobby.

It wasn't until I flunked out of biology, chemistry, and statistics, that I decided to look somewhere else. I fell in with a community theatre performing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I was immediately hooked again. I wrote a play and it was performed. I changed my major to Theatre and amazing things started to happen. But I was still shackled with my doubt. Art isn't a real job.

There's plenty to support that idea. Countless artists, writers, actors, etc. never make a dime. They put all of their hope in and get a big kick in the face for bearing their soul.

I hedged my bets. I studied theatre with a teaching degree. I still couldn't accept that my passion could be anything but wild oats. A phase.

Then I took a class on writing. A professor named James Arrington taught the course. I studied the craft of writing and I loved it. In that short semester I had a glimpse of writing as a real thing. An endeavor worth pursuing.

But I still hang back. It is now nearly a decade later and I have hundreds of doubts. Is writing a real job? Can I make enough money to support my family? Can I write anything worth reading?

The truth is that the answer is, "YES!" But it's not an easy answer to swallow. Writing takes time. Hours and hours of work that never sees the light of day. Hope is in short supply.

If I could go back and tell my 16 year old self one thing it would be this, "Writing is a real job, and you can do it. Don't be afraid to turn your focus onto something artistic. Don't worry about what other people think, keep working, keep writing, keep drawing. These are skills that will pay off. It will take time, but they will pay off."

If I have any influence upon you as a writer, I want to say this. Keep going. There is a world of published, successful writers, and if you keep working you can be a part of it.

Keep writing. Keep believing. You'll get there. I'll see you when you do.

Specific Advice

Hey, it's been a while since I last posted. I sometimes question the usefulness of blogging. Since I'm blogging to such a small audience it might be more useful to write a journal, or write to a message board. I'm not too worried about it though. I'm not looking to really grow this audience, rather a good place to post my thoughts.

Speaking of thoughts, I'm on a mailing list from a fairly famous author. This author gives plenty of good advice. It is fantasy author Dave Wolverton, or David Farland depending on which of his book you read. He's the author of the Runelord series, which I have not yet read.

What I have read of his has been great though.

As an author giving advice he's got some good stuff. But some of his advice will rub me the wrong way. Not necessarily because it is bad advice, but because it's a specific bit of advice applied too generally.

For example, Dave Wolverton judges a pretty big contest called Writers Of The Future. I can tell that he's been reading a lot of entries recently because his mailing has turned a critical eye on some of his pet peeves.

One of the recent mailings said this,

"For example in this past week I rejected perhaps fifty entries to a major writing contest for using five simple words: “Now, back to the story.” Have you ever done that? It’s a grave mistake."

It's a grave mistake....that sounds like some very specific advice...for those pieces. His general idea is good, but we should be careful when applying something like that too broadly. This is a sign of immaturity. We see something that bothers us in certain pieces and then we say that it's wrong or poorly written.


It's natural, as we learn the craft of writing, to judge what we think is good and bad. But let's be wary of applying our newly learned tricks too broadly. Not every adverb weakens your story. Not every fight scene needs to be written without dialogue. And your characters can look in mirrors and even describe themselves while doing so. Flashbacks are not always a sign of weak plotting.


These are all pieces of advice that I have heard. And they all have their place. But let's not become too finicky. Nearly every rule in writing can be broken in the right situation. And just because a piece of advice works in one situation doesn't mean that it applies to every other situation.


Just be careful. Listen to feedback, but stand up for your story. And maybe, just maybe, you might even write "Now, back tot he story." and you'll be right.

Emotional Intensity

As I grow older I think I'm beginning to lose some of the emotional intensity I had as  a youth. I'm not that old, but I'm also not young. Time was that I scoffed at the idea of young people bringing emotion to the table, invigorating the older generation.

Somehow it's true, and it's catching up to me.

This past week I read a short excerpt from my niece's novel that she's working on. Mechanically the piece was good, but emotionally it drew me right in. That ability to immediately capture a reader in the world is something that I lack. I don't know if I ever had it, but I certainly have less of it now. I'm much more willing to sit through some long deliberations than I was as a youth.

So if you get anything from this post, think about this. Be excited about what you are writing. It doesn't matter what you're writing, just be excited. And don't be afraid to let that energy show.

A Plug for Persistence

I often say that publishing a first book is like getting your master's degree. You've got to build up the skills of storytelling, word crafting, description, grammar, plotting, outlining, and don't forget the actual matter of disciplining yourself to complete a long term project. Revising, editing, submitting, revising again, scrapping a project and moving on to something better.

Writing is hard work. But I found an interesting observation from Betsy Lerner in her book, The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor's Advice to Writers. She pointed out that the only real difference between writers that succeed and writers that don't was this, writers who don't succeed give up. Writers who succeed keep writing.

To be fair, she was talking about a specific type of writer (She breaks the writers she's worked with into six groups. This group was the ambivalent writer...that's the group I feel most at home with.). But I think it's safe to say that if you want to be a writer then you can develop the skills that will get you published. And if you keep working (remember that w word) then you'll likely get published again.

So keep writing. And check her book out. You might find something useful.

So.....

My writing background isn't in novels. Oh sure, that's where I started reading. But I started really writing scripts for movies and plays. That's the only way I could get a whole story out. Consider: a screenplay is about 90 pages long, each page is made up of mostly spaces, barely any space is taken up with flowery prose, everything is dialogue. A short novel is 50,000 words (or 200 pages at 250 avg. words per page). Writing a screenplay you can cover a lot more ground with less words. It really fit my impatient nature.

To tell you the truth I still enjoy script writing for its focus on dialogue.

To that end I'm going to share one of the first lessons we learned about dialogue in screenplays because this lesson translates well to novel writing as well.

Don't use filler words.

"So", "um", "well", "uh", anything like that. You've probably cut them out of your dialogue in the middle, but look at the beginning of your lines.

"So, I was walking down to Walmart the other day..."

"Um, I guess I could go with you."

"Well, there was a gun under the desk."

"Well," is a great way to give yourself some extra time to think about what you're going to say before you say it. We do it all the time when we're speaking. But it doesn't help your story. Go through every line of dialogue and if it starts with "Well," simply cut the "Well," and leave the rest. The same goes for the other filler words. Try this little trick out and see if it snaps up your dialogue.

"I was walking down to Walmart the other day..."

"I guess I could go with you."

"There was a gun under the desk."

The feeling of the lines change. They're snappier. Now that you cut your filler words out you can use them to add a sense of indecision or hesitation because they'll stand out.

"Well, have fun writing...I guess."

Romantic

I don't know about all writers, but I certainly get delusions of grandeur(I was going to give you a link to Han Solo saying this in Return of the Jedi, but I can't seem to find any straight up clips from the film on YouTube...I shouldn't be surprised). I could see myself sitting pretty atop the New York Times best seller list, or debating whether to sell my movie rights to Warner Brothers or Disney. I might have even imagined an interview on a talk show (it didn't turn out that well).

I don't think we should be surprised if we have these thoughts. As writers our goal is to make money by thinking up creative scenarios that are not always linked to reality.

And who knows? Maybe some of those romantic visions will come true. Nothing's wrong with having goals. But we're accustomed to starting a story where it gets interesting. So much so, that perhaps we forget that the back story really does have to happen before the story can. Let's take a look at what that back story includes.

For most writers a successful career comes by writing....and lots of it. The best comparison I've heard is that getting published is like getting a master's degree. It takes a lot of work, and most people take 7-10 years. I'm not here to tell you that it's not possible to finish sooner, I'm just telling you the average from published writers talking about their own lives.

You may think that you have the skills to write a salable novel right now, but don't downplay the profession. If anyone could pick up writing and pump out hit novels overnight then we'd have a lot less reason to pay for books.

Now, just to make sure that I'm not a complete downer, I'd like to remind you that you do have some skills. Maybe you're good at plotting out stories. Maybe you're great at dialogue. Maybe you're only so-so at everything, but you can do it all.

Writing takes practice. So if you want to write a book, then write a book. In fact, you should probably write two or three. You'll learn a lot, and you will likely write some good stuff.

So start writing and keep writing. When you look at the bottom line, that's the only way to be a writer.

Oh, and then you will need to learn how to revise...

Keeping it up

So, how do you keep writing? There are times that I feel like no matter how busy I am I have enough time to write. I slip into my stories in five minutes or less and then get back to the real world. Of course I get more done in the thirty to forty-five minute stints, but I seem to be always on. It's still work. I still have to struggle through plot issues or search for the just the right word, but I keep going.

Then there are the other times. The times when writing seems a near impossibility. I struggle to get enough done in every other aspect of my life that when I get a spare moment I just crash. I am doing the same things, but it seems so much more overwhelming.

So what's the difference?

The only thing I've come up with so far stems from a comment made by Dan Wells on Writing Excuses. Please forgive me for not knowing the exact podcast. If you're interested in writing then you'll probably want to listen to the whole archive anyway...but it won't save you time. I think the cast was about writing and working other jobs.

The main idea of the comment was that people who work and write have to do their pre-writing while they're doing their other jobs. For example, I work one of my jobs as  a courier. I can't exactly sit and write while operating a motor vehicle, but I can think about what I'm writing. Or on the drive home from work I start getting my thoughts together to write.

One problem with that is that I get home and I have lunch with my wife and two of my kids and I'm back at square one if I ever get to my computer. That's not so bad because I have to go to sleep right after lunch so I can be up to work my other job. But there's so much in between that I lose track of where to start.

Another problem is that while my brain is supposed to be focused on work, it is working out character problems.

And then there are all the little things that I have to take care of like paying bills, mowing the lawn, taking out the trash...you know the stuff.

I'm not trying to whine, or say my life is terrible. I'm giving an example that you might be able to relate to. There's so much stuff going on in life. It's hard to find time to write. And when we do it's not always easy to do it.

If you can, spend some time pre-writing. Get yourself ready for it so that when you do sit down you're ready. But whatever you do, write. That's what will get you there.

Good luck. If you've got other ideas on how to keep writing leave a comment. I'd appreciate it, and if anyone else is actually reading these posts you might help them too.

Change Takes Time...Sometimes

   Jerry Turncoat followed his master down the narrow servants' passage into the grand ballroom. Earlier that night the room had been filled with dancing and laughter. Now it should be just another empty chamber in their path.
   "Stay close," his master warned. "We might have to use force."
   "No problem," Jerry said with a grin. "That's why you brought me in."
   "Yes," his master said. "But I want to bring you out again too."
   Jerry had been right to choose this master. Other masters were weak, uncaring, or petty. Jerry's master had always cared. Jerry never wanted for protection or friendship.
   Once inside the ballroom Jerry saw three palace guards.
   "Halt! Who goes there?"
   "I'll handle this," Jerry's master said and turned to the guards. "We're just on our way to see the Magistrate."
   The nearest guard rested his hand on the hilt of his sword in a way that suggested that he wasn't afraid to use it.
   "Through the servants' way?" the guard said.
   Jerry's master raised his hands to show that he had no weapons.
   "We didn't want to disturb anyone." his master said.
   The farthest guard stepped forward. Her sword swung out as she walked.
   "Consider us disturbed."
   Jerry pulled his dagger and slipped between his master's ribs. His master dropped silently to the floor.

Bwhah?

Let's talk about character. Character development is a tricky thing. In the scrap above I gave you some clues that Jerry might not be completely reliable. At this point in the story you could accept his betrayal, because we aren't really connected to either character. But there was some disconnect between his final action and the rest of the scene.

At this point what do we know about Jerry? Nothing really. He's willing to kill...that's big, but not uncommon in literature. The big question is what is he willing to kill for? And why did he kill someone that seemed to be on his side. One thing we have established is that Jerry is a turncoat (Ah...see what I did there? With his name...) is that he is willing to shift allegiances. He is untrustworthy, and throughout the story we would always have that thought in the back of our mind. "Who will he kill next?"

Since this is early in the story I could spend some time explaining Jerry's seeming allegiance shift as time went on....but we would expect his future actions to line up with this killing.

Ok. That was a poor example. A better example is the scorpion and the turtle. The turtle gives the scorpion a ride across a river and halfway across the scorpion stings the turtle and they both sink into the water. Just before they die the turtle asks, "Why did you sting me when you knew you would die too?" The scorpion responds simply, "Because I'm a scorpion."

Characters have real motivations. They make choices based on who they are. And the audience needs to see who they are. A characters actions must always fit. Can they be unexpected? Yes. But the reader should say, "Oh yeah. That makes sense." At some point.

Changes in characters take time. If you establish a character, then make sure they follow through with who they are. If you want a character to change then let us feel the whole change. People don't change overnight unless something has prepared them for it.

In the movie Willow, Sorsha is the faithful daughter of the evil queen. But when she changes sides we understand. 1 - we want Willow to win, and 2 - we see the change happen over time. A number of scenes lead up to that change to make it believable.

Anyway, have fun with your writing. Remember to keep your characters motivated, and make sure they react believably to their motivations.

Modern Developments

I recently posted that, "Nobody cares until the whole thing's done."

There have been some recent developments in publishing and self publishing that seem to change that. One thing in particular that I'm talking about is kickstarter.

There are those who may believe that with kickstarter you don't need a final product, but an idea. That's true to some degree, but it's also false. Kickstarter is an investment program. You are trying to get customers to invest in your work with the promise of some reward. They aren't investing for money, but for a product and, more to the point, the chance to be "involved" in something.

Look at indie music, where everything is most popular before it is popular. It is always nice to be one of the fans that saw the band before they really developed their skill so you can say, "I like them until they went mainstream."

But when you are looking for investors for a project it's because you don't have the money upfront. You are essentially advertising either:

• a) the full product when it is finished (i.e. The published book if you've already written it, or the published book that you haven't finished it yet.) or...
• b) the idea of an amazing book that you're going to write.

The outcome is the same. You're trying to get someone hooked on your book. Where kickstarter has an advantage is that you have a venue where people can look over your stuff and buy right away. They can act on their impulse. The idea of buying things online has fed into this. If you just tell someone "I'm writing this awesome book and here's the story." You're selling the idea of the finished story to them. But only if the idea is fully fleshed out. They're still willing to put out money for a finished product. They want to read it, but they don't have it so they lose interest. With kickstarter you're just saying the shipping will take a while.

It's easy to take advantage of this system and sell an idea that will never see daylight. But you'll only do that once. Just like big publishers your readers will stop investing if nothing comes from it.

So, if you're selling a thing, or the idea of a thing, just remember: even with modern changes, people are paying for the finished product. Make sure it's worth their money.

Paradoxes

The curse of a writer is that you are never really alive unless you're talking about things that no one cares about (partly because those things are not in finished form). Our only hope is to write those things down and hope that there is some transformation between the written symbols and your voice, and that some day in the future the misconstrued wonderings of some distant relative will give our ramblings some wise meaning.

Get writing.

Cheers!

Nobody Cares Until the Whole Thing is Done

I recently looked over a friend's project. There were some positive and negative points to the project and,  as I always do when asked to critique, I focused on the negative (though I do try to do so with an eye toward improvement and not destruction, but that's another blog...in fact there are about a dozen blogs on feedback just waiting to happen). But the one thing that stood out to me was his explanation of the project.

"I want you to know." he said, and then he explained how he had insisted on following a certain method to assure a quality product. And though the product was quality. That's not the issue at hand. I want to address instead, the basic psychological issue that causes us to think that other people care how we do things. I want you all to know that no one cares how you go about your artistic process. They only care about the final product. It may sound harsh, but it's true. Why? Because until there is a final product, then your process is meaningless. You didn't make anything, and so it doesn't matter what you did.

Now I'm not sitting here and trying to say that process doesn't matter. I've got a theatre education background that screams at me every time I even think that. It sits in the back of my mind and tones, "It's the trip that's important!" "The end product doesn't matter as long as you've learned something!" "Everyone is happy and nice and you should invest your money with false smiled strangers!" Well, maybe not the last one.

But that's for students. That's for the artist. The process is only important to people who are A) trying to duplicate your success, or B) learning how to avoid your failure.

If you have an audience, or if you want to make money, then the end product IS what matters.

This whole situation reminds me of the first play that I wrote. I finagled my way into having it produced at a local community theatre and I thought I was on top of the world. I still think the play was good, but it was a first play. And when a writer for a local newspaper contacted me asking about myself I gave him an autobiography. I didn't realize then that people just don't care. My mother cares. My family cares. My friends care. But they don't care because of my project. They care about me.

Your readers will not care about you. They will care about your books. They will care about your characters. They will care about the stories that they have shared because once they take part it is their story and not yours. They will care about you because you are connected to their stories. But they're not your family. They don't care about you.

This may sound difficult to some people, but it's a good thing. You are writing something for someone else. Give them a product that they'll love. Then step back and let them love it. If they ask you about how you did it, then give them the short answer. If they want to study your process, then tell them.

We are all selfish in this world. We think so many things about ourselves. I thought everyone wanted to know about this little playwright they'd never heard of. They didn't. The people who enjoyed my play enjoyed it for what it was, not who wrote it.

So, write your book. Write your play. Write your poem. Then share them. Because people will love your project. But nobody cares until the whole thing is done.

Finish it!

If you've played World of Warcraft, Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, or any other RPG (computer or otherwise) then you know about questing. It's how they roll, RPGs. And there's always a pattern. Easy stuff first. Why? Because that's what your character can handle.

In Role Playing Games we, the nerds of the world, must quantify regular human attributes like strength, speed, intelligence, and even experience.

But how do you quantify experience? How can you even know how much you've learned from something? There are so many levels of learning going on when you complete a goal that it will likely be years before you see all of the results.

But there is something delightfully simple about all this. Do a quest, gain experience, go up a level. How good are you at hitting people with axes? I'm level 3. How do you know? Well, I have finished enough quests that I am now better. I have 2000 experience points, and that means level 3.

So how does this relate to writing? Quests start out small. Why? So you can finish them. If you don't finish you get no experience points. That may sound contradictory, after all merely by making an effort you should learn something.

BUT!

There is intrinsic value to completing a project. If you can write a one page scene that is fulfilling, then you have learned how to craft a scene. If you can write one paragraph that captures the imagination of your reader then you have learned how to describe. You're not good, but you've completed a quest.

So if you are a new writer, then I say do a quest. Set yourself a goal and then finish it. Don't worry so much about how well it's done (at least not at first) just do it. These small quests will gain you experience and slowly but surely you'll find that you are ready for larger quests. If you're working on a novel, that's just a higher level quest. Don't be afraid to finish. If you don't finish, then try again, but most of all find something to finish.

There is value in finishing.

And most of all...When you've completed one quest, start another one. That's how you level up as a writer.

Just Write

When looking for writing advice you may run into this one: Just write.

In fact, you probably will. That's because it works. Here's a few reasons why, and then a few places it might not work.

1. Last week I talked about disequilibrium and the psychological tendency we have to try fixing the dis. Well, you can put that to use. If you are struggling to write something good, then write something. If it's good you'll want to keep going, if not you'll probably try to fix it. I can't tell you how many ideas that have turned from a little spark into a roaring flame just because I put down something crappy. This is useful in brainstorming ideas for your book, fixing plot holes, or just getting your ideas out so you can fix them.
2. Writing itself is a chore. It's not easy. It is easy to put it off. On Monday morning I have to go into work. It's a rare Monday that I wouldn't rather be spending as an extra Sunday. But I often find that when I go in it's not as bad as I thought. Forcing yourself to write can often get you in the mood, and sometimes you'll even like it.
3. Writing is a skill. It takes practice. If you don't keep up on it you will lose some of the things you have learned.

When won't it work? One time that just writing doesn't work for me is when I'm completely burnt out. Emotionally, physically, spiritually. Sometimes I need to sleep. But even in those times if I write I usually find that I have a bit more energy than I thought.

So that's it for today. It's not much, it is a Monday post after all.

Disequilibrium

I'm responding to a comment on In Defense of Plot. It is perhaps a bit unfair for me to post my response as a blog instead of as a comment for a few reasons:

1. Because of the format of blogs the comments tend to be presented below the post which gives the post an implied position of false authority over comments.
2. Because I have a free forum to write whatever I want without limit.

There are more, I'm sure, but I want to throw it out there. This is unfair of me, but I'm doing it anyway...I'm that kind of person. But there's one other reason. This comment deserves discussion. If you want to see the comment then click the link and read away or just scroll down to it....then come back here.

Part 1

First thing I should address is primal reaction. To help explain I'd like to use an example. I will define plot simply as the events in a story that introduce and resolve a conflict.

A child walks into the kitchen and sees a pot on top of the stove. The mother sees the child and tells them, "Don't touch that. Hot." As soon as the mother turns around the child heads toward the pot and reaches out toward it. The mother again catches the child and says, "Hot! Don't touch!" The mother puts the child in the next room and continues cooking. The doorbell rings and the mother goes to answer the door. The child sees their mother leaving the kitchen heads back toward the pot. The child looks at the pot and then toward the front door. The front door is out of view. The child looks back at the pot and takes a step forward. The child checks again, no mom. The steam from the boiling water rises. The child reaches up to the handle.

In this story the plot is straighforward. There is a simple conflict. What happens? That's where we fill in the blank. We can't help it. The stronger the plot the more we are compelled to fill in the blank. It's what prompts a child to ask, "What happens next?"

In an educational psycology course I had a professor use this term: Disequilibrium. The plot of a story begins when disequilibrium is introduced. Something in the world is set off balance. When we recognize this our brains start ticking. In education we can use this heightened mental state to engage our students. Our primal reaction is to resolve this disequilibrium. Our connection to the story is what determines the level of our reaction.

When a competent writer leaves out a part of the plot, then we subconsciously try to fill in the blank. A strong plot will keep us until the conflict is resolved, despite poor characterization or language.

But like a bad joke, once we hear it we don't need or want to hear it again.

Character without plot & setting is a journal entry or a profile. This can be interesting, but it's not a story.

Setting without character & plot is description.

Now bear with me for Part 2

alyssajlewis's comment hits on the weakness of my original post and the first part of this post. Plot alone is never enough to suffice. Alyssa says, "It's the difference between a synopsis and the actual story."

 

So to follow my earlier pattern: Plot without character and setting is synopses or outline.

 

This is where wording gets tricky. Plot, story, narrative, etc. Each one of these could mean the same thing or something different. So, for the sake of discussion let's make the division thus: plot is the events and story is the sum of plot, character, and setting.

 

Alyssa is absolutely correct. A plot without character is weak. And this is the flaw in my original post, there is no real way to disconnect character, setting, and plot in a story.

 

Even in my example above I have two characters (and possibly a third at the door). I have a setting. And you may even say that the only reason the story is at all interesting (if it is) is because of the characterization of the child. We have set a precedence. The pot is on the stove and the child wants to touch it. There is a pattern in the child's behavior. The child wants to touch the pot and will keep trying to despite the mother's instruction. And the stronger connection we feel to the child or the mother(character development), or the more we know about outside pressures (setting), the more intense our reaction.

 

The kitchen with a pot of boiling water itself is not a story (though you could write it so). The characters, a mother and child, are not a story. But the events could not happen without the setting or the characters**. There is no conflict to be resolved. You could even argue that there is no "man vs. nature" without the characters of man and nature (in those stories nature is often treated as a character).

 

More than claiming that plot is the only essential part of story, I should be saying that it is important to learn how to use plot, character, setting, and language together to create a powerful story. In studying it is easier to critique and practice character, descriptions, and language in short form. But story is harder because it can't be propterly critiqued until it is finished.

 

My point here is reactionary. Perhaps in the same way that our study of charcter is reactionary to the classical emphasis on plot or the abundance of plot heavy stories in popular culture. I don't want to detract from the importance of character or setting. I mostly wanted to point out that plot is another important part of writing a story (especially if we want to sell it) that I feel is neglected in some writers. I think that is a detriment for those writers who want to sell their work.

 

Now, plot driven vs. character driven stories. That is a different and important discussion. (both have a plot, but they are different in how they use it)

 

I'd like to end with a quote from Alyssa that sums this all up.

I think plot has its strengths. It allows the reader to get excited for and anticipate events to come. But unless there's a good character to care about, there's not going to be any anticipation because the reader isn't going to care what happens.

 

**I imagine that there are a number of people that could describe water boiling or a pot falling with as much power as any interpersonal conflict. This is usually done by imbuing inanimate objects, such as atoms or pots with human characteristics. If you want to write this I'd love to read it.

E-publishing and Leaving the Traditional Publishing Track

I'd like to get this off my chest. I've heard a lot of people talking about the easy way to get published: E-publishing on Amazon, self publishing with Kickstarter, e-publishing on Smashwords, self publising through __________, e-publishing through _________. You get the picture.

I am not opposed to any of these methods. They might work. They might be great. I've heard anecdotal evidence supporting each one of these routes to a writing career.

But what I am a bit agitated about is the attitude I'm seeing about this kind of publishing. We're vilifying the traditional publishing industry and trying to pretend like we have found out how to turn lead into gold. Some things may need to change in the publishing industry. Your route to being published may be different than those of a writer 30, 20, or even 10 years ago.

But don't eat the crap with the cupcake.

There is no EASY way to publishing.

The traditional publishing market rose up by a bunch of people working hard to make money in publishing. Can you trust them? I don't know. Are they just up there trying to steal all of your money and make an easy profit from your work? Maybe.

But they've been around a while and some of the things they're doing is because they gets results. Lets take a look at what does work.**

• Starting with a good book - No amount of hype will cover up for a terrible book. If people don't like it now, they won't like it just because it's in a pretty dust jacket. Trad-publishers don't always get it right, but the best thing you can do to get lots of people to read and buy your book is to write something they will enjoy.
• Editing - Get your book edited professionally. 
• Lots of books - Look at all your favorite authors. If they make a living from their works they have a lot of them. In Sci-fi/Fantasy you won't likely make a living off of one book, and you won't have a big following until you've got a few books out. You can make money off the first book, but if you want to make a living you've got to keep writing. J.K. Rowling was popular, but did you hear about her after book 1? Book 2? Book 3? How many books until you break out?
• Advertising - No matter who you are you've got to let people know about your book. Even if you want to be successful on Kickstarter or Amazon you'll need to tell people about your book. Marketing is important.
• It takes time - You might get picked up by 10 billion people the day after you upload your text to Amazon. But be realistic. How many books do you buy a day? How many books do you read a day? If you give a copy of your manuscript to your best friend and it takes him three months to get through it, it might take that long for other people to read it too. It will take time to get your book around. Advertising will help, but it will still take time. Don't be afraid of it, just be ready for it.
• It takes money - No matter what you think about Traditional Publishing, they've been the ones to front the cash for many years. It takes money to advertise, edit, design a cover, get the layout done, market, and more. There are many ways to get this done with less money now, but don't dream. It will take some money to publish a book. If you can use someone else's money that's better, but then you'll need to find someone to give you that money (here's where kickstarter and the sort come in).

I'm not talking bad about any route to successful publishing. I have my preferences, but if you found a different route that you prefer then take it. But don't imagine it will be easy. Learn from the old ways, and take what the did learn. Put in the work, get lucky where you can, have fun, live the dream, and don't give up. Be in it for the long haul. Get rich quick schemes are bad news. Keep your eye on the prize, and put in the work. I'll see you on the other side.

**I'm talking about Sci-fi/Fantasy. If you are a motivational speaker, if you are writing poetry, children's books, or if you're writing non-fiction it still takes work, but you may have other routes open to you. Research what has worked in the past and then decide how to put that to work for you.

In Defense of Plot

Writing is made up of many parts. Of course you have the basics: letters, words, etc. There's theme, there's voice, there's style. We've got descriptive text, thoughts, grand ideas. Then come characters, dialogue, setting, conflict. You get the idea.

But there is one aspect that is often ignored when searching for how to refine the literary art. Plot.

Perhaps it's the idea that cramming some written work into a pre-described model is somehow un-artistic. Perhaps the types of people who gravitate toward English degrees tend to read differently. Perhaps it's that plot is one of the more basic aspects of story. Perhaps we're just reacting to the importance that Aristotle put on plot. I don't know.

But when I read someone's work who has studied writing in college, I am inevitably impressed by their ability to craft words into something beautiful. And almost as inevitably I don't see a plot.

Now don't get me wrong. Not all writing needs a plot. And sometimes we get more from a story if there are certain plot elements that are purposely twisted or ignored. But there seems to be something against good solid plot.

Here's my ideas on plot. If you're a writer, and you are interested in selling a book there is one element that saves poor writing, poor character development, and even poor dialogue. It's plot. 

Plot, more than setting or character, is the element we have a primal reaction to. If part of the plot is missing, we fill it in subconsciously. If the plot is in the wrong order, we fix it in our minds. It's the basic story of the thing, the scaffolding that holds a narrative up.

When writing it is pretty easy to go back in and add a line to fix a character, or even add in a whole new character. It's not even that hard to completely overhaul the setting.

But to change the plot in any major way you might as well write a new book. The story is the plot.

If you want to write beautiful words that don't need a plot, write a poem (although some poetry uses plot as well). Poetry is great.

But if you want to sell a novel, learn how to plot. Study how plots work, there are plenty of models. If you have a solid plot, then your story will make sense. Plot may not be the deepest aspect of story, but if you don't have it right then people will notice.

How Writing is Like Slaying a Dragon

I would like to clear something up. Make it clear. Very clear. Extra super clear.

Just in case you were under the impression that I am a nerd I would like to abuse you of that idea. I use that phrase of course as the opposite of disabuse. Because I am a nerd. To narrow the definition I like video games,  computers, languages, science fiction, fantasy, board games, role playing, acting like I'm someone that I'm not, Ninja Turtles, and I took martial arts as a kid even though I'm a skinny weakling. I am a nerd.

Oh, I am a modern nerd to be sure. I love playing soccer, hiking, rock climbing, climbing trees, swimming, and the like. But I have to be honest, I think that nerds down the ages have enjoyed things outside of "nerd-dom" as well. Given the chance to play a cool new vidja game or go outside I would probably choose the game...it really depends on the day. I'm a nerd. I guess I'm not exactly a stereotypical nerd (I do fit nicely into some of the stereotypes and others slide by without even noticing me), but I don't think that most nerds are. And what's more,

"I think that everyone should nerd out about something."

I got that quote from one of my college professors when he caught me talking video games. I was finishing up undergrad with a fury at the time and I was married so I didn't do much socializing. I guess he was worried that I didn't have a passion. Good on him. Anyway, I'm a nerd.

So, now that the cat's out of the bag.

Now that that's out of the way I want to start up a series of posts that will draw some knowledge from my role playing, video gaming. These posts will come erratically, but will most likely share a similar title. I'll of course draw connections to writing, and you'll probably see quite a few other posts in between. Here are some of the wonderful topics you can expect me to nerd out about:

• Questing to be a better writer
• Adventures and Plotting
• The possibility space
• Leveling up
• Characters in a Book are not like Characters in W.O.W.
• Map drawing is fun
• Writing: A hero's journey

There is plenty of meat there for the nerd in all of us. But it's Friday, so go home and enjoy your weekend. Write every day, and be sure to nerd out about something.

What is art?

I wrote this an an answer to a question about my previous post. He asked my permission to disagree, and I want to extend my answer to any of my readers. Please, disagree. Confronting new and different ideas is one of the only ways we grow, and I am open to the idea that I might be wrong.** The commentor gave a hypothetical example of an artist who created socially abhorrent art but it filled the artist's need to express some deep therapeutic needs due to terrible circumstances as a child (the hypothetical art form was vomiting on a canvas). The follow up question was this:

"How many people need to think it good for it to be so? " 

So, without further ado, I dive into my unnecessarily long and at the same time likely insufficient answer. 

First, let's look at what art is. Art is communication or expression (I'll differentiate here by saying that expression is simply getting a message, experience or feeling out regardless of whether there is an audience. Art as expression has the process as the goal and is thus mostly for the creator. This is where the catharsis you mentioned comes in.). Art is expressed through a medium. The ancient meaning of art had to do with skill. In any medium there must be a certain amount of skill applied to create any effect.

If we take your example, vomiting on a canvas would require the me to cultivate a few skills: induction or timing of vomiting, choosing the food, aiming the vomit, choosing how to apply the vomit (is it projectile, is the artist simply lying down and letting the vomit roll over them), creating or choosing the most suitable canvass. These skills are developed aside from the expression. I can draw a line, but a true artist knows where to place that line to communicate an emotion, an experience, or an idea.

Also, I am going to limit the definition of Art to an intentional expression if that's ok. I can throw a number of sticks on the ground and someone could interpret them, but if I had no intent to communicate then it's not art. It may have natural beauty, but it's not art. If someone captured the moment by photograph, painting, literature, dance, etc. then the expression would be art. A beautiful sunset is not art, the communication of a beautiful sunset is. If there is no intent to communicate (or express) then it is not art.

Now let's look at your assertion there are no objective valuations to art. I could probably take your side on this, but I want to make sure that we cover the whole issue. You can look at art, whether you like it or not, and appreciate the skills required to create it. You could even apply those skills unartistically (remembering that art is an intentional creative communication of a message, mood, idea, experience, or feeling). I could play the notes of a piano concerto, if I had the skill, and it would not be my art but the composers. A copy machine does not create art, it merely duplicates it. However, a concert pianist could use their skills to present the concerto and include their own artistic expression in the performance.

This valuation of skill is separate from the aesthetic valuation of beauty. We can take this pretty far and say that the valuation of skill is also subjective. When cutting a log do you want straight lines or curved lines. If you want curved lines and your worker can only make straight lines then you may call him unskilled. I am not going to go that far. I will say that a skill is good if it meets the requirements of the project.

If you are trying to recreate the Mona Lisa with vomit then any vomit that doesn't look like Da Vinci's work is not successful. Taking a more mundane example, I have not the artistic skills to recreate the Mona Lisa by painting, drawing, or any other way. But I could develop the skills, theoretically, if I practiced and studied enough. As an example, I wrote a scene that I wanted my readers to feel excited about. When I got feedback I found out that my readers were confused and didn't understand the scene. The objective view is that my skill were not enough to complete the task. In that sense, my art was not good.

So, we have the skill side of art. Am I, as vomitist, skilled in achieving my goal? I have achieved catharsis, at least enough to keep me alive. I have spewed my hate, terror, frustration, anxiety, and wrath onto many a canvass. Most people who look at my art feel a repulsion. Is their repulsion exactly what I wanted? Are they feeling repulsed and now somehow they understand my message, or are they merely repulsed at the medium and so the message fails to penetrate? If I wanted catharsis, then my work succeeded. If I wanted someone to understand me, then maybe not so much. If I simply wanted my audience to be repulsed, then I have sufficient skill and achieved success.

However, the judgment of how aesthetically pleasing a work of art is falls completely to the subjective view of the audience. Good or bad. This is where “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” comes in. A piece of art can be good or bad to any person, and this is where numbers don't matter.

Now, one more level to this madness, we can also take in the popular success of art. This is where the artist considers audience. Evaluating an audience is also a skill, though most artists keep it in the background. The popular success of an artwork depends on how the audience perceives it. If 100 people think your book is good, does that make it good? The truth is that audience perception has a lot to do with how many people receive your message. I would argue that good art resonates with more people. If you are turning people off of your message with your medium so that they can't appreciate the message, then I think that it is bad art. If the purpose of your art is a self expressive catharsis, then no audience aside from yourself is needed. It is personal art, and unless you intend for someone else to take part in it then I'd even go so far as to say it is not art, but therapy. Personal expression is a positive and important thing, but it only sends a message when there is someone to receive it.

My argument before is that many who study art extensively take their view of the aesthetics and ignore the skills. I might hate the Mona Lisa aesthetically, but I can't dismiss the fact that it took a highly skilled artist to create it. An literature professor may dismiss the Harry Potter series as trite nonsense because they don't like it. They could judge it as bad. But they should not ignore the fact that it has reached a large audience who has been affected by the books and their message about death. What I view as a problem is that many “art snobs” do just that. It is fine that they don't like something, but if they're really studying art then they should be able to admit the quality of the skill.

So, here's my answer in a nutshell. Good art can mean that the artist is skilled at manipulating the medium, it can mean that the message or experience is shared, or it can mean that the art is beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. I would argue that the larger an audience can relate to the piece as intended the better the artwork is. This requires both the objective skill(i.e. the ability to draw lines with the intended effect), and the subjective application of that skill.

This was a long post. I droned on forever. Did I miss the point? Sometimes I do that. Did I mess up the definition of art? What is art, and what makes it good? Am I right? What do you think?

**Edit - this should read: I've got a big ego, and sometimes it needs a bit of draining.  Cheers.

To Agent or not to Agent?

Once you've written a book and you want to get someone to read it (besides your kid sister) and possibly give you money for your hard work and tears. So what now?

There are plenty of proponents for e-books, self publishing, and doing everything yourself. Should I try to get published with a big publisher? Should I get an agent? Should I submit directly to the publishers? Should I sell my book online and forget about both agents and publishers? Should I publish myself and spend my time selling the book on street corners? Should I start up my own publishing company?

These are some common questions. Though the last two may be less common. Today I'm going to share my views on the agent question. Should you get an agent?

For starters we should figure out what an agent is. The very idea of an agent means someone who does your work for your. A literary agent is someone who will do just that, in theory. Currently a literary agent will go out and represent your book to big publishers. A literary is not giving you a product, they are providing you with a service. In the current market you shouldn't be paying your agent up front. Instead you pay your agent a percentage of the money they get for you (Usually anywhere from 10-15%). In this sense an agent is good because they'll be trying to get more money for your book.

A publisher, on the other hand, is not an agent. A publisher is also a connector, but they aren't just representing you. A publisher is providing a product, the hard bound or electronic version of the book. They are licensing (or purchasing) the right to use your words. With a publisher it's also a joint venture. They want the book to succeed as well. The difference is that the publisher usually pays the writer, you, a portion of what they make off of using your words on their paper. And just like you don't want to give all of your money to the Agent, the publisher doesn't want to give all of their hard earned money to you. Usually the publisher has the upper hand here, so an agent also represents you in bargaining with the publisher.

In both cases, the agent and publisher, one of the things you are paying for is connections. Theoretically you could do all of this yourself, but the publishers and agents are levying their specialization to take the workload, and some of the money, off your plate.

Let's look at it this way. For my chosen genre, sci-fi/fatasy, it is highly recommended to get an agent. Many of the bigger publishers won't accept submissions without agents, and even when the do it goes to a slush pile. If you want to see a movie and you've got 5 to choose from but you've never heard of any of them the choice becomes much easier if you have a friend recommend one of them. If you've taken that friend's recommendations a number of times and been pleased every time then even more so. Now take that list out to 1000 choices and you see what a publisher has to face. As a writer you're like the movie company trying to get the publisher to check out your stuff. A good agent is like the friend that makes the good recommendations. I still send to some publishers, but mostly I'm looking for an agent.**

Why?

For one thing I don't have the same connections. For another I don't have the capitol to print 1,000,000 copies of my book. With the advent of the internet e-book and e-readers I may not need either. That's still up for debate with some heavy hitters on both sides. So the question still stands.

Why an agent?

Well, here's the one thing that I can't get. An opinion. I mean I've got plenty of opinions. But professional validation of my work means a lot to me. An agent who reads and represents books to publishers for a living knows something about what makes a book successful. A publisher who buys and sells books in a desperate gamble to make some money also needs to know something about quality, or else they are soon an ex-publisher.

I can e-publish my book and get validation from the readers (which is the end result I want anyway), but I have to convince a thousand people to read my book and respond. If I can get the half dozen people from agent to publisher to read my book and respond positively then I have professional validation. To me that means the same thing, but I didn't have to wait for 1000 people to find and read my book. Publishers and Agents may make mistakes, but if I have their validation then I can have some idea that I'm on the right track. (Again, this might be undermined by the e-book phenomenon, but I still hold publishers and agents in esteem for now.)

I have currently chosen to pursue publication with a traditional publisher, and I am seeking the representation of an agent. I don't want to send out my work unless it is good. I don't want the whole world to read my book if it doesn't meet a basic level of quality. Don't get me wrong. There are crappy books published both traditionally and as e-books. Proponents of e-books use this to downplay the importance of traditional publishers as gatekeepers. I'm not talking about other books. I want my book to be the best it can be. Could I e-pub? Possibly. That's a question for another post.

**I should of course make the qualification that Agents can also be that bad friend that Publishers duck behind the copier to avoid. Good agents have a good network and publishers that trust their recommendation (and so they will only recommend you if they think your work is worth publishing). Good publishers will only publish something they think will sell. You can be your own agent if you want to go to the conferences, keep up on publishers weekly, make your own connections. It's a personal choice, but I've made mine.

Ignorance is Bliss, but Knowledge is Not Sorrow

In my last post I spoke, perhaps a bit too harshly, against the artistic elitist. The main point is that there are many traits that make good art: Skill, style, social perception, contemporary work, personal opinion, etc. The trouble comes when someone puts personal opinion (a subjective valuation) above the other objective valuations.

One of my readers wisely observed that one aspect of good writing is knowing your audience. That is absolutely true. Writing to please your professor doesn't make your work good. On the other hand, writing something that is popular (which your professor wouldn't like) doesn't make your work bad. Writing something that is good makes it good, and there are subjective and objective traits that go into that.

When I first started studying I had a hard time with this. I think it's a pretty common journey. I was a young theatre student in undergrad and I am easily impressed by big words and "smart" people. Those two traits together worked against me to some degree.

I started to learn about writing. I breathed it all in like I had been holding my breath for years. I had just changed my major from a pre-med biology degree and I was astounded to learn that people actually wrote and created art (particularly theatre) for a living. I had been mostly indiscriminate in my consumption of art...well I say that, but it's not exactly true. I had been exposed to a wide range. I liked a wide variety of popular art, but I wasn't a big fan of art for the sake of art. I never liked obtuse art. (To be honest, I still don't have a refined artistic palate.)

But as I learned about what makes a play "good" I picked up a bit of my own elitism. I narrowed my view of good to exclude many of my previous favorites. Suddenly I was too smart to enjoy popular movies, musicals, etc. I echoed the sentiment of one of my professors that, "Les Miserables was the worst thing to happen to the theatre". Though I didn't know why. I started to seek out more and more obtuse material to challenge my concept of good.

Now, broadening my horizon was not bad, but I became a terror. Because I had a bit of knowledge and I thought I knew everything. I began to judge what I saw or read much too harshly. I forgot how to enjoy something and I focused on tearing everything down. My wife hated discussing (or even watching) movies with me because I continually berated everything we saw.

I think it's common among students to apply their knowledge. What else can you do? But I started to think that criticism was the only worthwhile endeavor, and I only listened seriously to other people who could tell me how bad something was. We enjoyed only the obtuse and exclusionary.

Then something happened. I took a class and I began to tear apart Shakespeare. Shakespeare!

I was unabashed in my criticism, but I was wrong. (To be fair, Shakespeare wasn't perfect and there are some viable reasons to dislike his work.) I realized that I wasn't enjoying anything. I had learned so many ways for something to be bad that I forgot that anything could really be good.

Fortunately I had my eyes opened. I started to look at popular art for fun again. I found that sometimes unabashed emotional fare is nice. Sometimes an easily understood message hits just as deep.

I had left behind some of my ignorance when I saw how the magicians did their tricks. I found out that sometimes God works through normal means. I learned that my parents were Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Leprechauns. My immediate reaction was repulsion. But when I managed to step back I realized that just because I know how magic is made, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show.

I began to love theatre again, but now with a deeper knowledge. I still have my own opinion, and sometimes I'm still a pain to watch certain movies with. But I've begun to mellow. Learning about an art form does take some of the magic away, but it opens you up to a whole new kind of magic. Knowledge is freedom, and it kind of misses the point to use that knowledge to oppress others by telling them their opinions are worthless.

I love the Fantastiks, but I can still love Les Miserables (which I do, by the way).

Aspirations to Art

My sister-in-law once asked me about literary writing. She had read something a friend had written and just wasn't impressed. The story seemed depressing and somewhat pointless. There were interesting ideas, but none of them were really explored. And in the end my sister-in-law felt unsatisfied. She wasn't alone. It was a pretty common response I think.

I read the work, and I came away with a similar feeling. The story was depressing and somewhat pointless. But for me there was deeper matter that I could get at. Some obtuse entertainment that was lost on most readers. Some part of me enjoyed the word smithing, the chiaroscuro of words.

So what was there in this story that chimed for me and not for others? Well, there's a bit of that high minded literary writing.

I'm not necessarily smarter than my brother's wife. In fact, there are many ways you could argue the opposite. But I've been trained to enjoy certain things from writing. I've been exposed to the study of the art, and as in most cases, I can see things that people who haven't studied writing just can't. It's similar to any field of study. **

There is an idea in writers, writing professors, poets, literature students, and all sorts of "intellectuals" that they are in some way better than other people. It's a common theme among any artistic mediums. Pretensions and elitism. The basic claim that, "I've studied and so my opinion matters more. If you can't understand my art, then you are a lesser being."

In film you have the Oscars and above that there are art house films. In visual medium such as sculpture, painting, mosaic, etc. you've got modernism, post-modernism, and many other -isms. The same goes for theatre. Music has it, dance has it, fashion has it, video games, and if we find a new medium that will have it too.

Now here's the big question.  Is the writing in the Literary Genre better than the writing in novels or stories that are more accessible?

Here's the big answer. Sometimes.

Most literary writing is a practice in pretentiousness. Writers who are writing to show off their supposed skill to other writers, or to impress their professors (who would likely never be impressed anyway because they are jaded by their own jilted works). Writers throw in shocking content to show that they can 'handle' heavier material. They explore the depths of depression and claim that they have some greater understanding of the world. But more often than not it is simply obtuse and they claim that anyone who cannot understand is simply unintelligent. After all, if anyone could understand it then it would be....gasp....popular.

And herein lies one of the conundrums of art. Art is an attempt to communicate, and often times a true artist can communicate feelings or ideas beyond what the uneducated in that art form can grasp. But when a piece of art becomes so obtuse as to exclude a wider audience then in some ways it fails at communicating.

Now look at the other side. Is all literary writing bad? Absolutely not. Is all popular art good? Absolutely not. As a culture moves forward with a medium they will begin to accept some traditions and reject others. Entire societies change and grow with their art. Nearly every work will include one audience and exclude others.

In some cases the literary works will be good. In other cases it will simply be pretentious. In some cases popular art will have some actual merit. In other cases is will simply be pandering.

I'll probably come back to this eventually. I think that next time I'll talk about my critical journey through theatre. I lost a lot of enjoyment in art.

Until then. Keep writing, reading, or whatever it is you do, and be great at it.

**
As an example take this fine Chemistry joke: If you're not part of the solution, your part of the precipitate.

Adverbs and Adjectives the Great Big Fish Said Monotonously

After reading the first few pages of  my manuscript my writing group targeted in on one weakness. There were others, but this was the first burr to be filed away. That weakness?
"-ly"

Adverbs are a tool in the expert writer's toolbox. However, Adverbs are also a tool in the novice writer's toolbox. And since the novice writer has less tools, we make use of our paltry supply a bit more often. Adjectives are in a similar box. Both of these modifiers have their place, and many new writers don't recognize that place. In this post I'm talking about adverbs.

I count myself among those novice writers, though perhaps less because I have had my weakness pointed out to me.

--I want to digress for a moment to talk about weaknesses. No matter how often we are told something, we will never accept it until we are mentally prepared. In developmental psychology we talk about scaffolding, schema theory, and i+1. I've heard about adverbs before, but I was never in a state to receive the information in any useful capacity. Learning to write, like anything else, is a process by which we slowly move forward gaining new insights and picking away imperfections as they push themselves to the surface like the chip of an eggshell caught in the white of your egg. It takes time to become a master. We should accept our current level and at the same time push ourselves on to the next.--

Back to adverbs.

Reading a sentence in which a squirrel, "ran quickly away from dogs" may be more interesting than "ran away from dogs." But the adverb is covering up the weakness of the verb. We can turn to the cabinet maker for an analogy. A veneer in woodworking is a thin layer of wood that is glued to the surface of another wood to change the appearance. You could, for example make a pine chest look like a teak chest. Many people like the thought of teak furniture. It's a harder wood. It's more expensive. It may be required to maintain social status. But if you just make a teak chest, then you won't need the veneering. Adverbs are the English language's veneer for weak verbs.

If we take this analogy a bit further (though not too far, as we know that any analogy breaks down when applied universally) then we can ask, "Why use a veneering at all?" That's a good question, and it applies to adverbs as well. A hardwood chest would be heavier than a softer wood, it's cheaper to use veneer, etc.

Adverbs have their use, but more often than not you may find that choosing the right verb will better serve your situation. As an exercise I searched my entire manuscript for "ly" and changed as many as I could. But how?

It may be better to say that the squirrel scrambled, scampered, dashed, bolted, zipped, darted, skittered, or any number of other verbs. This is great when writing fast paced action scenes where each word can cost you the entire scene. Alternatively you could describe the action that the adverb is intended to replace.

"They warily prodded at the wooden barrel." could easily be described as, "They first tapped the wooden barrel with the ends of their walking sticks and, when nothing happened, slid across the last few feet to examine it with their fingers." One sentence is simpler, lighter. While the other draws you further into the action. Which one is right? Unfortunately it depends on your goal for the scene. More often than not you'll want more immersion.

Use an adverb if necessary, or if you feel that it adds a flavor that you want. There are plenty of reasons to use adverbs, but just as many or more to avoid them. I'll leave you with some quotes.

"I think my mistakes were kind of common - leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days."

-Dick Schaap

"I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect."

-Henry James

And of course:

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

-Stephen King

Aaaand...Action!

Wow, there's a lot to say about writing action scenes. I mean really, a lot. And those are only three of the 907 million websites that google brought up for a search on "writing action."

To be fair, even though google does an amazing job (even scary sometimes) of knowing exactly what I'm searching for I'm pretty sure that all 907,000,000 of those sites are not completely relevant. And I'm sure that most of them cover pretty much the same ground. But it's an important topic that writers can stand to keep in mind.

And so here am I.

Writing action is essentially the process of tapping into our readers' fight or flight instincts so that they can:

1. Have a primal physical and emotional reaction to our writing and thus become more connected to our story.
2. Experience a bit of concern for our characters and thus become more connected to them.
3. Stand up an cheer at our characters' ingenuity, skill, or luck and thus become more connected to them.
4. See that the stakes for our characters are high and can be lost and thus become more connected to them.

Hmm....I think I see a pattern here. Though there are other reasons to write a cool action sequence one of the primary outcomes is a connection to character that we would not get otherwise. When I survive a brutal car wreck with my character, I bond with them. We've got something to talk about. Only they never talk back anymore.

So, how do we do it. I'll keep this short with a few points to think about and I may come back to this topic more in depth at a later date.

First, acting is reacting. This is a concept that I learned in theatre and it has served me well. It is echoed in this sentiment by Colin Powell, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." Action scenes are made up of planned actions as they come in contact with the unplanned events. Write these reactions. In fact, you can get a long way if you simply write out each party's reactions to the other's. 

"Dan hit Billy in the face. Billy rolled with the punch and kicked out with his left foot. Dan felt Billy's foot connect with his groin and the pain spread from there throughout his entire body. He fought the urge to wretch as he crumpled to the ground in pain. Billy watched Dan fall to the ground and let out an audible sigh. The fight was over, for now."

Of course this can become very sterile and boring like the fight scenes in the movie Far and Away before Tom Cruise's character shows up.

Another tip to keep in mind is to  be aware of the modifiers (e.g. adverbs and adjectives.) you use. Action scenes are supposed to move quickly. Cutting out unnecessary adverbs and adjectives can help to focus the reader on the action. Instead, concentrate on picking just the right verb or noun to convey the message. Instead of hit say slammed, pounded, crushed, etc. I'll talk about adverbs and adjectives another day.

Finally, keep the pacing up by focusing on the action. In a real fight, car wreck, accident you won't have enough time to look at the pretty flowers. That would be ridiculous. Douglas Adams uses this great effect by letting us in on the ponderous thoughts of a sperm whale as it falls to the surface of a planet. So keep most of your description for other scenes and during an action sequence try to imagine what your characters would notice.

Action scenes can be fun to write and read, but they can also be dreadful. Above all, make sure that when you read the scene YOU are interested the whole time.

Have fun writing.

Music in books: Continued

To start off, this post is a continuation from yesterday's. But the real story is that I was reading the work of one of my fellow writers in my critique group and I got to wondering how to put music to the page in a story. There are a few ways to handle music in books. I've seen plenty though I can't remember all of them. Here are a few:

• J.R.R Tolkien - The Hobbit (and I guess the Lord of the Rings is also similar): Tolkien shares long, wonderful, and lore filled lyrics. But he bookends them heavily with the reactions of his characters. Especially useful here is his line from The Hobbit "...this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music." 
• Lord of the Rings: I think it's handle in a similar manner, but I don't remember specifics.
• Terry Brooks - The Wishsong of Shannara: The wishsong is used in multiple books as a type of magic. I don't remember specifically, but I think that lyrics are eschewed here in favor of effect. Saying things like, he sang them a summer day. (That's not a quote, just an example of type.)
• Alan Dean Foster - Spellsinger series: This is a comic series and uses the same method of description of effect rather than lyric.
• Piers Anthony: I don't recall the title of the book, but one character performed magic by creating and singing rhymes. The rhymes were all one or two lines, so they hardly count as songs. It was easy to read and didn't detract from the narrative because it was part of the fun to see what rhyme he could use to solve each problem as it came up.
• Frank Herbert - Dune: In this he distinguishes poems from songs. The poems are somewhat longer as I recall. He does give us a short bawdy song. The lyrics are well made and fit the scene, but they are easily skipped.
• Garth Nix - Lirael: Nix is a wonderful and inventive storyteller who uses music as a part of his magic system again. This time there are no lyrics, only music, so he can focus on the effect.
• C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew: One of my favorite uses of music in a book is found here when Aslan sings Narnia into being. A wonderful scene in the book which again focuses on effect without lyrics. 

That's a very small sampling, but includes some very fine books. I'm especially fond of Garth Nix as a writer because of his unique voice and style.

Now here are my ideas about music:

It's all about effect. I have rarely read a poem in a novel that has moved me the way they book says it moved the character. And let's be honest, if I heard the music from this foreign culture it might sound really bad to me even though it was supposed to be a moving ballad. The strength of a book is the ability to describe characters thoughts, feelings, reactions.

If I have a bard singing a song and I say, "The youth of the village gathered around her with wide eyes. They sat drinking in her music well into the night and rebelled at their parents insistence that the dying embers of the fire pits meant that they must leave their listening seats." Well, now you know what the music did. If I told you the name of the bards song was an epic poem called "The eternal battle of Veras and Nir." you might be interested in the poem, but it probably wouldn't have the same effect on you as the children in the story. You don't have the haunting tune, the slow tap of the minstrel's hand upon the belly of her lute, or the perfect variations of her voice.

In short, you may have a wonderful poem, but it will never be music. As Tolkien said, "...if it can be like their song without their music."

So here is the fix. Figure out your goal. Do you want to wow your audience with your poetic ability? If so, then practice your poetry. Learn how to really write a poem. Learn to craft words so precise and powerful that the reader cannot help but drink them in. But be aware that any poem will break the flow of the story. Make sure that the words of your poem fit your world, and the skill level of the in story writer. The poetry should draw a reader further into the story. It is no longer a stand alone piece of art, it must be powerful in conjunction with the prose.

If your goal is not poetic greatness, then think about how much of the poem needs to be in the book. Often one or two lines will be enough, especially if those are the lines that mean something to the characters.

If your goal is to create a sense of music in the scene, think of the words that you use in your prose. Lean on your poetic skills in the way you craft your sentences. Look at what that music does to the world in your book. Music is powerful. Show us what happens when your world has it. Show us how the singer halts in tears each time the chorus returns to his children who were lost in the fire. Show us how the heroes rise up in response to the anthem of their comrades as the music echoes through the mist like a brigade of long lost friends.

Show us what the characters think of the light brigade, because we may not know what that means.

BUT! If you want to expand your world and give it depth, then write your songs. Build a story around the song that is so full that your readers want to know it. Put the lyrics right there on the page, but be aware the readers can skip it. I have never felt like I am missing something by not reading the words to a song on a page, but I have read a song on the page an felt like I was missing the meaning. Poetry takes training to read and to write. I love me some good old fashioned poems, but the only poems that I read in books are the poems that are books. I read Shakespeare. I read Homer. And I will read your poem, but only if the story was good enough for me to go back and want to find out what I missed.

Put your poetry in, but be aware that it can be skipped. If it can't be skipped, then have your character analyze it. We are reading what your character thinks, senses, and cares about. If you want to break down a poem so much that we really read it, then have your character really read it. As your character comes to understand the meaning (this is often done with prophecies) so will we.

Wow, this was long. So, I'll sum up.

• Focus on effect, and then put your lyrics in if you want. 
• If the lyrics are important then have your characters recall or think about them often. 
• Don't sacrifice the story for the poem. 
• If you have to choose between story and poem, then choose. Publish a poem if that's the most important part. Otherwise, give us a good story. 
• Don't confuse music with lyrics. 
• Lyrics and poetry have power, but they are different from music.

Good luck, good writing, I'll see you again tomorrow.

Mini Post: New Feature

I'd like to announce the creation of a new feature. Take a look at the link to the right for Literary Portraits.

Ever wonder what you'd be like in a novel? Let us immortalize you or a loved one in a personalized description fit for a main character (or a plucky side character if you prefer). Take a look and get yourself immortalized in the written word.

The concert was today? My father's gonna kill me!

The title to this post started off with a quote from a childhood film. If you don't get the reference then it probably won't do any good to explain, so I'll just jump into the meat of this post.

Music.

There is plenty of music in the world today. I think that's a good thing. I like music. I love the almost mystical power it has to move us directly to an emotional state. Really if you think about it, that's the power of music. But why? How? How is it that sounds cause an almost universal reaction? My son was playing a video game and he said, "Dad, this part of the game kinda makes me want to cry because of the music." Bing! Right on son. You have discovered the manipulative tool. And it's not just melody. Rhythms can increase or decrease our heart rate. Harmonies or dissonance can make us nervous or relaxed. And I'm sure there's more that I don't even know about. What am I saying? If you want to experience real life magic where John Williams is the musical equivalent of Howell Jenkins, then get into composing. This music is powerful stuff.

So, what does this have to do with writing?

Well, if music is such a powerful facet of the human experience then we want to tap that. We want to capture the experience that music brings to our lives in a way that shows its power. But how do we do that? One of the strengths of music is that we can experience it as a background to anything else we are experiencing. Working out? Put on some music. Watching a movie? Listen to the soundtrack. Having dinner? Throw on some tunes. Driving down the highway? You get the picture. As an experience, music ties itself to whatever we are doing in a non-invasive way. With few exceptions, we don't listen to music just for the music's sake (this is not always true, and enjoying music on its own can also be a powerful experience). Music is magic funneled into our ears and through every cell in our body that feels the vibration of sound waves.

Unfortunately, when reading a book we don't have sound. Books don't have the sheer aural power that even one single note can bring. We can read the book out loud, but the magic of books is in the words, not the music.

This causes problems for writers in a few ways. First, since we can't draw on the aural strengths of melody, rhythm, syncopation, harmony, disonance, etc., we often rely on lyrics. I mean, lyrics are words right? All I have to do is put the right words in and my reader will be drawn into the song, right? Wrooooong.

In novels, at least the novels of today, we don't write in poetry. Our entire purpose as authors is to draw our readers so far into our words that they simply absorb the experience. Poetry, though writing, has different goals. Poetry is all about imagery, rhythm, and hidden meaning. We can use all of those tools in storytelling, but when we switch from engaging prose to occlusive lyric the sudden shift in style can jar us out of the experience. In my own reading, when I am presented with lyrics or poetry (especially when not directly necessary for the plot or story) I skip it. I jump down to the next line of prose and say, "What next?" Now this is not always the case, but more often than not it is.

So how can we harness the power of music in our stories? How can we limit the jarring effect of lyrics? I've seen it done before, and in the next post I'll posit a few ideas of my own on how we can use music in our books.