Brian Yansky's Blog, page 21
April 17, 2012
grammar and fiction
One day I was out with everyone from my Extreme Birding Club. In this club we not only spot the birds, but we capture them and make them tell us a secret. The more rare the bird, the more rare the secret. As everyone knows, at least where I live, birds are stubborn about revealing secrets. They know a lot of them. I won’t say we’re above pulling out a feather or two in order to get the bird to spill. Still, we don’t kill them. We don’t eat them. You could say it’s kinder than buying a chicken at the grocery store and pretending it just appeared there out of thin air. You buy the chicken. You’re part of the chain of events that causes the chicken to be born for his solitary purpose of being consumed by humans You eat the chicken bought from the store. Me, too. I’m not criticizing—just saying. Don’t judge me.
Extreme Birding isn’t for the faint of heart.
After we get our secret we always give the birds some food and send them on their way.
Extreme Birding will make you thirsty and so the group often goes out for a beer. While having a drink someone said, “I just called my wife and told her ‘the whole group of birders drink Shiner Bock' and she corrected me and said it should be ‘the whole group of birders drinks Shiner Bock.’ Who is right?”
I decided to give the Grammar Guru a call right then and there. It turned out he was in the middle of chanting. Gurus chant a lot.
“What were you chanting?”
“Old Marx brothers quotes.”
“What’s one?”
“Outside of a dog a man’s best friend is a book. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
“Good one.”
“What is your question grasshopper?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Another Marx brother quote is ‘wishes are like buttocks. Everyone has one.”
“That’s not a Marx brothers quote.”
“Ask your question.”
I asked: Is it “the whole group of birders drink” OR “the whole group of birders drinks.”
“Ah, he said, "Group noun problem. A group is considered singular. It’s like a class or a flock or a committee. If it is considered one, it’s singular. What’s confusing here is that the writer added the “of birders’ which made the writer think the subject was birders (plural) which would mean the noun would have no “s” on it. (They drink/ It drinks). However, since the subject is group, it’s singular (it drinks) so the sentence should be ‘the whole group of birders drinks.’”
Here are more examples:
The class learns.
The class of students learns.
The flock flies overhead.
The flock of birds flies overhead.
END OF STORY.
Extreme Birding isn’t for the faint of heart.
After we get our secret we always give the birds some food and send them on their way.
Extreme Birding will make you thirsty and so the group often goes out for a beer. While having a drink someone said, “I just called my wife and told her ‘the whole group of birders drink Shiner Bock' and she corrected me and said it should be ‘the whole group of birders drinks Shiner Bock.’ Who is right?”
I decided to give the Grammar Guru a call right then and there. It turned out he was in the middle of chanting. Gurus chant a lot.
“What were you chanting?”
“Old Marx brothers quotes.”
“What’s one?”
“Outside of a dog a man’s best friend is a book. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
“Good one.”
“What is your question grasshopper?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Another Marx brother quote is ‘wishes are like buttocks. Everyone has one.”
“That’s not a Marx brothers quote.”
“Ask your question.”
I asked: Is it “the whole group of birders drink” OR “the whole group of birders drinks.”
“Ah, he said, "Group noun problem. A group is considered singular. It’s like a class or a flock or a committee. If it is considered one, it’s singular. What’s confusing here is that the writer added the “of birders’ which made the writer think the subject was birders (plural) which would mean the noun would have no “s” on it. (They drink/ It drinks). However, since the subject is group, it’s singular (it drinks) so the sentence should be ‘the whole group of birders drinks.’”
Here are more examples:
The class learns.
The class of students learns.
The flock flies overhead.
The flock of birds flies overhead.
END OF STORY.
April 8, 2012
Branding--just say no?
I know many writers worry about branding, which I understand as promoting your fiction in a certain way so readers can think of it as a brand. Should we worry? It may be helpful in the sale of fiction but I wonder if we, as writers, should allow ourselves to think of our work as a certain brand. I mean, I'd hate to feel that I have to write a certain way in a certain genre just because someone has said my brand is X. What if I want to write Brand Y or Brand Z this time around? As a reader, I like to read science fiction, fantasy, realistic fiction, magical realism, and all kinds of fiction that mixes these and other genres. I am often drawn to fiction that is genre bending, in fact. So as a writer I'm going to write different kinds of fiction. I love the feeling of starting a new novel and not knowing exactly where it will go. I love trying different things. I realize the idea of branding is just a way to attract readers and, lord knows, there's nothing wrong with that. However, as a writer, I don't want to get too cozy with the idea that my work fits neatly into a "brand". I want to be open to write what excites me. Or so I think today.
April 3, 2012
failure
Failure
What does it mean to be a failure at writing fiction? To me it means you've said you want to be a writer and you don't write. You give up on writing. That's the only way you can fail to be a writer. A writer writes. He writes well. He writes badly. He writes in-between the two.
There are setbacks, like writing and rewriting a work and still knowing deep down it doesn't work. There's writing and rewriting and sending a work off again and again and getting rejected. There is writing a book, getting an agent, selling the book to a publisher, seeing it go to bookstores, seeing it disappear from bookstores a few months later, and looking at less that stellar sales. None of these are failures. They're difficult and they're things that most writers go through, but they aren't failure.
Failure, to me, is one thing. It's giving up. Whether this happens before you finish your first novel or after your third or fourth manuscript. The only way you can truly fail as a writer is by stopping writing. Some do. The rejection gets too much for them or they realize they don't love writing enough. There are a lot of highs and lows in writing. Some people can't tolerate these. There are many reasons to give up, I suppose.
But there's one compelling reason not to. If you're doing something you love, you're very, very lucky. It's hard to find things you love. It's hard to find work you love. If you love to write, it's something you can do your entire life. We're lucky.
What does it mean to be a failure at writing fiction? To me it means you've said you want to be a writer and you don't write. You give up on writing. That's the only way you can fail to be a writer. A writer writes. He writes well. He writes badly. He writes in-between the two.
There are setbacks, like writing and rewriting a work and still knowing deep down it doesn't work. There's writing and rewriting and sending a work off again and again and getting rejected. There is writing a book, getting an agent, selling the book to a publisher, seeing it go to bookstores, seeing it disappear from bookstores a few months later, and looking at less that stellar sales. None of these are failures. They're difficult and they're things that most writers go through, but they aren't failure.
Failure, to me, is one thing. It's giving up. Whether this happens before you finish your first novel or after your third or fourth manuscript. The only way you can truly fail as a writer is by stopping writing. Some do. The rejection gets too much for them or they realize they don't love writing enough. There are a lot of highs and lows in writing. Some people can't tolerate these. There are many reasons to give up, I suppose.
But there's one compelling reason not to. If you're doing something you love, you're very, very lucky. It's hard to find things you love. It's hard to find work you love. If you love to write, it's something you can do your entire life. We're lucky.
March 22, 2012
talent--who needs it?
Talent: How Important is it?
Let's leave out the most important thing, far more important than talent, which is drive. Drive to actually write and drive to learn from mistakes and failures is far more important than talent. But I'll come back to that.
As far as talent goes in the great community of writers, if you take all the writers who are really writing and not just talking about writing, probably forms something like a bell curve. There are some who have very little talent with language. They're tone deaf. They don't have any stories to tell. They don't really SEE and you have to be able to see to be a writer. If you've ever watched the first days of American Idol, you know these people. They think they're great singers (why or how this is possible is another post) and they are truly terrible. Not just not good--terrible. There are a few would-be writers like this. On the other end, there are a few who have amazing talent. They can see. They can make language do amazing things. They have an immediate sense of story. They have amazing talent and a good education. They're in a great position to write wonderful things. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.
Beyond these extremes are most of us, the great middle. It has a range of course. Some are at the low end of middle and some at the high. It's my contention that with perseverance, hard work, and determination most people in this middle will eventually be published—if they keep at it long enough.
If you have some talent, you have to turn that into more by struggling through the process of learning to write, learning the basics first and then the intricacies of plotting and character and language. Only through this lengthy struggle can you do more and more of what you want WITHOUT thinking about it when you're doing it. That's essential when writing. You have to do without thinking about it or you will freeze some part of you and your characters will act in untrue ways. You're like the batter at bat. You can't think, ah here comes the pitch and now I will swing and… If you do that, the ball is long gone. But to get to this point you have to have learned all the things that go into hitting the ball. Same with writing.
But my main point here is just this: most of the writers you read are from the great middle. Sometimes writers with great talent never go anywhere because they don't have drive and a love for the process of making stories. A lot of writers in the middle have those things and they simply refuse to give up. They compensate for weaknesses. Maybe they can't write really beautiful or strong or clever sentences but they can tell a story and they get better at their sentences and they really work on their story-telling ability. They become writers, writing pages upon pages every week. Like everyone they make the same mistakes over and over again, but they don't allow themselves to be satisfied with merely turning out pages. They find ways to get around those mistakes.
It's hard. It's hard.
But I believe most writers who keep at it will be published and will write good work.
Let's leave out the most important thing, far more important than talent, which is drive. Drive to actually write and drive to learn from mistakes and failures is far more important than talent. But I'll come back to that.
As far as talent goes in the great community of writers, if you take all the writers who are really writing and not just talking about writing, probably forms something like a bell curve. There are some who have very little talent with language. They're tone deaf. They don't have any stories to tell. They don't really SEE and you have to be able to see to be a writer. If you've ever watched the first days of American Idol, you know these people. They think they're great singers (why or how this is possible is another post) and they are truly terrible. Not just not good--terrible. There are a few would-be writers like this. On the other end, there are a few who have amazing talent. They can see. They can make language do amazing things. They have an immediate sense of story. They have amazing talent and a good education. They're in a great position to write wonderful things. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.
Beyond these extremes are most of us, the great middle. It has a range of course. Some are at the low end of middle and some at the high. It's my contention that with perseverance, hard work, and determination most people in this middle will eventually be published—if they keep at it long enough.
If you have some talent, you have to turn that into more by struggling through the process of learning to write, learning the basics first and then the intricacies of plotting and character and language. Only through this lengthy struggle can you do more and more of what you want WITHOUT thinking about it when you're doing it. That's essential when writing. You have to do without thinking about it or you will freeze some part of you and your characters will act in untrue ways. You're like the batter at bat. You can't think, ah here comes the pitch and now I will swing and… If you do that, the ball is long gone. But to get to this point you have to have learned all the things that go into hitting the ball. Same with writing.
But my main point here is just this: most of the writers you read are from the great middle. Sometimes writers with great talent never go anywhere because they don't have drive and a love for the process of making stories. A lot of writers in the middle have those things and they simply refuse to give up. They compensate for weaknesses. Maybe they can't write really beautiful or strong or clever sentences but they can tell a story and they get better at their sentences and they really work on their story-telling ability. They become writers, writing pages upon pages every week. Like everyone they make the same mistakes over and over again, but they don't allow themselves to be satisfied with merely turning out pages. They find ways to get around those mistakes.
It's hard. It's hard.
But I believe most writers who keep at it will be published and will write good work.
March 6, 2012
doors and windows
It's important to figure out your strengths as a writer.
It's important to figure out what you do well in writing and what you don't do well. You're not going to do everything well. No one does. If you can discover some of your strengths and weaknesses, you can emphasize the former and minimize the later.
So how do you do that? By writing. By paying attention to what the people who read your writing say. Not everything, of course, and not from everyone. Some people just won't "get" your writing. Some people will focus in on certain aspects of your writing and not be able to help you with others. But if you keep hearing, again and again, from critique group members or other readers that they need more description of physical details in a scene you might start looking and focusing on that weakness of your writing in revision. You might look for places to add details and adding those details might actually help you in other ways, help you focus a scene etc… Sometimes working out one problem will have a larger effect on a manuscript that just the one problem because you'll see the work itself in a new way.
I know one of my problems is not enough physical details in scenes. In revision I always look for places--I think of them as doors and windows--where I can add something that will bring a scene into focus.
Or so I think today
It's important to figure out what you do well in writing and what you don't do well. You're not going to do everything well. No one does. If you can discover some of your strengths and weaknesses, you can emphasize the former and minimize the later.
So how do you do that? By writing. By paying attention to what the people who read your writing say. Not everything, of course, and not from everyone. Some people just won't "get" your writing. Some people will focus in on certain aspects of your writing and not be able to help you with others. But if you keep hearing, again and again, from critique group members or other readers that they need more description of physical details in a scene you might start looking and focusing on that weakness of your writing in revision. You might look for places to add details and adding those details might actually help you in other ways, help you focus a scene etc… Sometimes working out one problem will have a larger effect on a manuscript that just the one problem because you'll see the work itself in a new way.
I know one of my problems is not enough physical details in scenes. In revision I always look for places--I think of them as doors and windows--where I can add something that will bring a scene into focus.
Or so I think today
February 24, 2012
understanding character
Why are some actors not very good? Talent, of course, is part of any discussion about any art. But just setting aside talent for a second, when an actor isn't truly in a scene I think it's often because they don't understand the character. Or they understand the character only in a surface way and so their lines and expressions and body language all seem untrue. I think this is what happens to writers. They force themselves along and a scene just gets less and less true. The reader feels it when reading the manuscript. The writer isn' t there in the scene and the scene feels false.
How do you get there inside the character? I think writers find different ways. Some outline. Some journal. Some write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and so on. Thankfully, we have many chances. But one thing to consider is you have to try to see the scene unfold in a moment-to-moment way through the eyes of your narrator. When you're actually writing the scene, you have to try to be there by living the scene. If you're there in the scene, you'll make the right decisions and the scene will be true. Of course, you should test and retest this in revision but being there in the scene will allow the fiction to move forward in an organic way so that the plot grows out of the situation and characters.
It's a constant struggle and it isn't easy but one thing I do always try to do is see the scene unfold through the character.
How do you get there inside the character? I think writers find different ways. Some outline. Some journal. Some write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and so on. Thankfully, we have many chances. But one thing to consider is you have to try to see the scene unfold in a moment-to-moment way through the eyes of your narrator. When you're actually writing the scene, you have to try to be there by living the scene. If you're there in the scene, you'll make the right decisions and the scene will be true. Of course, you should test and retest this in revision but being there in the scene will allow the fiction to move forward in an organic way so that the plot grows out of the situation and characters.
It's a constant struggle and it isn't easy but one thing I do always try to do is see the scene unfold through the character.
February 21, 2012
student alien invasion video
Love this student video for ALIEN INVASION & OTHER INCONVENIENCES. It's for an English class.
February 17, 2012
Writing Badly
It's good to write bad sometimes. It doesn't seem good while you're doing it. Annoying. Frightening. Irritating. Discouraging. It seems more along the lines of these words. It FEELS more like that. You want to be better. You want to write beautiful prose with depth and meaning and you want your characters to feel right and all that.
Sometimes you can't.
In fact, in early drafts, you can't a lot. You have to write badly in order to get to the good stuff. For me, I'm finding my way in early drafts and I have to accept the imprecision of language and plot and character. If I don't accept these things, then I have to stop writing.
I don't want to do that.
I write nearly every day because I love it and because I believe that's how you keep the momentum of a manuscript. So I take the good with the bad and hope that in revision I can turn most of that bad into good.
Sometimes you can't.
In fact, in early drafts, you can't a lot. You have to write badly in order to get to the good stuff. For me, I'm finding my way in early drafts and I have to accept the imprecision of language and plot and character. If I don't accept these things, then I have to stop writing.
I don't want to do that.
I write nearly every day because I love it and because I believe that's how you keep the momentum of a manuscript. So I take the good with the bad and hope that in revision I can turn most of that bad into good.
February 9, 2012
Writing Isn't Baking a Pie
Writing isn't baking a pie. I see recipes for writing all the time and I think how part of me wishes they worked so I could find the recipe and every time I'd make a very nice pie and that would be that. No more worrying and driving myself crazy about whether this or that works or doesn't work or how to make a character really real instead of just a shadow of real. OR the big question—what am I missing in this manuscript? Parts of it sound right but parts of it don't. I want to ignore this sense of missing but I just can't quite fool myself into thinking it works and sometimes it haunts me.
If I had a recipe I could just put it all together, bake, and serve and people would eat (well, not literally) my book and they would say, "Pretty good." Maybe there are writers who do this. A few—not many.
So, yes, I wish for this sometimes. BUT where's the fun in that? Oh, maybe once or twice it would be fun, but without the struggle, the failures and the hard-earned victories, writing wouldn't be the adventure that it is. I look at writers like Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, writers in their 80s, who say they still love writing, it still gets them out of bed in the morning. That's a wonderful thing. The act of writing enriches a life.
Recipes don't work but maybe it's a good thing they don't
If I had a recipe I could just put it all together, bake, and serve and people would eat (well, not literally) my book and they would say, "Pretty good." Maybe there are writers who do this. A few—not many.
So, yes, I wish for this sometimes. BUT where's the fun in that? Oh, maybe once or twice it would be fun, but without the struggle, the failures and the hard-earned victories, writing wouldn't be the adventure that it is. I look at writers like Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, writers in their 80s, who say they still love writing, it still gets them out of bed in the morning. That's a wonderful thing. The act of writing enriches a life.
Recipes don't work but maybe it's a good thing they don't
January 31, 2012
invention
Here's something that I don't think is often talked about in writing books or writing magazines. I can't recall it being mentioned in the writing classes I've taken, including the MFA workshops I was in when I was getting my Masters in Writing. I think there's a certain atmosphere in most MFA programs that brands any talk about story as belonging to popular fiction and so from the wrong side of the tracks.
I don't believe that. All kinds of fiction need story. The great writers of the past, with notable exceptions of course because great means doing uniquely powerful work and that breaks all rules, have also been good storytellers.
Anyway, be that as it may, I think the topic of INVENTION isn't talked about much. Invention though can make a huge difference in the quality of work.
Now maybe at the sentence and language level invention is talked about. Inventive style and use of language is applauded. What I'm talking about though is coming up with inventive twists and turns of a story or inventive ideas that propel scenes or give characters a compelling otherness that's hard to resist as a reader.
Maybe one difficulty of talking about it is that inventiveness seems to belong more on the side of talent than craft. To my mind though, like the use of language, while certainly partly innate to the writer, aspects of it can be encouraged.
SO:
Don't be satisfied with obvious actions. Looks for places where characters might act in less obvious ways.
Allow yourself the freedom to wander wildly in a first draft when it comes to plot direction. You will, of course, go in many wrong directions and need to REVISE and REWRITE. Invention, by its nature, carries with it many failures. Ask any inventor. You will pay for your attempts, but those attempts may be the very thing that makes your story unique.
I don't believe that. All kinds of fiction need story. The great writers of the past, with notable exceptions of course because great means doing uniquely powerful work and that breaks all rules, have also been good storytellers.
Anyway, be that as it may, I think the topic of INVENTION isn't talked about much. Invention though can make a huge difference in the quality of work.
Now maybe at the sentence and language level invention is talked about. Inventive style and use of language is applauded. What I'm talking about though is coming up with inventive twists and turns of a story or inventive ideas that propel scenes or give characters a compelling otherness that's hard to resist as a reader.
Maybe one difficulty of talking about it is that inventiveness seems to belong more on the side of talent than craft. To my mind though, like the use of language, while certainly partly innate to the writer, aspects of it can be encouraged.
SO:
Don't be satisfied with obvious actions. Looks for places where characters might act in less obvious ways.
Allow yourself the freedom to wander wildly in a first draft when it comes to plot direction. You will, of course, go in many wrong directions and need to REVISE and REWRITE. Invention, by its nature, carries with it many failures. Ask any inventor. You will pay for your attempts, but those attempts may be the very thing that makes your story unique.
