Rob Bignell's Blog, page 247

Five Great Quotations about What is a Writer

���As certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.��� - Nelson Algren

���Men and women who are lonely create. Those who are gregarious rarely do... Any poet would rather bed with a girl than write a poem about her. All art is the result of frustration.��� - Burton Rascoe

���We are writers ��� slightly neurotic and probably addicted to coffee, late nights, sunsets, laughter, tears, and heartache. Creativity is our drug.��� - Steven James

���The job of the artist is to always deepen the mystery.��� - Francis Bacon

���The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.��� - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about Opening Lines

���Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning.��� - Elizabeth Bowen

���The best advice on writing I���ve ever received is, ���Knock ���em dead with that lead sentence.������ - Whitney Balliett

���An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.��� - Stephen King

���The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.��� - Blaise Pascal

���Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.��� - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Use writing prompts that center on conflict

Among the greatest challenges facing writers is coming up and developing a fantastic story idea. The problem isn���t that writers have a shortage of ideas, just that many of them are not fantastic, as currently formulated in their head. They sense that and so sometimes face a mini-episode of writer���s block.

Being proactive, they turn to writing prompts ��� a single word, a phrase, a situation, or a picture ��� to spur their imagination, to inspire them. Often, writers find that while these prompts result in a lot of creative output, they still don���t result in a story that is publishable.

Why that is seems confusing. Our teachers from elementary through high school, maybe even in college, gave out writing prompts that almost always led to a flurry of words and a feeling of success. Sometimes our teachers��� positive response to what was written spurred us to write with even more vigor.

Recently while looking back at my own school-generated juvenalia for story ideas, I found it was unusable, not because it was bad (okay, it was bad though rescuable) but because it was based on pointless writing prompts ��� While digging in your backyard, you find a large box. What���s in the box? or You���re the first person to step foot on Mars. What do you see or experience?

Such prompts almost never lead to an actual story, as the prompt does not focus on what a story is about: resolving a conflict.

Conflict is the heart of every story
When telling a story, you���ve got to have conflict in it. If there���s no conflict, you have a wooden story that starts nowhere, leads nowhere, and ends nowhere. As E.M. Forster noted, ������The king died, then the queen died��� is a plot. ���The king died, then the queen died of grief��� is a story.���

Forster���s quotation is apt because a good plot is about at least one character under adversity. Conflict typically arises from the characters��� perceptions, needs and wants. As each character has an urgent personal agenda, your plot really is a synthesis of its individual characters��� efforts to achieve their agendas. Hence, Odysseus must get home but the gods don���t want him to. Hamlet must be absolutely certain his uncle killed the king but self-doubt gets in his way. Luke Skywalker must save a princess but stormtroopers are after him. Those are stories.

The aforementioned writing prompts easily could have led to stories if only they were restructured so that they focused on conflict. For example, While digging in your backyard, you find a small box containing your mother���s diary, which reveals the dad who raised you really isn���t your father. How do you go about determining the truth? How does this alter your perception of your parents? How do you find peace with your parents and yourself at this news? Or Your ship crashes on Mars so that you have no way to return home. How do you survive until a rescue can be mounted?

A variety of writing prompts based on conflict are available at this blog. Peruse through them, pick one that you find interesting, and start writing. Good luck!

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Editing client publishes novel set in 1980s

One of my editing clients has published his most recent novel. David Carraturo���s ���Cameron���s Quest��� tells the story of Tuckahoe Golden Boy Chris Cameron, who leaves his small pond for the big ocean of the University of Texas to play football. He���s on track to make his Italian-American mother and Irish father proud.

His two blood brothers chose different paths, however. Soon after high school, Sal Esposito and Tony Albanese are swept into the life of organized crime. Imposing figures, the pair engages in strong-armed activities for their capo. Away from that life, Cameron periodically returns to his neighborhood roots to assist his blood brothers in retribution, risking his promising future to avenge violent threats to his lifelong bond.

Filled with suspense and character twists, ���Cameron���s Quest��� is set in the 1980s and relives a time when an Italian-American family���s Sunday dinner table was the only setting needed for therapy sessions. The novel reminisces about the Mets��� championship season, Reaganomics, John Gotti���s underworld reign, and the pop culture of the time. The book can be purchased online.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about Craft of Writing

���The road to hell is paved with adverbs.��� - Stephen King

���Say what it is you have to say in as few words as possible.��� - Ernst Jones

���Listen to what you have written. A dud rhythm in a passage of dialogue may show that you don't yet understand the characters well enough to write in their voices.��� - Helen Dunmore

���Writers should begin their stories with the event that kicks off the story, and then spoon-feed us background information only when it's needed to understand what's going on.��� - Evan Marshall

���I prefer to underwrite, Simple, clear as a country creek.��� - Truman Capote

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Memory

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise from some past event that can���t be shaken from one���s mind. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on memory.

Man vs. man
What if the main character���s memory of a lost spouse or lover drives a wedge between himself and a new woman in his life, a woman who loves him very much? How does their relationship unravel because of this? Can it be sewed back up?

Man vs. society
To avenge a great wrong, the protagonist must make a deal with the devil and commit some attrocious act himself (perhaps for information or materials so the revenge can be carried out). Can the protagonist fake the attrocious act or will he decide the price for silencing the memories torturing him is too great?

Man vs. God(s)
What is a man is asked to explain why he has no remorse for a terrible crime he committed? Would the evolution of how he lost his sense of guilt and regret involve losing his faith? As he recalls what occurred, weave between these two developments in his view of life.

Man vs. himself
Our main character wakes up and realizes he doesn���t know who he is or where he���s from. He does sense that someone is after him, though. How does he figure out who he is? Who is after him and for what person? How did he lose his memory? And how doe she triumph over the person who���s after him?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about Romance Novels

���Every great love starts with a great story...��� - Nicholas Sparks

���For readers worldwide, the attraction of romance novels seems to be that they provide hope, strength, and the assurance that happy endings are possible. Romance makes the promise that no matter how bleak things sometimes look, in the end everything will turn out right and true love will triumph ��� and in an uncertain world, that's very comforting.��� - Leigh Michaels

���When male authors write love stories, the heroine tends to end up dead.��� - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

���Writing romantic fiction is the second chance that loved ones denied us.��� - Shannon L. Alder

���Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.��� - Janet Evanovich

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Deceit

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise when lies are told and identities disguised. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on deceit.

Man vs. nature
While in the wilderness, a man finds himself engaged in a chess-like match with a long-time rival who wants him dead. Why are they rivals? Forced to utilize the materials in their surroundings, which one can employ the right amount if misdirection to overcome the other?

Man vs. man
What if our main character realizes he���s a pawn in someone���s game, being manipulated to serve another person���s ends? What is the manipulator���s goal and why would he choose our protagonist for this role? How does the main character turn the tables on the manipulator?

Man vs. society
An organization frames our main character. How does he escape the capture of authorities as finding proof of his innocence? Why did this organization set up our main character (Was he just an expendable fall guy or something more?)?

Man vs. himself
Given the opportunity of a lifetime, a man is asked to ghostwrite for a famous author. But when the man sees his words only bring more fame and respect to the author, he begins to wonder if he can carry on this deceit. Do the riches the author lavishes upon our main character outweigh the demands of pride that he be recognized for his talents?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations about Students of Writing

���I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.��� - English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University

���Everywhere I go I���m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don���t stifle enough of them. There���s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.��� - Flannery O���Connor

���I don���t know much about creative writing programs. But they���re not telling the truth if they don���t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.��� - Doris Lessing

���I don���t think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don���t know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it - you can���t teach it.��� - William Faulkner

���Giving these students, teenagers, any form of power over the use of their own words, allowing them to turn everyday raw material into some form of beauty, is a gift beyond measure.��� - Gloria Ng

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Returning

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise from needing to go back to someone, to someplace, to some belief. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on returning. 

Man vs. nature
The protagonist���s ship crashes on a planet so that he has no way to return home. How does he survive until a rescue can be mounted?

Man vs. man
Our main character���s spouse is away for an extended period on an important assignment. During that time, the main character ��� though helping to support his spouse ��� falls in love with another person who is doing the same for her spouse. What happens when the spouses return? Can the main character and his new beloved leave one another?

Man vs. society
The main character returns home after several years of being away but is not particularly welcomed by his family. Why did he leave in the first place? What compelled him to return home? How does he find acceptance from his estranged family?

Man vs. himself
A man loses his hearing or goes blind. Doctors say it may be temporary. ���May��� is the operative word. How does the man cope with the possibility that his loss might be permanent? What is the balance between hope and being realistic?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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