C. Aubrey Hall's Blog, page 36

Training

Writers, no matter how adept, need to keep their skills sharp. It’s foolish to become complacent or think there’s nothing else to learn about this profession.

(If doctors have to keep going back to refresher courses and seminars on new methods, why should writers be exempt from continuing education?)

As I see it, we wordsmiths face three general areas where we should keep fit:

Imagination

Writing Craft

Style

Let’s tackle them one at a time.

Imagination: I’ve written many posts about the care and feeding of one’s muse. I’ve also delved into suggestions about how to discipline imagination and keep it hard at work.

But imagination also needs to be let off the chain. From time to time, give it freedom and let it play.

You can dabble in other forms of art if that’s enjoyable for you. One of my writing friends paints. Another creates mixed-media collages. I’ve pieced quilts in the past, which is both artistically satisfying and a restful, soothing activity.

But I also like to write for sheer fun, playing with words, knowing as I spill them onto the page that the passage will never be part of anything published. I call this play-writing.

Write a scene that’s not connected to anything. Write description that breaks all the rules of correct syntax and grammar. Write the isolated event blaring vividly in your mind even if you don’t know anything else about it. Don’t connect the dots. Leave logic behind.

Seize a famous character from a classic in literature and write new dialogue for him or her.

Some writers indulge in free-writing in their journals, spilling thoughts and snippets of ideas or bits of dialogue onto blank pages without making anything of them.

Whatever works for you!

Writing Craft:  This is where you stay vigilant about your skills. You keep your scene conflict focused. You work on honing your dialogue to a clean edge that advances story. You look at passages of description and rewrite them so that instead of rambling they are centered around a dominant impression, presenting the imagery you want.

Constantly seek to improve your techniques. Who are the authors you most admire? John Sandford is a master of scene fragments. John D. MacDonald surpasses everyone at characteristic entry action. A Dick Francis passage of description is brilliant for its brevity. Choose your authorial heroes and study what they do. Think about ways to incorporate what you learn from them into your own work.

Style:  Any of you who have taken my classes may be blinking in surprise right now. Style? Since when does Deborah Chester care about–or even think about–style?

I think about it all the time. I don’t bother with it in the courses I teach because my primary objective there is focused on technique. But never suppose that I dismiss style. It’s extremely important.

It just doesn’t matter more than the story! What I can’t stand are writers who put style before everything else. That’s like trying to eat a meal of buttercream frosting instead of protein, vegetables, and a slice of cake to finish.

George Orwell said that good style should be like a pane of glass. Which means it should be crisp, clean, grammatically pure, and plain.

Never let it come between the reader and the story. We shouldn’t strive to write so beautifully that readers stop to exclaim over our lyrical passages. And we shouldn’t be so clumsy with punctuation and syntax that we come off as semi-literate.

Good style means being easily understood. It means never confusing readers or over-relying on adjectives and adverbs. I consider style a tricky, highly advanced aspect of the writing craft. It can get away from us if we don’t stay maintain our guard against convoluted, pompous wind-baggery.

 

What’s the Use?

Back in the 1980s, motivational posters were very popular. One that seemed to turn up frequently was a picture of a kitten hanging from a tree branch. The motivational caption read in bold letters: HANG IN THERE!

In my last post, I wrote about the gathering force of a new project. An energy begins to build inside you. It’s similar to excitement, but there’s more to it than that. You all know the feeling. It’s a creative pressure seeking release. We learn, as writers and artists, to control that force and make it work for us.

It’s akin in some ways–as I fumble for more metaphors–to taming a wild and beautiful horse. So much grace and physical power all locked up in an explosive package.

That, my friends, is your next book, waiting to happen. It comes to you shyly, then darts away. You’re patient with it, calm with it. You let it flee, knowing that if it has any merit it will return. And it does. You work with it, and feel it respond.

At last, you have your plot outlined. You have, in effect, slipped a halter ever so gently over the creature’s head.

You’re ready for the next step … ready to write … and

INTERRUPTION!

CHAOS!

CRISIS!

Can there be anything more frustrating than how life, people, and the weird timing of events beyond our control all converge on us just when we’re trying to get a new project launched? (In fact, just as I typed the word Interruption, lo and behold, it happened to me, and this blog post was suspended for 10 hours before I could resume work on it.)

How can you concentrate, much less remember what you were trying to convey? How do you recapture the mood, flavor, and ambiance of that scene you were about to write?

Should you go barking mad? Should you pitch a hissy fit? Should you stew in silent martyrdom? All those emotional states are, in themselves, a distraction pulling you away from full concentration on your manuscript.

Steven Pressfield calls this effect Resistence. You may have an entirely different term for it. The point is that you mustn’t let it smother your project.

Whatever you have to do, fight to knock chaos, distraction, interruption, etc. away from you. Writers must learn to be ruthless. We were put on this planet to write, but life isn’t interested in our destiny. It will get in our way more than we can believe possible.

Frustrate a writer at this delicate, critical moment of beginning–even worse, frustrate a writer too much, too frequently–and it can be tempting to abandon the story altogether, muttering, “What’s the use?”

Beware of such a feeling. It’s defeat. It’s dreadful and demoralizing. Fend it off as much as you can. Don’t let it win.

Because there is a use for what you’re trying to do. Your story does matter and it’s important for you to express it to the best of your ability.

Like the kitten clinging to the branch, hang in there.

The Growling Begins

I want to write a new book.

Sounds kind of pompous when expressed like that, doesn’t it? What I mean is that I have the desire to write again after finishing a novel in January.

Some writers start new projects the very next day. Others wait a year. Many fall somewhere between those two extremes. It usually depends on whether you have another book contract/deadline to deal with and/or how fast you can refill the well.

Whether your turnaround is quick, moderate, or slow, the first stage of preparing for a new project is Desire.

You should want to immerse yourself in the new story world. Do you feel curiosity about these glimmers of characters in your mind? Are you eager to turn over the stones of what-ifs and see what lies beneath?

The next stage is Active Development. This is where you start purposefully shifting these flickers and bits of idea over to plot and character notes. Who’s the protagonist? Who’s the antagonist? What’s the story goal? How can I set up conflict? What’s the outcome?

Active Development is a process where I’m pretty secretive. I’m not talking about my premise. I’m not telling anyone that I’m working up something new. I shy away from such questions. I’m vague and evasive.

I could say that’s due to paranoia. After all, some other writer might hear me talking about it and rush to a keyboard and write the story before I can. Silly? Maybe. The important reason for not talking has to do with building steam. If I don’t discuss the characters or the plot, then I’m forcing myself to think about it. If I don’t give the story any other outlet–including blogging–then I have to start blocking out scenes and plot twists.

The next stage is Testing.  I have to get tough with myself and pull on my professional experience to really test my story premise. Where are the plot holes? Is this character complex and interesting or just one-dimensional and stupid? Testing also includes writing out a complete plot synopsis or outline.

Polishing that takes a while. Then I run it past my agent to see if he can pick holes in it. Changes are made. I think through it again.

Finally, I reach the stage of Writing. The story is launched. The project is underway. I’m never sure of myself when writing the book’s beginning. I don’t feel secure until I’m about three chapters in. I am, admittedly, cranky. I growl a lot. I snap at people.

To paraphrase Mario Puzo’s Don Corleone, It’s not personal, folks. It’s business.

Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way not to jump from the Desire stage to the Writing stage without taking the steps in between. I just end up throwing out the pages. Better to do it right from the beginning.

Cultivating Inspiration

Today, serendipity brought me to a book about Eudora Welty’s garden. It’s called One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place by Susan Haltom. Welty, who lived in her parents’ home for much of her life, apparently shared a love of gardening with her mother and drew a great deal of inspiration for her writing from the garden her mother created.

ONE WRITER'S GARDEN: EUDORA WELTY'S HOME PLACE by Susan Haltom

I’ve tagged the book for purchase on payday. Meanwhile, it set me thinking about how we writers find ways to feed our imaginations. If we don’t realize the importance of nurturing our creativity, then writing becomes harder and harder with each successive project.

Many years ago, when I was first starting my writing career, I was told by a British literary agent to buy the view that would inspire me to write. Heady stuff for a wide-eyed 22-year-old. At the time, I thought I needed to be a millionaire able to purchase my own island or a country estate in Virginia.

Now, I realize that an inspirational corner is all a writer may need. Be it a bed of flowers inherited from a grandmother, or a writing office furnished with beautiful antiques, or a comfy bedroom chair in a quiet area of the house with a window to read by and a little table at your elbow to hold a cup of tea–these small places of repose and grace can renew our wellspring just as effectively as hearing the surf pound a moonlit beach or gazing at a remote desert horizon.

Do you have a little corner for yourself? One that you don’t share? I think most of us had one as children–some retreat or special hiding place that we believed was ours alone. The treehouse in the backyard or the barn loft over horses munching hay or the soft quiet of the woods in autumn with hickory nuts falling.

Your inner child still needs a safe corner, a secret spot to hide in … or dream in. A place to regroup. If you’ve let others invade your place, make a new one for yourself. If you don’t have one at all, find it.

Don’t you think you–and your writing muse–deserve it?

Brainstorming

In class this morning, my writing students were lethargic and half-awake. They were willing enough, but after all … an early Monday morning is tough on creative types.

Until I started a brainstorming exercise. It was a very simple one:  what building on campus would make the best setting for a fantasy story?

A couple of quick suggestions were thrown out, and then the group began to think. And as we considered different buildings and which aspects about them–creepy vibe, Gothic architecture, the smell of an old, dim reading room–made them viable settings for the fantastic, I saw imaginations wake up. Synergy began to spark. Mental wheels started turning. It was an easy step from there to plotting scenarios. Suddenly people were calling out, “Nobody use that! It’s mine!”

Now I’m sure that anyone reading this post is well aware of the benefits of brainstorming with others. Years ago, when I lived in Tulsa, a group of my published friends would meet monthly for an afternoon of plotting. Most of them were romance writers, with multi-book contracts and numerous deadlines. They needed ideas, and this was an efficient way of sparking creativity while getting fast feedback. (We also enjoyed a good lunch!)

But my point today is that a writer should also brainstorm just for fun. Just for creative play. Without assignment or deadline, with no impatient editor waiting at the end of the session for a productive result.

There’s only free inventiveness, without the burden of any expectation. Your imagination will blossom in that kind of environment. Later, you’ll find yourself inspired and invigorated, with new energy for the real project you’re writing.

In other words, remember to play. Your inner artist is a child, after all. Let it have some fun.

Can Softies Survive Zombie Apocalypse?

Last night, I was quick-watching a few episodes of the AMC zombie show, Walking Dead, in an effort to choose something for my Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy class at the University of Oklahoma. I try to cover a broad spectrum of subgenres in the course, letting students examine various types of stories and then discussing aspects of plotting or story shaping, etc. And although I’m no fan of horror and don’t care for zombies as a matter of personal taste, I intended to spend a class period dealing with this slice of the market.

In my scan, I watched an episode which seemed so-so. One zombie beheading, a brutal fight, some wife abuse, a raving man handcuffed to a pipe like bait while zombies tried to swarm him–not too bad. But the plot had some holes and lacked good character motivation, so I decided to check another episode. I chose the series opener.

The initial hook has a sheriff’s deputy encounter a small girl in her jammies, carrying her teddy bear. The deputy wants to help her, but when the child turns around, it’s revealed that she’s a zombie. He shoots her between the eyes. In slow motion, with blood splatter.

I nearly threw the remote at my set. Then I nearly threw the DVD away. Then I thought the experience over.

Granted, the genre is horror. By definition, horror should shock and horrify its audience. But to what extent? What separates good story from gratuitous violence?

As a writer, I understand exactly where the author of this teleplay was going. We really need to grab viewers by the throat with this show. We’ll set up a sharp contrast between a sweet little blonde girl in her bunny slippers and a shuffling monster. We’ll show her blown away by a man in a uniform, a man that wants to help a little girl and instead has to destroy a monster. Oh, and we’ll make sure we take screen time to demonstrate that she’s a killer and he’s giving her a head tap in self-defense. Gotta keep him sympathetic while we make the audience scream.

I understand TV. I understand story. I understand plot hooks and stingers. I understand visual imagery.

But I think writers need to think about what they’re doing and why. When you’re writing shock to make your readers (or viewers) gasp and scream, how far will you go? And should you go there?

When should cheap entertainment surrender to decency and responsibility?

Some might argue that there’s no longer a line, that writers bear no part in what viewers or readers do after encountering the actions in a story. Others can cry censorship.

I’m not calling for that. I don’t think writers should be strangled, stifled, or banned. However, I do think writers should govern themselves.

Too idealistic? Perhaps I am. Just don’t offer me the defense of, gory shock sells.

Of course it does. It always has. (Just ask the gladiators of ancient Rome.)

But there are alternate ways in which to supply shock. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, Psycho, was plenty horrifying but it didn’t supply a visual of every knife wound–complete with stabbing entry crunch and sucking blade exit.

Before the 1980s, there were certain taboos–lines, if you will, that most writers didn’t cross. One of those was that a writer didn’t harm a child character directly in a scene through  violence. Stephen King was among the authors who broke that taboo. I’ve read that he was uneasy about killing the little boy in Pet Sematary and that he was uncertain whether he could get the novel published or that people would even read it. But he did and they did, and the broken taboo was stepped on and kicked and mangled by enough writers subsequently that it hasn’t been put together again.

Today, I can’t think of any writing taboos still standing. Writers are lobbing any topic, any character action, any degree of violence that they please at their readers, and readers seem to eat it up. Some, like Dennis LeHane and Andrew Vachss, do so for a cause. They say they’re trying to make people understand the depravity of child predators. Reputedly they hope that if the public learns about this type of horrific crime, public outcry will demand something be done about it.

But does public outcry happen?

Look at how desensitized we’ve become. Entertainment, in an effort to keep topping itself, runs farther and farther down a road that’s very hard to return from.

I have a friend who stopped watching NCIS at the close of its first season because Kate was shot in the head. In slow motion. With blood splatter. My friend has worked hard to KEEP her sensitivity. Good for her. I can’t imagine what she’d have to say about a deputy plugging a little girl between the eyes in our living rooms, just so we can laugh and cheer.

This morning, when I mentioned my disgust about the child scene to another friend, his reaction was an enthusiastic, “Isn’t that great? She’s a zombie!”

Instead, I’m thinking about teenage boys being shot on the streets of Florida and fathers striking their small boys with axes before setting fire to them. The news hands us one brutal crime against children after another in a reality seemingly gone mad.

As a novelist, I’m no wuss when it comes to violently wiping out my characters, but I don’t intend to contribute to desensitizing a mass audience just to gain cheap thrills.

I was called a softie this morning. Jokes were made about how I wouldn’t survive a “real” zombie attack.

That’s not the point, is it?

What do you think?

Open-Heart Surgery

My day job as a college professor means I deal frequently with 20-year-olds who want to write but haven't anything to say. Some of my teaching colleagues shrug off the problem with a comment along the lines of, "They should wait until they're 40 to write."

Nonsense!

I was 21 when I sold my first novel, and I built my career from there. Everyone has something to say. Everyone. I don't care if you're six years old or ninety.

Does a lot of life experience make you more profound? Not necessarily. Does it make you more insightful? Possibly. Does it give you a better perspective? Perhaps.

Sweeping young writers aside dismissively isn't the answer to helping them write better stories. Saying they lack knowledge or experience isn't the answer either. Any good writer can research a subject sufficiently to write about it. The key here lies in training the inexperienced writer to open his or her heart.

Anyone, regardless of age and maturity level, who wants to write for publication must reach for what's inside before any reader will be touched.

My young students, so anxious to appear cool, so determined to perfect the pose of indifference or even apathy–lest someone realize how unsure of themselves they really are–trap themselves in cages of their own design. They're afraid to be laughed at. They're afraid that if they care, they might end up caring about the wrong thing (whatever that might be). They're so terribly afraid to make mistakes. Am I defining immaturity here? I think so. But immaturity shouldn't be allowed to cripple a writer.

Habitual, deliberate detachment does not make a good writer.

Your critical, editorial brain hemisphere and your creative, emotional brain hemisphere cannot work simultaneously. When you're writing, shut the critic off.

You must–absolutely must–wade into the soul of your protagonist. You must put on the emotions of this character and suffer whatever grief, despair, fear, and anguish this individual is enduring. (You will encounter the relief, joy, and delight as well, although they happen far less often within the pages.)

Sharing the pain of someone else is a messy business. It's a little repugnant, isn't it? A corner of our mind is thinking, Ew! I don't want to go there.

You have to, so get over it.

Find the willingness to open up and express what you really have to say. Maybe no one out there is interested, but you don't know until you try. Stop hiding yourself through the production of boring, rambling junk.

Granted, inexperienced writers of any age can't always draw on what they have when they first start practicing their craft. They must learn to reach deep and be honest. But until they're able to do that, they're going to write dull little passages about flat, cliched characters they don't truly understand.

Low Stakes; High Expectations

Welcome aboard the ship, Low Conflict. She's only a tramp steamer, one of those freight-carrying, barnacle-encrusted tubs with a hold full of suspect cargo and the stink of bilge water, but she's on the move, carrying your plot on her splintery decks to whatever destination you've picked out.

Have you looked at this vessel? Or are you too busy dreaming big? Instead of paying attention to the safety of your story, are you thinking about what's going to happen when Low Conflict makes port? Do you have your eye on reaping tons of e-book sales, critical acclaim, and favorable reader reviews?

Beware. Low Conflict is about to run aground on a jagged chunk of iceberg floating beneath the water's surface. A chunk of iceberg called insufficient stakes. Low Conflict's going to sink long before she reaches harbor.

Okay, we'll drop the metaphor.

We can kid ourselves all day long. Our hopes and ambitions can blind us when what we need is a sharp reality check. It's hard sometimes to force ourselves to take a close look at what we've written. We'd rather surrender to fatigue or doubt or denial and keep writing weak scenes with bystander protagonists or flabby story action where things work out–improbably–for the beleaguered hero.

Stop it! Don't waste time dreaming about how successful you're going to be.

Instead, focus on your writing craft.

Your scenes have to be crisp and tense. They need to be centered around well-designed conflict. The stakes need to be high. Then go higher. Time should be running out for your characters. Make your story people sweat and struggle. Let them fail just when they need so desperately to succeed. Because once they're truly cornered, they'll pour on the effort and take their last stand–with teeth gritted, hearts on fire, and determination rock solid inside them.

That's when you write stories worth reading.

A Very Happy Easter to You

Several years ago, my mother was given these iris by an elderly neighbor. Mom planted some of them in her yard and passed the rest along to me.

A bouquet of iris blooming in my backyard.

Blooming only once a year, and for such a short time, these stately flowers are a lesson to us of how fleeting life's wonderful moments can be … and how precious those times are.

Today, they're a reminder of my late mother–of her love and willingness to share.

May God bless you on this Easter Sunday, and in the days to come. May you find many moments of fulfillment and joy as you pursue your dreams.

Plot Twists

So you're reading a story and you think you know where the thing is headed next. You know what the characters are about to do. You've figured out who killed Cock Robin.

And then–WHOA! What the blazes just happened?

The characters didn't follow the plan. The plot swerved left when you thought it was heading right. And your prime suspect now has an air-tight alibi.

How did the writer do that to you?

Even more importantly, how do you do that to YOUR readers?

Effective plot twists should be unanticipated by the reader, but logical to the story and its premise. In other words, once you've jolted your reader with this surprise, the reader can think it over and realize that it makes sense.

I should have seen it coming. But I didn't. Wow, what a great story this is.

Plot twists are going to come from three primary sources: the protagonist, the antagonist, life.

Let's consider them one at a time.

Plot twists from the protagonist: Okay, in plotting our story we're dealing with two kinds of dramatic units known as scenes and sequels. Scenes deal with story action, conflict, and setback. Sequels deal with reaction, analyzing a problem, and planning the next course of action.

Your protagonist weighs options and chooses what he or she will do next. In the following scene, your protagonist may follow that plan exactly. That's fine. But if you do this every time, soon your story will become predictable. And predictable leads to boring.

But what if your protagonist makes a plan, and then in scene action deviates from it? This impulsive action may be rash; it may also make the difference in the scene's outcome. It will perk up the story because the character is doing something other than what was expected.

Another way the protagonist can inject plot twists is through unpredictable behavior. It may seem zany or bizarre. It may not make a lot of sense initially, but through later sequel-internalization the character's motivation is shared with readers.

An example: In the film classic, Bringing Up Baby, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, Hepburn's character takes any number of silly, unexpected actions. At first, the audience (and Grant's character) thinks she's a nut. Eventually, we begin to understand that she's intensely attracted to him and does whatever random stunt comes into her head to stay close to him. Her methods may be wild, but she's believably motivated.

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn search for the missing dinosaur bone in BRINGING UP BABY, a Howard Hawks directed film from RKO Pictures, 1938.

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in BRINGING UP BABY, a 1938 classic film directed by Howard Hawks for RKO Pictures.

Plot twists from the antagonist: Even when out of sight, the antagonist isn't frozen in place. This character is up to something in his or her efforts to thwart the protagonist. When the next attempt or attack occurs, it feels like a plot twist because readers haven't been in the antagonist's viewpoint and–like the protagonist–don't know what's coming.

So, for example, in the Dick Francis mystery, Hot Money (1988), readers and the protagonist are jolted by an explosion that blows up the house. It's a complete surprise to everyone except the antagonist who planted the bomb.

Dust jacket for the Dick Francis novel, HOT MONEY, published by Putnam.

Plot twists from life: If twists from the protagonist are the most challenging and twists from the antagonist are the easiest, then twists from life run the risk of being the least believable.

Be very careful when designing a "random" event that's going to wallop the protagonist from nowhere. This type of twist may appear coincidental. Too much coincidence in fiction becomes unbelievable.

For example: Gary Paulsen's YA book, Hatchet, deals with a boy who survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and must then stay alive until rescue comes. There are any number of hazards in the woods. One evening, the mosquitoes are biting the boy mercilessly. To protect himself, he kneels at the edge of the lake to smear mud over his skin. While he's doing this, a moose comes running out of nowhere and crashes into him, knocking him into the water.

Say, what?

It's unexpected. It's shocking. It's unpredictable. But why has the moose chosen that instant of time to charge? What did the boy do, if anything, to provoke this animal?

As long as the story establishes that the woods are dangerous, or that moose herds are migrating through the area, or that at certain times of year moose will charge anything that moves, then when this event will work well as a plot twist. If moose aren't mentioned at all as a possible hazard, then the event may be perceived as too coincidental.

Cover art for Gary Paulsen's 1987 Newbery winner, HATCHET, published in paperback by Simon and Schuster.

Setting up for a twist to come is called planting for future action. You don't call attention to the information. It's slipped into the story as unobtrusively as possible. If done well, readers will barely notice it and the story action will distract them until the twist appears. Then they realize that they should have made the connection.

Planting done poorly will telegraph the twist to come by calling too much attention to it and giving it away. Even worse, if a twist is planted in an obvious way and then happens exactly as expected, it's ho-hum predictable.