Florence Witkop's Blog, page 73

Winter: Cold weather is coming. Not belo

Winter:

Cold weather is coming. Not below zero yet but that’ll come soon if this year is normal. I plan to sleep late tomorrow morning and not to wake up until the sound of rifle shots wakes me. Deer season will have arrived.

Hunting Widow’s Craft Shows: The weeken

Hunting Widow’s Craft Shows:

The weekends of deer hunting season mean craft shows for non-hunters. They used to be called hunter’s widows shows but so many women hunt that that name went by the wayside. Now they are just craft shows and are sort of the beginning of the Christmas season. We’ll be selling fudge and banana bread both weekends. I love being a vendor at craft shows, they are so bright and interesting. I love watching people. If I wrote a story or book about every interesting person who strolled past our booth, I’d be writing at high speed for the next hundred years. Of course, most people are interesting.

Deer Hunters

Deer hunting season is approaching. Orange is everywhere, hanging from clotheslines, draped over trees, hung on fences. Got to be outside long enough to get the stink of people off of them. I shudder to think how cold those clothes are when the hunters put them on in the early, early morning. When I go to town, I pass orange everywhere. One of our grandchildren once thought that deer grew on trees because that’s where she’d seen them the most, hanging on trees in hunters’ yards. I suspect some children think orange clothes grow on trees also. Can I use this in Earth Legend? What would a child who was born and grew up in a space ship consider normal? Or abnormal? Would they think sunshine is abnormal? Moonlight? Night? The sound of insects? Would they think the slight tremble of any moving object is normal?

Wolf Legend finally has a publication date

Wolf Legend finally has a publication date. Mon Jan 6. Seemed like a lot of time when I chose the date, now I’m hoping to be ready.

Wolf Legend finally has a publication da

Wolf Legend finally has a publication date. Mon Jan 6. Seemed like a lot of time when I chose the date, now I’m hoping to be ready.

White Space

I read a book recently that was good. It would have been better if the writer hadn’t written such long paragraphs.

When I was a copywriter and again as an editor, I learned that there should be a certain amount of white space on every page. A lot of white space for advertising, less for stories, still less for scholarly papers. But the same rule applies in all cases. The more white space there is on a page, the more people will pick up that particular piece of writing and read it. As the amount of white space lessens, fewer and still fewer people will even give it a second look.

The take-home from this odd piece of information is that we writers should look at our short stories and novels. We should look at them without reading them. We should look at them to see how much white space is on the pages.

Break really long paragraphs into two or even three shorter ones. Shorten dialog to fewer words spoken by each character. (Hint: this will improve the dialog because it’ll also eliminate all those unnecessary extra words that we say in real life but that are irksome in print.)

Then look at the pages again. Don’t they look better? Wouldn’t you be more likely to read them than if they were just a lot of words stuffed … or overstuffed … onto a page?

Book of Tips and Techniques

It’s done and it’s out. My book of tips and techniques for writing fiction like a pro. Write Fiction Like A Pro. But I’m not mentioning it here to advertise it. Quite the opposite.

The tips and techniques in the book are the posts I’ve published on this blog over time. So you don’t have to buy my book to get the information in it. All  you have to do is read my blog posts. Or, if you are a faithful follower, you’ve already done so.

Of course there are a few people out there who haven’t read all of my blog posts so they might buy it. At least that’s the thinking behind publishing Write Fiction Like A Pro.

Of course, even if you have read them, if you want to have them all together in a neat package that’s easy to reference, by all means buy my book. But if you’re comfortable putting a bit of effort into getting that information, then don’t bother buying it because, as a faithful follower of my blog,  you already have it.

As for future posts, I don’t know if I’m running dry of tips and techniques for writers but I am slowing down. So I’m taking a hiatus from regular blogging in order to spend more time writing and marketing what I write. I’m already behind schedule and I believe in schedules.

So, though I’m not giving up blogging completely, in the future I won’t be putting as much effort or time into it as I’ve done so far.

I’ve loved hearing from each and every one of you and hope to continue to do so. But I won’t be initiating the conversation quite so often so it’ll be up to you.

When Nothing Goes Right

You plotted correctly and it the story is wonderful. You drew from deep within and created the perfect characters to carry your story to conclusion. You kicked everyone out of the house or went to your special hiding place to write. And you put the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and get started.

And nothing comes out as it should. What’s worse, you can’t figure out why not so you don’t know how to do things differently in order to get it right. What to do?

Don’t sweat it. Write a few words or sentences to remind yourself later where you are in the story and what’s happening and then go on to the next part. Or to the end. Or to whatever scene in the story you can wrap your mind around at the moment. And write.

Don’t worry about the part you couldn’t do. Come back to it later when you’re in a better mood. It’ll most likely go right then because you’ll have filled in what happened before and after that particular scene.

Hint:  when this happens to me, I highlight the scene that didn’t work so I can find it easily later. For some reason I can’t figure out, just passing over those highlighted words when I’m on my way to the scene I’m working on at the moment does something. It gets the creative part of my subconscious mind working so when I do return, I find that I know exactly what to do.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

In a previous tip, I said you are in every story you write. That’s true and knowing and using that fact can make your stories better.

Whenever you character gets into a difficult situation… and they always do because stories are about characters in difficult situations… and you are considering various ways for said character to deal with said difficult situation, think what you’d do if you were in their place.

You might not be a Navy Seal if that’s what your main character is, or have magical powers or whatever other special attributes you’ve given your character but I’m absolutely certain that you know how you’d take care of business if you were a Seal or did have extraordinary powers. And, knowing that, you know what your character should do. What you’d do if you were your character.

That action makes that character believable. Makes him or her real. Gives your writing honesty. And makes your story one readers will remember long after they’ve put the book down.

 

Deus Ex Machina

Coincidences that get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences that get them out is cheating. It’s the deus ex machina of the fiction world.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Deus ex machina is, almost literally, the ‘machine of the gods.’ It a device used by opera composers of old when they wrote their characters into a corner and couldn’t figure out how to get them out. They simply decided that the gods had been watching all along and had them drop down to Earth long enough to solve everything. It’s a device that’s phony in operas and it’s phony in fiction.

Today I see deus ex machina used most frequently in paranormal stories that have one or two paranormal characters for most of the book. Then, as the climax approaches, suddenly all kinds of other paranormal characters come out of the woodwork and form an army and vanquish evil. Good wins, of course, but even before the battle begins I’ve lost interest.

So whether it’s in opera, paranormal fiction or any story at all, or whenever you’re tempted to use it yourself because it would make things easier, there’s only one thing to say about deus ex machina. Don’t do it!