Florence Witkop's Blog, page 82

Real/Unreal

I used to write confession stories. I thought it would be easy because I knew a lot of really interesting things that had happened to people I knew. Just write about them and collect the check.
Right? Wrong!
I sent in manuscripts and got them back by return mail with notes scribbled in the margins saying they weren't realistic.
Which was how I learned that reality isn't necessarily realistic. That what happens in real life can be so far-fetched that a reader might toss it in the wastebasket in disgust because such a thing would never, ever happen in real life.
So I started writing stories that weren't exactly real. They were fiction but they were a simplified version of real life. And those stories sold.
And I've been doing so ever since.

I Like Normal Characters

A while back I took a course on creating characters from a duo who are very respected in the writing field. I was all fired up because I wanted to learn how to create memorable characters. That’s what the brochure promised. Memorable characters.
The course turned out to be everything the brochure promised. And it was all wrong for me.
I was told to dig down, drill down, do whatever was needed to get inside my character’s head and find that horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with that caused a visceral, negative change in my characters and led to the motivations behind their actions in my story.
Problem was, I don’t particularly like horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with in my main characters. I like normal.
Perhaps because I had a normal childhood. Perhaps because at one time I taught emotionally disturbed children and learned that, though most people have bad experiences, they get past them and become normal once more. Usually it takes a lot of work, but they do. I believe in that, I passionatly believe that normal triumphs over abnormal.
Whatever the reason, I choose not to write about tragic, terribly, horribly flawed characters.
So what to do?
There’s another way to find characters. Wonderful characters. Normal characters. Alfred Hitchcock used it. He wrote stories about normal people in abnormal situations. Anne Macffrey used it. Her pithy description of how to plot a story goes something like this: ‘Jack has his fanny in a bear trap and the story is getting him out.’
I like those kinds of characters. I can relate to Jack, a nice, normal boy who, unfortunately, is in a bear trap. I think most people out there can relate to him, too.
Normal people in abnormal situations. Great characters. Great stories. My kind of stories.

Characters

A while back I took a course on creating characters from a duo who are very respected in the writing field. I was all fired up because I wanted to learn how to create memorable characters. That’s what the brochure promised. Memorable characters.

The course turned ou to be everything the brochure promised. And it was all wrong for me.

I was told to dig down, drill down, do whatever was needed to get inside my character’s head and find that horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with that caused a visceral, negative change in my characters and led to the motivations behind their actions in my story.

Problem was, I don’t particularly like horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with in my main characters. I like normal.

Perhaps because I had a normal childhood. Perhaps because at one time I taught emotionally disturbed children and learned that, though most people have bad experiences, they get past them and become normal once more. Usually it takes a lot of work, but they do. I believe in that, I passionatly believe that normal triumphs over abnormal.

Whatever the reason, I choose not to write about tragic, terribly, horribly flawed characters.

So what to do?

There’s another way to find characters. Wonderful characters. Normal characters. Alfred Hitchcock used it. He wrote stories about normal people in abnormal situations. Anne Macffrey used it. Her pithy description of how to plot a story goes something like this: ‘Jack has his fanny in a bear trap and the story is getting him out.’

I like those kinds of characters. I can relate to Jack, a nice, normal boy who, unfortunately, is in a bear trap. I think most people out there can relate to him, too.

Normal people in abnormal situations. Great characters. Great stories.

Readers and Writers: Characters

A while back I took a course on creating characters from a duo who are very respected in the writing field. I was all fired up because I wanted to learn how to create memorable characters. That’s what the brochure promised. Memorable characters.

The course turned ou to be everything the brochure promised. And it was all wrong for me.

I was told to dig down, drill down, do whatever was needed to get inside my character’s head and find that horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with that caused a visceral, negative change in my characters and led to the motivations behind their actions in my story.

Problem was, I don’t particularly like horrible, terrible, tragic or whatever other awful adjective I could come up with in my main characters. I like normal.

Perhaps because I had a normal childhood. Perhaps because at one time I taught emotionally disturbed children and learned that, though most people have bad experiences, they get past them and become normal once more. Usually it takes a lot of work, but they do. I believe in that, I passionatly believe that normal triumphs over abnormal.

Whatever the reason, I choose not to write about tragic, terribly, horribly flawed characters.

So what to do?

There’s another way to find characters. Wonderful characters. Normal characters. Alfred Hitchcock used it. He wrote stories about normal people in abnormal situations. Anne Macffrey used it. Her pithy description of how to plot a story goes something like this: ‘Jack has his fanny in a bear trap and the story is getting him out.’

I like those kinds of characters. I can relate to Jack, a nice, normal boy who, unfortunately, is in a bear trap. I think most people out there can relate to him, too.

Normal people in abnormal situations. Great characters. Great stories.

Florence Witkop

Veteran romance writer Florence Witkop was born in the city and has lived in the suburbs, the country and the wilderness where she still lives and writes contemporary, sci/fi and fantasy romances with a gothic feel that are romantic without being erotic. At various times she’s been a confession writer, a copywriter, a ghost writer and an editor. Her preferred format is the short story but she also writes novellas and novels.

CRITICISM

Sorry, folks.  I wrote this post and it disappeared.  Don’t know where it went.  Don’t know how.  Just that it’s lost somewhere in cyberspace.  So, here it goes again.  Hope this time it stays.  Of course, this won’t be a literal repeat of my first post but it’ll be the gist of it.  It’s about criticism.  (Is that why it disappeared?  Hmmmm.)

One of the nice things about being a ghost writer and writing confession stories is that there is no criticism because they are written anonymously.  No author name, no criticism.  Doesn’t work that way when your name is on the manuscript.  All kinds of people let writers know what they did right.  And wrong.

I once took a commercial story I’d written to a literary writers’ group I belonged to.  They critiqued my manuscript and their criticism would have been very appropriate if I’d wanted my story to be published in a literary journal.  But I didn’t.  I never again took a commercial story to them to be critiqued because I knew that if I followed their suggestions, I’d have a very short career as a writer.

I’ve also had my work critiqued by editors.  Occasionally, when I’d send in a manuscript, it would be returned with scribbed notes in the margins letting me know what subtle things they were looking for that I hadn’t provided.  Believe me, I listened and the next time I sent those editors a manuscript, they got what they wanted because I wanted to be a professional writer.

Next time someone critiques your work, ask yourself some questions.  Who are they?  What’s their background? Why did they say what they did?  Consider whether they are giving criticism that’s valid for your particular work.

Because maybe their criticism was valid.  Maybe not.

WRITING: CRITICISM

Sorry, folks.  I wrote this post and it disappeared.  Don’t know where it went.  Don’t know how.  Just that it’s lost somewhere in cyberspace.  So, here it goes again.  Hope this time it stays.  Of course, this won’t be a literal repeat of my first post but it’ll be the gist of it.  It’s about criticism.  (Is that why it disappeared?  Hmmmm.)

One of the nice things about being a ghost writer and writing confession stories is that there is no criticism because they are written anonymously.  No author name, no criticism.  Doesn’t work that way when your name is on the manuscript.  All kinds of people let writers know what they did right.  And wrong.

I once took a commercial story I’d written to a literary writers’ group I belonged to.  They critiqued my manuscript and their criticism would have been very appropriate if I’d wanted my story to be published in a literary journal.  But I didn’t.  I never again took a commercial story to them to be critiqued because I knew that if I followed their suggestions, I’d have a very short career as a writer.

I’ve also had my work critiqued by editors.  Occasionally, when I’d send in a manuscript, it would be returned with scribbed notes in the margins letting me know what subtle things they were looking for that I hadn’t provided.  Believe me, I listened and the next time I sent those editors a manuscript, they got what they wanted because I wanted to be a professional writer.

Next time someone critiques your work, ask yourself some questions.  Who are they?  What’s their background? Why did they say what they did?  Consider whether they are giving criticism that’s valid for your particular work. 

Because maybe their criticism was valid.  Maybe not.

Is The Pendulum Swinging Back?

I’m showing this cover for a couple reason.  The first is that I like it.  Thanks NASA, I love looking through pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope and as soon as I saw it I knew this was right for my first on-line short story The Eye of The Universe.  (In case anyone wants to read it, it’s available free from Smashwords.  Amazon charges .99 because they don’t do free unless a reader finds something free somewhere else and tells Amazon about it.  Then they’ll change it to match the lowest price elsewhere.  Hasn’t happened yet.)

The second reason is that there are no people in the picture, even though it’s a romance.  Which is okay because it seems that some people are getting tired of naked and half-naked people on romance novel covers.  When I chose this cover, I didn’t know that.  I just knew I wanted this cover so I added a blurb to tell potential readers that it’s a romance because they couldn’t tell from the picture.

I thought I was going against the tide by choosing a cover without an obviously in-love couple on it.  But I’ve since discovered that, as happens with every trend including romance novels, there is a small mini-trend bucking the huge, mega-trends in romances.  That trend is called ‘clean romances’ and it’s what I write.  Sort of.

‘Sort of’ because as of yet there’s no precise definition of a clean romance beyond that there are no sexually explicit sex scenes.  Some purists feel that there shouldn’t be any profanity either, or any pre-marital sex at all.  None.  My work doesn’t qualify on those counts, I do include premarital sex and profanity where it fits, but I don’t follow my characters into the bedroom and give a blow-by-blow description of what happens next.  No particular reason why not.  I like sex and have  no problem with writers who do erotic stories.  But I find it hard to write while rolling on the floor laughing and that’s what happens when I try to describe the sex act.  Too many body parts.  Too many positions.  Too much work.  Guess I’m lazy.

This new trend has been in existence long enough that there are groups on Goodreads (where I first ran across the term) and elsewhere and there are a growing number of reviewers who specifically mention that they will review clean romances.  And there’s an e-publisher dedicated to publishing just clean romances.  Astraea Publishing is very clear about what they will and won’t accept.

Which is good news to writers because not every romance writer wants to include specific sex in their stories.  And maybe I’ll be able to use more covers from NASA.  I really, really love those pictures.

Readers and Writers: Is The Pendulum Swinging Back?

 

I’m showing this cover for a couple reason.  The first is that I like it.  Thanks NASA, I love looking through pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope and as soon as I saw it I knew this was right for my first on-line short story The Eye of The Universe.  (In case anyone wants to read it, it’s available free from Smashwords.  Amazon charges .99 because they don’t do free unless a reader finds something free somewhere else and tells Amazon about it.  Then they’ll change it to match the lowest price elsewhere.  Hasn’t happened yet.)

The second reason is that there are no people in the picture, even though it’s a romance.  Which is okay because it seems that some people are getting tired of naked and half-naked people on romance novel covers.  When I chose this cover, I didn’t know that.  I just knew I wanted this cover so I added a blurb to tell potential readers that it’s a romance because they couldn’t tell from the picture. 

I thought I was going against the tide by choosing a cover without an obviously in-love couple on it.  But I’ve since discovered that, as happens with every trend including romance novels, there is a small mini-trend bucking the huge, mega-trends in romances.  That trend is called ‘clean romances’ and it’s what I write.  Sort of.

‘Sort of’ because as of yet there’s no precise definition of a clean romance beyond that there are no sexually explicit sex scenes.  Some purists feel that there shouldn’t be any profanity either, or any pre-marital sex at all.  None.  My work doesn’t qualify on those counts, I do include premarital sex and profanity where it fits, but I don’t follow my characters into the bedroom and give a blow-by-blow description of what happens next.  No particular reason why not.  I like sex and have  no problem with writers who do erotic stories.  But I find it hard to write while rolling on the floor laughing and that’s what happens when I try to describe the sex act.  Too many body parts.  Too many positions.  Too much work.  Guess I’m lazy.

This new trend has been in existence long enough that there are groups on Goodreads (where I first ran across the term) and elsewhere and there are a growing number of reviewers who specifically mention that they will review clean romances.  And there’s an e-publisher dedicated to publishing just clean romances.  Astraea Publishing is very clear about what they will and won’t accept.

Which is good news to writers because not every romance writer wants to include specific sex in their stories.  And maybe I’ll be able to use more covers from NASA.  I really, really love those pictures.

Coming of Age as a Writer

When I first started writing professionally, I couldn’t imagine what I’d write about.  Where I’d find inspiration.  Who my characters would be and what would happen to them.  As time passed and I discovered that a steady living as a writer could be had by writing confession stories, everything came clear.  I’d write about myself and anyone and everyone I knew because no one, including me, would ever be embarrassed by what I wrote.  Because confession stories are written anonymously.

I soon learned there was another advantage to writing for the confession market.  By writing about past problems large and small, I could get rid of a lot of emotional baggage that I’d been carrying for a long time.  It worked in much the same way painting or writing or any other creative endeavor works in an institutional setting.  Like when mental patients paint pictures of their demons.  Or write about their nightmares.  It worked and, by the time I’d gone though every negative experience I’d ever had or anyone I knew  had ever had, I was well on my way to being a fairly good writer.  My catharsis was complete.  I started writing happier things and I’ve never stopped since.

Some time later, when I joined a writers’ group, because I had some experience in the writing field, new writers sometimes came to me for advice and to critique their work.  Guess what?  I saw a lot of writers doing the exact same thing I’d done, using their writing as a way of getting things out of their system.  It was such a common phenomenon that I  privately began to call it the ‘cathartic phase’ of becoming a writer.  I suspect we all go through it in one way or another.

I mention this today because, if that’s where you are now, in your own personal cathartic phase, go for it.  Get it out.  Get rid of the angst.  And when the day comes that you realize you don’t have any more negative things to write about, be thankful and find other topics.

Don’t worry that your readers will think you are no longer the same writer as before.  You are that same writer, just without the baggage.  And that’s a good thing.  It means you have come of age as a writer.