Kate Larking's Blog: Anxiety Ink, page 63

Description Is In The Details

The last few critiques I’ve received on stories have included compliments on descriptions. That, more than any other praise, makes me over-the-moon giddy-happy.

Why?

Because I’m awful at describing things. Really.

I reread old stories and discover that my settings are washed out and generic. Fight scenes choreographed in a void, maybe with a surprise!chair that vanishes after use. I never realized how important setting and scenery were – window dressing, I thought – until I saw what happened in my own stories without it.

Six years ago, about when I first noticed this particular weakness, I had no clue how to fix it. My attempts seemed forced and clumsy. The rare times it worked, I couldn’t tell why. Luck seemed the only way to replicate it.

But this is where it’s amazing to have friends who are writers.

I began whining to one writer-friend whose descriptive abilities leave me amazed and breathless. And she told me a trick she read somewhere (apologies: I don’t remember who originated it) that has so far worked fantastically well for me.

The exercise goes something like this: you walk into a room (or street, or trees, or anywhere); what are two or three things you notice? A sound or smell, item or color or shadow – anything that you observe. If you like writing exercises, write that entrance. I’m not a fan because I get bored too easily, so my version of this exercise just became a conscious part of everyday life.

In writing, two or three details can evoke the tone and feel of the whole while adding personality to the setting. More than that risks becoming a list.

My stories do not roll through my head like a movie; I have to work harder at creating settings. It becomes a conscious effort to imagine the space through which my characters move. Even after six years, I still struggle with it.

With a recent short story, the setting was what fascinated me the most – even more than the characters, which had rarely if ever happened before. But when the editing process began, I discovered that the world in my head did not appear on the page. Rather than neon colors and complex organic shapes, I had a landscape of a neutral, blurred quality.

But I now have the ability to fix that, unlike just a few years ago. When I passed the second draft off to my writing group, I received a lot of positive feedback on the world.

Description isn’t all-or-nothing; you don’t have to know everything. In fact, it’s often more fun for both you and your readers to let them fill in the blanks. You just have to give them – and their imaginations – something to work with.

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Vicarious Senses: Setting Conundrums

If you’re like me in any way, you don’t always have the opportunity to go to the places you set your stories in. If you’re lucky, you’ll visit a place and find yourself inspired to write a story set there. If you’re luckier, you can travel to your setting destination and explore. Otherwise, you have to get vicarious senses.

In October, I am actually fortunate enough to be going to the city where I decided to set my current project. The trip was planned well before I decided on the setting for my brainchild. I don’t think the trip had any influence on my choice, but who knows? The subconscious is a fickle beast. However lucky I am, I only have less than a day to explore that city. Most definitely not enough time to visit all the places my story will cover. And not just because it’s a huge city. Also, my trip isn’t for a month and a half (as of this posting; a little under a year since this project got underway). I’m not waiting that long to get into the researching and writing of my story.

Conundrum, much?

Maybe, but I’ve gotten around worse problems. Kate will attest to the fact that I take my research to an unnecessary level. When I want to know about anything I go into finite detail. This includes urban centres I’m trying to successfully convey.

Do you know how many different aspects there are to the average city? More than anyone who has never worked for a municipal government can possibly imagine. For instance, I had to research police divisions because one of my side-characters is a cop; I had to research trees because my protagonist has to climb and hunt in one and I needed a species tall and sturdy enough for her to set up gear in; I had to look up tree climbing gear because the biggest thing I’ve ever hauled my butt into is a 50 year old poplar with low hanging branches; I had to research gun and weapon laws; I had to look up different city parks; the list goes on.

Instead of scouring the World Wide Web for all of these details and getting lost in pages and pages of material, I’ve uncovered two major tricks to help my learning*:

Google maps, specifically “street view,” is a resource that has saved my butt a million times. How can I not be over the moon for something that can give me a relatively recent image of basically anywhere in the world? Need to walk down Park Avenue? Well, I virtually can.
Municipal websites are amazing. The bigger the city, the more likely it’s going to have a very useful website with lots of links devoted to anything and everything in that city, like parks, bilaws, festivals, travel ideas, police presence, urban planning…

Otherwise, I do scour the web looking for specific details I need. But I try not to waste too much of my time doing it anymore. If I can’t find one little item in the course of an hour of research, I’ve learned to let it go and think in a different direction.

I have a third item to list but I have yet to try it out, and I don’t want to mislead. My next approach is to read other people’s books set in my urban centre in order to get a feel for how detailed they get about the setting. I have no desire to copy their locale descriptions or emulate their descriptive style, let me state that outright. I just need a model. I’m also going to read more books in my genre category and less that branch out. I’m also sticking to fiction because the place itself is not crucial to my story at this point.

Those are my means of getting a sense for places vicariously through images and text. Does anyone have another way they’d like to share?

 

*I had to insert an asterisk because I don’t want to mislead. Even with these two resources you may have to scour the World Wide Web- HOWEVER, with Google Maps and municipal websites your hunt can be very well directed and far less time consuming.

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Writing Under a Pen Name

I’ve been thinking a lot about pen names. Specifically, moving my fiction writing under a pen name.

When I first entered the writing sphere, I was adamant that I would write under my own name. Not my legal name, but the nickname I most often use.

At the beginning of August, I published my first non-fiction book, Novel Marketing, under the name of K Larking (I feel like I stole a page from Melissa and Elisa’s book on that one, initial extraordinaires).

When I researched into pseudonyms, a lot of the examples I can find for fiction authors using pseudonyms are already established authors who try to escape their previous fame, broaden their audience, or disguise their gender. I didn’t really have this issues to address or goals in mind.

Source

There are things that I am worried about.

I’m worried that my fiction writing will impact my professional marketing life. Most of my volunteering surrounds literary culture and, as such, it’s quite apparent to my potential employers that I am a writer. My publications are in my cover letter. The question that comes up in every interview: “Will your writing hobby impact your work?” Clearly, the answer is no. Work is work. Writing is writing. One won’t consume the other unless I am a full-time writer which is a distant idea.

I’m worried that my marketing life will impact my fiction readership. Despite having the stance that authors need to be truest to themselves in order to make a coherent and relatable brand, despite advocating for authenticity and allowing for interactions to act as brand representation and marketing, I’m worried that the negative associations that come with commerce will turn off my fiction readers, particularly my YA readers.

After asking a series of people for their input, Clare really summed it up for me:

In any case, don’t overthink these things Just do what you want to do. And most importantly, write, write, write, publish, publish, publish! Overthinking = less time for writing!

I write. It’s what I love. Fiction and non-fiction. Do I think this debate will never come up in the future? No. But I think I have it settled for now that I just need to write.

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A Little On Dialogue

I love dialogue. Maybe a little too much, at times. Where that fine line exists between dialogue that illuminates the plot and characters the way it should and dialogue-as-exposition, I’m not good at finding.

In the first couple drafts, anyway.

But I love how much you can build a character on just word choice and phrasing. I am not a fan of the idea that dialect should be refined out of fiction, because that becomes a true reflection of exactly no one. (Note: I kind of adore linguistics.) But it has to be done right.

“Right” means no stereotypes. (But stereotypes are shortcuts that weaken your writing, so you wouldn’t use them, anyway. Right?) If the dialect isn’t your own, get help. Find someone intimately familiar with it and ask for feedback. This can be difficult, but infinitely rewarding.

Creating a dialect for your story? Go for it! Just be careful to be consistent (don’t do it for the sake of doing it) and make sure you can identify your own influences. Whether you know them or not, you have them.

Whatever you write into your dialogue – dialect or not - I recommend a “realism” test: read it aloud. Better yet, have someone else read it. Does the emphasis turn up (the first time it’s read! Not when you’ve finally remembered how that sentence was intended to go) somewhere that causes the rest of the line to fall out of sense? I do that all the time. Then when I go back and read it aloud, I find I naturally put the emphasis elsewhere.

This is not a fault in my reading, but in my writing.

Elmore Leonard famously said/wrote that if it sounds like writing, he rewrote it. He meant that for all writing, but I find it especially true of dialogue. Chances are, you’re writing characters that you want the readers to feel are real. But give those characters unrealistic dialogue and the illusion shatters.

Speech is an extension of identity, as much for our characters as it is for us. Knowing your characters inside and out – knowing their thoughts, and goals, and motivations – will inform what they say and how they speak to each other. They will begin to sound distinct from one another on the page, and their stories will be richer for it.

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Word Tracker

Since the new year began, Melissa has been telling everyone how well her tally system has been working for her. Recently, Kate started keeping track of her word counts in a pretty day timer she devoted to the task. I myself have gone back and forth with a few methods. During the last few NaNo stints I participated in, I printed out the calendar month and kept track of all my stats on it. This worked well for that month, but I didn’t want to waste all that paper year round. Plus it’s kind of a pain to keep track of the paper and cart it around. And, I had no long term place to safeguard my writing data.

I have a calendar devoted to writing events and dates on my wall, yet the thought of writing my word counts and projects on it kind of gave me a headache. I know I’d lose track of the relevant dates on it because I wouldn’t see them amid all the numbers and titles. I also didn’t want to devote my personal daytimer to the task of writing record-keeping. I already keep track of too many things in there. I’ve also gone the two-daytimer’s approach, devoting each to different aspects of my life. One grew woefully neglected.

I didn’t want to devote a journal to it either, because I knew I needed something that was constantly visible on my desk in order for me to remember to update it. I’ve got a log notebook on my desk 24/7 for another purpose. Two was too many. So, I decided to go the electronic route. I found a well designed, aesthetically pleasing excel spreadsheet that would handily keep track of my weekly/monthly/yearly word goals and realizations. Guess how many times I’ve opened it up since downloading it? Yeah, back to my “I need to see it to remember to do it” issue.

Can you tell I’m nit-picky?

Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, I came across an adorable little binder while waiting in line at Staples. I bought it because it was adorable and I couldn’t resist. Then when I got home I asked the big question: what the heck was I going to do with the damn thing? It was too small for anything useful note- or art-wise. Eventually, with the teensy binder sitting on my desk, it’s usefulness hit me. Its size was ideal for tallies, summaries, and title jots.

Thus, my Word Tracker was born.

The moral of my story? Writing is a finicky business, and data tracking of your progress and growth is a finickier subbusiness. Do I think you should do it? Yes. Do I think you should enjoy doing it? Yes, but most of the time you won’t. Do I think you should devote an inordinate amount of time finding YOUR best means of data tracking? Obviously, because if you do you might stick with the task. And of course that translates to writing more, and more often.

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Post-Writing-Conference Self Care

It never fails. A writing conference ends and I am exhausted. I’m not even a partier, staying at the hotel, or running from event to event in a frenzy. Just being ON the whole time, taking part in panels, hosting presentations, watching over tables in the merch room–I get exhausted.

So, it’s time for a little post-writing-conference self care.

Source.

Immediately

The below list should be addresses as soon as possible post-programming:

Rehydrate. Wether you have been running on caffeine for the entirety of the conference or not, you are dehydrated. Conference rooms can be killer, especially if you spent a lot of time wondering why some rooms could be so frigid while others nearly boiled you alive. Drink some water–you’re body will appreciate it.
Free-journal. This is a mix between free-writing and journalling your conferences’s events. All those feelings you have where you are eager to be writing and pushing your career forward? Write them down so you can refer back to them when you need to. All those lightning-strike ideas you got during the keynote that guest-of-honour so-and-so delivered? Write it down. Does it have to be a pretty and perfect account? No! Your brain is on overload post-conference. Just get those ideas down so you can pick up where you left off later.

The Week After

In the week after the conference, there are a few things you should do to capitalize on all the networking you did while there.

Follow-up. Those business cards you traded at the conference? Reach out and let those people know you want to keep in touch. Whether through e-mail, blog-following, or social media, connect with those people and keep the relationship moving forward. If you made connections for guests posts or queries, follow-up on those with specific information in addition to your standard query to spark recognition in your interaction while maintaining a professional–not too casual!–demeanor.
Shopping list. If you didn’t already stock up on books at the conference merchandise room (or, even if you did), queue up your wish list with the best of the recommendations you collected over the weekend.
Plan ahead. If you’re looking to get back to the same conference next year, start your planning. For one thing, purchasing your membership early is generally cheaper. It also helps the conference out, giving them funds early and better attendance projections. If you want to present at next year’s conference, start working on your proposal and see if the conference is interested.

At the end of the day, the major thing is to keep your post-convention excitement and ambition alive for as long as possible.

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Writing As An Act Of Aggression

Where is the line between homage and appropriation? Between artistic/creative license and cultural aggression?

Though the blonde I’m currently sporting is fake, I’m about as white as white can get, and I live in one of the whitest states in the US. And I like to write characters who aren’t, because the range of human experience goes far outside the lines drawn by skin’s melanin content.

And because a lot of both reading and writing for me is like travel: I do it and I love it for the perspectives and alternate views of the world it provides.

As a child, I was terrified of offending anyone. I haven’t outgrown that as much as I sometimes pretend, and this is one area that is a minefield of offenses. In writing especially viewpoint characters of color, I am guaranteed to offend. And I don’t mean to! But in this, intentions count for nothing.

If I get it wrong, I want to know. I want to have that conversation so I can try to get it more right in the future.

I majored in cultural anthropology. I want to learn and experience, and help others do the same. Fear that I’ll screw it up isn’t enough to make me stop.

We pick up so many bad habits from our environments – our societies and our cultures. Part of the process in writing a character who is “other” to us requires unpacking those bad habits. The preconceptions need to be taken out and dissected, analyzed, to find what makes them problematic so we (hopefully) don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over.

This will make you a better writer. It takes away the shortcuts of generalizations and stereotypes. You have to approach the characters as real people, not game pieces to move where you want.

In an embarrassingly recent draft of the current novel, I described things like houses and clothing as “traditionally Japanese.” But that didn’t tell the reader anything. It drew no pictures. Someone without knowledge of Japan would have no clue, while someone else might wonder what era and region I based that on. It was a shortcut and it weakened the story.

Many of us use these shortcuts (stereotypes) without thinking, and readers without connection to those peoples or cultures might never pick up on it. But it is sloppy, inauthentic storytelling. Awareness is the first step towards fixing that.

But I am co-opting that culture for the length of the novel. The very act of me, a white woman, writing a character who is most certainly not white, is horribly presumptuous. I’ve never lived in another skin, so there will always be some level of inauthenticity. Add to that the history of white aggression and oppression in America alone (and I believe that context cannot be separated), and the very act of writing that story can become appropriation.

I wish I knew how to find and navigate that line.

Please share your thoughts, opinions, or any links to similar discussions in the comments! This is a topic that needs so much more dialogue. In the meantime, I’ll be reading Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward.

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When Words Collide 2014: Compressed Edition

As I sit in front of a blank screen trying to convey all of my thoughts and feelings about the latest readercon I attended, I have to acknowledge how difficult the task is that I laid out for myself. Even giving my post the “compressed” header isn’t helping my cause. There’s so much to say! But also a lot I can’t seem to put into words –not a good thing for a writer.

I walked away from this year’s When Words Collide with an entirely different attitude than I walked away with in 2013. I don’t want to say it was a negative experience, because it wasn’t, but I didn’t come out feeling as positive as last year. Probably because I implemented all of the basic stuff I learned and am in the process of making that work. And I am not really much farther along in my career –which makes total sense from a logical point of view.

I was presented with so much information –seriously, WWC is non-stop information all the time– and I was overwhelmed very early on this past weekend. There’s so much to consider during every single aspect of writing that I started to feel dazed, and not in a good way. Information and options from the conception of an idea to drafting to editing to deciding how to publish to marketing to networking to, well, everything involving writing was thrown at me. And there is SO much.

I’m afraid it hit me pretty hard. I won’t lie, I went into the conference stressed and came out stressed. A shitty cycle if you ask me. And an exhausting one.

After a deep breathe I recalled the good: laughing with large and small groups, meeting new and interesting people, dirty ad-libs, and listening to members of my writing group read from their books, to name a few. Then there was the so-awful-it’s-hilarious, like the guy who flossed his teeth in a lecture beside me.

I’m still in the process of transcribing my handwritten notes; I took down more than I realized. Once I’m done the inspired feelings should hit me after this info overload wares off. Then I’ll have lots of insightful posts to share!

I do have three awesome things to report:

Kate’s Novel Marketing panel was a hit. She rocked the room and each audience member walked away with useful information. At least I did. And she managed not to swear!
I got to meet Kelley Armstrong! It was the lamest conversation, on my part, because I was so nervous and awestruck and worried about making a colossal ass of myself. But we did converse –I’m calling my mumbling points conversing, what of it?– and it totally made my day. I’m just sad she was only at WWC for one day.
I survived the panel I signed up to speak on! Although I’m not sure I’ll be doing that again anytime soon.

Overall, as shocking as conventions can be, they are momentous commodities for writers in all stages. They’re not something to be wasted or looked on lightly. They’ll inspire you, terrify you, and drain you, and it’ll be completely worth it.

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Getting into the Creative Groove, Group Edition

I’ve been pulling some all-day writing sessions. With a group of equally ambitions fellow writers, we have been writing all day long deep in our creative groove.

We start writing in the morning and go until the evening or other engagements pull us away. For better or for worse, we are in a cafe so we have access to coffee. The chairs aren’t as comfortable as the ones we have at home. We don’t have control over the temperature (although the cafe owner has been known to bring out a fan for our table as well as an extension cord if we forget ours).

But as we sit at the table and open up our documents, we all wonder why we are so much more productive in a group than we are in our own individual spaces.

It isn’t synergy, in the sense that we work together to create one thing. It’s more that we are collectively creative and collectively disciplined.

A friend of mine, her writing can be classified as snowballing. In the first twenty minutes, she might get into the double digits with words. In the second word, times that by 4. Third war? Times is by 6 and keep writing! She basically snowballs her words. Some days, the numbers grow so fast, by so much, we call it avalanche writing.

In group writing, we start with varying abilities to discipline ourselves. But once the first hour approaches, we can get lost in our words for an hour, no issue. Renew parking and go again, this time for an hour and a half without really looking up. We are in it to win it, each fighting our own battles of the same war.

Growing up, I thought writing would be the most introverted activity ever. But, honestly, I get more fulfillment taking up the pen with others facing the same struggles as I am than I do when facing my blank pages alone.

Alas, sometimes, we are very chatty and we need to get our writing troubles off our chest. Ultimately, someone cracks the whip and we buckle down again.

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Storytime!

Remember when you were little and being read to was a matter of course? Even if you weren’t read aloud to at home, your teachers might have, most likely after recess as a way to make the class calm and settle.

And if you weren’t fortunate enough to have that experience, damn. I’m sorry. Truly sorry.

Why is there no storytime for adults? Outside of author readings, I mean. (There totally need to be more author reading.) But I digress.

One of the classic tips for editing is to read your work out loud, whether for yourself or for an audience. I advocate an audience. (Note: an audience of one is still an audience!)

Make your audience someone you trust. If you can’t trust the person you’re reading to with your creativity, then it’s better to have no audience. And trusting someone in that way is so much harder and rarer than it sounds. So be careful. After all, you’re not doing this so much for the feedback as for the perspective it grants.

But for all the risks and worries inherent in reading your story to someone else, the benefits are pretty awesome. You find where your flow falters. You find the clunky sentences, the out-of-character dialogue. If a phrase only makes sense when you read it a certain way, and on your read-through you have to stop and retrace because that’s not how you read it, then that phrase needs rewording. Because you can’t force readers to read your story the way it is in your head.

And reading aloud in a private setting can be practice for your own author readings, which can be hugely intimidating. When I went to World Fantasy in 2012, I signed up to read at a sort of open mic event. I was so nervous I could hardly read the words, I shook so badly. I maybe glanced at the audience twice. Kate can tell you. So, yes: practice is good.

I am lucky enough to have an amazing friend I trust enough to read even first drafts to occasionally. It helps the story grow and become stronger.

And she is also just about the most gratifying person ever to read to. Seriously. Reading her the novel rewrite is helping me get over the mid-draft blues and keep going. (Unrealistic as it is, I’m aiming for two chapters a week, so this is amazing incentive. Currently on 20 out of 30+!)

Storytime: not just for kids.

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