Multi Tasking

So I might just ramble a little bit here, from something that tickled my mind today. Thinking about “showing and not telling.” Thinking about using dialogue to reveal plot points, or descriptions of setting to reveal characters. Thinking that what’s interesting about it is we’re asking for more than one thing to be going on at once.

Because what does telling do? One thing: it tells you what’s going on. Straight up, no depth. Because even dialogue can tell, not show, right? When the dialogue reveals nothing about the characters, it’s more like the author narrating through their characters – and it sounds really crappy, usually. Usually, it’s stuff the characters shouldn't need to say. Because it doesn’t reveal the characters to us, it just tells us what we, as readers, need to know.

Same thing with flat description, though we usually just settle for flowery language to beef that up. But a lot of the professional stories I read give a glimpse into the setting or characters when they use description. Because you can describe a lot of things; if a picture is worth a thousand words, then most short stories would have to be ten pictures or less. Not enough. So what gets put in the story should be there for a reason; don’t describe a cluttered room unless it speaks to the character. Don’t mention a gold elephant unless the character is going to defend themselves against a rapist by bashing his head in with it, or if her trip to Nepal is going to factor in.

Do as much as you can with the words you’re given. I’m sure there’s a great parable in that, too. Everything you write should point toward character or theme, and everything you write about the character should support the theme. Forget all this post-modern crap about life being meaningless; books are entirely about meaning. It might not be precisely what the author wanted it to mean, but it still means something. And do more than one thing at once.

See you tomorrow.

Creating

We’re world-building! World-building! Makin’ a world and livin’ in it…. I don’t know what any of you did last night, but I spent the better part of two hours last night alphabetizing the names on the world I’m creating, and then getting some basic facts like what kind of terrain they’re on, what their primary source(s) of revenue is (are), and what kind of settlement it is: vatenvilt, village, walled village, walled city?

Oh, I said vatenvilt. Think of it as a purely economic settlement; their sole purpose is to provide goods for travelers. No one “lives” in the boundaries of a vatenvilt, though homes – of course – exist outside them. Within the bounds of the vatenvilt are entirely under the control of the magiss – the magistrate. He keeps track of supplies, costs, fair measurements, etc. They are named after the founding magistrate. But I digress. Sort of.

87 names! Roads, rivers, villages, mountains, plains, and highlands – areas that are marsh eight months out of the year, and places that are so fertile it was once called “The God’s Feast.” Bit by bit, I see the towering rocks, see the slope coming gently down, turning green, and then swooping across a massive valley with homes and farms and herds of sheep and cows dotting the landscape. There’s a river, too, wending its way down the middle of the valley.

Then there’s the highlands; there, too, are mountains – though they masquerade as hills. But here, most often, the grass is scrubby and windswept – farming is toilsome work, and families barely scratch a living out of the dirt. But beneath those hills are minerals and precious ores.

Capping the northern coast is a forest of tall, ancient trees – hardy and sometimes precious wood that supplies the land with both practical and ornamental furniture and modes of transport. There are hardy people too, woodcutters and carvers and carpenters; people who smell of the trees upon which they subsist.

There is a failed city that tried to probe the massive wastes. They are at the end of the road; an appendix to a failed frontier. Yet they, too, survive in sun-parched lands by trading with nomads who circle around twice a year to do trade with the settlers.

It is a wonderful country of both human ingenuity and natural resources; the humans cut the trees, though they cannot make them grow; they farm and pasture the land, but do not supply the rain or the grass. As hard as life is, sometimes, from day to day, still they survive and move on – often, they only really do half the work. Yet they are blessed.

See you Monday.

7 Important Things

I am in a Creative Writing class, for those who didn't know. After reading two stories for critique last night, I feel the need to point out a few important things to remember when you're writing.

1: Finish your sentences. "If anything, Michael was the mature one, not him, because in this situation he held so much wisdom to point out his sarcasm, and that he was" is not the way to end a sentence, much less a paragraph. That brings me to point number 2.

2: Show, don't tell. And if you begin showing, don't stop suddenly and then tell. "...its metallic blue paint had definite rust spots that showed the body needed a lot of work." Yes, rust indicates a wearing down, a need for work. Don't tell us that.

3: Know what you're talking about. "The truck was filled with all sorts of mechanical tools...pipes (the white plastic kind that is used for plumbing)." They're called "PVC pipes." If the reader doesn't know what that is, they can look it up, or just not worry about it. Unless their being PVC and perhaps easier to cut is extremely important later on in the story -- and the reader needs to know what PVC is -- just leave it at that.

4: Avoid attributing an action or noise to the wrong object. "Then she heard the brick sidewalk click as a pair of steel toed boots...approached her." Unless the sidewalk is clicking of its own accord, that noise is either on its own (heard clicking as a pair of steel toed boots approached her on the sidewalk?) or is a combination of two items (heard the clicking of a pair of steel toed boots on the sidewalk?).

5: Use complete sentences as much as possible. "The moon hidden behind some clouds its usual white light tinted a warm shade of purple." is not a good example.

6: Use a thesaurus when you know the word you want, but can't quite think of it, but you know a similar word. DON'T use a thesaurus to find a bigger and/or different word. "...the wind rushing by, pick pocketing her words away." In this context, "thieving" still sounds better.

7: Opening lines are crucial, and really good opening lines are remembered for ages; like, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A good number of people couldn't tell you what book that's from, but they know the line. "Bang! Bang! Bang! Whirr! Buzzz! Eroooon! Vrooom! Bang! Bang! Bang!" is not an opening line that will be remembered.

If I come up with more, I may post again. See you tomorrow.

Pick-Up Sticks, Jenga, Juggling, Chaos

At what point does one thing become more important than another? When does focus shift from here, to there? When should focus shift? At first I thought I might liken this to pick-up sticks; now I think it is closer to Jenga: carefully, gingerly sliding each smooth wood block out, holding your breath lest the least current of air topple the tower. You need to choose your strategy: start at the base, so you work with a higher center of gravity last? Or start at the top, keeping the base strong? When is it more important to work with one block than another?

Often the phrase is used “juggling a lot of things,” trying to “keep everything up in the air.” While the frenzy of six juggling balls may evoke the proper feeling, the actual work is much simpler to those who know how to juggle: you can’t do anything with the balls in the air, only the one in your hand. The problem I sometimes find is, I have ten balls in my hand, and I don’t know which one I am supposed to loft next. To I send my writing on its ballistic orbit? Read Shakespeare? Read for Humanities, Bible, Creative Writing? Work on my blog? Or do I need to spend some time tending to my fiancée, or my relationship with God?

Because they are all important, and I love them all to nearly identical degrees. Trying to do things just as I can does resemble my attempts at juggling: I may start out okay, but then one ball arcs a little more outward than upward, and I chase after it. Meanwhile, my momentum propels the next ball even further forward. Soon I am running pell-mell; shortly, the balls drop with a crash.

Perhaps I need to let one go; but which? Can I let go of God, my fiancée, writing, college?

Unfortunately for my readers, I am not at a point of conclusion, only of recognition of a problem. I can’t tell you what to do if life seems like this. I can say “pursue God, and everything else becomes clear.” But I honestly don’t know what that looks like anymore, not without dropping a lot of other balls.

Maybe by Friday, I’ll have a better blog post. See you then.

*Thursday P.S. Psalm 57:2 "I cry out to God Most High, to God, who vindicates me." Working on this, now.*

It's November!

Yeah, first I put a bunch of exclamation points in the subject line, then realized that looked stupid so I got rid of them.

Well folks, it's 9:28am here; why am I blogging at 9:28am on a Tuesday, instead of my customary 1:30pm or 5:00pm, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?

Because: It's November! All around the world, writers and wannabes are huddled around their computers, typing, chipping away at a 50,000 word monolith. Will any of them be good? I imagine one or two. But that's not the point, see; the point is to make yourself write.

At least, that's what I'm told. No, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo (and if I hear one writer correct themselves and say "NahNoeWRYMoe" I'm going to first throw a fit -- or maybe an old washcloth -- and then say "I know it's write and not wreet, but it's also nawvel not "noe"vel, and munth, not "moe"nth. So either say it "NahNawWryMuh" or shut up.") And I'm not trying to degrade those who do; but I'm trying to write an actual novel, and do 15 credits, and work. I'm certainly not going to displace writing an actual novel to write one I will throw away immediately upon finishing.

I work ten years on a novel, rework it for several months, THEN throw it away. Or lock it up until there's a better time for me to throw it away.

But seriously folks, I will be writing a novel this month. Not entirely within it, and not at 1,667 words a day. Maybe that much per week, that would be cool. But maybe not.

So, set a goal and write toward it, whether that's 50,000 by November 30, or 100,000 by next summer. Think Nike: Just do it. And if someone asks you why, say:

"It's November!"

See you tomorrow.

*this blog brought to you by Folger's coffee: drink some, or end up like this guy*

About That Plot Outline

Well, I promised you a post about plot outlining, and here’s how it’s going:

*snoooooorrrrrre*

I suppose that's not entirely true. In truth, I’m excited about it. First let’s work on some definitions. By “plot outlining” I mean: figuring out how long it should take the cast to move from one town to the next, all the way through the entire book, based on the plot I have so far. By “cast” I mean: the main characters.

So now this should be a really fun book. Unconvinced? Here’s why: all that crap I worked on as far as how long it should take the cast to move from one town to the next, all the way through the book? You don’t have to read it. I have an Excel sheet with the “calendar” I’ve created for my world, with dates of when the cast goes through each area, and it keeps track (well, I can keep track by looking at it anyway) of where they are, and when. All the book needs to do is progress the characters, setting, and theme.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really flesh this out in my first novel. You remember that novel, the one that’s locked up in a chest where I can’t get to it for a while? Yeah, that hugely successful one. And yes, there’s a shameful amount of word-count tied up with moving characters from one place to the next. Not quite as dry as “then they rode forty days through the forest to get to the other side,” but nearly. Then I realized most literary novels don’t do that. So now, in preparing for this story, I can still work out all my dry, boring, appendix-for-my-son-who’s-not-yet-born-to-publish-y-stuff, and that can stay with me while my readers just get a good book.

In fact, I had a scene running through my mind last night till about 2:30am, so I finally grabbed my notebook and scribbled it down. And I like it. It’s very early in chapter one, or it will be, and it’s definitely a style I want to carry through the entire book. And it even sets up one of my themes. In 101 words, it does that.

So I’m excited. Hopefully I can work on it this weekend, but I also have a short story and a paper due on Tuesday. But, I’ll do what I can.

Stoked.

See you Monday.

The Nature of Rejection and Other Things

So, what’s on tap for today? I’m glad you asked; this is going to be another random-ish post that probably ends up being more of a glimpse into my life than anything concrete about the craft of writing. What can I say, I like to mix it up.

A curious thing happens when five people review your work, I discovered yesterday: it’s either the greatest thing ever, or it’s complete crap. If I would take the negative comments from everyone, I could compile a review that would go something like: “This is a great story, one of the best we’ve read in this class. Except for the main character, the setting, a little bit of the plot, and the theme – strengthen those.”

Another interesting and related note: when one agent rejected my work, she said that – basically – there’s a ton of books out there with the synopsis I laid out, and the only way it can work is if it is rivetingly told. Keep in mind, she had not read anything of my book. Now, I don’t know about any other writers, but when I write fiction it can be very good; rarely do I write non-fiction without sounding like a dry, dusty old philosopher “well technically, when one truly considers the final analysis, one cannot help but be persuaded….” *snoooooorrrrrrrrre*

So here’s the point, if one can be found: reading is subjective. Profound, huh? I find it nice to remind myself ad nauseam of truths, and this is a good one to be nauseated with. Collectively, my story for class was lackluster/sucked; individually, everyone loved it. Provided you can actually write (oh, let’s not go down that path today, please?) some agent somewhere is going to like what you’ve written. The trick is to find that one, and find them at an agreeable moment when they’re actually open to a story like yours, and writing like yours. Sound difficult? Here’s something more difficult: find an agent/author who doesn’t say breaking into the publishing world is difficult. Go ahead; I’ll wait.

See? Couldn’t do it. I’m not just another pretty face, after all.

I did find time earlier today to scribble the beginnings of a plot outline on a little notepad I keep now after the recommendation (speaking of ad nauseam) of my professor that writers should keep little notepads to write inspirations down on. I definitely like what’s evolving apart from the first chapter I hastily wrote (and subsequently rewrote, and subsequently threw out entirely because it was stupid) long ago because I was so eager to get started writing this thing. Hopefully I’ll have something more developed and concrete when I come back Friday, and you can look forward to reading about that.

So yeah. See you then.

Friday.