27. Give Yourself Credit as a Writer.

When my first book was published, I finally felt free to call myself a writer. By then, I had been writing professionally for about five years. I’d written hundreds of soap opera scripts, dozens of articles and stories for Scholastic Magazines, and innumerable teaching guides.

But was I really a writer? For some reason, I always felt shy about saying so. “I write for the soaps,” I might say. Or, “I work at Scholastic.” To me in those days, a writer was someone like Shakespeare or Dostoevsky, or Hemingway or even Erle Stanley Gardner.

My first book, Running for Health and Beauty, was the first mass-market book on running for women. I wrote it after having started running in my late twenties. But just as with my writing career, I felt very strange about calling myself a runner. I was slow, and I didn’t like to race. I usually said, “I’m just a jogger.” As for my book, my editor chose the title.

One day I was jogging in Central Park with a friend, and told him I felt funny about the title of the book. He asked why, and I said, “Well, I’m not a real runner.” He said, “We’re running, aren’t we?” I said yes. He said, “Then you’re a runner.”

I know now that the same thing is true of writing. Just as not all runners can finish marathons, not all writers can support themselves writing. But in my opinion, anyone who writes is a writer.

If you have the courage to face that blank page and fill it with your dreams, your imaginings, or even an honest account of what is going on in your life, you’re a writer. If expressing yourself on paper is the way you make sense of your life, if you tell stories because you can’t NOT tell them, you are a writer. If you read books on writing or even my writing tips, because you hope to become better at writing, then you’re a writer.

Tomorrow: How to deal gracefully with editorial suggestions

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26. Less is More: how to keep your writing clear and simple

In a guest post on The Writing Well, on May 14, I discussed showing (dramatizing) vs. telling (summarizing) in fiction writing. In order to dramatize without over-dramatizing, it helps to make your language as simple as possible. LESS wordiness almost always means MORE impact.

Be stingy with adjectives and adverbs. The fewer you use, the more powerful your writing. The trick is in choosing the one or two best modifiers.

He angrily slammed his fist on the bar. "Get out of here, you son of a bitch!" he snarled rabidly, his face contorted in rage.

                                      

See how much simpler—and more effective—this passage is if you get rid of some of the indicators of anger:

He slammed his fist on the bar. "Get out of here, you son of a bitch!"

Trust your readers... and trust yourself. Sometimes, as writers, we are unsure of our ability to convey strong emotions, so we tend to overdo it. With simple, clear writing, you only need to make your point once--you needn't beat your reader over the head with it. Compare these passages with their simplified revisions:

Her eyes filled with tears of joy. "Oh, Michael," she breathed softly, her face full of love. "It's... it's beautiful," she added, her voice trembling with emotion. Never had she felt such love.

Her eyes filled. "Oh, Michael," she breathed. "It's beautiful."

A sense of power surged strongly through him and he raised his fist in the air, pumping it three times. "Yes!" he cried triumphantly. He would make all the small, petty little people cringe and pay for what they had done to him.

A sense of power surged through him and he raised his fist. "Yes!" he cried. He would make them all pay.

Bear in mind that the context usually gives plenty of hints about what is going on. For example, in the first example above, we would know it is a love scene. In the second, we probably already know how he feels about the people he will "make pay"--and what he feels they have done to him.

Finally, a personal bugaboo, don’t EVER use the word “hysterically” in describing how someone weeps.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, sobbing hysterically.

All you really need here is:

“Leave me alone!” she sobbed.

Tomorrow: Give yourself credit as a writer.

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25. Conflict and emotion: the heart and soul of fiction.

I think that writers and actors have a lot in common. I believe many of us are very private, even introverted, souls who must nevertheless put something very personal on display in our work. Back when I was writing soap operas , I once took a beginning acting class to see if it would give me any insights into the actors I was writing for.

                                                      

The class turned out to be valuable, but more for what it taught me about ME. In presenting a scene, I was downgraded because I was unable to put myself into it 100%—I simply could not overcome my self-consciousness. I believe that kind of self-consciousness often holds writers back as well. As a writer colleague once put it, it’s so hard to do emotional scenes "so the effect hits the reader, rather than paralyzing the writer."

Here are some ways I’ve found to handle strong emotion and conflict in fiction.

1. Put yourself in the character’s shoes. Here is where the acting lessons helped. . My acting teacher had told me to imagine a similar situation in the past to the situation I was trying to portray in front of the acting class. Although I was unable to project strong emotion on the stage, it turned out I could do it on the page

In my Pandora's novels, I have violent and even deadly arguments and fights among alpha males and between alpha men and women.  I know from reader feedback that the scenes were for the most part, successful.  How did I do it?

For many of these scenes, I imagined myself as the point of view character, imagined that I was in that scene, and imagined what would happen, based on something similar in my own life.  For example, in the big confrontation scene in Pandora's Genes at the end of the book, where Will learns that Zach has betrayed him, I imagined how I would have felt if my beloved sister had returned from the dead and I found that she had betrayed me.  I was able to use the resulting churning and painful emotions, filtered through Will's already established personality, to depict his reaction.

2. Go with your discomfort.  If you are reluctant to approach an emotional scene, examine the reasons for your reluctance.  For example, many writers are uncomfortable about writing sex scenes.  A good way to handle that is to examine the feelings the sex scene arouses in you and put those feelings in the head of the point of view character.  If what you are feeling is aversion, let us see the aversion.

I used this technique when writing The Ptorrigan Lode, which has several scenes of graphic physical and mental torture. In real life, I am a person who will not see a movie with any hint of violence, yet here I was orchestrating the worst kind of brutality. It made me intensely uncomfortable, yet somehow that discomfort, once I recognized it for what it was, helped me to make the scenes realistic for readers without (I hope) sending them screaming into the next room.

3. Seek help.  In the fight scenes in the Pandora’s books, I asked a couple of friends who had been in combat how to handle various physical situations, such as carrying an inert body through a smoke-filled room. I asked these same friends how they felt at such times, and used their answers. The one I remember most vividly was the scene in Pandora’s Children in which Zach singlehandedly attacks several armed Traders. My friend told me that Zach must make himself BELIEVE he is stronger and a better fighter than his foes, and to begin the attack with the loudest scream he can manage, putting his whole body and soul into it. I put myself into Zach’s head, tried it, and it worked!

Tomorrow: less is more

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24. How to get from Point A to Point B: the logistics of moving characters from one spot to another

The big sex scene, the revealing moment at the end of the book—these are the scenes most novelists look forward to writing. But over the course of a novel, there’s a lot of mundane movement that has to be handled as skillfully as the high drama.

I am talking here about the mechanics of maneuvering your characters through imaginary time and space in order to further the plot. A mistake often made by my novel-writing students (and sometimes by pros) is to include every boring detail.

Say, for example, we have to get John from his workplace to his bedroom/office at home, where an important plot point will occur. Although the following example is exaggerated, it’s not that uncommon to read passages such as:

John came home from work. He parked the car, climbed the flagstone steps, and entered through the kitchen door. He placed his briefcase on the counter, then shrugged out of his suit coat and hung it on the back of a chair. Tired and thirsty, he walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. He saw a carton of milk. He found a glass in the dish drainer, took out the milk, and poured some of the creamy white liquid. He drank the milk, rinsed the glass, and placed it back in the dish drainer. Then he headed for the front hall and climbed the steps toward his upstairs office.
                                         

Boring, right? In many novels or stories, there would be no need for anything more than a brief statement: “When John got home he headed for his bedroom office.”

BUT, depending on what John will do or find in that upstairs room, the seemingly boring passage above may turn out to be very important. The key is to choose which parts of it to emphasize, depending on what is going to happen

For example, suppose the milk is poisoned, and John is destined to collapse when he gets upstairs. In that case, we would want to linger on the details of John’s arrival home. Especially if we the audience KNOW that the milk is poisoned, we may be thinking, “No, John, don’t drink it!” As the author, I’d want to add some details such as, “The milk tasted a little old. He checked the expire-by date, and saw it was still good for another week, so he poured another glass.”

What if, instead of a mystery, this is a thriller or sci-fi novel, and John will receive a horrifying message on his home computer? In that case, we’d want to gloss over the details until he reaches his home office:

As soon as John arrived home, he grabbed a soda and headed for his home office.  It was going to be a long night of working on the taxes and he wanted to get an early start. But as soon as he turned the machine on, he knew something was wrong.

At this point, the computer may start talking to him, or a terrifying message pops up, or he receives a threatening email.

In a mainstream novel or a romance, John may discover that his wife has left him. In this case, we might have a few more details downstairs:

He noticed that Sarah hadn’t washed the breakfast dishes as she usually did. But he didn’t think much of it till he saw the envelope lying on the top of his laptop.

                                                                        

Or perhaps he notices that some drawers are open downstairs, but it’s not till he gets to his upstairs office that he realizes there is a burglar in the house.

Such seemingly basic details as logistics can make a big difference to the readability—and success-- of your novel.

Tomorrow we’ll look at a biggie: how to handle strong emotions in fiction.

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23. How to insert background information in dialogue

As a group, writers tend to be very generous with their colleagues. Nobody exemplifies that spirit better than my mentor, the late Robert Cenedella. Bob taught me the most important things I know about writing in the early 1970’s, when I worked for him first as a secretary and then as a script writer. Bob was a writer who had done it all: articles; short stories; an acclaimed novel (A Little to the East—well worth searching out); live and taped television dramas, including soap operas. At the time I met him, Bob was Head Writer for Another World, and just starting a spinoff, called Somerset.

                                                                          Bob Cenedella

Lessons from my Mentor, Part I

Among the many things Bob taught me, one of the first and most important was what I call The Soap Opera Rule. The rule is simple: Never have one character tell another something they both already know.

I call it The Soap Opera Rule because it's often broken on soap operas, but you see flagrant violations of this rule all the time, in novels, stories, movies and nighttime TV shows. When The Soap Opera Rule is broken, it looks something like this:

Chet shook his head. "I feel so bad for you, Roger," he said. "First you spent all those years studying to be a PhD in astrophysics. Then you married Camille. The two of you were chosen to be the first couple on the moon. But then she got leprosy and died hideously. They kicked you off the project. And you haven't been the same since."

Roger choked back a sob. "I didn't know it showed!"

 Well, okay, they aren't usually this bad. But some come close.

The problem here is that the writer needs to insert a lot of background information into the script (or novel, or whatever). So he just throws it all in. (Whew! That’s over!) But there are many better, more natural ways to get that information across. One way would be for Chet to think about some of the facts during his conversation with Roger:

Looking at his friend's gaunt face, Chet couldn't help feeling sorry for Roger. All that work getting the PhD in astrophysics, all the training he and Camille had gone through, and then she had the bad luck to get leprosy.

"We're all sorry you won't be going on the mission, Roger," he said.

"Yeah, sure," Roger said. "If you're all so sorry, then why was I kicked off the project?"

Chet didn't answer for a moment. Roger had been so touchy since Camille had died. "I don't know," he said finally. "Rotten luck all the way around."

Alternatively, you could have Chet discuss the situation with someone who doesn't know about Roger's situation (during a scene that is about something else—or it will appear gratuitous); or put it in a flashback; or drop the pieces of information bit by bit in other scenes.

Whichever way you decide to impart the information, always remind yourself that you are informing the audience or reader, not one of the characters who already knows or should know.

Tomorrow: how to get from point A to point B.

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22. Novel writing: Trust your subconscious

The most important thing I have learned in forty-plus years as a professional writer is to trust my subconscious. Not only does it give me entire plots in dreams, it is apparently hard at work on my fiction even when I’m doing something else, like cooking or leading bird walks.

                                                     

In a previous post I mentioned that some writers of seemingly-intricately plotted works maintain that they never use an outline. I believe them, because I am quite sure that their subconscious does the intricate plotting for them.In that same post I showed how instead of a formal outline I jot down notes as ideas for the novel occur. Those ideas come from my subconscious, which is always several steps ahead of my conscious mind.

For example, my subconscious often plants things I will need later in a story. When I was writing Going to See Grassy Ella, my YA novel, I had Peej, the heroine, get motion sickness in a very early scene. At the time, I thought it was just a character point, but it turned out to be a crucial plot point later on, when Peej and her sister are trying to escape from kidnappers.

As far as I knew when I was writing Pandora’s Genes, Zach was not directly based on anyone I knew. But my subconscious may have known better, because thirty years after I had last seen him, an old boyfriend turned up in my life to thank me for writing about him. He had read the book, read the description of Zach, and concluded that I had based the relationship between Zach and Evvy on him. At first all I could think was, “You’re so vain I’ll bet you think this book is about you,” but on further thought I realized that he was probably, in part, right.  

In the case of The Ptorrigan Lode, my gritty sf novella, I knew in a general way that the protagonist, Jay, would be okay in the end,  but wasn't quite sure how that would happen, until it happened. Jay’s literal transformation was as big a surprise to me as it has been to many of my readers. It was like a light going on in darkness when I realized that my subconscious had been leading me to this denouement from the beginning of the story.

Here are three proven ways to enlist your own subconscious in your novel-in-progress:

1. Write down your dreams--especially if they contain vivid imagery. Even if those images don’t seem at first to connect to your novel, just writing them down will help to open a channel to unconscious processes.

2. Carry a notebook everywhere--or use your cellphone’s memo feature--to record thoughts as they bubble up. I’ve noticed that the more I do this, the more ideas occur to me. I think the subconscious LIKES to be noticed.

3. Spend some time daily in a mindless, repetitive activity like jogging, or meditate regularly. These activities will help you get your conscious mind out of the way and allow your subconscious ideas to surface.

Tomorrow: How to insert background information unobtrusively

Technorati Tags: The subconscious and creativity,novel writing

21. How to Live With a Novelist

My dear friend Kate Kelley, who is an excellent writer and the funniest person I know, has graciously agreed to write today’s post.

So you have a novelist! Congratulations! If this is your first novelist, you may be
puzzled or frustrated by her behavior. Relax! With patience, understanding, and generous self-medication, you’ll find your novelist to be a rewarding companion.

Perhaps your novelist has been writing secretly for some time. Perhaps she suddenly announced, “I’m going to write a novel!” No matter how you came to find yourself sharing your life with a novelist, the following tips may help you maintain your sanity.

Every novelist is constantly accompanied by a host of characters she has created. These beings are often more real to her than you are, and she follows their lives with much greater interest. Before you impart vital information to your novelist, you need to be sure that she isn’t playing with her imaginary friends. Here are some  test phrases to determine if your novelist is mentally present:

“Stephenie Meyer just got the Nobel Literature Prize for Twilight.”

“Did you know that Stephen King wrote two sequels to The Mangler? And all three were made into movies?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. You got calls from Simon & Simon, and Random Penguin House, or something.”

If she doesn’t react, wait and try again later. If waiting isn’t an option, some novelist-keepers recommend a gentle poke with a very long stick. Consider the strength and speed of your novelist before you attempt this.

On the other hand, if your novelist’s gaze is suddenly fixed on you like a pointer on a grouse, you have given her something she can use. As you squirm under her focused and dispassionate gaze, she is mentally carving off bits and pieces to flesh out a character.

Note: If you think you recognize yourself in a heroic figure, your novelist will congratulate you on your perception. If you spot any of your negative traits, your novelist will assure you that you are mistaken. These are lies. Accept them graciously.

Novelists are notoriously unpunctual, if they arrive at all. You must understand that your novelist simultaneously occupies two space-time continuums. She is genuinely astonished when she looks up from a few moments at the keyboard and sees that days have passed, or finds herself in a neighboring state when she meant to drive to the grocery store.

Sometimes you must remove your novelist from her work. Perhaps a tornado is approaching, or her contractions are four minutes apart. In any event, approach cautiously, speak in low, soothing tones, and stay near the door. Don’t be alarmed if she acknowledges your presence with a snarl. Oblivious silence is much more dangerous, and may require the long stick.

                                                                                                   

Remember, the hardships of co-existing with a novelist will be rewarded when your sacrifices are acknowledged on the dedications page. Unless she thanks her cat, or her fifth-grade teacher, or her favorite barista. In which case, feel free to sharpen up  the stick.

The subconscious is an amazing and surprising ally in creativity. Tomorrow we’ll take a close look at how you can deliberately enlist it in your writing.

 

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