Free Indirect Discourse: How To Create A Window Into A Character's Soul

I feel silly. 

For years I've noticed a technique of Stephen King's, I've even written about it and mentioned that it seemed to be a strange contortionist amalgam of first and third person. But I didn't have a name for it. 

Until now! Yes, I am doing a happy dance. And all because of this article: "So you want to be a writer ...".[4]

Free Indirect Style: What Is It And Why Should You Care?

Jon Gingerich writes that a "benefit of Free Indirect Discourse is it's a more comprehensive way to tell a story. By temporarily breaking away from the narrator's voice within descriptive passages, the reader gets to see things not only through the narrator’s eyes but through the character's eyes as well."[2]

When a skilled writer, someone like Stephen King, uses free indirect speech it is as though he gently pushes the narrator out of the way--or as though he, as storyteller, steps aside--and allows the reader to know the innermost thoughts of the character. 

To put it simply (if rather dramatically), in a master storyteller's hands free indirect speech can be used to lay bare a character's soul.

See what you think. Here's an example of free indirect speech from Stephen King's book Under The Dome:

"Big Jim also did not ask Who did you sleep with? He had other concerns than whom his son might be diddling; he was just glad the boy hadn't been among the fellows who'd done their business with that nasty piece of trailer trash out of Motton Road. Doing business with that sort of girl was a good way to catch something and get sick.

"He's already sick, a voice in Big Jim's head whispered. It might have been the fading voice of his wife. Just look at him.

"That voice was probably right, but this morning he had greater concerns than Junior Rennie's eating disorder, or whatever it was." 

In the quoted paragraphs, above, whose voice is it? Yes, it's the voice of the narrator (King employs an omniscient narrator; he/she/it is no one in the story and the narrator has godlike knowledge), but we get Big Jim's voice peeking through. We have access to the character's thoughts, we hear--not the narrator's voice--but Big Jim's. For example, in the first paragraph, the narrator would not say "diddling," that's Big Jim's word. 

That said, the narrator--and likely the author--are evident in the text along with Big Jim. For example, Big Jim doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would be fastidious about the use of "who" and "whom." 

In the last paragraph the narrator's voice is replaced by Big Jim's; it's almost as though the narrator has temporarily submerged himself within the consciousness of Big Jim; or, perhaps, it is that the narrator has simply stepped aside. He/she/it is no longer between you and the character; it's just you and Big Jim and you're like a god in that, in that moment, you know him. He is laid bare before you; his thoughts, his hopes, his ambitions. The kind of man he is. 

That is what--or at least part of what--can be so seductive about reading Stephen King's books. The slightly voyeuristic promise of being introduced to characters that you come to know completely. Intimately. That you come to know even as you know yourself.

That also shows us one of the principle strengths of free indirect discourse: intimacy. 

To sum up: In free indirect discourse the narrator can seem to dip down into a character and reveal to you their inner workings both through their thoughts (/mental workings) and their speech. In a sense it is third person temporarily masquerading as first person and, as such, goes a long way to eliminating the distance between narrator and character--as well as (and perhaps more importantly) between reader and character.[5]

Direct Speech vs Normal Indirect Speech vs Free Indirect Speech

Free indirect speech seems like it can be powerful tool but if you're still wondering what the heck it is, perhaps this will help. 

Direct Speech

Direct speech is quoted: Bob scowled up at the dark clouds. "Ahw," he said, the sound halfway between a curse and a sneeze. "Gonna rain."

In direct speech, the reader hears from the character himself; in this case, from Bob. Because this is Bob speaking, the timber of his voice, the kinds of words he uses, and so on, are going to be different from those the (omniscient) narrator uses.

Normal Indirect Speech

Normal indirect speech is reported: Bob scowled up at the dark clouds and thought to himself that it would rain.

This speech is indirect because we don't hear it from the character himself. What Bob says and does and thinks is filtered through the narrator. As a result we lose the timber of Bob's voice as well as the particular words he, as opposed to the narrator, would use. When I read normal indirect speech it can feel as though a veil has been drawn over the character, over his mind, his essence, and that I am forced to see him through the lens of the narrator's thoughts and feelings.

Free Indirect Speech

Here's an example of free indirect speech: Bob scowled up at the dark clouds; yep, it was gonna rain.

Here, as with direct speech, the narrator is shunted aside. You, the reader, no longer look at the character through the lens of the narrator's beliefs and hopes and judgements. Here you are shown Bob's unadulterated, unfiltered, thoughts as he thinks them. 

Free indirect speech: who started this wackiness?

Apparently, nineteenth century French novelist Flaubert was the first to be consciously aware of it as a style but both Goethe and Jane Austen used free indirect style consistently. Other practitioners of the form were: Franz Kafka, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. [1]

Share your thoughts! What do you think of free indirect discourse? Do you enjoy reading authors who use the technique? Have you used it? Would you?

Notes

1. Free indirect speech, Wikipedia.

2. The Benefits of Free Indirect Discourse, column by Jon Gingerich over at Litreactor.com.

4. The article, So You want to be a writer ... is a collection of reactions--all by author-teachers--to Hanif Kureishi's statement that creative writing courses are a waste of time. It was Philip Hensher's essay that included the sentence that opened my eyes: "The focus [in Hensher's writing classes] is on technique as well as emotion and experience. Is the presiding consciousness the right one? Does he need to filter everything through his awareness? Is this the right tense? What is this thing called free indirect style?"

Miscellaneous Writing Links

- Free Indirect Style: what it is and how to use it

- Free Indirect Discourse

- Writing Advice…Past Tense or Present Tense?

- Showing and Telling: the basics

- Are you Showing too much?

- Celebrate the force of fiction (the Guardian)

- Free Indirect Speech

Photo credit: "Cap Formentor" by *Light Painting* under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Narrators, Their Knowledge And Awareness

Today I'm going to pick up where I left off Thursday (see: Point Of View: Elements) and talk about a narrator's knowledge (restricted vs unrestricted) as well as what I've been calling transparency/awareness. 

But first ...

Why is this important? Why should we care about the narrator and his/her/it capabilities?

The short answer is, because it's fun! It's fun to employ narrators who depart from the omnipresent third person limited viewpoint where the narrator has restricted knowledge (that is, only knows what the viewpoint character does). Stephen King's sprawling, immersive novel, Under The Dome uses a narrator with an omniscient voice. As I discussed last time, at one point the narrator floats through town acting as a virtual tour guide and addresses the reader directly. Brilliant! I laughed out loud. 

Joe Hill, in his book NOS4A2, uses a narrator who--while using third person limited--has an omniscient voice. That is, the narrator knows all about the viewpoint character, knows things about the viewpoint character that character doesn't know. The narrator even knows what will happen to that character in the future. But that's it. Other character's minds and futures are closed to him/her/it.

Having written a bit about why a writer might care about dusty sounding phrases like "narrative voice" let's continue looking at the various abilities a narrator can have. (Note: I'm only addressing third-person narratives in this post.)

3. Restricted vs Unrestricted Knowledge

This refers to the extent, the scope, of the narrators knowledge. Does he/she/it know only about the viewpoint character's present and past or does he/she/it also know:

- what the viewpoint character doesn't

- about the viewpoint character's future. 

Restricted knowledge: 

The narrator is restricted to knowing only what the viewpoint character (or all the characters if using an omniscient perspective) does at that point in time. Therefore, the narrator doesn't know what will happen to the viewpoint character in the future.

Unrestricted knowledge: 

The narrator's knowledge is not restricted. He/she/it knows things the viewpoint character is ignorant of, things about themselves. Also, the narrator can know what will happen to the viewpoint character in the future.

Keep in mind, though, that this is a continuum. On one end of the continuum the narrator has restricted knowledge of the character and only knows what the character does at that moment.

On the other end of the continuum the narrator has unrestricted knowledge of the character; he/she/it knows everything about them, past, present and future. The narrator knows things the character has forgotten as well as things about herself she was never aware of.

For example, Joe Hill in NOS4A2 writes:

"Her Raleigh Tuff Burner had been her birthday gift in May and was also, quite simply, her favorite birthday gift of all time ... then and forever. Even at thirty, if her own son asked her the nicest thing she had ever been given, she would think immediately of the Day-Glo blue Raleigh Tuff Burner with banana yellow rims and fat tires."

We aren't told that her son will ask that question. No. The narrator's knowledge is more extensive than that. The narrator knows that if he asked that question then that would be her answer. That is, the narrator's knowledge of the viewpoint character extends to counterfactual situations (/other possible worlds). At least, that's how I read it.

"The square of brightness at the far end of the bridge expanded and intensified. As she approached, she was conscious of an almost brutal heat emanating from the exit. She inexplicably smelled suntan lotion and onion rings. It did not cross her mind to wonder why there was no gate here at the other end of the bridge either." (Joe Hill, NOS4A2)

I thought that was a nice example of the narrator knowing something about the viewpoint character that the viewpoint character did not. For me, it gave the novel an extra dimension, it seemed to expand the universe of possibilities. It, in an odd sort of way, made the story world seem more real. 

Third Person Limited vs Third Person Omniscient

What POV was that last bit of writing told from? It seems to me it's third person, limited, even though the narrator seems to have full knowledge (/unrestricted knowledge) of the viewpoint character. 

You might wonder why I put such emphasis on this, I used to have the idea that if a narrator was omniscient concerning the viewpoint character--if they had, say, total knowledge of their thoughts and their future actions--that the viewpoint had to be third person, omniscient. 

4. Transparency/Awareness: Representational vs Presentational 

As I discussed Monday, transparency has to do with the narrator's relationship with the audience.

Representational: The narrator never addresses the reader.

Presentational: The narrator addresses the reader and may also express personal opinions.

A presentational narrator will make it clear he/she/it is speaking, not to characters in the story world, but to readers in the real world. A thoroughly presentational narrator knows he/she/it is the narrator of a work of fiction and that someone is reading it.

That said, even in a presentational narrative the narrator will, at times, fade into invisibility making the text seem representational. However, if a narrative is truly representational, the same will not be true. A representational narrative will not have any presentational moments. 

As Orson Scott Card writes in Character & Viewpoint, it is jarring if, in the middle of the story, the narrator suddenly starts addressing the reader. Which is not to say it should never be done, it would just be tricky to pull it off without jarring the reader. 

By the way, all the narrative examples in this post are representational. See my post on Monday for an example of presentational prose.

The Narrator's Presence In A Story

Think of a window. A freshly cleaned window is--as many birds have discovered--practically invisible. It is so clear one gazes through to the other side without noticing it. 

If a window is a little dirty, one notices the window but barely. Most of one's attention is still focused on what is on the other side.

On the other hand, if the window is very dirty then one notices the window almost as much as what is on the other side.

A transparent window --> An invisible narrator

An invisible narrator  --> No personality of their own

An opaque window --> A visible narrator

A visible narrator --> A personality of their own

What is the difference between a visible and invisible narrator? Well, clearly, the least visible narrator is going to be one that tells a story from the third-person, limited, where their knowledge is restricted to what the character knows. Also, they will never turn to the reader and indicate they know what's going on, that they are a narrator in a story you are being entertained by. In this case, the narrator seems non-existent and one focuses solely on the viewpoint character and experiences the story world through the viewpoint character's senses.

On the other hand, the most visible narrator--or one of them--would be one who turns to the audience and announces that the gig is up. They know they're telling a story to an audience--to you. But that's not the only way to become aware of a narrator. Whenever the narrator tells you, the reader, about something the viewpoint character doesn't know the narrator becomes visible. That is, such things encourage a reader to focus on the narrator and not just the viewpoint character. 

Summary

As you can tell, I'm currently fascinated with narrators, the kind of abilities they can have, and how storytellers can use them to weave a story.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Good writing!

Photo credit: "Intrigued" by Marina del Castell under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

NaNoWriMo, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason and Plot Wheels

In this article I explore several plot wheels and examine how they can be used to generate ideas during NaNoWriMo (or anytime!). But, first, some background.

Stephen King on Plot Wheels

Stephen King in On Writing credits Edgar Wallace with creating plot wheels. King writes:

"An amusing sidelight: the century’s greatest supporter of Developing the Plot may have been Edgar Wallace, a bestselling potboiler novelist of the 1920s. Wallace invented—and patented—a device called the Edgar Wallace Plot Wheel. When you got stuck for the next Plot Development or needed an Amazing Turn of Events in a hurry, you simply spun the Plot Wheel and read what came up in the window: a fortuitous arrival, perhaps, or Heroine declares her love. These gadgets apparently sold like hotcakes."

I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking King approves of such plot-generating devises. Earlier in that same chapter he wrote:

"You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer—my answer, anyway—is nowhere. I won’t try to convince you that I’ve never plotted any more than I’d try to convince you that I’ve never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible."

Stephen King is a well-known pantser (or, if you prefer, a discovery writer). He doesn't plot. He crafts realistic characters and then sets them lose on an unsuspecting story world; or perhaps it's the other way around. He creates realistic characters, characters we identify with, and then places them in a world, one much like our own, but with sharper edges.

King writes:

"I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). (On Writing)"

I'm going to argue that, even if one holds the above view, there's still a place for plot wheels. Not for generating plot, but for generating ideas.

It's sort of like watching clouds on a warm summer day. You're lying in the grass, the warmth of the sun baking into your skin, the hard, cool, earth at your back. You're absently chewing a piece of grass and looking up at the clouds, watching them transform into all manner of things. A bear, a mountain, a heart, a rose. Anything.

My point: we get ideas in all sorts of ways. Why not plot wheels? During NaNoWriMo anything that can help you generate ideas is a good thing.

Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason and Plot Wheels

Erle Stanley Gardner wrote 119 Perry Mason novels. In Lawyer Turned Detective, we find out at least part of the secret to his success:

"Key to Gardner's remarkable output was his use of the plot wheels invented and patented by another of his successors, a British crime novelist named Edgar Wallace. By using different combinations of possible twists and turns for both major and minor characters, Gardner was able to construct narratives that held his readers rapt for several decades."

I've taken the liberty of transcribing four of Edgar Wallace's plot wheels.

(Thanks to Kim Aippersbach for sending me the link and to Silvia Moreno-Garcia for originally passing along the information.)

Erle Stanley Gardner's Plot Wheels

Erle Stanley Gardner used four wheels to help him generate plots for his Perry Mason stories: the wheel of blind trials, the wheel of hostile minor characters, the wheel of solutions, and the wheel of complicating circumstances. (He may have used others, but those are the four I've seen.)

(Caveat: As you can see from the picture of the wheels some of the words are difficult to make out. I did my best. Also, Gardner used abbreviations and omitted certain words due to space constraints. I've expanded a few of them in an effort to make the meaning clearer.)

The Wheel Of Hostile Minor Characters Whose Function Is Making Complications For The Hero

These folks put obstacles in the hero's way, make it difficult for her to reach her goal.

1. Hick detective.

2. Attorney.

3. Newspaper reporter.

4. Detective.

5. Business rival.

6. Rival in love.

7. Father of heroine.

8. Blackmailer.

9. Gossip.

10. Meddlesome friend.

11. Suspicious servant.

12. Hostile dog.

13. Spy.

14. Incidental crook.

15. Hotel detective.

16. Thickheaded police.

B. Wheel Of Complicating Circumstances

1. Hero is betrayed to villain by spies.

2. Every move the hero makes takes him from the frying pan and puts him into the fire.

3. Heroine's maid is a spy.

4. Father of heroine is hostile to the hero.

5. Detective believes the hero is guilty and tries to arrest him/her at a critical time.

6. Hero commits an incidental crime. For example, he/she is caught speeding and is arrested.

7. Witness mistakes hero for villain.

8. Hero violates the law and is sought.

9. Heroine's mind is poisoned against the hero.

10. Some character is not as represented.

11. Rival in love tries to discredit the hero.

12. Zeal of hick cop upsets plans.

C. The Wheel of Blind Trials By Which The Hero Is Mislead or Confused

1. Witness lies.

2. A document is forged.

3. A witness is planted.

4. A client conceals something.

5. A client misrepresents something.

6. A friend pretends to betray the hero.

7. The villains assistant pretends to betray the hero.

8. A vital witness refuses to talk.

9. False confessions.

10. Genuine mistakes.

11. A witness takes flight.

12. A witness is kidnapped.

13. A witness commits suicide.

14. A witness sells out.

15. Planted clues.

16. Impossible statements.

D. Solution Wheel

How the hero surmounts the obstacles thrown in his way.

1. Gets villain to betray himself through greed.

2. Gets the villain to, of his own free will, plant additional evidence.

3. Plants fake evidence to confuse the villain.

4. Fakes circumstances so the villain will think he/she has been discovered.

5. Tricks the hero's accomplice into confessing.

6. Villain is hoist by his/her own petard.

7. Villain killed while he/she is trying to frame someone.

8. Gets villain to overreach himself/herself.

9. Meets trickery with horse-sense.

10. Squashes obstacles by sheer courage.

11. Turns villains against each other.

12. Traps [tricks?] villain into betraying a hiding place. Hero either a) creates a fake fire, or b) gives him/her something else to conceal, or c) makes it necessary for the villain to flee (and so must take something out of the hiding place).

This idea can be adapted to any area. I think I'm going to put together a list of professions as well as a list of things a character could plausibly lose.

I've had fun writing about plot wheels. I hope they'll provide an idea, or three, for you just when you need it whether or not you're going through NaNoWriMo.

Here's an app, The Brainstormer, that does something similar to a plot wheel. I haven't used it, but it looks interesting.

Note: My next post will be about Dan Wells' 7-Point System.

Photo credit: "Every holiday brings new bokeh" by kevin dooley under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Story Creation

I've been looking back through the last several articles I've written and noticed a number of posts about characterization. That's probably because I'm starting a new book.

I love this part of writing--word building, character development--where one gets to dream. This is the staring at a blank wall phase where, if non-writers (in other words, normal people) are around, they give me a concerned look and ask: Is anything wrong?

In reality I haven't been staring at a blank wall, I've been enjoying my very own holodeck.

It's been difficult--almost impossible--to tear myself away from the holodeck and do anything as practical as writing a blog post so I thought I would turn disadvantage into advantage and blog about what I'm doing at the moment; namely, story creation.

Please keep in mind that what I say in the following works for me but your mileage will likely vary. This isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.

How To Excavate A Story

1. The Idea

Think of this as a writer's meditation.

One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that you get to daydream (at least occasionally) as part of your job. Not for the whole day (though I've done that!), or even a significant portion of it, but I think there's no better way of letting an idea catch you.

And really, being honest, I'd say that ideas choose me rather than the other way around. Think about how we talk when we get an idea. I say things like, "It popped into my head" or "Something just came to me."

Fortunately, ideas often come to us while we're doing other activities--taking a shower, going for a drive, weeding the garden, walking to the store. Even when I'm writing another story, ideas will pop in and demand immediate attention.

Come to think of it, ideas are a lot like newborns.

I copy these ideas down in my writing journal and then, after I'm finished with whatever I'm working on, I come back to the ones that have grown roots and taken hold; the ones that demand I flesh them out and bring them into the world.

Okay. So. We've gotten our idea, it's demanding to be developed, let's continue to the next step: stitching the ideas together or, to put it another way, connecting the bones.

2. Fashioning a story skeleton

In the past, this step--cobbling together ideas (/bones) into a story (/skeleton)--was agonizing for me.

It used to be that when I reached this point--I'd have a story idea as well as a small group of related notions that fit together--I'd dive in and start writing. I'd think: Why not? I know who the protagonist is and I have the inciting incident, why not start writing and see where the story takes me?
And you know what? That's fine! It's how many, many, pantsers write and it works for one of my favorite authors, Stephen King.

We're all different and, generally, I don't think we know when we start this journey whether we're a pantser or a plotter. Sure, we may think we know, but we don't really know until we've completed a few stories. (Also, each story is different. Sometimes I can pants a story, but for me that's the exception not the rule.)

I've found, through bitter experience, that pantsing isn't the best--the timeliest--method for me. When I pants I generally end up doing twice as many drafts and have to (and this can be VERY painful) get rid of great chunks of writing when it doesn't serve the needs of the story.

SO I've added this second step which is, basically, putting the bones (the ideas) together so they form a skeleton, one that I hope will hold together through (most of) the many drafts the story goes through.

The problem is that, at this stage, I generally don't have a clue how to get from one idea to the next. In a sense I've got bones but no connective tissue. The bones aren't strung together, they're just lying on the floor in a heap. I have to figure out which ones go together and in what order.

For me, here's the key: I search for patterns.

Something that I've found helps with this is thinking about the universal themes embedded in other stories.

For instance, head on over to tvtropes.org and pick any trope and start reading. I think the basic, essential, structure for every story variation has been recorded on that site. Even if I don't end up using anything straight from there it's a great way to make connections and find missing elements in a story you've mostly uncovered.

Outlines = Roadmaps

Outlines are like roadmaps, they're suggestions. Possible routes. You can always decide to take another route to your destination or, even, to change destinations. Having a roadmap just lets you keep better track of where you are, where you've been, and we're you're going. (That said, one hopes that the fundamental route won't change too much.)

The Excavation Metaphor

I used to believe being a plotter meant I couldn't view stories the way Stephen King does, as preexisting entities--think dinosaur bones--in the soil waiting to be dug up. This is Stephen King's excavation metaphor. He sees himself as discovering stories rather than creating them.

But I think plotters can view stories this way. Rather than doing the excavating while we write we do it while we plot.

The next step is buckling down and doing the writing. And that means deciding on secondary arcs, ushering in helping characters, minions for the antagonist, and so on.

But I've reached the end of this (rather long) post.

What are you working on? What is your method?

As always, good writing!

Photo credit: "Testing the E-M1" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Find The Truth Inside The Lie: Stephen King on Writing

I've been binging on Stephen King.

I'm reading Under the Dome (my ereader tells me that after completing ~500 pages I'm 52% through) and watching the TV series. This is entertainment at its best and, as a writer, it's fascinating to see what changed between the book and the TV show (especially given that Stephen King is a writer on the show).

But that's not what I want to talk about.

Yesterday I came across this interview with Stephen King, The Art of Fiction No. 189 on The Paris Review.

The interview is from (as near as I can tell) 2008 and King is remarkably candid about both writing in general and his in particular. For example:

Book ideas, creativity, and connecting unrelated subjects

"When I wrote Cujo—about a rabid dog—I was having trouble with my motorcycle, and I heard about a place I could get it fixed. ... The mechanic had a farmhouse and an auto shop across the road. So I took my motorcycle up there, and when I got it into the yard, it quit entirely. And the biggest Saint Bernard I ever saw in my life came out of that garage, and it came toward me.

"Those dogs look horrible anyway, particularly in summer. They’ve got the dewlaps, and they’ve got the runny eyes. They don’t look like they’re well. He started growling at me, way down in his throat: arrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh. ... The mechanic came out of the garage and said to me, Oh, that’s Bowser, ... Don’t worry about him. He does that to everybody. So I put my hand out to the dog, and the dog went for my hand.

"I remember how scared I was because there was no place to hide. I was on my bike but it was dead, and I couldn’t outrun him. ... But that was not a story, it was just a piece of something. A couple of weeks later I was thinking about this Ford Pinto that my wife and I had. ... I was worried about my wife getting stuck in that Pinto, and I thought, What if she took that car to get fixed like I did my motorcycle and the needle valve stuck and she couldn’t get it going—but instead of the dog just being a mean dog, what if the dog was really crazy?

"Then I thought, Maybe it’s rabid. That’s when something really fired over in my mind. Once you’ve got that much, you start to see all the ramifications of the story."

King on his kind of book

"... I can remember thinking that I wanted the book [Cujo] to feel like a brick that was heaved through your window at you. I’ve always thought that the sort of book that I do—and I’ve got enough ego to think that every novelist should do this—should be a kind of personal assault. It ought to be somebody lunging right across the table and grabbing you and messing you up. It should get in your face. It should upset you, disturb you. And not just because you get grossed out. I mean, if I get a letter from somebody saying, I couldn’t eat my dinner, my attitude is, Terrific! [emphasis mine]"

Interviewer: "What do you think it is that we’re afraid of?"

King:

I don’t think there’s anything that I’m not afraid of, on some level. But if you mean, What are we afraid of, as humans? Chaos. The outsider. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of disruption, and that is what I’m interested in. I mean, there are a lot of people whose writing I really love—one of them is the American poet Philip Booth—who write about ordinary life straight up, but I just can’t do that.

I once wrote a short novel called “The Mist.” It’s about this mist that rolls in and covers a town, and the story follows a number of people who are trapped in a supermarket. There’s a woman in the checkout line who’s got this box of mushrooms. When she walks to the window to see the mist coming in, the manager takes them from her. And she tells him, “Give me back my mushies.”

We’re terrified of disruption. We’re afraid that somebody’s going to steal our mushrooms in the checkout line.

King's stories are about "... an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it."

I’d say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. ... In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that’s inexplicable to you, whether it’s the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we’re still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts.

On Planning A Book Out--Or Not

King: "Every book is different each time you revise it. Because when you finish the book, you say to yourself, This isn’t what I meant to write at all. At some point, when you’re actually writing the book, you realize that. But if you try to steer it, you’re like a pitcher trying to steer a fastball, and you screw everything up. As the science-fiction writer Alfred Bester used to say, The book is the boss. You’ve got to let the book go where it wants to go, and you just follow along. If it doesn’t do that, it’s a bad book."

It is a wonderful interview and, if you like Stephen King's work and want a peek behind the curtain, I encourage you to read it.

Stephen King's Acceptance Speech for the National Book Award

Stephen King won the National Book Award For Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003 but I had not read his speech. I did yesterday (as I said, I've been binging) and it is truly wonderful.

Here is one of my favorite parts:

"But the storyteller cannot afford to forget and must always be ready to hold himself or herself to account. He or she needs to remember that the truth lends verisimilitude to the lies that surround it./ ... I've tried to improve myself with every book and find the truth inside the lie. Sometimes I have succeeded." 

That advice was like a tall cool drink of water, "Find the truth inside the lie." Simple, but far from easy.

I'd like to leave you with something disconnected--though not completely so--from the current topic.  A 1968 memo written by Gene Roddenberry to the writers of Star Trek was discovered recently, it details what the creator of Kirk, Bones, and Spock thought were their essential characteristics. Fascinating read.

Photo credit: "SK-4" by Tabitha King, copyright stephenking.com.

Writing Advice From Joyce Carol Oats & Stephen King

I love reading writing advice from authors I admire, authors like Joyce Carol Oates, professionals who have been writing for years and who kindly share their hard won wisdom with the rest of us.

For those of you who are a bit foggy on who Joyce Carol Oates is, here is a brief bio courtesy of Wikipedia:

Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over forty novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

The following quotations are from: 10 Tips on Writing from Joyce Carol Oates. Ms. Oates recently tweeted the following writing advice.

"The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been written. FIRST DRAFTS ARE HELL. FINAL DRAFTS, PARADISE."

What do you think? Personally I love writing first drafts--well, most of the time--what I loathe with a fiery passion is revising. But I do revise. For me, that's the work part.

"When in doubt how to end a chapter, bring in a man with a gun. (This is Raymond Chandler’s advice, not mine. I would not try this.)"

"Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!"

I would add: But never on the first draft! I think of my first drafts as zero drafts where anything goes.

I can't resist sneaking in a quote from another of my literary heroes, Stephen King:

"Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior. (On Writing)"

The above quotation was taken from The Adverb Is Not Your Friend: Stephen King on Simplicity of Style. A great article. If you are a new writer and haven't read Stephen King's On Writing you're missing out.

These quotations come from Brain Pickings, a gruesome name but a terrific blog. 

Good writing!

Photo credit: "Dream" by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

10 Tips On How To Write A Book

A few days ago Delilah S. Dawson wrote a post on Chuck Wendig's blog, Terribleminds, about how she writes a book. It's awesome! I wish I'd read something like it when I was starting out.

Delilah concentrates on writing for traditional publishers but a large part of her post is applicable to indie's as well. Here's a few of the points that resonated with me.

 

How To Write A Book

What follows is loosely based on Delilah S. Dawson's excellent post 25 Steps to Being a Traditionally Published Author: Lazy Bastard Edition.

 

1. Writers write

This is less a 'how you do it' point than it is what to expect. Chances are, putting your posterior in a chair every day for several hours is not what you'll want to do. (Not to mention the back pain.)

There will usually be something more appealing to work on than writing. Even housework will begin to seem fun by comparison (at least, this has been my experience, and I loathe housework).

It helps to be disciplined, to make a schedule and stick to it. Neil Gaiman writes:

"If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.

"You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.

"The process of writing can be magical. … Mostly it’s a process of putting one word after another." (Neil Gaiman on How Writers Learn and Why First Drafts Don’t Matter)

Whether you write when you first get up in the morning, after you get your first jolt of caffeine (my preferred time when I'm writing a first draft), or sometime else, the important thing is to set up a routine and stick to it.

(See: 6 Ways To Write Every Day)

2. Don't give up.

Even if it seems you're writing crap, keep writing.

When you come back and look at your work the next day, it won't be as bad as you thought. In fact, as Chuck Wendig recently said, it might be good (see his post (adult language -->): Yes, Virginia, You Can Totally Force Art).

Conversely, you'll have days where you think everything you write is brilliant. Unfortunately, chances are, the next day when you look at what you did you'll think it's simply average.

If you've never written a book before, the important thing is simply to finish the manuscript even if you know its destined to be lovingly interred under your bed. After all, it counts toward your 1,000,000 words.

Incidentally, if you haven't come across the idea that every writer has to write 1,000,000 words before they can produce a truly good book, here's a quotation from that master of the writers' craft, Ray Bradbury:

"The Muse must have shape. You will write a thousand words a day for ten or twenty years in order to try to give it shape, to learn enough about grammar and story construction so that these become part of the Subconscious, without restraining or distorting the Muse." (Zen in the Art of Writing)

In order to write well we must first write. If that means we write badly then so be it. After all, one must write to have something to edit!

As I searched for the Ray Bradbury quotation, above, I came across a couple more:

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed." (Ray Bradbury) 

"The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn’t behave that way you would never do anything." (John Irving)

3. To write you must read

I can say from personal experience both that it's tempting to stop reading when you're writing--I've become a miser with time and try to squeeze minutes and seconds from my day any which way I can--and that eliminating your reading time is one of the worst things you could do.

Reading feeds you. When you write it's like your muse is running a marathon. She needs to be fed and one of the main ways that happens is through reading.

Also, though, one needs to take walks, meet people and enjoy the creative efforts of others. 

Another important function of reading is that it helps us learn to become better writers. Often I'll sense that something is lacking from a particular scene and, when I read, I'll have a revelation and understand what's missing from my own work. Delilah writes:

"It [reading] helps keep your mind nimble and constantly growing new neural connections. What the author did right, what they did wrong--your brain just soaks it up like Kraken rum in a sponge cake. Read other genres, read the popular books that you think probably suck just to see what makes them so appealing. Read nonfiction. Read writing books. When you’re getting ready to revise or query, read books similar to your own to finesse what makes yours special. But always be reading ..."

4. Finish what you start

I guarantee you that at some point when you're writing your book--this will probably happen more than once--you'll have an almost irresistible desire to start writing another story. You'll have a grand idea, a compelling concept will pop into your noggin, and it'll be so beautiful and wonderful that you'll want to abandon the plodding piece of so-and-so your current manuscript has morphed into and work on it.

Don't!

As Admiral Ackbar said: It's a trap!

Yes, absolutely, write down the idea--I have an idea book where I write down story concepts--but then go back to your work in progress. Delilah writes:

"You’ll never learn anything if you don’t finish a book. At first, you might not know what your process is. Are you a plotter? Do you ride by the seat of your pants? Do you like Scrivener or longhand or writing on your bathtub wall in pig blood? You’ll never know what works until you’ve written one complete book. Your process might change later. But for now, focus on writing a really crappy first draft in whatever way appeals and don’t stop until the ride is over." 

5. First drafts are vomited up rather than written down 

I don't let anyone see my first drafts. They aren't pretty. 

I've begun to think of my first drafts as zero drafts. They give me a chance to wallow in an idea, seeing where it's going to lead. It gives me a starting place, a structure.

Delilah writes, and I agree 100%:

"Looking for a leg up on improving your writing at any point of this writing thing? Go read ON WRITING by Stephen King, which is a game changer and, for me, a life changer. Then read BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott. Then read SAVE THE CAT by Blake Snyder."

6. When you finish your first book celebrate but don't send it out, not yet

Finishing your first book is a big deal. Treat yourself. Tell your friends. Go out and celebrate.

But all you have at this point is a first draft that needs a lot of polish. But, before you start editing, you need distance from your manuscript. You need to be able to read it with new eyes, and that'll take time.

How much time? Well, that depends on who you talk to. If I remember correctly, Stephen King says to give it 6 weeks. I'd say, if you can, give it at least a month. In the meantime, though, don't stop writing. Start on a short story or begin work on your next book.

7. Revise

You've set your manuscript aside for a few weeks, now you're starting on your first revision, your second draft.

Everyone's different, but I find it usually takes me (at least) twice as long to do my first revision as it does to write the first draft. Why? I'll let Delilah explain:

"Don’t read it like it’s your precious perfect baby darling. Read it like it’s your worst enemy’s magnum opus and your job is to expose its every tragic flaw. Are the characters flat? Does the dialog pop, or is the dialog just you using the characters’ mouths for your own assplaining? Is there purple prose? Does the action compel you to keep reading? Is there a satisfying story arc? Do you switch POV or tense? Because, honestly, I do that all the damn time. If you get bored reading it, so will your audience."

The first draft is just the beginning. The first draft is the easy part.

The first draft is where you get to pluck ideas out of your imagination and write them down, creating connections, dreaming up people and places and adventures. The second draft, on the other hand, is where things get real and you have to straighten hems and make sure everything is presentable and ready for company.

8. Polish

Don't stop with revision. Once you've got the big things figured out go through your manuscript again looking for anything that weakens it. (Here's a terrific article on the subject: Self-Editing for Everyone Part 4: The Weakeners.) Look for words you don't need, words that don't add anything to the meaning of your prose.

Although there's nothing wrong with adverbs in and of themselves, often adverbs are used in ways that bloat and weaken sentences. Stephen King has an excellent discussion of this in On Writing.

Also, I would suggest that you not only read the manuscript aloud to yourself but that you run it through a text-to-speech program that will read it back to you. When I hear my words read back to me I find a host of typos.

9. As other people for input 

Who you ask, how many people you ask, is up to you but you definitely need to give your manuscript to someone else to read.

Dean Wesley Smith, a professional writer with many years experience, gives his manuscripts to a first reader and then sends them off. Other people like running their manuscripts past their writing group.

Try out different things and find out what works for you. 

Also, if you can afford it, there are many excellent professional developmental editors who can help you make your manuscript stronger.

Here are some links to previous articles of mine on the editing and critiquing process:

Editing & Critiquing

How To Get Over A Destructive Critique

The Dark Art Of Critiquing, Part 1: What Makes A Story Good?

The Dark Art of Critiquing, Part 2: Formulating A Critique

10. Start writing your next story

After you've polished your story and have sent it out--whether you've published it yourself or sent it to traditional publishers--start on your next story!

Delilah S. Dawson's article, 25 Steps To Being A Traditionally Published Author, goes on to list the steps she took in her adventure to becoming a traditionally published author. It's a great article.

Happy writing!

Photo credit: "At Lands End" by Sharon Mollerus under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Stephen King On What Makes An Opening Line Great

"An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this," Stephen King.

Stephen King recently gave an interview in which he spoke about what qualities an opening line should have. It's a wonderful, and wonderfully informative, article, one I encourage you all to read: Why Stephen King Spends 'Months and Even Years' Writing Opening Sentences.

Here are a few tips:

1. Open in the middle of action

King says:

We've all heard the advice writing teachers give: Open a book in the middle of a dramatic or compelling situation, because right away you engage the reader's interest. This is what we call a "hook," and it's true, to a point.

2. Give the reader information about the characters and the story

King writes:

This sentence from James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice certainly plunges you into a specific time and place, just as something is happening:

"They threw me off the hay truck about noon."

Suddenly, you're right inside the story -- the speaker takes a lift on a hay truck and gets found out. But Cain pulls off so much more than a loaded setting -- and the best writers do. This sentence tells you more than you think it tells you. Nobody's riding on the hay truck because they bought a ticket. He's a basically a drifter, someone on the outskirts, someone who's going to steal and filch to get by. So you know a lot about him from the beginning, more than maybe registers in your conscious mind, and you start to get curious.

3. A good first sentence introduces the reader to the writer's style

King writes:

In "They threw me off the hay truck about noon," we can see right away that we're not going to indulge in a lot of foofaraw. There's not going to be much floridity in the language, no persiflage. The narrative vehicle is simple, lean (not to mention that the book you're holding is just 128 pages long). What a beautiful thing -- fast, clean, and deadly, like a bullet. We're intrigued by the promise that we're just going to zoom.

4. A great first sentence introduces the reader to the writer's voice

King writes:

With really good books, a powerful sense of voice is established in the first line. My favorite example is from Douglas Fairbairn's novel, Shoot, which begins with a confrontation in the woods. There are two groups of hunters from different parts of town. One gets shot accidentally, and over time tensions escalate. Later in the book, they meet again in the woods to wage war -- they re-enact Vietnam, essentially. And the story begins this way:

"This is what happened."

For me, this has always been the quintessential opening line. It's flat and clean as an affidavit. It establishes just what kind of speaker we're dealing with: someone willing to say, I will tell you the truth. I'll tell you the facts. I'll cut through the bullshit and show you exactly what happened. It suggests that there's an important story here, too, in a way that says to the reader: and you want to know.

A line like "This is what happened," doesn't actually say anything--there's zero action or context -- but it doesn't matter. It's a voice, and an invitation, that's very difficult for me to refuse. It's like finding a good friend who has valuable information to share. Here's somebody, it says, who can provide entertainment, an escape, and maybe even a way of looking at the world that will open your eyes. In fiction, that's irresistible. It's why we read.

5. A good first line will give the writer a way to break into the story

King writes:

I don't have a lot of books where that opening line is poetry or beautiful. Sometimes it's perfectly workman-like. You try to find something that's going to offer that crucial way in, any way in, whatever it is as long as it works. This approach is closer to what worked for in my new book, Doctor Sleep. All I remember is wanting to leapfrog from the timeframe of The Shining into the present by talking about presidents, without using their names. The peanut farmer president, the actor president, the president who played the saxophone, and so on. The sentence is:

On the second day of December, in a year when a Georgia peanut farmer was doing business in the White House, one of Colorado's great resort hotels burned to the ground.

It's supposed to do three things. It sets you in time. It sets you in place. And it recalls the ending of the book -- though I don't know it will do much good for people who only saw the movie, because the hotel doesn't burn in the movie. This isn't grand or elegant -- it's a door-opener, it's a table-setter. I was able to take the motif -- chronicle a series of important events quickly by linking them to presidential administrations -- to set the stage and begin the story. There's nothing "big" here. It's just one of those gracenotes you try to put in there so that the narrative has a feeling of balance, and it helped me find my way in.

Although I've quoted extensively from  Joe Fassler's interview with Stephen King I have left out far more than I included. As in his book, On Writing, King gives practical, easy to understand, advice on the art and craft of writing. A must read.

Photo credit: "around and around" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Stephen King On Storycraft: Don't Force It

Yesterday someone sent me a terrific link to Anthony Mason's interview with Stephen King: Stephen King on storytelling.

It was a wide ranging interview and King is animated and relaxed, there's also a video. Great reading/watching.

Wait Until You've Gotten All The Pieces Together

My favorite part was Stephen King's reply to Anthony Mason about how he knows whether an idea is robust enough for a story. King is talking about his soon-to-be-published novel Doctor Sleep and says:

King: "I'd be driving in my car and I'd think, Well, now Danny Torrance is 23. And then a few years later I think, He's 27, or he's 28. So question was, what exactly is he doing?

"That's the sort of thing where it's, like, half an idea - okay, he's dysfunctional, he's alcoholic, the way that his father was an alcoholic. But it's only half an idea.

"And then I saw this thing ... about a cat in a hospice, and this cat knew when patients were going to die. And the cat would go into their room and jump up on their bed. And that's how the personnel in the hospice knew that that patient was going to be the next one to step out.

"And what really interested me about the story wasn't the cat, per se, but the fact that the patients seemed to welcome his visit. And I thought, Well, he's like an angel of death or an emissary of death, and maybe death isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's only sleep. And I put those two things together and for me it clicked. So I wrote the book."

MASON: "Uh-huh. And so you were just waiting for something to click on it?"

KING: "It has to click. There has to be, like, two or three moving parts to make it go. It can't just be one. So sometimes they all come together, and sometimes you'll get one piece and you have to wait a little while to get the rest. "

MASON: "Do you wait, or do you try to work it?"

KING: "Never try to work it, just wait."

MASON: "Why? 'Cause that forces it?"

KING: "Yeah. It's like if you have a piece of furniture that you want to get into your house. And if it's too big to fit the door straight on, you have your choice: either you can wait until you get somebody to help you and tilt that piece of furniture so that it goes through, or you can just ram it and scrape the sides up. So you don't try to force it. It's a little bit like a batter at the plate; if you try to force base hits, you're going to strike out a lot. So I have a tendency to wait until I get the pieces together."

The entire interview is a must read, and the video adds another dimension to the conversation.

Also:

"Mason asked King if writing is a compulsion for the 65-year-old author: "Or do you need to have some story that just gets in your brain you can't get out?"

"It's a compulsion," King replied. "For one thing, when I was younger, my head was like a traffic jam full of ideas, and they were all jostling, and they all wanted to get out. And I wrote a lot more than I write now. I still write every day." (Stephen King and his compulsion to write)

 65 years old and still writing every day. Pretty darn good.

Photo credit: "Stalker" by Laura D'Alessandro under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

A Chance To Meet Stephen King And Help Mark Twain House

If you want to be part of a reception for Stephen King and get your own personally autographed book then it'll cost you $250, otherwise tickets are a more modest $25 to $75.

Also, if you use the promotional code, given below, you'll be able to order your tickets on the 19th rather than waiting for the 21st, when sales are open to the general public.

Stephen King In Conversation with Colin McEnroe

This is from Stephen King's newsletter:

On Thursday, July 18, at 8:00 p.m., Stephen will appear on stage at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, in conversation with WNPR radio personality Colin McEnroe. Proceeds from the event benefit the continuing educational and preservation activities of The Mark Twain House & Museum.

How To Get A Ticket

Members of the museum

Tickets will be open for purchase by members of the museum on Monday, March 18.

Membership is available by calling 860-280-3112, or by going to www.marktwainhouse.org. Members will be given a special on-sale code for ticket purchasing.

General public 

Tickets will be open for purchase by members of the general public on Thursday, March 21.

Stephen King fans

Stephen King fans are being given a special opportunity to purchase tickets before the general on-sale date, beginning Tuesday, March 19th, by using the promotional code CLEMENS.

How to make a reservation

Reservations may be made at www.bushnell.org or 860-987-5900.

Ticket prices range from $25 to $75 (additional service fees apply) with a special VIP ticket for $250, which includes a reception with Stephen King and an autographed book.

Read more about this event here: Stephen King In Conversation with Colin McEnroe.

Other articles you might like:

- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is FREE for the next week! (offer ends March 25th)
- Story Structure
- Chuck Wendig On Story Structure

Photo credit: "Samuel L Clemens4 1940 Issue-10c" by U.S. Post Office. Uploaded by Gwillhickers. This file is part of the Wikimedia Commons.

Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining

I just came across this interview of Stephen King on the subject of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. It's very good. King seems relaxed and happy to chat.

In addition to discussing his upcoming book, Doctor Sleep (due out this September 24th), King discusses the possibility of a movie prequel to The Shining.

King's Goal For Doctor Sleep: To Scare The S-t Out Of You!

At one point the interviewer, Anthony Breznican over at EW.com, asks Stephen King how will he know if Doctor Sleep was successful. King replies:

Basically, the idea of the story was to try and scare the s–t out of people. [Laughs.] I said to myself, ‘Let me see if I can go and do that again.’ There’ve been a couple of books that haven’t really been that way. 11/22/63 was a lot of fun to write and a lot of people read it and seemed to like it, but it’s not what you’d call a balls to the wall scary story. The same was true of Under the Dome. I wanted to go back to that real creepy scary stuff. We’ll see if it works. I like the book, or I wouldn’t have ever wanted to publish it.

RVing: "... the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature"

About the villains, The True Knot, "a kind of nomadic group of people who masquerade as Winnebago-riding old timers but feed off people who have psychic energy" King says:

Driving back and forth from Maine to Florida, which I do twice a year, I’m always seeing all these recreational vehicles — the bounders in the Winnebagos. I always think to myself, ‘Who is in those things?’ You pass them a thousand times at rest stops. They’re always the ones wearing the shirts that say ‘God Does Not Deduct From a Lifespan Time Spent Fishing.’ They’re always lined up at the McDonald’s, slowing the whole line down. And I always thought to myself, ‘There’s something really sinister about those people because they’re so unobtrusive, yet so pervasive.’ I just wanted to use that. It would be the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature.

King also reminds readers that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the book not the movie:

But one of the things – and I’m not sure if this is going to be a problem for readers or not – is that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the novel. It’s not a sequel to the Kubrick film. At the end of the Kubrick film, the Overlook is still there. It just kind of freezes. But at the end of the book, it burns down.

Will There Be A Movie Prequel To The Shining?

AB: There has recently been talk of a movie prequel to The Shining. It’s based on material cut from your novel, about the early history of the Overlook. Warner Bros, which made Kubrick’s film, has been exploring whether there’s another movie in it. How do you feel about that?

SK: There’s a real question about whether or not they have the rights to ‘Before the Play,’ which was the prologue cut from the book — because the epilogue to the book was called ‘After the Play.’ So they were bookends, and there was really scary stuff in that prologue that wouldn’t make a bad movie. Am I eager to see that happen? No I am not. And there’s some real question about what rights Warner Bros. does still have. The Shining is such an old book now that the copyright comes back to me. Arguably, the film rights lapse — so we’ll see. We’re looking into that. I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project, because I’m sort of a nice guy. When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’ I have a tendency to let people develop things. I’m always curious to see what will happen. But you know what? I would be just as happy if it didn’t happen.

Stephen King World: Disney World Meets Hotel California

Stephen King ends by saying that if there were a Stephen King World akin to Disney World "people would only go on the rides … once."

It's a great interview, I highly recommend it to King fans, and anyone wanting a peek behind the curtain: Stephen King unearths origin of 'The Shining' sequel 'Doctor Sleep' -- EXCLUSIVE.

Other articles you might like:

- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been
- The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero

Photo credit: Doctor Sleep cover, StephenKing.com

Stephen King Board On Jeopardy Tonight (March 5, 2013)

This just popped into my mailbox. From Stephen King's official newsletter:

Tonight's episode of Jeopardy will feature a complete board of questions related to Stephen and his body of work. Be sure to tune in, and visit ourMultimedia section later this week.

Clickhere to find your local channel and time

I gave up TV a few months ago, but that's something I wish I could see!

The Trouble With Adverbs

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs ....
- Stephen King, On Writing

Why do many writers hate adverbs?

When I first read Stephen King's On Writing I confess I thought his stance toward adverbs a tad harsh. How could a part of speech be categorically condemned? As Jeff Chapman writes:

Adverbs shade the meaning of the words they modify. They are grammatical and an accepted part of speech. I've seen them used by well-respected writers. So, what's behind the injunctions against adverbs? (Why No Adverbs?)

As I investigated the roots of the prejudice against the adverb (I was tempted to write "the lowly adverb" but restrained myself) I came to agree with the admonition to eschew the use of adverbs, or at least to try. This blog post is my attempt at a partial explanation of why we should treat the adverb with caution.

Much of what follows has been drawn from Charlie Jane Anders' article, Seriously, What's So Bad About Adverbs?

1. Adverbs Often Express A Redundant Meaning

Jeff Chapman writes:

Adverbs are redundant when paired with strong verbs. For example: "clenched his teeth tightly"; "moped sadly"; "screamed loudly"; "whispered quietly." In each case, the adverb adds no additional meaning to the verb. There is no other way to mope than with sadness and when someone whispers, they are being quiet.

But what about something like, "He yelled angrily"? It doesn't feel right, but the notion of being angry isn't directly implied by yelling.

For instance, you might yell to tell someone they're in trouble ("Look out! A bus!") or because you're in a nightclub ("I said, 'What would you like to drink?'"). In these cases, though, one shouldn't have to use an adverb because the context should make it clear whether the person yelling was angry.

2. Adverbs Are Sometimes Used To Bolster Weak Verbs

The idea being that the weak verb should be replaced by a strong verb rather than propped up by an adverb.

Before I get into this I feel I should say a few words about what is a strong, as opposed to a weak, verb. I looked this up and, apparently, strong verbs are irregular verbs and weak verbs are ... well, here's a quote:

A weak verb (or regular verb) is one that forms its past participle and past form by adding "-ed" or "-t". (Weak Verbs)

For instance:

Look at the most famous adverb in science-fiction history: Captain Kirk's "To boldly go where no man has gone before." What do you notice? Okay, yes, it's a split infinitive. But look past that. The verb is "go," which doesn't really tell us much in itself.

What would happen if you took the adverb out of that sentence? You get: "To go where no man has gone before." Which sounds bland, and a little apologetic. ("Hey, we're, uh, going, ummm, somewhere that we haven't gone before." "Oh. Are we there yet?" "No.")

From that, you might conclude that the adverb is necessary. But actually, it's more that the verb is weak. "Go" just doesn't give us much, and it definitely doesn't have the swashbuckling feeling Captain Kirk's ringing voiceover demands. So the best bet is to replace it with a stronger verb, like "venture," or "explore." Or how about: "To walk where no man has walked before"? It's evocative and calls to mind men walking on the Moon. (Seriously, What's So Bad About Adverbs?)

I love Star Trek so just let me say that I think, here, the flexibility of the verb was a good thing. After all, we don't want to say, "To fly where no man has flown before," "To dive where no man has dived before," "To walk where no one has walked before," "To run where no one has run before," "To crawl ..." well, you get the idea.

But, point taken. Most of the time weak verbs are insideous. They creep into one's prose and weaken it with clutter. Jeff Champman writes:

Adverbs are used to prop up weak verbs. A better solution is to replace those weak verb/adverb pairings with a stronger verb. For example: replace "frowning angrily" with scowling; "running quickly" with sprinting; "petting softly" with caressing; "moving slowly" with creeping. (Why No Adverbs?)

3. Using Adverbs In Dialogue Attribution

For instance,

"Get out of my house!" she said angrily.

From the dialogue itself it's probably clear the speaker was angry. Yes, it could be that there was a fire spreading through her house and she wanted everyone to evacuate but the context should make the meaning clear.

4. The Adverb And Purple Prose

Charlie Jane Anders gives "He smiled thinly" and "He grinned wolfishly" as examples of adverbs aiding and abetting purple prose.

Of course she's right. Adverbs are likely present in a lot of prose that could be described as purple (that is, excessively ornate prose that does not further the story).

That said, it's interesting only one -ly adverb occurs in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's famous first sentence:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. (Purple prose, Wikipedia)

Are Adverbs Irredeemable?

Charlie Jane Anders concludes:

But adverbs aren't necessarily all bad, and they can spruce up your writing if you use them judiciously. Here's a test you should apply before using an adverb.

1) Does it change the word it modifies? Does it make the verb or adjective mean something drastically different?

2) Does it convey some vital piece of information in a way that's better or more evocative than real description or a stronger verb by itself?

If the answer to either or both of these things is "Yes," then go ahead and use an adverb. There's nothing wrong with an adverb, if it conveys new information or provides a distinct slant on something.

I couldn't agree more!

Professor Quest has written a wonderful article The Betrayal of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Adverbs in which he talks about Fitzgerald's use of adverbs to, "create internal tensions or to emphasize points-of-view". He writes:

[In The Great Gatsby] People intrude deferentially; their eyes roam speculatively across empty ballrooms. At one point, Gatsby's house is lit like Coney Island at night, every door and window wide open. As Nick turns away, he speaks of the house "blazing gaudily on."

Charlie Jane Anders writes:

For example, "horribly fatal" doesn't tell us anything new. "Hilariously fatal" does. So does "moderately fatal." So does "arguably fatal." I will never quibble with anyone who wants to use phrases like "statistically significant number of maimings." An adverb can signal a certain tongue-in-cheekness by undermining or tweaking the adjective it goes with, like: "the savagely handsome first officer." Or "the obnoxiously sexy co-pilot."

I'll give Jeff Chapman the last word:

So, should you ever use an adverb? They are permissible in a few cases. It's reasonable to employ them in dialogue. People use them when they talk. In other cases, an adverb is adequate to create a mental image and rewriting makes the prose wordy. Consider this example: "The man stood silently at the window" versus "The man stood at the window making no noise." The instance with the adverb is more concise. The rewrite is longer and draws unnecessary attention to the phrase "making no noise".

It is very easy to fall into the adverb traps. The good news is that they are easy to find. Search your manuscript for "ly" and consider each instance. You will be surprised how much richer your writing will be when you eradicate those adverbial weeds from your prose. Happy weeding.

A Disclaimer

None of this adverb hate applies to your first draft. When you write, ignore everyone except your own muse. On your first draft you're birthing a story so it's going to be messy. Use all the adverbs you want. You'll start cleaning things up on your second draft.

Other articles you might like:

- 8 Tips For Finding The Motivation To Write
- Describing Character Reactions And Emotions: She Smiled, He Frowned
- Tags, Traits And Tells (Podcast)

Photo credit: "?" by Bruna Schenkel under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.