The Importance Of Finding Your Own Voice

Kris Rusch has written another awesome, inspirational, post: Out! All of You!

It was just what I needed. Over the past few days I've been getting back into the habit of writing after taking a break for my shoulder to heal and it's been tough.

Ignoring Your Inner Critic

Whenever I sat down to write all sorts of jabbering voices rose up like mushrooms after a rain, each telling me I was writing crap, that I would always write crap, that my crap was so crappy no one would read it.

Of course we have to care what other folks think about our work. After all, we need to pay the rent and eat occasionally. But it's easy to forget that the person we are writing for, first and foremost, is ourselves.

This isn't self-indulgence, it isn't ego. As writers, as creative beings, we need to stretch our creative muscles, we need to grow and continually develop our unique voice.

How do we do this? We write what our souls call us to write, regardless of what anyone else will think about it, regardless of whether anyone else believes what we're doing is valuable, or good, or even remotely sane!

Finding Your Own Creative Voice

In Out! All of you! Kris Rusch writes about finding your creative voice. She says that to have a long-term career, you need to learn to roll with the punches AND "you need to believe in yourself with a fierce passion. You need to know that your vision is the correct vision for you, and then you need to defend it."

Sally Field Fought For Her Creative Voice

Kris Rusch took the title of her piece--Out! All of you!--from a story Sally Field told in this short (4 min) video clip (starts around 2:45) during her interview on Nightline. It's an excellent video and Sally Field is wonderfully charismatic, it's well worth watching.

The point is that Sally Field believed enough in herself, in her artistic voice, to ignore the advice of her agents, her business manager and her husband and go her own way. And it paid off. She was right about herself. She succeeded.

Kris writes:

What disturbs me every teaching season is the way that writers wait for someone to tell them what box they fit in or what box they should go to. Every year, writers tell at least one of us that we need to give them better instructions. If we give better instructions, the writers insist, then they can write what we want them to write, so that we’ll be happy with them.

These writers entirely miss the point. The point isn’t for us to be happy, but for those writers to find their own voice. Sometimes they’ll fail an assignment and have to do it all over again from scratch. Oh, well. All that means is that they have to invest more time into their craft.

But for a certain type of writer, it means that they have screwed up completely, that they’ll never succeed, that they didn’t receive the help they needed to mold themselves into something someone else wanted.

We can’t help those writers. We try not to teach them, because we teach writers to stand on their own, defend their own vision, and become who they want to be, not who they’re told to be. It’s a tougher road to walk, because it means that there’s no one to blame when things go wrong.

Write For Yourself As Well As Others

Yesterday I wrote a 1,600 word short story in about 4 hours. For me that's good. I'll have to do another pass or two but I'm proud of it.

But I'll never, ever, publish it.

Why? Because it has to do with my father's death. It provided we with a way to say goodbye to him and to explore various issues that lingered, like ghosts, after his passing. (I did this as an unofficial response to Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge: Write What You Know.)

I wrote for myself, and I learnt something about myself and my writing. It gave me new energy, it invigorated me.

Rather than ask a question today I want to issue my own challenge:

Writing Challenge: Find Your Own Voice

1. Write something for yourself. 

Perhaps, down the road, you'll publish what you've written, but don't write with that in mind. Write something for you. If it will help, here is something Chuck Wendig wrote for his Write What You Know flash fiction challenge:

I want you to grab an event from your life. Then I want you to write about it through a fictional, genre interpretation — changing the event from your life to suit the story you’re telling. So, maybe you write about your first hunting trip between father-and-son, but you reinterpret that as a king taking his youngest out to hunt dragons. Or, you take events from your Prom (“I caught my boyfriend cheating on me in the science lab”) and spin it so that the event happens at the same time a slasher killer is making literal mincemeat of the Prom King and Queen. (Write What You Know)

2. Keep it short, 1,000 words or less

The second part of this challenge is to make it a short piece of 1,000 words or less. (Don't worry if you can't keep it to 1,000 words. I shot for 1,000 words and ended up with 1,600, but that was the shortest story I've written for years and was thrilled.)

Try to finish your piece on or before March 2. If you want to share it, post it on your website or blog and leave the link in a comment, below. If it's too personal to share, I'd still love to hear about your writing experience. :-)

Other articles you might like:

- Write A Novel In A Year, Chuck Wendig's Plan: The Big 350
- Plot, Story and Tension
- Patricia Cornwell Vindicated In Court, Wins 50.9 Million Dollars

Photo credit: "To Beseech Thee" by The Wandering Angel under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Write A Novel In A Year, Chuck Wendig's Plan: The Big 350

Yesterday’s gone the way of the dodo. You have one day, and it is today.
- Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig has written another terrific article, this time about how to write a novel in a year.

Chuck Wendig's Plan: The Big 350

This is a simple plan. There are only two rules:

1. Write 5 days out of the week.

2. On each day you write, complete 350 words.

That's it. If you do this you'll have 91,000 words by the end of the year. Chuck writes:

The goal is not to write a masterpiece. ... The goal is to finish a novel despite a life that seems hell-bent to let you do no such thing. It is you snatching snippets of word count from the air and smooshing them together until they form a cohesive (if not coherent) whole. It assumes a “slow and steady wins the race” approach to this book.

Chuck Wendig suggests using a spreadsheet to keep track of your progress:

Make a spreadsheet if you have to. Track your 350 words per day (you’ll probably end up writing more than that consistently and hitting your tally quicker, particularly with a spreadsheet to remind you — you will discover it’s actually hard to stop at 350 words).

I'll leave you with these words of inspiration from Chuck:

You can sneeze 350 words. It’s like a word appetizer every day. Some days it’ll take you 15 minutes, other days two hours — but you’re going to commit to those 350 words every day, whether you type them out, or scrawl them in a notebook, or chisel them into the wall of your prison cell. You will carve these words out of the time you are given.

You get 24 hours a day. As do I. As do we all.

Grab a little time to write a little bit every day.

Here is a graphic Chuck Wendig created and that he invited his readers to share:

The Big 350 by Chuck Wendig,
used with permission.

Do you write every day? Every week? If so, do you have any tricks or tips to share?

Other articles you might like:

- How to record an audiobook at home
- 6 Ways To Get Rid Of Infodumps At The Beginning Of A Story
- How To Write Short Stories

Photo credit: "Happy Girl Hopscotch in Strawberry Free Creative Commons" by Pink Sherbet Photography under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Plot, Story and Tension

Plot and character are the two forces at the heart of every story.

I'm reading 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B Tobias. It is brilliant!

In the first third or so of the book Ronald B Tobias asks the questions: What is plot? What is character? What patterns make up plot?

What follows are some of my notes.

Plot Is A Force, A Process, Not An Object

Plot is about creating expectations in the reader.

We often hear the metaphor that plot is a skeleton that holds your story together, and this metaphor makes sense, but there's a problem:

Plot isn't a wire hanger you hang the clothes of a story on. Plot is diffusive, it permeates all the atoms of fiction. It can't be deboned.

Tobias writes that plot is like electromagnetism, it's "the force that draws the atoms of the story together. It correlates images, events and people."

[Plot] is a force that attracts all the atoms of language (words, sentences, paragraphs) and organizes them according to a certain sense (character, action, location). It is the cumulative effect of plot and character that creates the whole.

Plot isn't dead, it isn't static. "Plot isn't an accessory that conveniently organizes your material according to some ritualistic magic. You don't just plug in a plot like a household appliance and expect it to do its job. Plot is organic. It takes hold of the writer and the work from the beginning."

Story: A Chronicle Of Events

Here's the distinction Tobias draws between story and plot: story is composed of a series of events but plot has to do with the causal interactions between the events.

In Why Detection? P.D. James writes:

E. M. Forster has written: 'The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died and the queen died of grief is a plot.'

Ronald B Tobias writes:

Story ... is a chronicle of events. The listener wants to know what comes next.

Plot is more than just a chronicle of events. The listener asks a different question: "Why does this happen?"

Story is a series of events strung like beads on a string. (This happened and then this happened and then …)

Plot is a chain of cause-and-effect relationships that constantly create a pattern of unified action and behavior. Plot involves the reader in the game of "Why?"

Story requires only curiosity to know what will happen next.

Plot requires the ability to remember what has already happened, to figure out the relationships between events and people, and to try to project the outcome.

Where story is "a narration of events in the sequence that they happened" plot "is a story that has a pattern of action and reaction".

Aristotle's concept of unified action lies at the heart of the plot. Cause and effect. This happens because that happened, and so on.

The Three Parts Of A Story

A unified action creates a whole made up of a beginning, middle and an end.

Part 1: Setup

In the first part of the story you present the problem that must be solved. This is the initial action.

Here you define your characters and what they want, what they need. This is their intent.

What your characters want is their motivation, it is WHY they do what they do.

Part 2: Rising Action

"Whenever intention is denied, the effect is tension."

Tension is created through opposition.

Characters DO things, they act on the want/need set up in Part 1. That was the cause, now in the middle of the story we see the effect.

Problems/Reversals

In the second part of your story characters run into problems that keep them from successfully completing their intentions.

Your protagonist is motivated by her wants, her desires, and she acts to fulfill them, but something prevents her from doing this, from attaining her goal.

Aristotle called this something a reversal. Tobias writes, "Reversals cause tension and conflict because they alter the path the protagonist must take to get to her intended goal."

Recognition

Recognition is "the point in the story where the relationships between major characters change as the result of the reversal."

A reversal is an event but recognition is "the irreversible emotional change within the characters brought about by that event".

Part 3: The End

The ending is the logical outcome of all the events in the last two parts.

Three things happen at the end: the climax, falling action and the denouement.

Tension

We've already seen that tension = conflict but there are different kinds of tension.

Local tension 

Local tension is the result of a conflict of the moment. Local tension doesn't have much of an effect outside the immediate circumstances that created the tension. For instance, consider the following story:

Boy meets girl.
Boy asks girl to marry him.
Girl says no.
Boy asks girl why.
Girl says, "Because you smoke."

The girl's refusal to marry the boy because he smokes creates a local tension. It is the result of a conflict of the moment. As the name suggests it doesn't have much of an effect outside the immediate circumstances that created the tension.

Because of its localized effect you can't write a novel based on local tensions. It wouldn't work. We need something bigger. Even stringing together local tensions wouldn't work. We need to dig deeper into the character and find out what makes him or her tick.

For instance, we could write a novel about the boy's internal struggle whether to quit smoking for the girl. It could be that her father died because he smoked and she doesn't want to risk losing her husband the same way. This would pit the boy's desire to smoke in direct conflict with  his wish/desire to marry the girl. Why is smoking important to him? Yes, it's an addiction, but perhaps there is a deeper reason.

Ultimately the boy will have to choose between smoking and the girl. Those are strong, or relatively strong, opposing forces that are grounded in character.

Make tension grow as opposition increases

A story requires constant tension and this tension needs to build as the climax approaches. This is another reason we need strong tension, something that can exist in the background.

Also, though, the protagonist needs to encounter a series of obstacles/conflicts, each of which deepens the opposition and builds intensity.

As we saw in the previous section, local conflict/tension can't do this on its own. If you throw a series of local conflicts at your character your readers will just be bored. Tobias writes:

The serious conflicts, the ones that are the foundation of plot, are the ones that deal with the character in fundamental ways.

At the end of the story, in the third act, the tension, the crisis, needs to deepen.

"You must continually test the character through each phrase of dramatic action."

Every time something happens the stakes grow. For instance in Fatal Attraction, "The effect of action is to snowball, increasing tension and conflict from the mundane story of a man who has cheated on his wife to one who is battling a psychotic woman who is willing to kill to get her man".

#  #  #

Well, that's it! Those are my notes so far. 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B Tobias is a terrific book, I recommend it if you want to read something about plotting and the craft of fiction.

What do you think of Tobias' view of plot as inseparable from story?

Other articles you might like:

- Patricia Cornwell Vindicated In Court, Wins 50.9 Million Dollars
- Story Structure Provides A Framework For Meaning
- 6 Ways To Get Rid Of Infodumps At The Beginning Of A Story

Photo credit: "Against the wind | Chennai Marina Beach" by VinothChandar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Patricia Cornwell Vindicated In Court, Wins 50.9 Million Dollars

The best-selling crime novelist brought the case against Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP and its former principal, Evan H Snapper. She had paid the company about $40,000 per month for four years to handle her finances.

But the author claimed the company had mismanaged about $89 million of her money, improperly investing it and allegedly misappropriating her funds.

She alleged that, on one occasion, Mr Snapper used her money to write a $5,000 cheque for his daughter as a Bat Mitzvah gift, purportedly a gift from Cornwell.

She also alleged the company had made unauthorized, illegal donations to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on her behalf.

Mr Snapper has admitted doing this, but told jurors it was on behalf of Cornwell and her friends. He is currently on probation for this offense. (Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins $51m lawsuit against accountants)

A federal court jury has awarded Patricia Cornwell $50.9 million in damages, finding her former financial company cheated her, her wife, and her company out of tens of millions of dollars. A federal judge could increase the award.

For the last seven weeks, Boston has had an uncensored view of Cornwell’s life as it has played out at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, after she sued Snapper and his company for negligence in the handling of her finances.

She has been forced to lay out her lavish lifestyle and her struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. With the words of a writer, she speaks of how she “has been eating ­arsenic for weeks,” and how “a whole mountain of rocks has been lifted off me.”

But by Tuesday afternoon the fight — an “autopsy” of her life, as she put it — had been worth it, she said. She had felt it was her responsibility to bring legal action, knowing there are people who would not have the resources to do it if they were in such a position, playing a leadership role as her heroine, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, would have.

“I tend to be outraged by ­injustices,” said Cornwell, 56. “It’s about as complicated as one of my novels; that’s for sure.” (Author Patricia Cornwell awarded $50.9m in suit)

"Outraged" is exactly the word for it. Although Patricia Cornwell and Staci Ann Gruber never discovered exactly how much money Ms. Cornwell had lost, they knew she had made "more than $89 million in her four years with Anchin, only to find she was worth little more than what she had when the relationship began".

If you would like to read more about the verdict, here are a few articles:

Link to the written verdict
Author Patricia Cornwell awarded $50.9m in suit, Boston Globe
Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins $51m lawsuit against accountants, The Telegraph
Author Patricia Cornwell wins $51M in suit against management firm, National Post
Patricia Cornwell wins $50m in damages, The Guardian

Other articles you might like:

- Joe Konrath Made $15,000 dollars over 7 days using Amazon Select
- How To Write Short Stories
- 7 Tips On How To Get Your Guest Post Accepted

Photo credit: "::Books have knowledge, knowledge is power, power corrupts, corruption is a crime,,,::" by » Zitona « under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Story Structure Provides A Framework For Meaning

PJ Reece in How to Create a Story Structure to Die For writes that a story is really made up of two stories and a middle. What happens at the middle of the story? In a word: death.

Death

In the middle of your story the hero dies, though not literally.

Figure 1: 10 of Swords

Like the tarot card of the same name, his death isn't literal. If there is a death card in the tarot I think it's the 10 of swords (see Figure 1). The death card (see picture at top)--the 13th card of the major arcana--is more about change. It signifies the end of one story, or way of life, and the beginning of the next. More than anything, it's about rebirth.

Heroes Have To Fail Before They Succeed 

In genre fiction, heroes usually succeed in their quest. We want to see the good-guy (or gal) win and triumph over their obstacles.

But in order for the protagonist's victory to mean something there has to be an ever present sense of the possibility of loss.

The way we give the reader this sense is by making it clear that the hero can fail. In fact, failure should be much more likely than victory.

How do we do this? How do we convince our readers that the protagonist can fail? By showing him fail, repeatedly, earlier in the story. As PJ Reece writes:

[In the Oscar winning movie, The Artist, a] silent movie star watches in dismay as talking pictures become all the rage.  George Valentin finds himself with no job, no girl, no more adoring fans.  He takes up the bottle and slips into oblivion.  Most protagonists would straightaway fall into the dark heart of the story and wake-up to the facts of life.

But not George.

Our hero continues to believe in yesteryear, which lays himself open to more punishment.  The screenwriter pushes George to rage and all the way to self-loathing.  His beliefs are literally killing him.  It looks like George might actually commit suicide.

That’s a story!

That brings us to the midpoint, the "dark heart of the story". This is where the hero relinquishes his old belief system--the symbolic death--and embraces a new way of viewing the world, and his problems.

Why The Hero Needs To Suffer

In each story there is a truth. Perhaps this truth is covered by the theme (for instance, 'liars never win') or perhaps it's something the hero needs to find out before he can accomplish his goal (this is his external goal, the story goal).

For instance, in The Firm Mitch McDeere had to re-discover the truth that he loved the law, and not just the money he could make from practicing it. It was that truth that let him to steer his way through the Scylla and Charybdis of the FBI and the mob.

The point is that the hero's suffering has to be connected to this truth, the truth that they need to uncover to overcome the obstacles before them and achieve their goal.

For instance, in Shrek the truth was that he had built up layers of protection around him to keep the world at bay because he didn't think anyone could love him. He was scared of getting hurt. Shrek had to confront this fear and overcome it in order to win the hand of the lady he loved. He had to come to a point where he realized the truth--that he wanted a companion, that he wanted Fiona. Shrek's failures helped him realize this.

Or so I would argue.

Other articles you might like:

- 6 Ways To Get Rid Of Infodumps At The Beginning Of A Story
- 8 Tips From Chuck Wendig On How To Read Like A Writer
- Author Solutions: The New Carnys?

Photo credits:
- Top photo (13th card of the major arcana in the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck): "RWS Tarot 13 Death.jpg" by Pamela Coleman Smith. File is no longer under copyright in US.
- Figure 1: 10 of Swords in the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, "Swords10.jpg" by Pamela Coleman Smith. File is no longer under copyright in US.

6 Ways To Get Rid Of Infodumps At The Beginning Of A Story

There are two entrenched ways of thinking about story openings.

Folks either think a story needs to open with setting and a detailed introduction to the characters or they think that any description in the first, say, quarter of the story should be bare-bones and that backstory (/infodumps) should be kept, by and large, for the last half of the story.

I tend to agree that infodumps should be avoided at the beginning of a story but that often leaves the writer with a problem. How do we work in backstory when it's needed at the beginning to set the stage?

John Yeoman (@yeomanis) has written what has to be hands-down the most useful article on how to work backstory in at the beginning I've ever read. Which comes as no surprise since he was guest posting on one of my favorite blogs--Elizabeth S. Craig's blog, Mystery Writing Is Murder.

6 Ways To Work Backstory In At The Beginning

1. The naive stranger

A favourite device is to have a stranger ask a naive question. “‘Sir, why is the village school built next to a jail?’ Old Tom smiled. ‘It’s a long story,’ he began...”

Only, don’t make the story too long!

2. The helpful gossip

Whenever that great rival to Sherlock Holmes, Dr Thorndyke, was presented with a village mystery he - and his foil, Jervis - would dine in the local pub. Inevitably, a garrulous maid or landlord would volunteer a vital clue.

Postal workers, shopkeepers, doctors, priests and other community insiders are great volunteers of background ‘stuff’. (But avoid prurient old ladies who lurk behind curtains. The world has room for only one Miss Marple.)

3. The ‘official’ tour guide

If somebody is playing host, they can plausibly entertain their guests with anecdotal histories. A tree on a hill, a book upon a shelf, any object that draws attention to itself can provoke a story.

‘My grandfather carried this with him at the Somme...’

A tourist brochure, newspaper clipping or public poster can also disclose 'stuff' in a casual way, without disrupting the narrative. ‘Official’ information appears to come to the reader unmediated by interpretation, so it has a high truth value.

This can usefully mislead the reader - say, in a mystery story - where the official information, accepted by everyone, turns out to be wrong.

I have just had great fun writing an historical mystery tale (soon to be on Kindle, Amazon permitting). It proves, indisputably, that Queen Elizabeth I of England was not a red head. The records are wrong.

4. The chance remark

.  .  .  .

[L]et the background details unfold in dialogue, by way of chance remarks.

“‘You don’t want to go there,’ the garage attendant said as he checked my oil. ‘They never did find her body.’”

Further remarks can develop that back story - and any small event whatever can cue a chance remark.

.  .  .  .

5. Break it up with action

If granny really must dump the whole history of the family on the reader, break it up. Add conflict or action. Perhaps an exasperating child keeps changing the subject. Or a pet cat gets tangled in her knitting.

While granny copes with the distractions, the reader will stay with the story - if only to see the wretched child or cat get their comeuppance. (Five Ways to Handle Stuff and Other Nonsense)

John Yeoman closes by writing:

‘Stuff’ doesn’t have to be nonsense. We need ‘stuff’ to create a context. What the reader doesn’t need is a lot of digressive details that are unrelated to the plot and that they’ll never remember anyway.

I hope John Yeoman won't mind if I add a sixth way:

6.  Honored, yet grumpy, guest/Talk to a reporter

This is similar to John Yeoman's #3, the official tour guide, but I thought I'd include it anyway.

In one of my works-in-progress, I needed to insert an information dump at the beginning. It didn't work--I knew it didn't--and if there had been any doubt my beta readers firmly, but kindly, removed it. (Love them!)

Then I read a novel in which the protagonist talked to a reporter and necessary information was introduced. I thought the devise worked. (This demonstrates the importance of reading like a writer.)

In my WIP my protagonist, a zoo director, gives the Mayor a tour around the zoo and has to explain no end of things. I also use this tour to set up the Mayor as an antagonistic force which allows me to introduce one of the core problems facing the protagonist.

There are many different ways to sneak information in at the beginning of a book. Which ones are your favorites? 

Other articles you might like:

- 8 Tips From Chuck Wendig On How To Read Like A Writer
- Author Solutions: The New Carnys?
- Structured Procrastination: Procrastinate And Get Things Done

Photo credit: "read on the wall" by MarioMancuso under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

8 Tips From Chuck Wendig On How To Read Like A Writer

Posts like this--How To Read Like A Writer--are why I love Chuck Wendig's blog.

Chuck Wendig has identified something I've felt in a hazy kind of way and shined a spotlight on it. (After reading his post I'm tempted to write 'shined a #@*#! spotlight on it'. Color me impressionable.) He writes:

You can’t just pick up a book, read it, and have its wisdom absorbed into you. Eating a microwave burrito doesn’t make you a chef. Sitting on a chair doesn’t make you a ... carpenter. And reading doesn’t make you a writer. (How To Read Like A Writer)

Makes sense! Of course the saying--A writer must read and write--is true as far as it goes, it's just not terribly helpful due to its generality.

Chuck Wendig gets beautifully specific.

Chuck Wendig's Tips On How To Read Like A Writer

1. Be present in the text

I have trouble with this. For instance, I'm currently reading Kim Harrison's latest book in her Hollows series--Ever After--and whenever I start reading it I'm sucked in.

Every time I try to snap out of the story and examine the words she's using--examine how she's able to submerge me in her world--I get sucked in again!

But, yes, being present in the text is something I strive for. Though, tragically, it is easiest to achieve when I'm reading a book I'm lukewarm about.

2. Read to understand; dissect the page

Chuck Wendig writes:

[A] chef doesn't just eat to enjoy. A chef watches how another chef operates. A chef wants to look at technique and then wants to see how that technique translates to the food on the plate: what ingredients are present? What textures and spices? What ancient shellfish from beyond space and time?

A Chef wants to understand how the other chef creates his culinary magic.

Chuck Wendig doesn't specify, in this section, what precisely he has in mind by 'dissect the page', but in his article 25 Things I Want To Say To So-Called “Aspiring” Writers, he writes:

And, when you do read something, you learn from it by dissecting it--what is the author doing? How are the characters and plot drawn together?

That reminds me of something I wrote down in my writing journal earlier today: Create a goal for your character that will eventually force them to deal with their unique weakness.

I think that's a paraphrase, not a direct quotation. It's from a three minute YouTube video about characterization: How To Make An Audience Care About Your Characters by John Truby. (The 3 minute video is excellent.)

So, for starters, I need to ask myself things like:

- What is the protagonist's weakness?
- What is her external goal?
- How will the protagonist achieving their goal resolve the character's weakness? (Sometimes the weakness is called the characters 'wound', or their 'internal goal'.)

I think that the stories I would rate as mediocre probably don't do the above well.

3. Read with questions in mind

Here are Chuck Wendig's suggestions:

- How did the author write this?
- Why did the author write it this way? Why did she choose the words she did?
- What is the ratio of dialogue to description?
- How does the author handle character? Setting? Action?
- How would you do it differently?

4. Read to critique

As Chuck Wending notes, a critique is an analysis. I came across an excellent article the other day about how to structure a story. One idea I had for a blog post was to take a classic short story--a very VERY short story--and analyse it in terms of character development, pacing and story structure.

I think doing that sort of analysis would benefit me more than reading any number of books solely for pleasure.

5. Read deeply

Chuck Wendig advises us to "look beyond the words".

- What themes are at work?
- What ideas are expressed?
- What were the author's childhood traumas? Look for the author's personal contribution to the unfolding story.
- What is the subtext?

6. Understand the interplay between writing and storytelling

This is another reason why I love Chuck Wendig's blog posts. This is SO true! But I can't recall anyone else ever saying it, at least not this clearly. CW writes:

Those are two separate skills (or crafts, or arts, or magical leprechaun incantations or whatever you want to call them) — the story comprises all those narrative components and the writing comprises the language that communicates those narrative components. Both have structure. Both utilize the other. Separate but then ask: how and how well do they work together?

7. Read from the screen

Be eclectic in your research, don't just read novels. CW writes:

Watch television. Films. Games. Get scripts. Read those. You’ll learn a lot about dialogue and description. You’ll learn the architecture of story.

8. Read beyond the walls of your pleasure dome

I'm bad at this. Atrocious. I read what I like, I should get recommendations from my writer friends and read those books even if they don't, initially, seem like my cup of tea. Chuck Wendig writes:

If all you do is read in the genre in which you write and/or enjoy, you’ve created for yourself a narrative echo chamber — your own authorial intentions are boomeranged back to you. You gain nothing.

Chuck Wendig ends his article by writing:

[I]f this writing thing is what you want to do with some or all of your life, then accept that reading is part of the job. And this job demands that all the lights in your brain are turned on, not dulled to a dim room in order to passively absorb the haw-haws and ooh-aahs of entertainment. Read like a writer, goddamnit.

Amen!

Do you read like a writer? What questions do you ask when you read?

Other articles you might like:

- Author Solutions: The New Carnys?
- Structured Procrastination: Procrastinate And Get Things Done
- Joanna Penn's Tips For Writing Realisitic Fight Scenes

Photo credit: "Week #1 "New" [1of52]" by Camera Eye Photography under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Author Solutions: The New Carnys?

I love carnivals and respect the hardworking folk who run them, but ever since I read Twilight Eyes by Dean Koontz I've associated the word "carny" with "benign shyster". Like Vegas, no matter what you do, the house always wins.

We accept this if we gamble, but would feel quite differently if the guy who came to fix our refrigerator sold us parts we didn't need and inflated what would have been a $400 charge into a $4,000 one.

That's not cool.

Here's the definition of fraud, courtesy of Google:

1. Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
2. A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've often marveled that at a time when traditional publishing houses are closing their doors forever, Author Solutions isn't just surviving, it's thriving.

Author Solutions: Why It Should Be Called 'Author Problems'

Recall that Pearson, Penguin's parent company, bought Author Solutions in 2012 for $116 million. Why did Penguin buy Author Solutions? I'll let David Gaughran explain:

What does Author Solutions bring to the table? Well, for starters, around $100m in annual revenue. Roughly two-thirds of that money comes from the sale of services to writers, and only one-third from the royalties generated by the sale of their books.

Pause for a moment and consider that statistic. Penguin isn’t purchasing a company which provides real value to writers. They are purchasing an operation skilled at milking writers.

That's right. Author Solutions makes most of its money not from selling books but from selling services to authors.

Here's an example of what this means for authors.

Jean Rikhoff's Experiences With iUniverse, a subsidiary of Author Solutions

Jean Rikhoff is a celebrated writer (see Jean Rikhoff's Wikipedia entry).

Jean Rikhoff has written seven novels and two young adult biographies, collaborated on two anthologies, and founded "Quixote" an Anglo-American literary review. She also helped found The Loft Press, taught English, and served as an English department chair at Adirondack Community College. Rikhoff, now retired, lives in Upstate New York. (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: A Memoir)

 Here are a list of Jean's formal complains against iUniverse:

- iUniverse assured her they could embed the pictures she wanted included in her book. They gave her a contract and took her money, but later told her their machines were not able to print her books as she had requested.

- Once Jean was turned over to the editorial staff at iUniverse, she received numerous phone calls about services not covered under her initial package. They told her she would want to take them because she had been awarded Editor’s Choice, a tactic Jean charmingly refers to as a “buttering up for the skinning.”

- Jean was sold copy editing services from iUniverse that she was told would cost close to $400. She agreed, and her credit card was charged $3,794.33. She disputed the charges with her credit card company.

- She went over the “editing” iUniverse provided and found more than 100 errors.

- Jean attempted to get resolution for her issues, but iUniverse employees stopped responding to her. She emailed at least four different employees. Finally someone named Joseph said he couldn’t help, but he’d try to get someone who could. Her original contact was gone, there was a “reorganization” within the company.

- Jean eventually got a final proof that was riddled with formatting problems and copyediting errors, even though they’d charged her nearly $4,000 for editorial review. When she complained, the response from iUniverse was, “The designers do not go page by page looking at the formatting.”

- Jean got one softcover and one hardcover book; she never received the remaining author copies she paid for as part of her initial publishing package.

- They spelled her name wrong on the jacket, despite her correcting this on the proof numerous times.

- Royalties were never paid. (Jean Rikhoff Takes iUniverse & Author Solutions Complaints to Indiana Attorney General)

That's an impressive list! Jean was told editing would cost her $400 and then iUniverse charged her $4000, wow. That's incredible.

David Gaughran reminds us that over 150,000 writers have suffered at the hands of Author Solutions and that number is sure to grow now that Penguin has given them a patina of respectability.

DG points out, though, it's not just Penguin who seems comfortable with Author Solutions' business practises.

Presumably Random House has no issue with Author Solutions, given that they are merging with Penguin, and operations are expanding.

Simon & Schuster must feel the same way, given that they hired Author Solutions to run their own self-publishing operation, as did Harlequin, Hay House, and Harper Collins-owned Thomas Nelson.

That’s four of the “Big Six” involved with Author Solutions in some form or another – along with the biggest Romance publisher in the world.

And now Author Solutions is expanding into India (see: Penguin India Launches Partridge – a Self-Publishing Service for Suckers). 

Buyer--or in this case writer--beware.

Have you, or anyone you know, had business dealings with Author Solutions? If so, was the experience positive?

Other articles you might like:

- Structured Procrastination: Procrastinate And Get Things Done
- Joanna Penn's Tips For Writing Realisitic Fight Scenes
- Story Craft: Five Important Questions

Photo credit: "'Children's Carnival' - Paul Landacre - Wood Engraving - 1946" by Thomas Shahan 3 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Structured Procrastination: Procrastinate And Get Things Done

Writers are often world-class procrastinators. Rather than writing now, we write later. The good news is that you can be a world-class procrastinator and still get things done.

John Perry writes:

[T]he procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

.  .  .  .

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.

The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. In universities the vast majority of tasks fall into this category, and I'm sure the same is true for most other large institutions.

To learn more, read Structured Procrastination.

Other articles you might like:

- Story Craft: Five Important Questions
- Joe Konrath Made $15,000 dollars over 7 days using Amazon Select
- Screenwriting Software: Adobe Story

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Joanna Penn's Tips For Writing Realisitic Fight Scenes

All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
- ERICA JONG

Tips For Writing Realistic Fight Scenes

Jarrah Loh is an international kickboxer and here are his tips for writing realistic fight scenes:

(1) Watch some fights, not just movies. Jarrah does recommend UFC as the closest to a street fight.

(2) Go get in a fight – but in a controlled environment, for example, a martial arts class. You will be shocked by how you feel. I mention that I went to a Krav Maga class (as Morgan Sierra, my protagonist, is ex-Israeli military). They kicked my ass and it took me days to recover!

(3) Don’t explain the fight too much, but describe the heat and fury and emotion of a fight rather than the exact physical movements. Keep the pace moving.

Gender differences in fighting. UFC are just introducing a women’s division and there are women fighters. Jarrah explains that the female fighters he knows have a lot of self confidence, for example, Bec ‘Rowdy’ Hyatt, has 2 children and went from overweight to a champion fighter who turned her life around with martial arts.

To read the rest of Jarrah's tips click here: On Violence And Writing Fight Scenes With Jarrah Loh

Other articles you might like:

- Story Craft: Five Important Questions
- Roleplaying Games, Writing, And The Creation Of Magical Systems
- How to record an audiobook at home

Photo credit: "Devotion" by Bert Kaufmann under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.