How To Write A Murder Mystery

I've never written a murder mystery, but I've always wanted to.

I fell in love with detection and murder in grade nine when my English teacher assigned the class Agatha Christie's story, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. We read a section in each class and had to try and guess who the murderer was, then defend our guess.

Best. Class. Ever!

One of my life goals is to write a mystery novel, one sprinkled with murders, false leads and scandalous secrets.

I've started a few murder mystery stories. Every two years or so, I decide to take another run at it but I always end up setting the manuscript aside after several angst-filled writing sessions.

Which is why I was utterly thrilled by Susan Spann's post, 25 Things You Need To Know About Writing Mysteries, over at Chuck Wendig's blog, Terribleminds.com.

SS's post set forth important, insightful and, above all, useful writing tips that could help even a murder mystery neophyte (like me!) actually finish writing one.

How To Write A Murder Mystery

1. Start with your sleuth

Everything begins with character.

Once you know something about your sleuth you can create a world around him, one designed to show readers what kind of a person he is and make them care about him and his quest for justice.

As is true for any story, your characters need to be both engaging and unique. Think about how your character looks, his physical appearance, and how he will stand out from your other characters. How about his behavior? Does he have any ticks? Phobias? Idiosyncrasies?

Something needs to set your sleuth apart. He needs to be interesting and memorable. Often this is accomplished through exaggeration—Mr. Monk is scared of everything, even milk!

Jim Butcher has a marvelous discussion about this over on his Livejournal blog.

2. Make your sleuth quirky and damaged

Break your sleuth in interesting ways.

Susan Spann writes:

"... take a hammer to your sleuth’s emotional kneecaps. Bust those suckers good—and be creative. Divorces, tragic accidents, and dead relatives are dime-a-dozen. You can do better. Make your detective allergic to coffee, or phobic of houseplants. Squash her beloved iguana beneath a Zamboni and then force her to solve a murder at an ice rink."

I love that last line. It's easy for me to forget that a character's weakness is only interesting if I exploit it.

We only care about Indiana Jones' fear of snakes (a big fearless adventurer with a fear of snakes) when he's forced to confront one (or, more likely, a dozen). And of course the snake is going to be poisonous.

That's what I mean about forming the fictional world around the hero. Indy's fear of snakes is part of his backstory, but it's something that's going to affect what sorts of obstacles you throw at him, so it'll help shape your story and your story world. That's why you need to know all about it before setting pen to paper.

3. Backstory

The reason why Indiana Jones is scared of snakes is part of Indy's backstory. Susan Spann reminds us that we need to work in backstory without using the following props:

- Internal monologues
- Flashbacks
- Dreams

That said, if your character is a seer, a visionary of some sort, I imagine using a dream to introduce bits of backstory might be okay.

It all depends. As Stephen King says in On Writing, it's all on the table, every trick, every tool. If it works, great, keep it. If it doesn't, throw it out.

Aaron Sorkin, in How To Write An Aaron Sorkin Script, writes that the key to introducing backstory is to make the audience—in our case, our readers—want/crave/demand the information. Sorkin writes:

"A song in a musical works best when a character has to sing— when words won't do the trick anymore. The same idea applies to a long speech in a play or a movie or on television. You want to force the character out of a conversational pattern."

Sorkin is talking specifically about how he sets up a character to give one of the monologues he's known for, but these monologues are basically info dumps. An excellent article.

4. Get a handle on your sleuth's motivation

As a general rule, humans prefer the easy to the hard, the simple to the complex, the happy to the sad.

If your hero is going to put herself in mortal danger, if she's going to risk not only her life but her retirement pension, we've got to give her a darn good reason.

For instance, when Neo goes to rescue Morpheus in The Matrix he doesn't believe he's going to survive the attempt but he's got a darn good reason for doing so. He believes that without Morpheus the human resistance is doomed to fail. By giving up his life in exchange for Morpheus' he's saving the world.

Not bad as far as motivation goes!

Make sure that your hero has a darn good, believable, reason for putting it all on the line.

5. Kill 'em

We're writing a murder mystery so there has to be a murder (at least one) and the sooner the better.

Bank heists, jewel robberies, kidnappings, and various other nefarious crimes will not suffice. This is a murder mystery, your readers demand a murder.

6. Kill 'em soon

Have the first murder occur in the beginning—in the first half of the first third--of the novel. Put another way, if your novel is 300 pages long, have it occur in the first 50 pages.

7. Kill 'em with style

Get creatively offbeat with the murder method.

Susan Spann writes: "Anything is fair game if you can explain it."

I went googling for unusual deaths and came up with these:

- Death by Egyptian curse
- Death by puffer fish poison
- Death by ricin
- Death by caffeine
- Death by puppets
- Death by robot
- Death by milk (In honor of Mr. Monk)

8. Kill 'em logically

For each murder the writer must figure out:

a. The killer's method.
b. The killer's opportunity.
c. The killer's motive(s).

9. Kinds of clues

There are three kinds of clues:

a. Genuine clues

These kind of clues point to the killer and can help the sleuth solve the crime. She just has to figure out they're genuine.

b. Red herrings

Fake clues point to someone other than the murderer. Red herrings distract the reader and (at times) the sleuth.

c. Pivotal clues

These are the clues the sleuth uses when she finally solves the crime.

You need to insert these clues into the story in such a way that your reader won't know which category (genuine, fake, pivotal) the clue falls into.

10. The unusual suspects

Susan Spann holds that you'll need at least three suspects, through her preference is for four.

Further, each suspect must fall into one of two categories.

a. People who wanted the victim dead.
b. People who had the opportunity to kill the victim.

Further, one of your suspects should be different, wacky, "out of the box," someone not like the others. This person should add a sense of the crazily unexpected. SS cautions, though, to be careful not to stretch a reader's belief to the breaking point.

I'm not finished, there are another 11 points to consider when writing a murder mystery, but I've put those into a post that's going out tomorrow. Stay tuned! (Update: Here's the link: How To Write A Murder Mystery: Part Two)

Good writing.

Photo credit: "Dawn of the Anna" by 55Laney69 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing A Scene That Works

Deborah Chester was one of Jim Butcher's writing teachers (she's still a professor over at the University of Oklahoma), one he credits with giving him the writing tools he needed to sell his first novel, Storm Front; a book which became the first novel in his popular (and kick-ass!) Dresden Files series.

I've recently begun reading DC's blog, Chronicles of the Scribe, and can't recommend it highly enough to anyone interested in the craft of writing.

For example, in a recent post DC wrote of logical conflict. As I read, I found myself taking notes--I have a notebook I set aside for these scribbles, I call it my "craft notebook"--and then I thought: Wait! This would make a fantastic blog post.

I hope Deborah Chester will forgive me for posting about the content of her blog. I find that in order to learn something it helps to say it again in another way, to associate new ideas with old.

Planning Out A Scene's Conflict

Step 1: Digging Up The Bones

Lately whenever I sit down to write I think of Stephen King's analogy of writing as archeology. The bones of the story are there within us, we just have to dig for them.

In this first step we try to uncover the following:

a. What is the protagonist's goal in this scene?
b. What is the antagonist's goal in this scene?

Note: The goals MUST clash. If the protagonist achieves his/her goal then the antagonist cannot and vice versa.

c. What is the protagonist's motivation?
d. What is the antagonist's motivation?
e. Outcome: how does the scene end? Does the protagonist achieve his/her goal? Does the antagonist? Do they both fail?

Step 2: Map out the key points of the scene

Generally a character will achieve some goal in a scene, even if it's not the goal they started off with. Write down this goal. What goal did the character start off with? Does the goal change partway through as a result of the action of the antagonistic force? How does the character defeat this new challenge? Plot out the key points of the scene.

Recall the scene in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy tries to commandeer the plane after breaking out of the Well of Souls? Although parts of the scene were improvised most of the key elements had already been established in the script (which you can download here and a few pages of the shooting script are here).

Indie doesn't achieve his goal in that particular scene, he doesn't succeed in commandeering the plane; partway through his goal switches from, "commandeer the plane," to, "get out of here alive."

(I realize that my liking for that particular scene likely amounts to an unnatural geeky affection, but whatever. (grin))

You get the idea. List the ways your hero is going to defeat the obstacle(s) and either achieve his goal or figure out a third option--something achievable that brings him closer to what he seeks.

Step 3: Mind-meld with the antagonist

Deborah Chester put it this way, "Determine the key points in the antagonist’s strategy".

The antagonist, the villain, the Big Bad--whatever you want to call it--by definition is going to want to thwart your hero. Further, they might just be smart enough to anticipate that your hero will be able to defeat their first efforts in which case they might have a backup plan. Perhaps they're even going to try and trick your hero into doing something that makes him vulnerable.

Perhaps your antagonist will cheat. DC asks, "How far will she go?" Excellent question. Donald Maass once said that the difference between a hero and a villain is often not what they want but how far they'll go to get it.

I'm going to pick up the pace now.

Step 4: Who will shoot first?

(Certainly not Han Solo!) Who is going to make the first move? 

Step 5: Write out the conflict-setback or action-response pairs.

It would take too long to go into this here, but I talk about conflict-setback pairs in my article, Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive.

Step 6: Think linearly, logically.

Events take place in order and for reasons. (This seems to have quite a bit in comment with the Principle of Sufficient Reason.)

Step 7: As the conflict intensifies, slow down and zoom in.

Step 8: Don't lose track of the goals your characters walked into the scene with.

Step 9: Logic first, poetry second.

Step 10: Make your character's act one at a time.

Cause --> Effect
Deeds/Behavior --> Reward

If everyone is acting at the same time it's easy for readers to lose track of the cause-effect structure you're weaving.

That's it! Once again, Deborah Chester's blog, Chronicles of the Scribe, is well worth reading and this blog post was based around and inspired by her article, Logical Conflict.

Good writing!

Photo credit: I thought this photo would provide a visual counter-point to the discussion. "not everything has a reason" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Techniques of the Selling Writer: How To Create A Story With An Interesting Hero & A Satisfying Ending

Today I'm going to talk about how to craft a story so that not only will the average reader find the ending satisfying but you'll also have created, in the process, a well-rounded, sympathetic, likeable hero.

What follows, the ideas, come from one of the best books on the craft of writing ever written: Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight V. Swain. Though the ideas are Mr. Swain's I've put them in my own words. And, by the way, this is all from just one chapter of Mr. Swain's book, chapter 5: Fiction Strategy.

The Hero's Motivation

What do heroes seek? They seek what we all, on some level, seek: security, safety.

For example, take Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He doesn't seek his own safety, true, he seeks the safety of the world because if the Nazi's capture the ark they'll win the war and that would be, to put it mildly, bad.

What does a hero (what does anyone) need to feel safe and secure? Mr. Swain argued that the hero needs to feel he controls his destiny. That is, he needs to feel that his choices and actions are related to what happens in the (story) world in such a way that what he does matters.

To put this same idea another way: in a story world there needs to be a connection between what the character does (his DEEDS) and what happens (his REWARDS).

The question: Just how do we build this connection between deeds and rewards?

Let's go back a bit.

At the beginning of the story your hero isn't going to feel safe and secure. She isn't going to feel that there's a satisfying connection between her deeds and her rewards. The hero is going to have to fight for this, it's part of her quest.

For example, at the start of Star Wars IV: A New Hope Luke lives with his aunt and uncle on their farm on Tatooine. Does Luke feel he controls his destiny? No. 

If Luke had a choice, he'd be off to the Academy but his aunt and uncle won't let him go. By the end of the movie, as a direct result of the choices Luke has made, he is in charge of his own destiny. Case in point: he made the choice to ignore the targeting computer and, as Obi-Wan Kenobi instructed, use the force. The outcome of the entire movie (not to mention the known universe!) hangs on this choice and he is rewarded. Luke achieves his goal, the destruction of the Death Star.

Or take another terrific Harrison Ford movie, Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. What does Dr. Belloq keep saying to Indy? At the end of the opening sequence he says: "Dr. Jones, again we see that there is nothing you possess which I cannot take away." Then, again, at the midpoint, just before he seals Jones inside the Well of Souls, he taunts him by saying, "So, once again, Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine."

What Belloq is saying here is: You don't control your destiny, I do. 

That's what the hero has to wrench control of by the end, that's his great task, to control his destiny through the choices he makes.

The Hero's Deeds Need To Be The Cause of His/Her Rewards

I've already mentioned that there has to be a certain kind of cause and effect relationship between DEEDS and REWARDS for a story's ending to be truly satisfying. (Remember, I'm talking about the kind of stories where the hero wins the day, stories like those behind all the Indiana Jones movies). Rewards must be meted out on the basis of deeds. Your hero's behavior--her choices--must determine her fate.

Specifically, Good Deeds Must Be Rewarded

As DVS says, having a causal relationship between a character's deeds and their rewards isn't enough. Good deeds must be rewarded.

The Hero Must Deserve To Win

Let's say we've built a story, a world, in which deeds are the cause of rewards and in which good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are (eventually) punished. It follows that your hero must demonstrate he's a good guy if we want him to achieve his goal in a plausible manner. (Which isn't to say that he can't make the occasional mistake in the beginning.)

How does the hero demonstrate what end of the moral/ethical compass he's on?

In this post I'm going over this material using broad strokes, but I'd like to slow down at this point and go over some specific examples DVS gives (this is all from chapter 5 of Techniques of the Selling Writer). These examples are designed to show ways, small ways, in which your hero can demonstrate to readers what kind of guy he is.

Also, although DVS couches this in terms of morality I think it could just as well be put in terms of that holy grail of character creation: likability.

Example 1: A clerk gives your hero too much change. It would be easy to keep the change and walk away. But that's not what a hero does. He gives the change back.

I'm going to get to this in a later post, but memorable characters--and memorability is a very good thing; after all, it's hard to like a character you can't remember!--are (in general) extreme characters. Giving back 25 cents because it would be wrong to take it is extreme, and in your story world that's a good thing.

Example 2: Your hero dings someone's fender in the parking lot but no one noticed. Does he leave a note taking responsibility or just drive away? 

I think many people would drive away, which gives you an opportunity to show that your hero isn't like other people.

The Hero Must Demonstrate, Through His Choices And Actions, That He Deserves To Win

Let's focus on the end of the story. At the end of the story the hero is presented with a choice. The specifics of this choice should come as a surprise to the reader ("Marion, don't look at the light!" "Trust the force, Luke") but the general dimensions of the choice--good against evil--are not new themes. You've been foreshadowing this climactic confrontation, this decision, since the opening lines.

What is this confrontation? 

The confrontation is, classically, between the hero and the villain, or--using different terminology--between the protagonist and the antagonist. Fundamentally, it's a moral dilemma. Right against wrong, good against evil, love against hate. There should be two paths before the hero, one leads to the dark side, the other to the light. The hero makes his decision and if (when) he decides to do the right thing, the two fight (either actually or metaphorically).

Everything must hang on what the hero chooses to do. And by everything I mean EVERYTHING. If we haven't made it so that the hero's life, his love's life, his travelling companions' lives, his friends lives, his village's existence and, possibly, the fate and happiness of everyone in the known universe, hangs on our hero's choice then we've taken a wrong turn somewhere. (I exaggerate, but only a little.)

The Hero's Choice: The Path of Darkness & The Path of Light

The paths are mutually exclusive. We've established that the hero's choice is going to be between two paths, the path of darkness and the path of light. Each path, each choice, has an outcome that is antithetical to the other. If the hero chooses the path of darkness then whatever the path of light would have brought about, resulted in, is irrevocably, irretrievably, gone. And vice versa.

The Hero's Choice Must Resolve The Dilemma

This seems obvious, but I thought I'd say it anyway. The general dimension of the problem, good against evil, will still be there but this PARTICULAR problem will be finally and absolutely resolved, one way or the other. If the problem isn't resolved then your readers aren't going to feel satisfied by the ending and that's what our goal is.

For instance, in A New Hope Luke must decide between safety and trust. On the one hand, Obi-Wan Kenobi is telling him to turn off his equipment and trust the Force. On the other hand, his inner critic is telling him not to be stupid--there is no such thing as 'the Force' and, even if there was, he couldn't harness it--just be smart and use the equipment. 

The safe course is the selfish course because then, if it fails, it wouldn't be Luke's fault. (Sure, they'd all be dead, but, still, not-his-fault.) He was just doing the sensible thing. 

The path of trust is the true course. And it's risky. It likely won't work. It's not the easy way. Or even the sane way. But there's something about Luke, about who he is: he's strong in the force, like his father. He's special. And when he trusts that, when he believes it enough to act on it, to go 'all in,' then he wins the day.

The Path of Light And The Path of Darkness: Selflessness vs Selfishness

I've been talking about good vs evil, the path of light vs the path of darkness which, really, has been a bunch of handwaving. So let's cash out these terms, how I've been using them. 

In our story universe good is defined by one simple thing, SELFLESSNESS, just as bad is defined by just one thing, it's opposite, SELFISHNESS.

In your story universe the path of light, the good/moral/right thing will always be the unselfish thing. Further, doing the unselfish thing will always bring the hero all kinds of pain and misery. Conversely, the path of darkness, the evil road, will always lead to the selfish choice. Doing what's best for the hero. Making life wonderful for him even though, because of his choice, countless people will suffer and die. 

At this point you might well wonder, "Why would anyone choose to do the selfless thing if the odds of winning are slim to none and you'll lose everything if your plan doesn't succeed?"

Mr. Swain has an answer: Because of EMOTION. Because of who the hero is, intrinsically. So, you see, it all comes back to CHARACTER. Even if it would be more intelligent (certainly more self-preserving) to follow the wrong road, the hero follows his feelings instead. Remember, the test the hero goes through is one of character, not logic or reason or even intelligence.

This has been a long post, but before I end it I'd like to briefly talk about other kinds of cause and effect structures.

Other Kinds of Cause-Effect Story Structures

So far, I've talked about a story universe in which a person's deeds determine how they are rewarded in the end. (It's like that scene from The Mummy where Evelyn 'Evy' Carnahan whispers to Beni, "You know, nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance." Great line.)

But it's not always like this. We've all read and enjoyed stories where a person's deeds are completely uncoupled from their rewards. But, here, that's not the kind of world we've set out to build. We set out to build a world that is both just and fair. 

But you don't have to, you can set up any sort of cause-effect relationship you want, and they can all work, they just appeal to different sorts of audiences and require a different sort of structure. That said, in North America at least, you probably won't have as large an audience for those kinds of stories. 

Oh, and one more thing. If you want to see Dwight V. Swain's principles at work, read The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. It's one of my favorite urban fantasy series and each book is better than the one before--and that's saying something. Highly recommended, not just for what you'll learn from them regarding technique but also for the pure pleasure of it.

This post is itself a kind of foreshadowing. This post, suitably tweaked and transformed, will appear as a chapter in my upcoming, as yet unnamed, book on the craft of writing.

Photo credit: "Granite Mountain, straight ahead"

by Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Write 50,000 Words In 30 Days: Write One Word After Another

Here's how to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days: write one word at a time, one after the other.

(Underwhelmed? Hang on, let me unpack it before you roll your eyes and exit stage left.)

That advice doesn't originate with me, the first time I heard it was from Neil Gaiman but since then I've heard gaggles of other talented writers say the same thing.

On one level the advice is so obvious as to be tautological. But what it means is that if you feel that your writing is off, that all your words are vying to be the most hideous ever written, then there's only one thing to do. Write the next word.

On the other hand, if you think your writing is awesome, if you feel that you're inspired and that the gods on Olympus smiled on you and gave you the gift of writing excellence ... Well, there's only one thing to do. You guessed it. Write the next word.

If you're feeling a bit off, if you haven't had enough coffee, if you didn't sleep well, if you've got mountains of work to do, if your head's fuzzy, if your cat woke you by drooling in your nose (happened to me, swear to God) then there's only one thing to do: go to your writing space, sit down, and write the next word.

The key to writing 2,000 words a day is simple. Whether you feel like doing it or not, put your butt in your writing chair and write the next word, and the one after that, and the one after that, until you've done your word count for the day. (At which point your miniature giant space hamster minions will feed you skinned grapes and chocolate, or whatever it is that you get your miniature giant space hamsters to do for you.)

Don't walk away from your computer, don't put it off till you're feeling more in the mood. Why? Because that's _self-doubt_ and (if you're anything like me) it will pop it's head up every single bloody time you sit down to write _anything_.

You might be thinking something along the lines of: that's easier said than done. If so, then you're right. So. Here are a few things I do that seem to help the process along.

First Drafts Don't Matter

That's what I tell myself and (* knock on wood*) it works. It takes the pressure off.

I love the idea of writing a zero draft. The name reinforces the notion that nothing remotely anxiety inducing is going on, you're not ripping your guts out and smearing them all over the page, you're just writing in your journal (or typing on your computer), nothing to be nervous about. No one will see this, no one will judge you.

A zero draft is a draft where, truly, anything goes. I write thoughts about my story--what I'm feeling about it, where I want to take it, possible endings, possible beginnings, character notes, possible tags and traits, I scribble out mind-maps, do Venn diagrams. Then, at some point, in the midst off all this messiness, this literary equivalent of a coughing up a hairball, I'll fall into the story.

I'm no longer sitting in my writing chair (or slumped on the couch or lying in bed or sipping coffee at my favorite caffeine dispensary). I'm in the story and I'll look around and see things, story things, and I write these down. I'll be with the characters in the scene, watching it play out around me. This might not last for long, perhaps I've just caught the tail of the story, or glimpsed an eyelash. Whatever. That's my 'in'. That's what I hold onto and follow, and see where it takes me.

Perhaps it'll take me to a dead end. It could. But that's okay. This is the planning processes. Zero draft. No pressure. I go back to writing down my thoughts and doodling and drawing connections and then, at some point, the characters will spring to life again and another scene will unfurl.

Usually this process lasts only a couple, maybe three, days. Long enough to do up an outline, a rough one, and write a few scenes.

Once I get an outline I've got my roadmap. I know where I'm going. (Kinda, sorta.) I'll still have to do character development and a lot of fleshing out, but I've got my starting point, my story.

I'm on my way.

Bootstrapping

I learnt this term in computer science eons ago but I think it also applies to writing.

Originally bootstrapping referred to an impossible task--pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps--but it has been adapted for various areas and undertakings.

The general idea is that one starts with a little something. Not much, but something. Then, through a process that's simple but not easy, you work your way through to a higher, more organized, more complex state.

Think of a lumberjack working his way up a tree. Lumberjacks can climb to dizzying heights by possessing the right tools (iron climbing hooks and rope) and following a certain process.

It's the same with writing. We can bootstrap our way into a finished novel, taking each step at a time, and steadfastly refusing to look down or dwell on how many words are still to be written or get discouraged at all the times we're going to have revise the draft. That's for later. Right now we're just writing this thing, this labour of love and sweat and fear, and we're doing it one word at a time.

In my next post I'll talk more about the process of bootstrapping. Specifically, how you break your novel into tiny, bite-sized, completely unintimidating, pieces.

Till then, good writing!

PS: Chuck Wendig has written a motivating blog post for NaNoWriMo bursting with advice that'll help you get ready for a writing marathon. He writes: "My oft-repeated refrain is that plot is Soylent Green — it’s made of people." True! The article is an educational and entertaining read.

Also, take a look at Chuck Wendig's article, 25 Ways To Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story, for a whirlwind overview of different ways to start writing and to organize what you've written.

Photo credit: "Raccoon Kids" by Ingrid Taylar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

I'm Writing A Book On Writing. Here's Why.

Writing and the Natural Born Storyteller

When I was young I had terrifying dreams, dreams in which witches chased me, hoping to stick their boney fingers into my back. I had nightmares every single night.

Being pursued by witches and ghouls may not seem terrifying to an adult, but as a child I was so scared I couldn't sleep. I would lie awake in bed for hours. Finally, my father would come into my bedroom at two or three in the morning to check on me. Finding me awake he'd sit on the edge of my bed and ask, "Would you like to hear a story?"

That was like asking a kid if they liked Christmas.

"Yes!" I'd say, and he would tell me a story. Since I was paying attention to the story rather than the parcel-load of monsters lying in wait for me in dreamland, I drifted off in minutes. Seconds.

That began a practice my father kept up until I became a teenager. Every night, after I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed, my father would tell me a story. Sometimes the story was about his life on his parents' farm, sometimes it was about the adventures he had when he travelled to the big city to find work. Sometimes he made up the story completely and we ventured into the lands of fairy. Whatever kind of story he told, I loved it and always asked for one thing: another story!

All of that, everything I've said, has been to mosey up to this point: my father was a natural-born storyteller. He never read a single book on how to tell a story but he was a master of the form.

When I was a kid, the love I had for my father bordered on hero worship. I loved Mom too but Dad had a certain charisma. He was a dreamer. Sometimes, before he told me a story, we would daydream together and try to devise a perpetual motion machine or talk about how, one day, each person would have their own jetpack. Because of this, I still get a special thrill whenever something crosses over from science fiction to science fact, though I don't suppose I'll ever have a jetpack. (But I do have something that looks very close to Captain Picard's tablet. I don't think the thrill of owning a tablet is ever going to wear off. At least, I hope not.)

Given all this, it should come as no surprise when I tell you that I wanted to be just like my father, and one of the ways in which I wanted to be like him the most was storytelling. I wanted to be able to tell stories too, but not just any old stories. I wanted to tell interesting stories, stories that amazed, stories that astounded. Stories that would take people's minds off their problems and make life--living--easier.

I soon learnt that storytelling isn't for the faint of heart. My first story was a complete disaster.

I'd been in kindergarten about a week. My father--tired from a long, hard, days work--had finished telling me my bedtime story and was looking forward to watching the news and, later, reading the newspaper. In the evening, after I'd been tucked into bed, he and my mother would sit at the kitchen table, sipping cups of sweet milky tea. Many a night I lay in bed and  wished I could contribute to the soft chatter of their conversation.

This night, as Dad got up from my bed, I reached out and grabbed his tanned hand and said, "Don't leave! Now I'm going to tell you a story!" In my mind, as I replay this scene, I'm in a flannel nightgown, buttoned up to the neck, grinning impishly.

Dad looked through my doorway, into the living room, at his comfy reading chair like a drowning man looks at a lifeboat just out of reach. Then he sighed and, slowly, sat back down on my bed and nodded for me to begin.

And I did. My story went something like this:

Mom walked me to school and then I saw Pam and Michelle and then we went inside and then our teacher ... that's Mrs. Drubs ... told us to draw our favorite animal and then we had recess and then I fell down and had to get a Band-Aid and then ...

You get the idea. 

At about that point in my 'story' my dad cut in with, "That's very nice dear," kissed me on top of the head, and made a beeline for his reading chair.

Even as a kid I knew my story sucked. Sure, it was my first story and I was four, but a desire was born in me that day. Sounds dramatic, doesn't it? But I'm being serious. From that day to this I've wanted to be able to tell an engaging tale.

If, one day, I'm able to write a bestseller ... well, that'd be great. But, being honest, that's not why I've read almost every book on writing I've been able to get my hands on. I read about what makes a great story because I want to be able to tell spellbinding stories, just like my Dad did.

That's my focus: storytelling. Evoking emotion. Producing narrative drive. Keeping people up past their bedtimes, not because they're scared of the monsters waiting for them on the other side, but because they have to read just one more page ...

Why I'm Writing A Book On Writing

I've told you all of this for a reason. I'm writing a book. A book on writing.

There are lots of books on writing, books written by people brighter than me, better writers than me. In fact, for the past few days, with my publishing deadlines looming ever closer, I've been asking myself: What does my book have to offer? There are so many wonderful books on how to write, why not just recommend those?

I've been thinking about something Neil Gaiman said:

“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.

"Tarantino - you can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’.

"There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can.”

Here's what I took away from this: there's no one who can write a book on writing, one with my unique perspective on the subject, like I can. Why? Because each of us has our own voice. Our own story to tell. It's just that, in my case, that story is about stories.

From before I could read I loved stories and that grew into a desire to learn the craft of storytelling. And there IS a craft of storytelling; there are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are guidelines.

Finding these guidelines has been a journey, an adventure, and it's far from complete. That said, with this upcoming book, I'm going to share a little of what I've learnt in the hope it will help others who are on the same path I am, those who want to create stories that entertain.

Photo credit: "Crested Butte Biking" by Zach Dischner under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Getting Ready For NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner and I'm getting excited.

November is the national novel writing month (NaNoWriMo) when scads of odd folks (like me!) forgo human contact, regular meals, good hygiene and sleep to write a novel in 30 days.

Impossible?

Far from it!

In 2011, 256,618 writers participated in NaNo and 36,843 of them, a little over 14%, crossed the 50K finish line.  I'm boggled! 37 thousand people wrote a novel in a month last year. Sure, we're talking about first drafts and first drafts need a LOT of work: editing, feedback, professional editing, and so on, but when you've got the first draft done you've got it! You've caught the tale of the story-dragon. You're a winner!

NaNoWriMo: The Rules

Here's how NaNoWriMo works:

1. Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.

2. Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).

3. Write a novel. A novel is a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, the folks over at NaNoWriMo consider it a novel too!

4. Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.

5. Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.

6. Upload your novel for word-count validation between November 25 and November 30. [1]

Daily Word Count

50,000 words sounds like a lot. And it is! But you've got 30 days to finish, so here's how the word count breaks down:

Write every day:
50,000/30 = 1,667 words per day

Take one day off a week:
50,000/26 = 1,923 words per day

Two days off a week:
50,000/22 = 2,273 words per day

I try to do a minimum of 2,000 words a day. That way I can have the odd day off if I need it.

Getting Signed Up For NaNoWriMo

It's easy, and free, to get involved. Just head on over to the official NaNoWriMo website and sign up. If you want to work on your own that's great, but the site can help put you in contact with NaNo-ers in your area.

Preparing For NaNoWriMo

You may think one or more of these suggestions are loopy, but they've helped me complete the challenge two years in a row.

1. Starting now, write 2,000 words a day.

No, I'm not crazy!

I think practically all writers find some form of writing easy, whether it's fiction, non-fiction, journalling, whatever. Pick the form that's easiest for you and increase your daily writing so that when the first of November comes along you're already writing 2,000 (or so) words a day.

One way to help yourself do this is by blogging. One of the benefits of having a blog is that you can practise writing regularly, writing faster, writing more.

But if you don't feel like blogging you don't have to. Write flash fiction, short stories, guest blog posts, articles, letters to the editor. Whatever strikes your fancy.

2. Work on the structure of your story

You're allowed to outline your story before November 1st and I think it's a fabulous idea. Here are a few links:

The structure of a story

Orson Scott Card & The MICE Quotient: How To Structure Your Story
Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction
How Plotting Can Build A Better Story
How To Write A Story
Chuck Wendig On Story Structure
The Basics of Good Storycraft: 5 Tips
A Perfect Plot In 6 Easy Steps
Chuck Wendig on Plot, Complication, Conflict and Consequence

The structure of a scene within a story

Making A Scene: Using Conflicts and Setbacks to Create Narrative Drive

Outlining

Kim Harrison's Character Grid
4 Ways Outlining Can Give A Writer Confidence

3. Prepare meals in advance

Eating right and getting enough sleep are important. You, your health, are much more important than writing 50,000 words in a month. Prepare nutritious meals beforehand and freeze them so when you're in the writing trenches all you have to do is pop the meal in the microwave and give yourself a high-five for being awesome!

4. Find a place to write

Some writers like to be in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop, or embedded in the soft, cushioned, quiet of their home office, or reclining in a La-Z-Boy.

Some writers find they work best if they write in one and only one spot while others like to move around (one day at the coffee shop, one day in their office, one day sitting on the couch, and so forth).

Do whatever works for you and if you're not sure what does, experiment! This is another thing it's good to find out before November 1st.

5. Tell your friends and family you're going to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

It's important your friends and family know what you're doing and support you.

If you tell them what you're up to, they'll (hopefully) understand why you can't spend as much time with them. Also, you'll likely feel a bit more pressure to win so that, when Uncle Dan asks you at Christmas whether you finished, you'll be able to say, "Of course!" rather than trying to hide behind the mint jelly.

Your family will understand why you've turned into a zombie, someone who nips out from her writing cave to pop food in the microwave or use the facilities. They won't freak out when they see the black circles under your eyes or the way your clothes hang looser or the way you're mumbling to yourself about "plot".

Or something.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? If so, how are you preparing for it?

Notes
1. I wanted to give you a link for these rules, and tell you where to get your manuscript validated, but none of my previous links worked. Chris Baty, the one who started NaNoWriMo in 1999, stepped down as Executive Director in January last year to become a full-time writer. On top of that, the website is being redesigned and moved from Drupal to Ruby-on-Rails. I think that explains the missing links. (Wikipedia)

Photo credit: "Untitled" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Tom Clancy's Writing Wisdom

As you've probably heard, Tom Clancy passed away yesterday. Although I don't generally read books about soldiers or war, I read a few of his and liked them a lot.

I've been reading quotations, things Tom Clancy said about writing, and found them curiously moving. The things he said were perceptive. Humane.

Tom Clancy thought of himself more as a storyteller than a writer. Though I haven't had anything remotely close to Mr. Clancy's success, that's how I think of myself as well.

When I sit down to write I imagine sitting by a campfire telling a story to people who want something interesting to listen to, to think about, before they go to sleep. If my story does that I consider it a success.

What follows are a few quotations that I found especially apt, especially moving. I think I'm going to read, or re-read, one of Tom Clancy's books. If anyone has a suggestion, please leave it in the comments.

Tom Clancy: Quotations

"You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. Writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work."

"What happened to me was pure dumb luck – I’m not the new Hemingway. Of course, fortune does favor the brave. In battle, you forgive a man anything except an unwillingness to take risks. Sometimes you have to put it on the line. What I did was take time away from how I earned my living. My wife gave me hell – ‘Why are you doing this?’ – but she doesn’t complain anymore. I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you’re immortal."

And of course:

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."

Here are more Tom Clancy quotes:
Goodreads
Buzzfead: Tom Clancy On Writing
WikiQuote

My next post is going to be either on Lester Dent's Master Fiction Plot or Georges Polti's 36 dramatic situations. I'm not going to do all 36, but I will unpack one of them.

Photo credit: The photograph is from Alan Duke's article (Author Tom Clancy, master of the modern-day thriller, dead at 66) over at cnn.com.

The Authentic Swing by Steven Pressfield, Five Stars

Certain things turn me into a kid at Christmas time.

That describes my mood as I waited for my ARC of Steven Pressfield's The Authentic Swing. I'm a longtime reader of Pressfield's blog and have benefited from his sage advice many times. Also, his fluid, inviting, writing style makes his work a pleasure to read. I feel we're sitting comfortably over two steaming hot mugs of caffeinated goodness chatting about the art and craft of writing.

The Authentic Swing is more about writing as art than writing as craft. This came as a surprise to me, but not an unpleasant one. After all, there are hundreds--thousands!--of books on the technical side of writing but precious few about finding your path, yourself, your soul, as a writer.

Finding Your Writing Soul

I have a confession: I've never golfed. Not once. Ever. Yet I found Steven Pressfield's account of the game riveting. He gave me new ways to think about it.

It turns out that golf is a lot like writing. Here are a few excerpts:

"[G]olf is not a team sport in the way that basketball is, or football, or baseball. You don't pass the ball in golf. There are no "plays." You don't celebrate a victory with your teammates.
"In life, you're born alone, you die alone, and most of the time you live alone.
"Golf is just like that.
"In golf, the competitor is on his own."

"[I]n golf, your opponent is not allowed to impede you.
"He can't tackle you or punch you or even try to rattle you by jingling the change in his pocket. ...
"In golf, no one can hurt you but yourself."

"[T]he struggle of the golfer ... is the same as the struggle of the writer.
"It's the struggle of any artist or entrepreneur, any athlete or warrior, anyone engaged in a spiritual pursuit, as meditation or the martial arts, yoga, dance, calligraphy; any person, male or female, in any creative or ethical field.
"What is this struggle? It's the quest to connect with one's true ground. To become who we really are.
"It's the search for our true voice."

And that's what The Authentic Swing is about, it's about finding yourself as a writer and then having the courage to trust yourself. For example, Pressfield writes (and this is a paraphrase):

The struggle of the golfer is the same as the struggle of the writer or of any other artist. We must connect with our true ground. We must "become who we really are". In other words, writing, like golf, like any other artistic pursuit, is nothing less than "the search for our true voice".

That's not the entirety of Steven Pressfield's writing advice, but it does tie into his instructions for how to write a first draft.

First Drafts And How To Write Them

In a word: Quickly!

All Steven Pressfield's advice resonated with me, but his advice about first drafts made me want to spring out of my comfy reading chair and do a happy dance. "Yes!" I thought. "Someone else who thinks like I do." It's always nice to know you're not alone.

Here's Steven Pressfield's advice for first drafts: Don't stop, don't think. Write.
 
He holds that "our supreme priority is to get SOMETHING down from Page One to The End--no matter how incomplete and imperfect".

He also writes that:

"The enemy in the first draft is not incompleteness or inexactness or imperfection. The enemy is resistance. The enemy is self-sabotage."

You have to dig deep, trust yourself and then dive in. As Steven Pressfield says:

"You start with instinct.
You plunge in.
Good things happen."

Amen!

The Authentic Swing is a slim volume of only 144 pages, with the lines widely spaced. But that's okay. No complaints. It's not about how many pages a book has, it's about what's on them and this one is bursting with writerly goodness.

The Authentic Swing is a quick, enjoyable, read and a valuable addition to any writer's library. Five stars.

Photo credit: seeking meaning in the rorschach sky" by Robert Couse-Baker 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.

5 Ways To Nurture Creativity

Writers, songwriters, chefs, parents getting their children to bed--in fact, every single one of us at some time or other--need to be creative.

The problem: Often when I try and consciously do something creative I feel as inventive and whimsical as a pencil sharpener. Are there exercises one can do? Tips? Bon mots of wisdom one can latch onto like a drowning man clutching a life preserver?

The author of Everything You Thought You Knew About Creativity Is Wrong says, resoundingly, 'Yes!' Yes there are ways, things one can work at, to make us each more productive creatively--or is that more creatively productive? No matter. Here are the tips.

1. Find your comfort zone and stand within it.

To be creative one must take risks, but we're not going to feel comfortable enough to take those risks if we're standing outside our comfort zone. Goldstein says:

"When we're comfortable and acting in our preferences, we have the courage to take risks." 

I agree! One of the best places for me to get ideas is in the shower and that's a place I feel comfortable, protected, safe.

2. Accept that everyone is different.

What works for someone else might not work for you. For instance, some extraverts like to be in a group and brainstorm together but for many introverts that's not the case. And that's okay! Take a shower, drive around and listen to music, take a walk, different activities serve as creative triggers for different kinds of people.

3. You don't have to be spontaneous.

Plotters are just as creative as pantsers; people who meticulously plan out a painting are just as creative as their more impressionistic kin.

"Painter Henri Matisse, for example, constructed all of his paintings before he began. He even wore a suit and tie while he created -- not exactly the splattered, ragged overalls we associate with artsy folk. Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell were also big planners ..."

4. Creativity is about coming up with something new but it also embraces combining the old in new ways.

There really is nothing new under the sun. If all philosophy is, as Alfred North Whitehead said, a series of footnotes to Plato then all writing is probably, in one way or another, footnotes to Shakespeare. The trick isn't coming up with something brand new, it's combining ideas in new ways.

I realize you've probably heard this before but it came as a revelation to me: the trick to making the old new is particularizing it. This is what happens when we filter universal themes through our individual experiences and I believe it's what lies at the core of that nugget of wisdom: write what you know.

For example, everyone has lost someone they cared about. The object of our affection has either died, or moved away, or told us to take a long walk off a short pier. But each of our reactions to that experience will be as unique as we are. That's how we take the universal and make it particular. Personal. Intimate.

(Just today, Check Wendig wrote a terrific post about the admonition to write what you know: (adult language -->) Write What You Know: Roasting That Old Chestnut.)

5. Nothing is ever finished.

The author quotes Picasso as saying:

"To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul …"

That's how I feel about my stories. I could always add more. I could tweak this, refine that, but at a certain point--after they've been proofed, edited, and so on--one has to let our incomplete children go out into the world, one filled to the brim with sticks and stones and things that most definitely break hearts if not bones.

That's it! Five tips to great creativity.

Before I leave, a few months ago I wrote about John Cleese's views on what creativity was and how it could be nurtured, developed. The link is here: John Cleese Talks About Creativity.

Photo credit: "Filter No. 5 - "Grainy Film"" by Thomas Leuthard under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.