Writing Mini-Reviews

Time to catch up on my reading; that is, mentioning the books received and read. From author Eric Knapp came CLUCK: MURDER MOST FOWL (BOOKSURGE), a stab at zombie chicken humor. If that sounds slightly scrambled, it was. A thin plot whisked up to carry the funny chunks that by themselves are hilarious. This imaginatively illustrated, well-designed model for a self-published novel could have used an editor's eye for glaring English errors like "decent" for "descent".

I won a copy of Sheila Lowe's POISON PEN: A CLAUDIA ROSE MYSTERY (Capital Crime Press). It is surprisingly polished for a first novel, although the author has penned nonfiction books in the past. Great book for women, mystery lovers, aficionados of the southwest. Some crude language handled well. The protagonist is a graphologist, as is the author, and if she included true tidbits about handwriting analysis -- I'm up shit creek! This is not a book for timid readers.

I'd been wondering about Paulo Coelho novels since reading his praise in Orkut groups, mostly by younger people in countries other than the U.S. They especially like THE ALCHEMIST (HarperCollins), so when a copy fell off a truck and into my hands, I read. *shrugs* I guess it is to this generation what Gibran's THE PROPHET was to mine in the 60s: a simple-minded, gentle, easy read on basic spiritual matters. Somewhat reminded me of a less complicated version of THE CELESTINE PROPHECY by James Redfield.

And then come the truckload of new releases from Simon & Schuster. I find a book almost daily thrown over the fence into my backyard. I add them to an impressive stack on my bedside table. But I go through them like a bag of M&Ms. They are so small and mostly sweet and tasteless. In that category, I'd place:

THE NARCISSIST'S DAUGHTER by Craig Holden
LATER, AT THE BAR by Rebecca Barry
THE BEST PLACE TO BE by Lesley Dormen
THE GOD OF WAR by Marisa Silver
and LOVE TODAY by Maxim Biller was more like a serving of sauerkraut. Bleh!

Exceptions: THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON by Kate Morton is a substantial meal with a juicy, tender roast at the center. This Australian writer is one to watch.

THE BOOK OF CHAMELEONS by Jose Eduardo Agualusa, was exquisitely translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn. We don't get enough foreign literature in this country, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to read a story set in Africa by an author who credits his style to Latin American writers. Who knew they speak Portuguese in Angola? And this is 'magical realism'? I'm intrigued. I've set up an internal BOLO for similar writings.

The Writing Show Contest

Less than a month remains for those planning to enter The Writing Show's third annual First Chapter of a Novel contest. The final deadline, June 20. Read all about it. According to Paula B., here's what they're looking for:

We want to find the world's best first chapter of an unpublished novel. Above all, you must tell a compelling story. That means that you have to grab us so quickly, so completely, that we can't stop reading, even if the house is burning down.

Your writing will be judged on the following five criteria:

1. Story. Is it a compelling read with a great hook? Are we engaged?
2. Style. Is the writing smooth and tight, without awkward constructions, extraneous verbiage, and redundancies?
3. Dialog. Is the dialog natural and does it move the story along?
4. Character. Are the characters interesting? Do we care about them?
5. Mechanics. Are grammar, spelling, and punctuation correct?

Those are also great tips for writing short stories well.

Writing Fiction About Family

For writers, one great side-effect of studying family history or genealogy is the mystery element: those unidentified photos in the old albums, family members for whom you have only the bare facts, and the ones you know an interesting little story about--and nothing else.

Consider my great-great-Grandpa Fred Fox. I'm lucky in that I have a picture of him, I've seen his fascinating tombstone, and I remember a story my grandmother told. Grandpa Fox is a goldmine! When I view his faded photo, all in shades of brown, his visage and stance all shout to me "Indian fighter"! Part of our family's land includes an ancient Indian burial mound. Although fighting Indians wasn't much of a feature in southwestern Ohio, Grandpa Fox could have gone off to the west and had an adventure, then returned home.

His tombstone features a life-size carving of a small-breed dog. At least, that's the way it looks to me. The legend is that when old Fred fell off his horse, the little dog ran all the way back to the farmhouse and alerted the family. Alas, Fred drowned in a rain-filled hoof print (another story), but everyone was so impressed with the dog's loyalty that they honored him on Fox's grave marker.

Finally, there's the story about the origin of another family member. My grandmother said that one day an Indian woman deposited her papoose with one of our aunts, promising to pick up the child later. Perhaps she was an itinerant come to help harvest the potato or tobacco crop. The mother never returned, so aunt Leola raised the black-haired beauty as one of her own. When I look carefully at the woman's face, I see Grandpa Fox's mouth and eyes set in dark skin and hair. All these relatives lived contemporaneously along Pennyroyal Hill Road, on land once inhabited by Miami Indians.

The creative part of my mind could easily string all these incidents together in a story. With the photos and personal knowledge of the setting, "all" I'd need to do is come up with a poignant plot. Yes, my family tree is ripe with such tidbits, "story plums" about to drop into my lap. How about yours? Interview the oldest members of your family before the interesting memories disappear and storylines are lost forever.

Fiction Writing Lessons

Successful novelist David Morrell shares some of his latest book on writing at Backspace. In an excerpt from THE SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST: A LIFETIME OF LESSONS ABOUT WRITING & PUBLISHING, Morrell sets us depressingly straight about becoming rich and famous as authors. Then he lets us in on the key to becoming a successful writer, the answer to the burning question: Why do you want to writer? But this goes deeper than the apt response of "because I have to" or as I say it, "I can't not write!"

In what Morrell calls "self-psychoanalysis", he advocates digging into your psyche to discover what you most fear, often a childhood trauma you're unknowingly trying to work out (or work out of your system) through your writing. Therapists who work with children from alcoholic, abusive, codependent (or dysfunctional, if you prefer) backgrounds are quite familiar with this behavior. We attempt to repair the damage through relationships we have for the rest of our lives.

One method for discovering what your trauma might be is to examine where you mind goes when your brain's on idle ... daydreams. Pleasant and horrific. This type of research has its advantages: it's right at hand and very inexpensive (a factor that universally appeals to writers). Morrell says, "Day-nightmares are messages from your subconscious, hinting to you what that ferret is about. They’re disguised versions of your secret. They’re metaphors for why you want to be a writer."

Download the whole article in .PDF or print out the text.

Writing About Characters

Fragrances are what I think I'll miss most when I'm dead. I know that's an illogical statement, especially for an agnostic. Nonetheless, it's true. How my own home smells is comforting, and I don't want to lose that. And birdsong. I love living where singing birds surround my house, even in the winter.

I've had similar senseless, but emotionally true, thoughts in the 18 months following a cancer diagnosis. Facing death, one's own mortality, usually affects a person, changing their character. The changes are individual, but I think they intensify someone's basic personality traits. I hear women tell how they've become fearless, brave and bold, after enduring breast cancer. Not me! I'm scared and angry and tallying what will be taken from me when I die. But that's me, basically a depressed and selfish person, now more than ever.

When developing a character who experiences near death or confronts a similar danger, consider the consequences that could result to his or her personality. If you're writing realistic fiction and have had such an experience yourself, you'll know exactly what I mean. Lacking personal familiarity, you may want to talk with other people who have faced the threat of death, especially those living under its pall. Ask how it changed their feelings and actions, and how is that different from they way they were.

Creating Characters Online

Some innovative methods to develop characters for your fiction, using partly free online services:

• sign up at a matchmaker like Chemistry, fill out the interminable questionnaire (save a copy of the questions and your responses) and save the resulting profile


• get a handwriting sample from someone like the character you are working with, and get an analysis from Sheila Lowe (warning: excruciatingly long questionnaire)


• visit TAAZ and play with redesigning a portrait photo for a limited idea of an appearance (works best for women)
  

Would it be unethical of you to use these services for this purpose? I don't think so, although I wouldn't encourage you to leave up the profile your create at the matchmaker's site, both for others' and your own sake.

Ladies: the TAAZ site is so fun! Made me look young and gorgeous. Did absolutely nothing for the turkey neck, however. You can see and hear more about this incredible software in a YouTube video.

Copy Editing Rules

I wish I had seen the original when it first ran on the Des Moines Register website:

An article in the Des Moines Register by one Larry Ballard announced the other day that legislators were pondering a tax to be levied on lapses in grammar: "The tax would be levied on bad grammar in signs, advertisements, etc. It would target typos, misspellings, strange punctuation and dangling participles (they are nowhere near as painful as they sound) and would be enforced anywhere English is used."

That's the lede into The Baltimore Sun John McIntyre's take on editors as grammar cops. Seems to me that he is well-suited to lead raids, being the Sun's assistant managing editor for the copy desk, a past president of the American Copy Editors Society, and an adjunct instructor in journalism at Loyola College in Maryland.

A few years ago, I'll admit that I tried to cast myself in a policing role. Ever vigilant (or was that vigilante?) I spotted mistakes and pithily pointed them out to their owners. Nit-picking run amok. Eventually I realized that I really could not see the forest for the trees. The cliche; is true. I'd lost the meaning of messages by putting the focus on individual words and punctuation. This does not make for a good fiction editor at all.

Since that time, common sense finally knocked into my mind, I've relented and try to ignore the chatter of the interior editor and read for enjoyment and understanding. That is, unless I'm editing nonfiction, where grammar and syntax matter most.

Writing in Genre

In a chat last night, someone complained that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had been categorized as sci-fi, and that people in general seem confused about a definition of science fiction writing. Equally confusing is the line of separation between horror and paranormal. And what about the space movies with monsters (one of my favorites)? If the monster in space is a blood-sucking demon, does that make it horror, paranormal, sci-fi, or even fantasy? Personally, I have difficulty with the latter, tending to consider most fantasy writing as creations for children. I know I'm wrong in this thinking, I hasten to add.

Wouldn't it be lovely if there were a Genre Court of Last Resort that issues clear definitions of genres? Of course, then there would have to be a Genre Court of Appeals for all those indignant litigants to follow. Alas, no such authority exists, not even the venerable Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.

Sorry new fiction writers. We can't help you categorize your work. However, what is much more important is the description that applies to the publisher you are aiming for. Pick a publisher before writing? That seems so crass! It's also realistic. More than studying the guidelines for one publisher, I'd suggest you survey many publishers that you think you might submit to. If the general consensus is that vampires don't belong in their science fiction publications, adjust. Sure, you can be free and take a chance that your writing will fit somewhere. Just go into it with your eyes open. And don't come whining later that "no one will publish my work".

Cutting Your Writing is Editing

How do you eliminate part of a short story or novel to fit a specified word length? That was a dilemma I faced recently. The story I wanted to send was almost 900 words long; the limit was 500. Gut my precious creation? That would kill it, I thought. But I resolved to make the attempt if, for nothing else, to prove my instinct for the story's survival was valid.

I kept removing a word here and there and rechecking the word count with MS Word's "recount" feature that I keep available on my tool bar. Eventually the hopelessness of this approach became evident. Now, it wasn't a bad approach, because along the way the editor took over to adjust and polish each sentence.

I realized the task needed a wider focus. I asked myself, "What sentences can I cut?" In every elaboration of an action or piece of dialog, I found something to eliminate without jerking the plot out of sync or reason. For example, when the protagonist yelled at her mother, "I hate you," followed by the narration She really did despise the woman, I saw that I could eliminate the narrative comment and allow just the dialog to show the emotion.

After the round of sentence eliminations, I was dismayed to find the word count hovering around 600. Whole sections would have to go. Would it be possible? What a challenge. I love challenges! This was getting personal. I decided I would wrestle this story to 499 words or know why I couldn't. I found the key to success in a couple of passages that I'd thought advanced the plot. By rewriting that part to reveal only necessary details instead of literary frivolities, the word count dropped below 500, and the story didn't suffer. It was tight and taut and, perhaps, more effective than when it had been almost twice as long.

As I prepared this post I realized that my actions to fit the story into a set length were similar to what a good editor might have done. Because it was my story, I was too close to it, too proprietary, to see how it could be improved, how less could indeed be more.

Fiction + Fact = Faction

Self-designated struggling writer, R.J. Mangahas has a nice round-up of the latest scandals in fake books in Out in WriteField. I'm not referring to the fake books that singers use (lyrics-only song sheets). I mean the James Frey type of a million little lies presented as the truth. Like the also pseudo-memoirs by Misha Defonseca and Margaret Seltzer, that's what I'm talkin' about.

I would disagree with Mangahas' statement that, "In a lot of people's eyes, there is an unwritten understanding between them and the author of the memoir that the events are true and accurate as possible." That may be a misconception many writers and readers used to have about memoir writing. I doubt the reading public is that naive any longer.

I submit that writers like Frey, Defonseca and Seltzer are perpetuating a genre that perhaps began with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I call that confounding of fiction and facts "faction". Perhaps bookstores, publishers and critics should establish this as a legitimate literary form. After all, memoir is really elaboration of biography. Faction is more elaboration of memoir.

Superprize for Writing Novels

This year the bookish people who run the Man Booker prize will celebrate the award's 40th anniversary with a The Best of the Booker award to "honour the best overall novel to have won the prize since it was first awarded on 22 April 1969." The same type of award was given on the organization's 25th anniversary, but this time the public will be able to help choose from a shortlist of six chosen by a panel from the 41 contenders. The regular Booker prize is 50,000 pounds. The winner of the Best Booker only gets a trophy, I guess because the author already got the loot the first time around.

According to The Times online, bookies give authors these odds of winning:

• 4-1 Yann Martel – The Life of Pi (2002)

• 5-1 Salman Rushdie – Midnight's Children (1981)
  

• 7-1 Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient (1992)

• 8-1 Ben Okri – The Famished Road (1991); Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things (1997); Ian McEwan – Amsterdam (1998)

• 10-1 J. M. Coetzee – Disgrace (1999); Anne Enright – The Gathering (2007)

If nothing else, this probably makes a good reading list for aspiring novelists.

Learning to Write from John Baker

British author John Baker wrote a series of 31 articles about learning creative writing in his blog. They began in June 2006 with Learning to Write I - John Baker’s Blog. At the end of that first piece are links to the other 30 articles, ending with one in June 2007. You don't absolutely need to read them in order, and I wouldn't dare to reproduce each tidbit here, but this is a handy list of the links to all the juicy parts:

Table of contents for Learning To Write from John Baker's Blog

1. Learning to Write I
2. Learning to Write II
3. Learning to Write III
4. Learning to Write IV
5. Learning to Write V
6. Learning to Write VI
7. Learning to Write VII
8. Learning to Write VIII
9. Learning to Write IX
10. Learning to Write X
11. Learning to Write XI
12. Learning to Write XII
13. Learning to Write XIII
14. Learning to Write XIV
15. Learning to Write XV
16. Learning to Write XVI
17. Learning to Write XVII
18. Learning to Write XVIII
19. Learning to Write XIX
20. Learning to Write XX
21. Learning to Write XXI
22. Learning to Write XXII
23. Learning to Write XXIII
24. Learning to Write XXIV
25. Learning to Write XXV
26. Learning to Write XXVI
27. Learning to Write XXVII
28. Learning to Write XXVIII
29. Learning to Write XXIX
30. Learning to Write XXX
31. Learning to Write XXXI

Writing Real Characters

Envision a picket line with Scarlett O'Hara, Sherlock Holmes, and Lazarus Long carrying signs, "Characters are People too!" Fictional depictions demand an emotional life that is similar to what you and I experience. People in the grip of strong emotions do not always behave in ways that makes logical sense. But they do make emotional sense. For that to happen in fiction writing, it helps to understand the psychology of humans.

A good example of an action making only emotional sense happened to me in 2006 when my mother died suddenly. I performed a hasty sorting and shipped most of her household goods to my home (2000 miles away). Once all the "stuff" entered my house, I shoved it into cupboards.

Thus, 18 months later, I find Mama's can of asparagus in the pantry. "I hate canned asparagus," I tell a friend. "Why did I keep this?"

She shrugs and offers, "Because it was your mothers?" Like all the rest of the junk I can now get rid of, it represents my mother too quickly snatched away. We have many unresolved issues. Surrounding myself with her belongings softened the blow and allowed me to cope with grief at my own pace.

Simple little touches like this will show your character's psychological makeup far better than telling readers, "She couldn't bear to let go of her mother, and that's why she kept the canned asparagus, which she hates." Grammatically correct and flat to read.

Character Chart for Fiction Writing

I know that at least once previously I have pointed readers to a resource for charting the characteristics of novel players, but the people at Epi.com have the most comprehensive one I've yet seen. Take a look at the Fiction Writer's Character Chart. To have a copy, you could save a copy of the web page and print it out, but the nice people at Epi also make it available in .PDF, .RTF and .DOC (MS Word) formats. Download one of those versions, and you can print out sheets for each of your characters, or assemble a folder of separate files for each on your computer. I would encourage even short story writers to use a character chart. Just studying the blank chart may give you insights into or ideas about characterization. I love the details the designers suggest like a person's arrest record, darkest secret, goals and fears. Even if these aspects aren't used in your writing, they add weight to your characters to make them more authentic. And, of course, you can use as much or as little of the chart suggestions as you wish.

Writers Tackle TMIS

Right now my "To Do" list reads:

Write a memoir
Resume watercolor painting
Redesign A Writer's Edge website
Start a book on cooking
Secure a paid blogging gig
Sell excess junk in house
Advertise for more editing jobs
Edit or create a new blog on cooking

Abmitious? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes! I printed the list in large text and taped it to the front of my printer where it is in view every time I sit to compute. Result: I futz around going from one project to another, accomplishing little. It's too much to do to reach ta daa!

That's why I was delighted to find Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant's article on Creativity: Overcoming Too Many Ideas Syndrome. Skip the lengthy introduction and ignore the cutsy subtitles and you'll find nine suggestions for coping with TMIS, including to talk about the ideas with other writers, use mental imagery to manage the mess and evaluate all the ideas to find the best one on which to focus. Some of the notions she recommends are conflicting, so it's up to you to find what works best in your situation. This could be a goal for your new year: get your ideas organized.

Holiday Gifts for Writers

If you have writers on your holiday gift list (or want to drop hints to others)-- how about a present that will further careers? Be a Successful Writer and the two volumes on Effective Websites for Writers will provide useful information and show how much you care!

Fair Use and Copyright Infringement

Sarah Bird claims to be an attorney (I think--if that's what being a "former litigator" means). At the SEOmoz.org website, she offers a lengthy article on What's Fair About Fair Use? Defending a Copyright Infringement Claim. Fair use, of course, is kind of the flip side of copyright protection, and it's a most controversial part of the law. This is mainly because the law is vague (in my opinion) concerning what constitutes an allowable reproduction of copyrighted materials. Instead of citing a specific amount of material that can be used, the law requires certain conditions be met. Again, they are open to interpretation, usually by lawyers:

⇒ There are four factors to consider when determining whether you are illegally infringing someone’s copyright or merely employing fair use of the material:
→ The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is nor nonprofit educational purposes;
→ The nature of the copyrighted work.
→ The amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
→ The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The purpose of Bird's article, however, is not to help you protect your writing, but rather to help you with the "fair use" defense. If you recycle someone else's work, as we bloggers often do, and the author feels you've infringed on the copyright, understanding the fair use section of the Copyright Act may help you. Seems to me that a comprehensive understanding would benefit all writers, no matter on which side of the fence of fair use they sit.

Writing Memoirs and First Novels

Lives I didn't live have been on my mind for the last year. This is also a dilemma for writers trying to create a memoir. The temptation is to follow the "what ifs" and become entangled in resentments. In his excellent THE MEMOIR AND THE MEMOIRIST, Thomas Larson suggests that this is fallacious reasoning, because it doesn't consider the value of the life you did live, and that the one you didn't, the road not taken, might have lead to different disasters.

A similar pitfall awaits young writers in attempting first novels, books best left unread. Knowing nothing of life but the brief one they have recently lived, their novels become thinly disguised memoirs. Perhaps reaching for drama, they air injustices, real or imagined, unaware that we all had similar angst-filled childhoods. Better to wait to use this material when you are much older and able to distinguish true tragedies.

If only I'd resisted that cute sailor and fulfilled my plan to attend Standford and become a clinical psychologist, wouldn't my life have been so much better, more fulfilling? Or I might have been lured by the flower children in San Francisco and languished as a hippie poet and a Lawrence Ferlinghetti groupie.

Life Imitates Bioterrism Art

A news note about the ex-fiancee of Bill Nye (The Science Guy) trying to poison his vegetable garden in Studio City, CA, caused me chills. This sounded suspiciously similar to the plot of THE GARDEN OF EVIL, a murder mystery novel by Chris Holmes. In the book, a bioterrorist mounts an assault of a slightly broader scale, resulting in five dead and 26 sickened from eating biologically poisoned local veggies.

Apparently the culprit in Nye's case, author Blair Tindall (Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music), was observed sneaking into his garden with fluid-filled bottles. She has admitted the jugs contained a weed killer. Nye sought a restraining order. Indeed!

Horror Graphic Novels Live!

Although my tastes usually ran to "Little Lulu" and "Mickey Mouse" comics, I had one horror comic book with images that I retain more than a half-century later. Sadly, my comics disappeared as adolescence surged. I can't remember the name, but the theme was a combination of "The Blob", "War of the Worlds" and "Frankenstein's Monster".

A space ship crashes on earth and out of it oozes a pink life form that looks nothing so much as a chaw of Double Bubble gum. It oozes its way to a quaint cottage where an old man lives alone. I can't remember if the ooze spoke, but the man invites it in and enjoys their visit. Then, as he says goodbye, he reveals that he is blind. Ironic, huh? Get it: can't see the monster for what it is? Ooo, scary, at least for a kid during the height of the flying saucer scares.

Well, maybe I can learn the title through THE HORRORS OF IT ALL, a horror comic blog for the celebration and appreciation of "Pre-Code" 50s graphic novels. According to Wikipedia: "The CCA was created in 1954 as part of the CMAA, in response to public concern about what was deemed inappropriate material in many comic books."

Editor's Bugaboos in Writing

When clients send me documents for editing, I always warn them that not all editors are created equal. We don't agree on every element. We have individual quirks, mainly in our notions of what constitutes good/bad creative writing. If the writing must follow a particular style guide, then that is the reference I'll use in editing. However, left to my own preferences and in ambiguous situations where style guides conflict, these elements I will usually flag as needing elimination or rewriting:

* the verb to be
* sentences beginning with "there [to be]"
* passive construction
* avoidable ellipses and dashes

"Why?" braver clients whine. Depending on what kind of a day the editor is having, the response may range from "because I say so" to an explanation that using strong, action verbs and sentences causes clearer, more colorful, exciting or readable writing. If the document under scrutiny is for business, ellipses and dashes have no business in the text, anyway. Academic writing is another animal entirely with its own restrictions and formats. My thesis chair described that form of writing as "constipated".

Books for Writers

One of the most spot-on listing of resource books for both fiction and nonfiction writers is Lisa Gates' Top Ten Books for Writers from her blog, "design your writing life". Indeed, many of her selections appear on my Amazon Wish List and my Listmania, which you can see in my Amazon Profile . Hmm. It appears that I should update some of the selections. The 2008 editions are probably becoming available.