W3 Wise Words on Writing

SUSPENSION

2006-08-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

Due to an ever increasing workload, W3 will be suspended for the next few months.

D-L Nelson continues to write for Writers Forum, a UK magazine for writers. Visit their website at
http://www.writers-forum.com/

You may contact her directly at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

No. 46 Describing Action

2006-07-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

THEORY

When we think of description we usually think of scenery, weather, the way a place looked. However describing actions is another way of moving the plot forward. In movies the camera pans for the viewer or moves into a close up of the action they want the audience to see, but writers must put the words in print so the reader can focus on the action and then glean the meaning.

Action in this sense does not necessarily mean shoot-‘em-up cop stories or violence in any form. Some can be quite subtle, as having a character reach over and take another character’s hand to show acquiescence after a small argument or sympathy after bad news.

Like anything we write it is the choice of details that give our readers an insight into what is happening. The importance of the action is weighted about how the characters (point of view) react to it or don’t react to it.

We can choose distance or close ups just like a movie camera. A car can pass in the street as someone looks out a window and thinks that it the third time the car has gone by. Or we can be in the car with the driver. The type of car, age, speed, all can give a reader a sense of what is important. If the character draws the drape, rushes to the phone or ignores the car tells the reader what is happening.

A door slam shows anger. If it is so hard that paint flakes off, the mood, is intensified have the handle fall off and still another fact is conveyed either about the condition of the door or the degree of anger of the slammer

Very different is a subtle change of a facial expression: a lip that quivers, an eyebrow that is raised. Often this type of description shows an underlying emotion without the writer having to tell what is being felt.

Sometimes the character assigns words to the action so the reader gets the message loud and clear. Other times the actions tell the reader something that the character hasn’t caught on to. A man who hangs up the phone suddenly when his wife enters the room, but the wife doesn’t see it, lets the reader know he is up to something sneaky. The tension builds waiting for the wife to find out what that is.

Writers don’t necessarily separate descriptions of scenes actions and dialogue, but weave them in and out to help the reader live the writing.

SAMPLES

Both are from MY SISTER’S KEEPER by Jodi Picoult. The speaker is the younger daughter, born to provide body parts for her older sister who is suffering from cancer. Mostly the girls get along, but sometimes they fall out as normal sisters will.

1. “A minute later she (the mother) left, and returned with potholders, dishtowels and throw pillows. She placed these at odd distances, all along Kate’s side of the room. ‘Come on,’ she urged, but I did not move. So she came and sat down beside me on my bed. ‘It may be Kate’s pond,’ she said, ‘but these are my lily pads.’ Standing, she jumped on a dishtowel, and from there, onto a pillow. She glanced over her shoulder, until I climbed onto the dishtowel. From the dishtowel to a pillow to a pot holder Jesse had made in first grade, all the way across Kate’s side of the room. Following my mother’s footsteps was the surest way out.”

Note: Kate and her sister had divided their room with a line down the middle and neither sister could enter the other’s territory. The narrator had chosen the side with the toys and had played happily while her sister had no access to her playthings. However, lunchtime came, and the narrator could not cross the line to leave the room. The door was on Kate’s side. The mother comes to the rescue. Notice the props the mother carries: pot holders, dishtowels and pillows and the extra two details that the pot holder was made by her brother in first grade. The mother renames the props lily pads. Not only does the mother put down an acceptable escape room she demonstrates by walking on the newly named lily pads. We get the emotional story in the last sentence. The actions of the mother tells a lot about her attitude toward her daughter. She takes her problem seriously and finds a solution. Because of other things in the book, it is unusual for the mother to do this, so it builds in another aspect to the mother that we haven’t seen before.

2. “In our living room we have a whole shelf devoted to the visual history of our family. Everyone’s baby pictures are there, and some school head shots, and then various photos form vacations and birthdays and holiday. They make me think of notches on a belt or scratches on a prison wall – proof that time has passed that we haven’t all just been swimming in limbo.

“There are double frames, singles 8x10s, 4x6s. They are made of blond wood and inlaid wood and one very fancy glass mosaic. I pick up one of Jesse – he’s about two, in a cowboy costume. Looking at it, you never know what’s coming down the pike.

“There’s Kate with hair and Kate all bald; one of Kate as a baby sitting on Jesse’s lap; one of my mother holding each of them on the edge of a pool. There are pictures of me, too, but not many. I go from infant to about ten years old in one fell swoop.”

Note: At first this looks like the description of an ordinary family shelf of photos. However the author adds a few details that make the section emotionally charged. Kate is bald after she has hair. We know from earlier in the book Kate has cancer, the baldness drives it home. The narrator’s reaction is negative. Notches on a belt or prison scratches are not happy comparisons. Swimming in limbo also adds to the negative feelings of the scene. That there are photos of the older sister and brother through out childhood, by nine years are missing from the narrator’s life also shows volumes about the narrator’s place in the family. The narrator also chooses action words in phrases like coming down the pike and one fell swoop in a stationary scene. In a way the setting up of the shelf of pictures is action that went before and gives an insight into the family’s dynamic. The first two children are important, the second is not.

EXERCISES

1. Take any book and mark in yellow all action description. That means the non-dialogue, non-scenery description…

2. A man decides to jump out of a plane to prove to himself he has the courage to face his wife’s final illness. He is terrified of heights. Write a description of his actions showing his reluctance as he parks the car at the airport where the jump will take place. Use no dialogue.

NO 45: Writing about grief

2006-06-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Witnessing real grief is easy. Turn on the news. An Iraqi father holds his dead daughter, a Dafur refugee looks numb as she sits in a camp and tells of the hacking of her family and how she is the only survivor. Anyone who has seen FAHRENHEIT 9/11 remembers the mother of a dead soldier who goes to Washington, DC. A woman attacks her verbally. Then the mother walks toward the White House. Suddenly she bends over in a pain that permeates from the screen into every cell of the watcher.

An example of shown grief can be found in BROADBACK MOUNTAIN. The lover holds a shirt against his body and we know it contains a memory, and we know he regrets not having the courage to go with his lover. The mother, devastated by her own grief, lets him take the clothing away without ever admitting she knows the true relationship between her son and the guest. The pain is there, but it is never spoken. The actions say more than any dialogue.

This pain is what a writer needs to capture, not just for the three-minute newscast but what happens the next day, week, month, however long the character stays with the story. The reader needs to know how the loss is internalized into the character.

This is where showing versus telling comes into play. Writing about grief is one of the hardest things to do because it is so easy to slip into sentimentality that dilutes the pain.

Details show grief. They show how the character is changed by the tragedy whatever it is. Is there rage, a shutdown of emotion, fear, denial or acceptance – all the normal stages according to the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross? The stages make fertile ground for a writer.

We don’t want to tritely run our character through the stages showing a situation for each stage. Having different characters caught in different stages can set up conflict that adds to the drama of your work. A sister who refused to think about her dead brother, a mother who accepts his death because it released him from the pain of AIDS, his father’s anger that his son was gay can all illustrate grief over the same death.

Recovery from grief is not a timed event. A woman that twenty years later is still massaging everything her ex-husband said and did when he walked out is frozen in her grief but is in a different situation from a woman when cleaning the attic comes across some photos from her first marriage that triggers the rage she felt when her husband left her despite having a happy life since then. The way the grief is handled by each tells more about the character than if you said one was depressive and the other optimistic or whatever seemed appropriate.

A writer friend had to kill off a beloved character to develop another. She cried as she wrote the funeral, but she said that it helped write the pain of the fictional person. When I read what she had written, I knew she’d nailed it, despite having the good fortune of never having lost anyone close to her.

SAMPLES

1. “Remorse is not nothing. Grief is not useless. It changes the heart of a people. It cautions them to think better, to think in new ways, before they are once again tempted to bomb and beat a people into submission, into ‘freedom.’ It makes them new – and eventually the society with them. One person at a time finally learns to feel. It’s called ‘soul.’
Joan Chittister NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER

2. Mawmaw goes to the Vietnam War Memorial wall to see her grandson’s name. The memorial is a long black wall with all the names of the soldiers killed arranged chronologically. She was too short to reach it, so someone gets a stepladder so the old woman can climb.

“Mawmaw reaches toward the name and slowly struggles up the next step, holding her dress tight against her. She touches the name, running her hand over it, stroking it tentatively, affectionately like feeling a cat’s back. Her chin wobbles, and after a moment, she backs down the ladder silently.”
Bobbie Anne Mason IN COUNTRY

3. “That night in the hotel room, I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time but I didn’t shave off my beard or cut my hair. I kept thinking about Sean under the frozen ground and I had a crushed feeling in my stomach. I decided when my time came I wanted to be burned. I didn’t want to be down there under the ice.”
Michael Connelly THE POET

4. “I’d close my eyes more tightly or increase the flow of the faucet or turn up the radio. I didn’t let myself admit that the only way I might see you, again, was in that last moment when you would be back to gather your footsteps like an armful of brilliant dessert flowers, a consolation prize, you would present to me in return for losing you forever.
Jody Picoult VANISHING ACTS

5. After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air,
or Ought A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go
EMILY DICKINSON

EXERCISES

1. Set a timer for ten minutes. Pick up a pen and paper and write until the timer goes off starting with the sentence “I never hurt so much as when…”

2. List all the things that happen a week after a funeral, ordinary, related and unrelated.

3. Describe what happens when a man aged 35 goes back to work after her three days of leave for his wife's death in a car accident.

4. Write 50 words describing the reaction of a mother as she listens to a doctor tell her that her child has cancer.

No: 44 Free-Writing

2006-05-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

D-L Nelson will be giving a short story workshop the last weekend in October in Argeles-sur-mer, France. For more information write her at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY

Many writing teachers urge new (and not-so-new writers) to free-write daily. Free-writing comes under other names called practice writing, daily writing, etc., but the concept behind it is the same. Regular writing exercises are for a writer what playing scales are for a musician or hitting balls are for a tennis player or golfer. They warm you up. They help you fine tune your style.

What is free-writing? It is taking a piece of paper or your computer keyboard and you start to write without stopping. You never worry about spelling or editing. You don’t think, “I can’t say that, it will hurt my Aunt Minnie.” You say it. You let it come out.

Even if you freeze you are supposed to go on by repeating your last few words such as:
I went to the store to buy a case of Coke, a case of Coke, a case of Coke
because I loved Coke since i was a kid, a kid, a kid, and my mother only
would let me have three and my brother had the other three and and and
and I often stoled his.

Yes there are mistakes, yes there are repetitions, but the idea is to keep going.

So many times as writers we are stopped by what we feel is safe and correct. We need to get away from that concept in our free-writing. What dedicated free-writers find is that often the free-writing produces the energy that leads to other good writing. Take the free-write about the case of Coke. That led to a short story about sibling rivalry acted out with a brother and sister stealing each other’s treasures in the third person from the point of view of adults.

What if it doesn’t produce anything? So what? Does each piano scale produce a sonata? No, but with enough scale practice the sonata will be played better.

Measurement

There are two ways to measure free-writes. One is by a timer set for ten minutes. The other is to fill up three pages. Less than that really isn’t enough. More is fine.

Starting

Put your pencil/pen/fingers to paper/keyboard and start and don’t stop until the time/pages are filled. Don’t answer the phone, go to the toilet or take a sip of tea.

What if you don’t know how to start?

1. Find a trigger such as emotional phrases: I love…, I hate…, I want…, it pisses me off…, I remember…, I don’t remember…

2. Use a color. I wanted to wear red as child but mother said it clashed with my hair. Work your way through the rainbow. Just think how many writing exercises you can do around different words for purple: lavender, lilac, violet, mauve, purple…

3. Find a sentence in a book, newspaper or magazine and use that as a trigger.

4. Use a piece of conversation that you overheard.

Where should I free write?

Anywhere you want: on a bus, train, airplane. In your kitchen, office. At a café. Sure it is ideal to be locked away with quiet or soft music in the background, but it is more important to do it.

What to do with your free-writing

1. Ignore what you wrote. No one ever needs to make every word written count. We don’t see the canvases that the artists didn’t like. A professor at Simmons College once said that every writer has 250,000 bad words in them. Free-writing gets rid of some.

2. Go get a cup of tea or coffee and come back and reread what you wrote circling something you like.

3. Transfer what you like into a journal for later use or not.

4. Develop what you started.

Most of my blogs at http://theexpatwriter.blogspot.com started as a free- writes. I only clean them up slightly before I post them. It warms me up for the day. On the other hand there are free-writes that I will never post because Aunt Minnie would kill me. Either way I am limber enough afterwards to go on to do the writing I need to do for the rest of the day.

Set yourself the goal of free-writing for a month even if you have to lock yourself in a bathroom to do it. By then it will become a habit that you miss. Trust me. I am a free-writer junkie.

SAMPLES

Nathalie Goldberg is one of the strongest proponents of free writing and I recommend WILD MIND and WRITING DOWN THE BONES to every writer. This month’s samples are taken from WILD MIND.

1. “I met a doctor the other night who told me he had always wanted to be a writer…Then I thought to myself, ‘You know, I’ve never met a writer who wanted to be anything else.’”

Notes: Although this isn’t about free-writing, Goldberg touches on the secret that drives writers – they want to write.

“When I walk into a house I see rooms. The only thing I know to do to rooms is to paint the walls white. My friend Rob, who is an interior designer, walks into a house and moves walls, raises the roof and puts in a window where it was solid…I went with Rob to a flea marker. He bought two six-foot high abstract paintings and we brought them home. He hung them on the north wall of his living room. We stood back to look. ‘Just, a minute,’ he said and disappeared. He came back with a can of whitewash and painted a thin coat across the entire canvas of both paintings. I yelled, ‘You can’t do that!’

‘Why not?’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘They’re not Rembrandts.’ I must admit that the paintings looked better.”

Note: What a wonderful example of not being afraid to change things to make them better. And in free-writing, we are at a starting point either to change what we’ve done or leave it alone. It doesn’t matter.

2. “For fifteen years now, at the beginning of every writing workshop, I have repeated the rules for writing practice. So, I will repeat them again here. And I want to say why I repeat them: Because they are the bottom line, the beginning of all writing, the foundation of learning to trust your own mind. Trusting your own mind is essential for writing.”

Note: Her rules include keep your hand writing, below be specific, lose control and don’t think.

EXERCISE

Decide if you want to free-write to a time or to number of pages and how, computer or paper. Decide where. Promise yourself that will do it every day for a month even if you have to vary the place or the tools. Do it.

No: 43 The Use of Symbols

2006-04-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

D-L Nelson will run a short story writing workshop in Argelès-sur-mer, France, the last weekend in October 2006. Anyone interested in it should contact her at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr.

THEORY
The use of symbols is one way to increase the depth of your writing. Many a doctoral thesis has been written on symbolism and there are many that still can be written. This newsletter will only skim the surface to plant a seed, the phrase plant a seed being a symbol itself, albeit it trite one. However symbolization is a potent tool in your writing craft kit. The word tool here is also a symbol because is a concrete representation of a something abstract.

Webster defines a symbol as “something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance; especially: a visible sign of something invisible.”

Let’s look at two different categories of symbols: “universal” and private.

“Universal” symbols
Symbols that are “universal” or symbols understood by everyone can be tricky. The word universal is in quotes because “universal” symbols break down culturally. This would be a problem if writing is to be read by more than one culture. Anyone who has lived in another country or even read literature from a previous epoch needs a guide to understand what the symbols mean if they recognize they are symbols at all.

Flower symbolism, for example, is culturally based. Chrysanthemums, the national symbol of Japan for a long life are associated with death in France and are used to decorate graves November 1st. However, if a person is writing about France they wouldn't want a French man to give Chrysanthemums to his lover unless he was sending her a very nasty message and if your readership is American the inappropriatness needs to be explained or shown in someway.

Color symbolism is also culturally based. White is the color that symbolizes virginity and purity which is why wedding gowns are white in Western Culture, but Indian women are married in red. Imagine the looks guests would exchange in a small English town if a bride walked down the aisle in a bright red wedding gown.

Freud and Jung both agreed certain symbols reflect the ability of the mind to hold a distinct piece of information, but they never agreed on the commonality of symbols. At a recent art exhibition of masks rife with all types of symbols from feathers, brushes, colors, expression. They werefrom all over the world. However one had horrible pointed teeth teeth, furrowed lines pointed down from the forehead and mouth, horns painted in black. It would probably not pass as a symbol of happiness in any culture.

An apple and snake might not mean a lot to someone who had never heard of Adam and Eve.

Writers, therefore, need to be careful if they use certain cultural symbols. They will have to conjure up something to trigger recognition by the target audience. In using symbols of a culture such as Welsh animal symbols (e.g. a boar for courage) it has to be clear to the reader not familiar with the standing of boars in ancient Welsh cultures. This must be done subtly rather than with sentences such as “watch the boar appear in a chapter 5 and the hero will now do something brave in chapter 6.”

Naming characters after Roman gods might work if the readers knew Roman mythology. If they didn’t the writing would have to be strong enough to carry it without the knowledge.

None of this means that writers can’t include culturally uncommon symbols if they are used in such a way that the reader will understand what the writer is doing, at some level. The reader that knows the symbol system will get ever a greater understanding of the work.

Private symbols
These are symbols that the writer sets up for him/herself. The only limitation is the writer’s imagination. There are the easy and trite symbols of an expensive car to represent the attainment of wealth (goals). John Grisham, when he stepped out of genre writing of legal thrillers, used the painting of his childhood home as a symbol of something important in the status of his family certainly far less trite than buying a Mercedes.

The symbol must remain constant through out the piece unless the change is clear to the reader. For example, a Mercedes can represent success but if a man loses his wife because his wife cannot support what he had to do to get the Mercedes, then it also becomes a symbol of failure. However, failure is the other side of success and therefore the symbol mutates logically into something that is related to its original meaning strengthening the power of the symbol.

The private symbol must hold on its own merit. Orwell makes good use of Pigs in ANIMAL FARM to represent capitalists.

Be careful however not to over do symbols or be too cunning which will leave a writer open for charges of precious writing.

Many writers have admitted that there are times what critics see symbols in their writing that were put their totally subconsciously. Perhaps that is the best use of symbols possible.

EXAMPLES
1. The connections (between symbol and object) should be valid and reasonable in a plain literal sense as well as a metaphorical one, and be consistent through the whole story. A knife can be a symbol, but it also better be able to cut string. And if it represent cutting free, cutting loose, in the story’s beginning, it better not be used to prop up a bookcase and then forgotten later on.”
Ansen Dibell BEYOND PLOT

2. He especially enjoyed watching Mrs. Sen as she chopped things, seated on newspapers on the living room floor. Instead of a knife, she used a blade that curved like the row of a Viking ship, sailing to battle in distant seas. The blade was hinged on one end to a narrow wooden base. The steel, more black than silver, lacked a uniform polish, and had a serrated crest, she told Eliot for grating. Each afternoon Mrs. Sen lifted the blade and locked it into place, so that it met the base at an angle. Facing the sharp edge without ever touching it, she took whole vegetables between her hands and hacked them apart: Cauliflower, cabbage, butternut squash. She split things in half, then quarters, speedily producing florets, cubes, slices, and shreds. She could peel a potato in seconds. At times she sat cross-legged, at times with legs splayed, surrounded by an array of colanders and shallow bowls of water in which she immersed her chopped ingredients.
Jhumpa Lahiri MRS. SEN

Note: In this story the knife is a tie to Mrs. Sen’s home, her doing things as she would have if she had not been forced to move to Cambridge for her husband’s work. It could also symbolize that she is cut off from her own people but at the same time her following her culinary customs ties her to the people back home.

3. Whan that April with his shoores soote
The droughte of Marche hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veine in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr;
Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smalle fowles maken medlodye
That sleepen all the night with open ye -
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages -
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seekn strange strondes
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martyr for to seeke
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke.
Chaucer CANTERBURY TALES PROLOGUE Talbot Donaldson edition - regularized spelling - Scott Foresman 1975)

Note: Nature arises in all things in the Spring, as symbolized by April showers and the soft breezes of the zephyr wind, while the still-young Sun has gone halfway into Aries and the birds are kept awake at night by the force of Nature.

EXERCISES
1. Take something you’ve written that has no symbolization. Then rewrite using a symbol. Here’s an example: The scene is a funeral of an old man, a real patriarch. People talk about him, food is passed around. Until this point there is no symbolization. Then a chair is added as the symbol. The chair is where he and no one else ever set. He called it his throne. Although there are not enough seats no one has sat in the dead man’s chair until his oldest son goes over and sits down. Everyone gasps, and the wife thinks, the king is dead, long live the king. The chair becomes a symbol of the transfer of power from the father to the son.

2. Look at an object (tree, cup, pencil, lamp, whatever) and create a story using the object as a symbol.

NOTES:
1. Good web site. Dictionary of symbols http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html/A/

2. Thanks to Dr. John McLaughlin, a Medievalist, who supplied me the opening lines from the CANTERBURY from his class along with my apology that I didn’t remember the symbolism. However, I can still recite the passage.

No: 42 Up to Fifty Words to Make A First Impression

2006-03-14T03:25:00.000-08:00

Any comments or suggestions please email D-L Nelson at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

Teachers may borrow from W3 but please give us credit.

THEORY

Readers often make buying decisions on the first paragraph of a book. Likewise many agents and publishers have said if the beginning doesn’t grab them, they don’t bother reading any further. The first few words of a story are your most important if you want your work read by anyone.

Compare the first paragraph or the first sentence of a story to an introduction and the old saw you have thirty seconds to make a good impression. Substitute thirty words for thirty seconds although good opening sentences can be anything from one to fifty words.

So much can be conveyed in a few opening words.

Tone: Serious, humorous, sad, bewildered, melodramatic.

Place: Country, city, inside, outside, type of building, room, etc.

Weather: Hot, cold, rainy, sunny, thunderstorms, snow storms, hail, sleet, etc. This type of opening had lead to the joke about novels starting with “It was a dark and rainy night.” I have a personal dislike of staring any sentence much less a first sentence with the word it. Ditto for there followed by is, are, were.

Theme: Although a writer doesn’t yell, “Hey reader’s, here’s the theme,” often the first words sets it. Sometimes readers don’t even realize there is a theme, even upon finishing a story but if the story is well done, they feel it.

Time: What part of the day it is.

Season: Spring, summer, fall. Weather and season do not always have to match. An unusually warm winter or cold summer can create an entirely different mood and heighten conflict by the contrast.

Sensuality: smells, colors, textures

An opening serves another purpose that is little discussed. If the reader is enthralled, then that is the first step for him or her to develop trust in the writer. Once the trust is established, the author has more leeway to develop side stories, throw in something not quite believable and the reader won’t put the work aside, but will go on to see why it was done and what will be the income.

And after the first sentence, comes the second and the third and the…

SAMPLES

1. "On a hot midsummer morning, after over sixteen years of marriage, Jane MacKenzie saw her husband fifty feet away and did not recognize him." 24 words
Alison Lurie TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

Notes: Weather, season, time of day and marital length of the heroine and the heroine is named all in 24 words. What makes this memorable is the second part of the sentence that she did not recognize him. Very few people could resist wanting to find out why she didn’t recognize him. The why is the theme and holds the secret of the entire conflict of the book.

2. "It was on a mild, fragrant evening in late September, several weeks after she had moved to Glenkill, Pennsylvania, to begin teaching at the Glenkill Academy for Boys, that Monica Jensen was introduced to Sheila Trask at a crowded reception in the headmaster’s residence." 44 words
Joyce Carol Oates SOLSTICE

Notes: Oates gives us season, weather, place, city, state, event and the two main characters all in one sentence. She also established what Jensen is doing at the school. The entire story involves around Trask’s and Jensen’s relationship, so the relationship is the theme.

3. “Friday January 1st 1960 (New Year’s Day) How on earth can I get rid of David?”
Colleen McCullough ANGEL

Notes: There is no doubt about the time, which alone is not enough to capture our interest, but the following fist person quotation certainly pulls in. Why does the narrator want to get rid of David? Who is David?

4. “I don’t know if that story was picked up the West. I believe some interest was shown in South Africa, but only because rape and murder had been high on the country’s agenda for some time.” 36 words
Minette Walter’s THE DEVIL’s FEATHER

Notes: Here we have the narrator expressing some confusion about what the reader might know but she throws out the possibility that it will be known. Rape and murder define the story as a possible mystery even if the reader had no idea Walter’s was a mystery writer.

5. "The Dream Catcher, an artifact made on the reservations of Native Americans and sold in souvenir shops there for little money, was a circle the size of man’s palm, formed from some pliant wood and then banded with a leather thong." 41 words
Andrew Miller OXYGEN

Note: The dream catcher has little to do with the story, although dreams and aspirations make a major part of this novel. This is a lead-in opening.

6. “Mary, you will regret this.” 5 words
Elizabeth Goudge SCENT OF WATER

Note: By using a quotation Goudge sets up the novel for a change in Mary’s life.

7. “I’m in love with a chickpea named Peter.” 7 words
D-L Nelson CHICKPEA LOVER NOT A COOKBOOK

Note: This was an opening to arise curiosity on the part of a reader

EXERCISES

1. Make several lists one each for countries, cities, seasons, types of weather, times of day, moods and tones. Now combine the elements from the different lists and write a sentence that could be the opening of a story or novel.

2. Write and opening sentence for a potential story that is based around weather only. Then repeat it for season, time, place and a sensory experience. Example of a sensory-based sentence: The smell of burning leaves always brought her back to that day no matter how hard she fought against it.

See you next month,
D-L Nelson

No 41 Plot and Pacing

2006-02-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

If you want to discuss this or any W3 email me at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY

Plotting is the story itself. Pacing is how the writer unravels the story.

First what makes up a good plot? Interesting characters doing either interesting things or placed in interesting situations that tests them is what keeps readers turning pages.

No one wants to read about two university graduates at the top of their class, who get good jobs, marry. They have two perfect children who also get good grades and are always well behaved. The couple stays faithful and in love until they die at age 100 within minutes of each other. Although we might wonder how they do it, what that plot lacks is a lot of C. C stands for Conflicts and Challenges in their lives. That mythical couple would be as boring as a detective with no crime to solve.

Plots can be event, character and/or theme driven as long as there is something that happens that makes readers want to keep reading. Once the plot is in place then pacing comes into play (Okay, I apologize for the alliteration.)

There is no single way to structure your pacing.

The end can be revealed in the beginning and the rest of the story can show how the end was reached. Think of all the COLUMBO programs. We know from the first few scenes who the murderer is, but we watch Peter Falk with his raincoat and “One more question” bring down the guilty party. Some novels start with a prologue that we know at one point will make sense.
For example an old rich woman with servants is waiting for her grandchildren to come to her birthday party. In the first chapter she is a poor girl pushing a cart in Brooklyn. We watch her evolve into that rich old woman. The pacing is how she succeeds and where she fails.

Other times we don’t know how the story ends (unless you are like my friend who reads the last page first). The writer drops hints along the way, and hints are necessary because a reader will be angry if the ending lacks believability. Better that s/he thinks, how clever the writer was to sneak in the clues that I missed. A good example of sneaky clues is the film THE SIXTH SENSE. Although the ending seemed like a surprise, when rethinking different scenes all the clues were there. And in the bonus material on the DVD they tell you where they were.

The writer must decide what to give away and when.

Pacing also involves tension. We need to vary the tension to not exhaust or bore our readers.

One way is with sub plots, making the reader wait to see what happened to character 1 as we follow characterr 2.

In short stories there is usual only one plot, but in a novel we can have several different sub plots intersecting. A master at weaving subplots together is John Irving. I recommend A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY to see how different subplots that might drive you to distraction like the practice of a basketball shot has an oh yes moment at the end of the book.

Also with different story lines in a novel we can pick up one while putting another aside. Think in terms of three interwoven sub plots, A B C. The lines are different lengths to show the amount of space devoted to each subplot does not need to be equal. However, at the end they must all be resolved.

A____B_______A_C______________AB_________C_________CB_______ABC

Not all subplots need to be of the same strength giving us A b C

A_________b__C___________A________bC_____AbC

Or we can do stories within stories. Again Irving in the WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP has a separate story about a bear within the novel that is only remotely connected, but the reader gets caught up in that story before going back to the main story.

EXAMPLES

“Plot is the structure of events within a story and the causal relationship between them. There is no plot without causality.”
www.sff.net/people/SASwann/text/plot.htm#Plot

“According to Aristotle's Poetics, a plot in literature is "the arrangement of incidents" that (ideally) each follow plausibly from the other. The plot is like the pencil outline that guides the painter's brush. An example of the type of plot which follows these sorts of lines is the linear plot of development to be discerned within the pages of a bildungsroman novel. Aristotle notes that a string of unconnected speeches, no matter how well-executed, will not have as much emotional impact as a series of tightly connected speeches delivered by imperfect speakers.
“The concept of plot and the associated concept of construction of plot, emplotment, has of course developed considerably since Aristotle made these insightful observations. The episodic narrative tradition which Aristotle indicates has systematically been subverted over the intervening years, to the extent that the concept of beginning, middle, end are merely regarded as a conventional device when no other is at hand.
“This is particularly true in the cinematic tradition where the folding and reversal of episodic narrative is now commonplace. Moreover, many writers and film directors, particularly those with a proclivity for the Modernist or other subsequent and derivative movements which emerged during or after the early 20th century, seem more concerned that plot is an encumbrance to their artistic medium than an assistance.
lot of a story will extend beyond the bounds of the story itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot (I recommend that you read the entire selection)

EXERCISE

Take one of your short stories or a novel and make a file card for each scene. Label it A,B,C etc. for each subplot. If the subplot is minor use a,b,c. Then label it 1-5: 1 for low tension to 5 for high tension. Take graph paper and draw out the plot lines above. Then add the numbers for tension. You will have a visual representation of your work both for plotting and pacing.

No. 40 Ground your writing

2006-01-13T03:38:00.000-08:00

W3 is updated by the 15th each month.

Old issues are still available at www.wisewordsonwriting.com.

Please share W3 with your writing friends.

Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our blog site. I welcome comments: donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY

I recently tackled a French novel. Although I had no problems with the vocabulary, the writer started scene after scene without giving any idea of the environment where the action was taking place. To make it worse she did not identify the people speaking. I wasn’t even sure if the characters were male or female. After fighting through several pages, I was able to guess what was happening and with whom. I was never sure of the where. I didn’t finish the novel although the write-up on the jacket had intrigued me. I gave the novel to a native French speaker. She had the same problem. Whew, it wasn’t my French.

That novel’s lack of grounding gave me the idea for this newsletter. I have not encountered an Anglophone novel so blatantly ungrounded, but I have sometimes had to puzzle out details that a simple sentence would have given me without leaving annoyed that I had to work so hard to figure out where I was.

When we read we create mental images of the characters and locations. Our job as writers is to provide the framework to help the reader form those images.

New writers are more apt to be guilty of not properly grounding.

Readers need to know when and where the action of a novel is taking place, but reject pages of description. The secret is to select enough information so a reader can “see” what the writer saw. Grounding is like good background music that adds to the ambience but doesn’t drown out the movement of the plot.

How a scene is grounded depends on the story. What are some of the ways?

Use outside environments

These could be a nation, city, town, country, farm, beach or forest. Although it is not necessary to have a real place, the reader must believe that the place is real. Whenever possible the details that ground the work should also help with plot or character development rather than be thrown in.

A comment that a character saw the Eiffel Tower is a dead give away of a location, but not subtle. Something more subtle would be to put the character into a taxi and have them notice that it was the first Parisian taxi driver that ever drove slowly. The simplest would be to say Paris, France at the top of the chapter. Yet at the same time, the richness of that city calls out for a few details that add to the story.

Comments about trucks parked in front of a diner ground a story in a different location than valet parking by a restaurant located on the ground floor of a skyscraper.

In writing about a location, it is easy to be trapped by clichés such as the Eiffel Tower . By interweaving the scene into other details, writers can escape that particular danger. For example: beaches with white sands and gentle waves have been described to death but if the small grains of sand get inside a character’s sandals and irritate his/her feet then we know the person is on a beach. If the character wears sandals because the sand was so hot, the writer has grounded the scene with temperature, too.

Smells can be used to ground a scene: the smell of gasoline, pine trees, mud, baking chocolate brownies all create a mood that narrows down place.

Using inside environments

The types of rooms that writers select are another way of grounding. A kitchen large enough for family conferences and games is different from a state-of-the-art kitchen with expensive copper pans that are never used. A meal at McDonald’s is different from a meal in an expensive restaurant.

Unlike the Victorian writers who wanted to describe every piece of furniture, a few details not only ground the reader but tell them about the occupants. Modern sleek furnishings with huge windows overlooking the Hudson River is different from a Cornwall cottage filled with furniture gathered from Aunt This or Uncle That. Trophies from a kid’s football team in the middle of mantle reveal something about the parents’ pride than trophies being tucked away in a closet.

And don’t forget to make it clear when locations are changed. Nothing is worse for a reader to think they are in a city apartment to realize three pages later they are on a farm.

EXAMPLES

1. “He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay.”
Ernest Hemingway FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL

This is the introduction, so the hero still hasn’t got a name, but we know he is in a forest. The color of the dead pine needles is mentioned, but it isn’t necessary to bring up that the tops of the trees are green. Our minds make that leap. We also know exactly where the hero is and Hemingway has incorporated sound. We can almost hear the rustle of the top (not the entire tree) branches. Although he doesn’t tell us what time of year it is, we guess it is a warm season. People don’t lie down in forests in mid winter with their chins on their folded arms. The scene evokes tranquility.

2. “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.”
John Steinbeck GRAPES OF WRATH

Here we have an exact place, Oklahoma. This opening paragraph of the novel is rich in colors. There is lushness with the rains and the growth of crops and grass, which of course will be taken away from us the reader just as it will be taken away from the characters.

3. “Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre that evening in returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they certainly claimed much of her leisure also to forget to look with an inquiring eye for Mr. Tilney in every box.
Jane Austen NORTHANGER ABBEY

Here the action is intermingled with the grounding. We know we are at a theatre and that the theatre is fancy enough to have boxes along the side. Only one sentence is needed to ground the reader.

4. “Elizabeth is lying on her back, clothes on and unrumpled, shoes placed side by side on the bedside rug, a braided oval bought at Nick Knack’s four years ago when she was still interested in home furnishings.”
Margaret Atwood LIFE BEFORE MAN

There is a neatness in the way Atwood grounded this scene with unrumpled clothing and shoes side by side. The braided rug creates a more homey feeling both because of the type of rug and where she bought it. Any store named Nick Knack’s isn’t a high priced store. Again the grounding is woven into the plot because we learn that Elizabeth interests’ have changed.

EXERCISES
1. Watch a movie on DVD without sound so you can concentrate on what the camera shows to ground a scene.

2. Go to a café and describe as much as you can about the café. Then cut your writing down into three sentences that capture the mood.

3. Sit in your own living room, bedroom, or kitchen. List everything in the room. What are the most important characteristics? Imagine a character walking into the room for the first time and show something about that character by the way s/he reacts to the room.

See you by the 15th of next month,
D-L Nelson

No. 39 Polishing Lazy Writing

2005-12-11T03:42:00.000-08:00

W3 is updated the 15th of every month.Old issues are still available at http://www.wisewordsonwriting.com Please share W3 with your writing friends. Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our website and blogsite. I welcome comments: donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY
In editing my latest novel I cut 10,000 from 95,000 words. I’d been guilty of lazy writing. Those 10,000 words were just hanging around the page not moving the plot forward, not showing anything, not giving the reader stronger descriptions. They were ink users.

Lazy words decrease intensity. Here’s some examples.

“Aidan came into the room holding a hammer in his hands.” Where else would he hold it? In his ears? Drop the “in his hands.”

“Both Jess and Lynne were unable to answer.” Since there were only three people involved in the conversation and only two were asked the question “both” doesn’t add a thing.

“'That’s weird,' Bridget said hugging herself." It’s dialogue. We can cut the “that’s”. We don’t even need said. “Weird.” Bridget hugged herself." A lot of saids can be sent to the garbage. ‘“Weird.’ Bridget hugged herself” reads cleaner. The words that are left work harder.

“Patrick and Bridget left the room together at the same time.” Together and at the same time are repetitious. If the left together it had to be at the same time and vice versa. Patrick and Bridget left the room within a few minutes of each other, is a little different however.

“Aidan stood and walked across the room.” The reader doesn’t need a movement-by-movement description to get Aidan across the room. Also, he wouldn’t walk from a sitting position. If the reader can't figure out he had to stand before he could walk, then you have a very stupid reader.

“She read worry on his face for her.” I didn’t need the “for her”. The situation showed what he was worried about.

“Her whole family” Her family is enough because the context made the word whole unnecessary. The reader knew they were all in the room with her.

“The bigger of the two men who flashed the FBI badge threw Peggy to the floor only seconds after she heard the breaking of the glass and feet thudding up the stairs.” I don’t need the only. I also dropped who flashed the FBI badge because that was repetitious to something I had written earlier. The final sentence was “The bigger FBI man threw Peggy to the floor seconds after she heard glass break and feet thud up the stairs.” Although I have let it go at the moment, I still think improvement is possible.

In each piece you write go back and examine each word and weigh its place in the story. Ask youself these questions?

1. Is it repetitious?

2. Does it make sense?

3. Is it too obvious?

4. Is it grammatical (dialogue can be ungrammatical)?

5. Do you have a clause that could be reduced to a word?

6. If you rearrange/cut the words in a sentence is the sentence stronger?

7. If you rearrange/cut the sentences in a paragraph is the paragraph stronger?

8. If I do a global search for “ly” will I find too many adverbs?

9. If I do a global search for “ing” will I find too many ---ing verbs that might be strengthened?

EXAMPLES

1. “Imainge your on Oprah. The camera swivels you way, the red light is in your face and you’re on.

“What do you say? Your mouth opens, and out comes…“’Uhhh, ahhh.? The camera swivels away. In a split second you have ruined your life.”

2. “All writing begins life as a first draft, and first drafts are never (well, almost never) any good, They are not supposed to be.

3. “The best writing is the clearest: We sense its meaning immediately.”

Examples 1-3 are from Patricia T. O’Conner WORDS FAIL ME, which I recommend.

4. So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time. Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize winner in literature, December 8, 2005 in Sweden

EXERCISES

1. Do a free write for five minutes. Put it aside for a day. Then come back and reduce it to three sentences.

2. Take a page from any novel and rewrite it.

3. Find something you wrote at least a year ago and take one paragraph. List each word on a different line. Then think why you put that word in the sentence.

NOTES

I am reading much on the big debate in the States about the usage of the words Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays. Political correctness can dilute language. Christmas is Christmas. Hanukah is Hanukah. What is wrong in saying it directly. If you add New Years to either celebration it really is Happy Holidays be it Christmas or Hanukah plus New Years. If you're Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic or a worshipper of the great goddess of shopping you still are changing the year in most secular worlds. Happy is a nice word. My Brit friends wish me Happy Christmas. Merry is a nice word.

I wish the same people who worry about Holidays diluting Christmas would worry more securitiy company be substituted for mercenary, Operation Iraqi Freedom substituted for illegal attack on a sovereigh nation, insurgent vs. freedom fighter, etc.

Language is powerful, which is why as writers we should tell it as we see it.

See you next month by the 15th

D-L Nelson

No. 38 Writing Conferences

2005-11-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

W3 is updated the 15th of every month.

Teachers are invited to borrow whatever they want, but please give credit to D-L Nelson, http://www.wisewordsonwriting.com/ and http://wisewordsonwriting.blogspot.com/

THEORY

Writing is a lonely occupation. Non-writers, even those who are the most understanding, can’t full comprehend what a writer is doing and why.

Conferences are excellent opportunities to mix with other writers as well as a chance to learn from established writers. Since most writers’ pocketbooks are shallow, picking a conference needs thought. Here’s some thoughts.

ADVANTAGES
1. Mixing with other writers at all stages of development.
2. Learning from developed writers
3. Meeting with agents (depending on the conference)
4. Refreshing your mind.

DISADVANTAGES
1. Cost
2. Intimidation (some starting writers find the developed writers scare them although others report they are inspirational.)

CHOOSING THE CONFERENCE
1. Timing: make sure it doesn’t conflict with home and/or job responsibilities or your mind will be elsewhere.

2. Location: with limited funds a conference near to you saves travel costs. But one far away can offer a mental refreshing experience. If you have the funds an international conference can really be exciting.

3. Housing: are attendees living together which adds to after-session networking opportunities or are they spread out throughout the area.

4. Does it have a critiquing element? Some conferences place the attendee with an established writer that reviews X number of pages of your work.

5. Size. Conference size can vary from under a hundred to several hundreds.

6. Contests. Are there writing contests attached to the conference.

7. Age of the conference: Some well-established conferences have been going on for decades and have the system well-down. Others are newer, but can be just as good.

8. Workshops: what are the subjects? If you are a fiction writer and all the workshops are poetry-related, it might not be useful UNLESS you are trying to expand into poetry or improve your poetic use of language.

9. Instructors: What are their credentials? A great writer might not be a great workshop leader, but there is no way to judge in advance even if the writer also has teaching credentials. Most conferences have an evaluation sheet which helps the organizers not invite a workshop leader back a second time. But even with under-wonderful teachers it is usually possible to glean some information. Some great writers come merely to read and may or may not intermingle with the attendees.

10. Format: some conferences place an attendee with the same person for the entire conference. Others allow the attendee go from workshop to workshop.
Price: writers earning their living by their writing alone may have fewer funds free for conferences.

11. Costs: slightly different than price. It is necessary to figure in travel, accommodation, food and the temptation to buy books at the conference.

12. University or private organization: Many universities offer conferences. Other times it is a private group such as the IWWG (for women only)

13. Agents: Anne Rice met her agent at a conference. However, a chance to speak with an agent is not a guarantee s/he will take you on. Don’t build up your hopes, but have samples of your work ready to show.

14. Writers: Some conferences feature top writers. These stars sometimes are very giving in answering questions. Other times they read and leave.

To get the most out of conferences go into each session and listen. It wise to remember that there is not one way to write. The last conference I was at the instructor stood on a mental soapbox and proclaimed that women should never write from a male point of view and vice versa. The next session the instructor started with two exercises: write from a man’s point of view. He is about to commit suicide. Write from a 16-year old girl’s point of view as she is about to go out on the street and turn tricks for the first time.

Although I disagreed with the first instructor, I think a lot more carefully when I cross gender lines. New points of view open us as writers and that to me, is the biggest advantage of any conference.

EXAMPLE

If there were any samples of writers writing about a writer’s conference, I couldn’t find them.

Instead let me share this sample of writing about a depressed woman who is given a drug to stabilize her because it such an excellent example of showing not telling. William Kowalski could have said something like. The medication of Benedor helped.

“That was when she first heard the magic word that was going to change her life: Benedor. Other magic words in the history of the world had never had any effect on her: ‘open sesame,’ abracadabra,’ ‘abraxas,’ ‘please,’ ‘I love you.’ But times had changed. The old alchemical incantations had been replaced by the modern buzzwords of mental chemistry. And weren’t the pills a nice color? He mother asked. Francie agreed because it was true. After only a few days on Benedor, everything was a nice color. The sky was a little blujer, the buildings not quite so stark and gray. THE GOOD NEIGHBORS

EXERCISES

Check out these sites for writers conferences and see if any fit your needs

http://writing.shawguides.com Although many are American conferences from all countries are listed.

http://www.awpwriter.org/wcc/dirHome.htm although many are North American there is a small international site

Also you can Google writers conference and your location. However, my favorite search engine is dogpile.com

NOTES Don’t forget to look at local writers’ magazines for the names, dates and places of conferences.

No. 37 Having Your Head in the "Write" Place

2005-10-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Having Your Head in the “Write” Place
W3 Issue 37

Okay, I am sorry for the pun.

W3 is updated the 15th of every month.

Old issues are still available at http://www.blogger.com/index.html

Please share W3 with your writing friends. Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our website and blogsite. I welcome comments: donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

Next month I will write about writing conferences.

THEORY

Anyone who has worked for a newspaper, advertising agency or corporate communication department knows that waiting for the creative muse means we’ll end up on the unemployment line. Nor can phone calls, interruptions or meetings be considered good reasons for missing deadlines. Whether we have to share office space or have so much footage that we get lost from the door to our desk, words must come out and are turned in to someone else’s schedule. We have no control over our writing environment.

However, when it is our personal writing we have more control over the time and place where we work. Notice the words “more control”. Complete control is impossible.

As writers we need to establish the best conditions we can develop good writing habits giving our work the best chance to flourish. These can be broken down into time, space and psyche.

Time

Family members can make demands on our time as bad or worse as any boss. We can set aside no-bother zones. We can take the phone off the hook, not answer the door and threaten our offsprings and/or partners with disaster if we are interrupted. But it doesn’t always work. One photographer I know had a partner who agreed in principle that she should be able to develop her photos between three and five Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, since he worked out of the house, he always needed to find a sock, ask what was for dinner, etc. Finally she told him she wasn’t answering him and locked her darkroom door.

Space

Space and money limitations mean we seldom have our dream writing spot, although the partner of one writer I know, built a small house in their backyard for her that she set up exactly as she wanted. My writing mate has her “souk” which is her own office EXCEPT when the family has company and she relinquished the sofa bed to her guests.

Writers, with limited house space, have set up a desk or even a board on saw horses in the corner of a room. Although one writer’s family doesn’t go near what they call her altar, she has yet to train her cat to stay off her papers which are piled in a system only she can understand. Finally, she learned to cover her piles with a towel even when she takes a bathroom break. The towel saves hours of sorting papers knocked onto the floor.

The ideal space allows us to start work without preparation. In the television show MONK when Monk, a compulsive personality was taking a test he spent so much time making sure his pencils were perfect and the first box was marked just so, he never got to question 2 which brings us to another problem and that is of the way our psyche can allow us to sabotage own creativity and productivity.

Psyche

We need the “write” place where we are mentally ready to accomplish what we want to accomplish in the time we have.

Sometimes even the most disciplined writer gives into procrastination: the laundry has to done, writing would go better with a chocolate, the dog needs to go out (even if the writer has to wake the dog). That doesn’t begin to cover other chores: email, computer games, the headlines and even for a desperate delay – washing the kitchen floor.

The hardest thing in writing is to stop the actions and voices that stop us. The second hardest thing is to do the things that encourages us.

Some writers use a free write, others mind map what they want to do. A veteran list maker lists what he wants to do each day: develop Phil’s personality, write one page of dialogue with Phil talking to Allison.

The secret is to find our own triggers that let us make the most of the resources we have.

EXAMPLES

I asked my on-line writing group how they worked. Here are the responses.

1. At age 40 (13 years ago), when I began to write fiction, I began to walk. I live on the top of a hill and I walk to the bottom, then climb back up by going on the road that goes around the whole hill and village – it's 7 kilometers (5 uphill) which I can now do in an hour (if it's under 90/ 37 degrees). I cannot write if I haven't walked, because not only do all my ideas get sorted out during the walk, but my magical endorphins come out to play!

2. I seem to have two distinct types of personalities: at work I'm a complete discipline & structure psycho-freak. I really am! If things at work don't go exactly to plan, I'm not one of those people you want to be around. I've always been like that, I think school & my parents conditioned me to be like that. Day job is very serious business to me. I feel guilty if I give less than 150%. It's the root cause of all my stress disorders.

At home though, I'm a complete slob. I leave all discipline behind as I leave the office each night. My personal life is one hell of a free-fall and that's just the way I like it!!

On weekends I get up when I feel like it, grab my cup of coffee (I'm a self-confessed coffee addict), go back to bed with my coffee, rape the cat or snuggle up to my man (on those rare occasions when he's in town). Then I spend an hour or two dozing, day-dreaming and developing story lines. After that I'll have a bath and while soaking I'll write down the plot bunnies I've had. I might sit down to plot further or write if the mood takes me. If it doesn't, there's no point in sitting down at my PC, because I won't stay there. And truthfully, I don't like forcing myself. Once I'm in the zone though you might find me at my PC for 18 hours straight. I take it as it comes.

Work space ? I'm lucky I suppose. Since I have a fairly large apartment all to myself I can work wherever I want. I have an 'office' with a PC, bookshelves etc... but as mentioned before – a large chunk of my brainwork is done in bed or in the bath.

3. I listen to music while I write. In fact I ALWAYS listen to music even when I'm in my regular day job. I can't work without music. My favourites are: Bob Dylan (I'm a Dylan junkie: seen him play live 28 times, all over the world), Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Hornsby and country music in general. Music is the biggest inspiration to my writing. A good song will evoke images in my head, images are transformed into words....

When I don't listen to music, I play music (piano & guitar) or I torture the neighbours with my singing. Occasionally, I will write my own songs.

I don't keep a journal. I've always been a complete anti-journal person. I've tried it a couple of times, but always find myself embarrassed by my ramblings, when I reread. Anyway, my journal entries always say the same things: "Thursday, Friday, Saturday..: Must be more organised, must learn to keep my mouth shut every now and then."

But saying all that: I live in awe of those who are disciplined. Just imagine how much more I could get done, if I were like that. But it just isn't in my genes... a Taurean trait perhaps?

4. I liked reading about your working practices. Mine have changed since moving, used to write in living room next to the television, which meant I was doing two things at once; now write in backroom with no TV to distract me, and hence am finding I write much less! Do not know why. I do sometimes listen to music, but generally when David is playing music upstairs that I don't want to hear. When I play music sometimes I also have Simon and Garfunkel, but often world music, people like Zebda (French/N African), sometimes old folk music, sometimes weird off the wall things, sometimes classical (particularly partial to Chopin's Nocturnes, no matter what time of the day), but generally write in quiet, looking out towards the sunset, which is in the opposite direction from the screen, which is possibly another reason why I am writing less these days.
I could never get into journaling, even a diary only gets to January 2nd on average, though when I am on holiday, etc, I would write one, maybe. Also when fired up I could write about political things for hours, but people might not want to read those.
I am thinking of getting a laptop, which will vastly change my writing practices, e. g. I can sit in front of the TV and write again, and there will be no space to stick things between my computer monitor and the hard drive, which is constantly a storage space for all sorts of documents, relevant and irrelevant. Whether this will mean that I will keep these in a heap somewhere else or keep them tidy is a matter for conjecture. I would never dare have a cleaning lady as it would embarrass me too much.
Discipline would be wonderful, and would work for me if it wasn't for games on the computer - only the basic supplied ones, solitaire and so on - and for sunsets.
5. I don't have the time to write "just for fun". Don't get me wrong. I think free writing is very important and I'd love to have more time for it. But usually my schedule is quite tight having to meet certain deadlines. Of course, there are times - like these days - when there's no deadline ahead or a project to work on. BUT - I need this time off to get other stuff done. e.g. to update my homepages, to clean my room which usually is a mess (You should be able to hear my cleaning woman. She's not allowed in my room and each week she keeps telling me: We need to do this room! Well, yes, one day!)I've got my own working room since we've moved into the new flat which was 5 years ago. It's a small room but it's all mine! There are many shelves with books I need for my writing - right now there are two huge heaps of historical books on the floor for my next children's book. There's of course a desk with my PC but not much space for writing by hand. I don't do that usually, anyway.And - YES! - I am VERY disciplined! I am a VERY lazy person which shows when it comes to sport, but I am a very disciplined writer. Writing is a job (and a passion, of course) and I am as disciplined with my writing as I am with the office job. I wouldn't allow myself to be late at the office so why should I allow myself to be late at my desk at home?We usually get up at 7, have breakfast and read the newspaper. M. leaves at 8 which is the signal for me to sit down and start writing. Or - if there's no current project - answering my e-mails, updating the homepage etc. Even if I come home very late the night before (which happened a lot during the past weeks!) and/or have drunk too much I sit at my desk at 8. It's the only way to get me started! Oh, and I have my second cup of tea then.Usually I write up to three hours. If I work on something I don't like (usually this is something like the taxes etc.) I tell myself: You have to get this done today, otherwise you're not allowed to leave your desk. This helps most times but even I have to realize sometimes that there are days when absolutely nothing helps. Oh, and most times I listen to music while writing. For a while now I listen to a list of favourite songs I've downloaded from the internet and/or recorded from CDs. It's very old stuff like Simon & Garfunkel or brand new stuff like Green Day. The days I don't listen to music are very rare. The music keeps my thoughts floating ...

EXERCISES
1. Describe your ideal work place and then try and adapt reality to the ideal.
2. List the time factors that keep you from writing.
3. List what keeps you from writing what you want and try and find two solutions.

See you next month
D-L Nelson

No: 36 Writing What You Don't Know -- Research

2005-09-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

Write What You Don’t Know – Research
W3 Issue 36

W3 is updated by the 15th of every month.

Old issues are still available at http://www.blogger.com/index.html as well as on this site.

Please share W3 with your writing friends. Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our blog site. I welcome comments: donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

Next month I will write about forming good writing habits.

THEORY

Writers are told to write what they know. If taken literally we would only write about our lives. The implication is men can’t write about women or vice versa. A lawyer couldn’t write about doctors, etc. No historical novel would be written, unless the author knew for sure s/he was reincarnated from a previous time period. Science fiction couldn’t exist.

The premise is false. The advice rules out imagination. More importantly it rules out research, which brings in what we don’t know into our knowledge framework.

There are many ways to do research.

The Obvious

Internet: Google, dogpile name more and other search engines are a blessing because what we need is merely a few clicks away. No need to go to the library. One of the problems with an internet search is it gives us more than we need. A hint to reduce the number of listings: put in as many terms or words as possible. If you want to experiment try a few tests. Bill Clinton brings up 41 million hits. Bill Clinton Hillary equal 6.6 million. Bill Clinton Hillary Monica shows 1.1 million. Bill Clinton Hillary Monica Trent Lott raises 60,600. Bill Clinton Hillary Monica Trent Lott impeachment and it is down to 12,6000.

Books: Reading about a subject, person, time period provides great information. I am researching Geneva during the time of Calvin and fell across a book about that period at a street market. Hint: Amazon.com is a great place to see what exists on a subject before visiting your local library. Don’t forget university libraries. Often you can’t remove the books, but you can use the books there.

Travel: If you really want to get the feeling of a place, visit it. Walk the streets, go into grocery stores, check out the cemeteries, if possible a private home, real estate agents, national museums. Hint: if where you are visiting a locality that has a university, contact the department that is in your area of interest and hire a student in that field: archeology, history, art, music.

The Less Obvious

Travel: If your budget doesn’t allow you to visit a place, use travel guides. Talk to people who have visited there or better find a native. Although I never crossed the Sahara, I have friends who did. They told me their adventures giving me the small details that made it seem as I actually was there when I wrote my story. Hint: Be sure and use a map, and be careful of details: if you say Straight Street in Damascus has no shops, you would be wrong. You need to know what is on the streets that you name.

Consulates: Often a consulate officer will be willing to provide information. It was easy to find out what relationship an American of Irish parents needed to do to become an Irish citizen by an email to the local consulate. Many have booklets about their country.

CIA: The CIA has information about each country on the internet. www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos

Professional Experts: Find a professor, lawyer, doctor, policeman or someone who is in the profession that you need information about. You will be amazed at how many people are willing to answer questions. I’ve had funeral directors tell me about burial rules, a medievalist tell me how to build a fire for burning a witch, a man who translates ancient languages talk about cuneiform letters from the ancient city of Ebla, a snake expert describe vipers in the Pyrenees. Sometimes a simple email is all that you need. Other times it may be necessary to request an interview. Almost everyone wants to share their knowledge when asked politely Hint: If it is an interview, I almost send/take a small thank you gift.

Non experts: Why would you want to go to a non-expert? Because the person has experience you might want to incorporate. If you are a professional woman who has never been a housewife and your main character is a mother who never worked, you might want to talk to women in that situation. If you are a man who is writing about a woman who has a hysterectomy talk to women who have had them. Ask the person if they would be willing to read a draft to make sure you have captured the experience.

Manufacturers: Many are willing to send out information on their products. The PR department is always the best contact.

Newspapers/magazines: Good libraries have back issues on film. Don’t just look at your main subject, but notice the advertising, the books and movies showing of the period. For example in the 1940s cigarettes were advertised as being good for your health. At the end of WWII stories in women’s magazines switched from women as workers to the glories of housework. All this can help you create an ambience of the epoch you are writing.

Photographs: Details can be gleaned from scenery, buildings, clothing.

Television: Watch programs about the subject. Many stations will provide transcripts of program. Try and search their archives or write their PR departments or the director.

Double Check **Double Check

When you write about what you don’t know, it is important to double check. In a novel a Bostonian was said to love a local dish shoo fly pie. It is not a local dish, but popular in the Amish area of Pennsylvania. Jeffrey Archer incorrectly named Geneva not Bern the capital of Switzerland. Any reader who knows the area will be annoyed and it negates the verisimilitude of your work. Hint: use the internet as a fact checker.

Watch your language. Regions and social groups have special language. Hoodsies was ice cream in a paper cup in New England. Tonic was soda pop. Try and find a native to make sure your language is fitting for the origin and time for your character.

Approaching people can be done by email, letter or telephone. Identifying yourself as a writer, helps. However, it does create some humorous situations. The police at Ferney-Voltaire looked at me strangely when I asked about buying a gun in France. After I produced a business card with my name, address and the words ecrivain/writer, they seem to decide I wasn’t a potential murderer.

Once we complete our research we are writing what we know.

EXAMPLES

Rosemary Bailey has written THE MAN WHO MARRIED A MOUNTAIN which also discusses her research as she journeys through history in the French Pyrenees.

“In those days few people knew what the Pyrenees looked like. For those at home visual impressions could only be gleaned from the descriptions or drawings of early travelers. We are so used to the familiarity of foreign landscapes gained from film, TV and photographs (and tourism itself), it is hard to imagine a time when there were none of these things. Even cheap lithographs came later, so the occasional original sketch or watercolour done on the spot was all there was to convey some sense of the majesty of the far mountains.”

‘In Pau library we met the archivist, Christine Juliat, petit and smart in a brown cord trouser suit and a silk scarf tied as only French women know how. She showed me a vast cache of old black and white photographs she had just received, of Americans in Pau at the turn of the nineteenth century: the parties, the hunts, the dogs. She also produced triumphantly the book I has been looking for everywhere, Joseph Duloum’s LES ANGLAIS DANS LES PYRENEES, a mine of information.”

EXERCISE
Research a story about a city in a country where you have never been. Get a travel guide, a map, use the CIA information about the place, and a bi-lingual dictionary. Try and find someone from that country and interview them.

NOTES
Some examples of books and websites for special research and it only scratches the surface.

A History Of Cant And Slang Dictionaries: 1785-1858 by Julie Coleman

War Slang: American Fighting Words and Phrases Since the Civil War

The slang dictionary;: Or, The vulgar words, street phrases, and "fast" expressions of high and low society. Many with their etymology and a few with their history traced by John Camden Hotten

http://www.fun4birthdays.com/year/index.html gives major events in different year although the focus is American although if you go several layers there are interesting small details like in Denmark on someone’s birthday a flag is flown outside the window.

http://www.yearbookhigh.com/history/global%20happenings.htm Global events from 1950.

No. 34 Writers Block

2005-07-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

Writers Block
W3 Issue 34

W3 is updated the 15th of every month.

Old issues are still available at http://www.blogger.com/index.html

Please share W3 with your writing friends. Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our website and blogsite. I welcome comments: donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

Next month I will write about freelance writing.

THEORY

Writers who claim writers block doesn’t exist, never had it. Those who have spent days, weeks, and months not being able to put their thoughts down on paper, know it exists.

There isn’t a writer in the world who hasn’t at one time or another had problems finding the right word or idea.

Those who write for newspapers, corporations or do other commercial writing cannot tell their bosses that they are blocked. Produce or get fired.

However, fiction writers have the “luxury” of being blocked.
For the sake of this article let’s define writers block as a prolonged period of not being able to produce satisfactory writing.

Sometimes in life writing is impossible: depression, times of personal tragedy, exhaustion from over work, great stress from outside sources, family problems, are all reasons for writers block, although some people take refuge in writing during these times. For those who don’t, remembering the problems are a good source of writing in the future.

Writers tend to lack confidence to start with, so any slowness in producing the quality of work they desire, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t write well yesterday, I won’t write well today or tomorrow. Panic follows.

What are some of the things to correct writers block. I will divide it into two parts. One is avoidance of writing totally. You run from paper, pencil, computer. The second is what to do when you sit with pencil or keyboard in hand and then freeze.

Avoidance of writing all together
1. Examine what is going in your life. If it is a bad period accept it and live the emotions. It is difficult to work on a comedy if your spouse just walked out on you. (Although Ephron wrote HEARTBURN under exactly that those circumstances making it a great revenge novel.)

2.Take a break. Accept that this won’t be productive and do some of the things that writing has made you postpone, a holiday, paint the house, whatever.

3. Exercise that allows thinking time, walking, running on a tread mill, biking.

4. Talk to others who have had the same problem.

5. Socialize with people that will stimulate ideas.

6. Go to a movie, play, museum to stimulate yourself.

7. Do something totally different from your normal

8. Be flexible. This is not the time for rigid writing schedules or forced discipline. It is a guaranteed set up for failure.

Freezing up when you are actually writing
1. Make a list of things you might want to write, or things you don’t want to write about

2. Copy something you wrote before.

3. Copy something your favorite writer wrote.

4. Make a mind map. Examples can be found on www.wisewordsonwriting.com/index.html
You don’t have to have a plot, you could do it on planning a party, a sporting event, etc. Just make sure you keep you pencil moving.

5. Free write. Put your pen to paper or your hand to your keyboard and write anything, no matter how nonsensical. Example: James smiled but why because he wanted to but why should he and that’s stupid stupid stupid stupid…etc.

6. Edit something you wrote earlier.

7. Edit something another writer wrote.

8. Write about your writers block.

9. Tape yourself talking. Talk about writers block or anything else that is important to you.

10. Read about writers block (see list of books in notes)

11. Talk with other writers who have suffered from writers block.

12. Draw no matter how limited your drawing talent is. There is something in the act of drawing that works well with writing.

13. Get some clay and work with it.

14. Give yourself permission to write badly.

If anyone had any other ideas, I would love to hear them.

EXAMPLES

All selections are by Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD, a book every writer should read.

“Writers block is going to happen to you. You will read what little you’ve written lately and see with absolutely clarity that it is total dog shit…We have all been there, and it feels like the end of the world. It’s a little like a chickadee being hit by an H-bomb.” Here she says suffers of writers block are not alone.

When you don’t know what else to do, when you’re really stuck and filled with despair and self-loathing and boredom, but you can’t just leave your work alone for a while and wait, you might try telling part of your history—part of a character’s history—in the form of a letter. The letter’s informality just might free you from the tyranny of perfectionism.” Here she makes a suggestion what to do.

“All good stories are out there waiting to be told in a fresh wild way. Mark Twain said that Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before. Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind were recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos of meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will still be four billion different renditions.” Here she encourages our own voices.

She talks to her writing students. “But I also tell them that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, the feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them and they just want to help them get out. Writing this way is a little like milking a cow: The milk is so rich and delicious and the cow is glad you did it.” And this is the ultimate goal that we strive to reach, but like the perfect game of golf, it happens rarely. Just be glad when it does.

EXERCISES
1. Write a letter to your favourite character in a book commenting on something they did. Make suggestions on how the could do it differently.

2. Start with this phrase and right for ten minutes – don’t let your pen leave the paper or your fingers the key board – The rain made the red tiles glisten when…

3. Sit somewhere outside your home and list as many details as you notice around. Limit it—for example if it is a café list what is on the table. Then describe each of those lists in great detail. Don’t worry if it is well written or not, you are just doing description.

4. Think of someone you knew in high school and didn’t like. Write three paragraphs about what you think happened to that person.

NOTES
1. Some suggested web sites: www.writersblock.ca/www.sff.net/people/LisaRC/

2. Some book titles that might help. All are available on Amazon.com which will ship anywhere in the world. UNDERSTANDING WRITER'S BLOCK: A Therapist's Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment by Martin Kantor, THE WRITER'S BLOCK 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination by Jason Rekulak ON WRITER'S BLOCk by Victoria Nelson OUTWITTING WRITERS' BLOCK: And Other Problems of the Pen by Jenna Glatzer
See you next month

D-L Nelson

No 33. Writer's Doubt Syndrome

2005-06-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

W3: WISE WORDS ON WRITING
Writer’s Doubt Syndrome
W3 Issue 33

This is W3’s 33th issue to be sent to 7899 readers. W3 has been labor of love and as a thank you to all the writers who have helped me develop my craft by passing by on their knowledge mixed with my own. However, it is taking more and more time to send out and maintain the mailing list. First I thought to make W3 bi-monthly, but then I decided that I would keep it monthly, but instead of sending it out, I’ve decided to let readers pick up comments from a blogspot http://wisewordsonwriting.blogspot.com/ All old issues have been posted there.

I commit to having a new issue of W3 on the blogspot by the 15th of each month starting in July. I know some readers will fall off, but if anyone wants to remember to look for it, mark your agendas on the 15th for the next few months. Future topics will include overcoming writers block, freelancing and writers circles/groups.

Old issues are still available at http://www.blogger.com/index.html

Please share W3 with your writing friends. Teachers: use anything from W3. If you quote us please give our website and blogsite.

To everyone all over the world who has written me in the past, I really have enjoyed sharing information with you and to anyone who wishes to contact me I can be reached at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY

I work with many developing writers (aren’t we all). Many have found agents and publishers, although I only guarantee I’ll push writers to be the best they can be. No matter where the writers are in their development, everyone I’ve worked with has at one time or another expressed major doubts in their ability. The only difference between them is the degree of the doubt. Until recently I chalked up the doubt to being a new writer.

Then one writer I’d worked with whose novel sold well in two countries, expressed the same doubt about the second novel he was working on and his ability in general.

At the same time another new writer I worked with expressed doubt even though her novel had been a finalist in a contest.

At about the same time I reached an impasse on the novel I was working on and wondered about my own ability. It dawned on me that every good writer I have ever known imagines they lack ability.

In the US there probably would be a TV ad showing a person at the computer against a beautiful outdoor background saying “Are you worried about the order of your sentences, your description, your plotting? Do you sit at your computer and switch to computer games rather than face putting words down? Then you probably have Writer’s Doubt Syndrome (WDS) and you need blah blah medicine. Ask your doctor. Not recommended for… and side effects can include brain damage, heart stoppage, etc.”

Although I might deplore everything being made a syndrome in the US requiring the purchase of expensive medicine, it doesn’t mean that people don’t have real problems.

WDS seems to be a requirement for every writer from the person setting down their words for the first time or someone already published. As an example Truman Capote was attacked with WDS and couldn’t write for years.

Similar doubts are not suffered by non artistic professions. Truck drivers don’t wake up in the morning in a sweat thinking they might not be able to turn the wheel exactly the best way possible, and I doubt if plumbers anguish over the installation of a water faucet and install it over and over the same way a writer will rewrite and rewrite a paragraph.

I’m not talking about writer’s block here. People with WDS can continue to write, they just don’t like what they said. Sadly, like other syndromes there is no pill for it.

What can we do about it when WDS strikes? First, remind yourself you are not alone. Then try and figure out what triggered the attack. Here’s some of the common ones.

WDS Trigger 1:

When I talked to several writers in preparing this newsletter they told me that the most common trigger was a rejection. Sadly rejection is part of writing.

Solutions: Buy and keep a copy of THE RESILIENT WRITER: TALES OF REJECTION AND TRIUMPH BY 23 TOP AUTHORS. Read when WDS hits.

Consider anything other than a form rejection as a mark of progress.

One way to keep rejection from turning into WDS is to have several things circulating (or the same thing sent out to many places) then there is always hope that one of your submissions will meet with success.

WDS Trigger 2

You’re confident you can write but those around you think you’re nuts to spend so much time on an activity with no guaranteed result and take every opportunity to tell you. A nay-sayer plants the seeds for WDS better than the most successful farmer in the world.

Solutions: Stay away from them. If the dream-spoiler is your spouse, parent, living-at-home child, it is harder, but try and set limits on what you will accept

Under no circumstances let the person who is sabotaging your writing see your work.

Find someone who can give constructive help. This can be in the form of an editor, book doctor, word coach, writing group or even a loved one has no hidden agenda other than to help you develop as a writer. There is a lot of difference between the person who says you have created a stupid character and the person who asks why you have the character do this or that. One discourages. The other makes you examine and strengthen your work.

WDS Trigger 3

You aren’t published therefore you’re not a writer. Publication tends to give validation to our own sense of worth as writers, but every writer starts out unpublished.

Solution: The more you need validation in the eyes of others, the harder it is to shake off WDS. Chant to yourself how the poet Emily Dickinson published almost nothing in her lifetime, but today is considered as one of America’s great poets. Although she never heard of WDS, I am sure when she was walking over to visit her sister-in-law in Amherst, she wondered if she should stop scribbling down lines on scraps of paper.

WDS Trigger 4

What you are putting down on paper it isn’t what you want to say. Even you find the words boring and somehow you are convinced you will never be able to make the words do what you want you them to. This is one of the hardest things to overcome. Solution: There is no great universal rule that you must continue writing at that moment or that exact place. Mark the problem in color and go on to another scene and come back to it. Take a walk and think about what you are doing. Or go do something totally different, a horseback ride, television, a hot bath, whatever relaxes you. Or if you want to keep plugging, copy something you wrote earlier that you were satisfied with to prove to yourself you can do it.

WDS Trigger 5
Fear that no one will ever read your work again. Hours spent in isolation will be for nothing. You think of a tree falling in a forest devoid of listeners. People won’t even get a chance to dislike what you write.

Solutions: For those writers who have had something published, I suggest they go back and copy it. Rewriting words that worked enough to win publication, can rebuild conference.

Unpublished writers, find something you wrote that you felt proud of and copy it.

Start a website for your writing or less expensive a blog http://blogspot.com/ I use mine http://theexpatwriter.blogspot.com/ for my freewriting morning exercises. They aren’t polished, but they warm me up. However, if you blog (weB LOG) your writing is now beyond your own computer.

EXAMPLES

1. A piece of writing is an offering. You bring it to the altar and hope it will be accepted. You pray at least that the rejection will not throw you into a rage and turn you into a Cain. Perhaps naively, you produce your favorite treasures and pile them into an indiscriminate heap. Those who do not recognize their value may do so later. And you do not always feel that you are writing for your contemporaries. It may well be that your true readers are not here as yet and that your books will cause them to materialize. Saul Bellow.

This passage was selected because when I read it, I felt Bellow has captured not just the writing process but what happens after when we let our writing go out into the world.

2. “Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

“As it unfolded, the structure of the story began to remind me of one of those Russian dolls that contain innumerable diminishing replicas of themselves inside. Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors its identity fragmented into endless reflections.” Carlos Ruiz Zafón THE SHADOW OF THE WIND

Besides a beautiful piece of writing I love the idea of the soul of the person and the reader entering the words giving life to the inanimate pages.

3. I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not? Write over the door…
And priests in black gowns were
Walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
William Blake from THE GARDEN OF LOVE

Please don’t bind your joys, desires and hopes with briars and shall nots.

4. “He seemed so constrained, so neatly trimmed. Someone who had been doing topiary with his soul all his life.” Anne Lamott BLUE SHOES

That has nothing to do with the topic. I just loved the image, but if you read Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD, you will know that WDS exists.

EXERCISES

These aren’t my exercises, but I thought they were perfect to try when WDS strikes.

1. Brainstorm 100 words about a person whom you love. Next, imagine that you're creating a painter's palette by group similar words together like hues of color. Then, with your pen as the brush and the paper as your canvas, create a message that speaks to who this person is in your life. Send this note.

2. Celebrate laughter. When people laugh in conversation with you, ask why what you said was humorous. Celebrate who you're both being in that moment.

3. Listen with unconditional love. Where do you see pain among your family members or friends? Ask what is hard for them to be with. Listen without judgment, a proposed solution or comment. Simply be there and share the space.

4. Practice voice play. For one week, note all the different voices that surround you: birds, the wind, children, people and animals. What are they saying? What's your heart saying back?
Melissa Rosati is a co-active coach whose clients are writers, authors and creative artists. Prior to her coaching career, she was Director, Editorial & Production for McGraw-Hill International (UK). To subscribe to her newsletter, THE ESSENTIAL SOUL WRITER, please visit her website: www.creativity-portal.com/howto/writing/features/write.spring.html

NOTES

The British newspaper THE GUARDIAN had an editorial about gender and writing. There is a test to determine if we write like men or women. I put in examples from my creative writing (female) and journalistic writing (male). I went to the mirror and still looked pretty feminine to myself, but like the VALS survey in Issue 28, it is just another tool to examine our own writing.
http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

See you next month July 15th with a blog on writer's block.

D-L Nelson
donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

No.32 A Strange Writing Lesson

2005-05-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

THEORY
I was curled up on my Parisian friend's couch. Rain splattered the windows, making staying in the best possible alternative. I'd spent the last three hours writing, which fulfilled one childhood fantasy of writing in a garret in Paris (although this was nicer than my fantasy garret).
I watched Marina's DVD ON THE ROAD TO PERDITION then I listened to the bonus: the director talked about how he made his creative decisions. It was one of the best writing lessons I've had. The DVD is available on http://www.amazon.com/ for as little $2.99 used, but be careful of the different zones.

Rather than explain that Paul Newman was the surrogate father and loved his surrogate son Tom Hanks, at a wake, Newman sits at a piano and plays a song with one hand. Hanks joins him and plays the harmony, also, with one hand. The look they exchange and Newman's pat on the back tells everything.

In the background we see Newman's biological son's face reflecting hatred and jealousy. The camera angles down so only the son's legs show, effectively cutting him out of the relationship.
In another scene Hanks' son has seen him kill a man. Hanks and he talk about it in their Model T. They make no eye contact until the last moment of the scene. There is another separation that the director did deliberately. He shot the scene in such a way that the bar of the driver's door separates father and son. It is so subtle that no one would say, "Oh look at the bar of the driver's door emphasizing the separation between the father and son." Yet visually and psychologically it is there.

Whenever there is a death, water is involved. Sometimes it is rain, another time it is water in a bath tub. Repeated symbolism can be effective. The more subtle it is, the more effective.
To show Hanks' son as slightly alienated, the boy is bicycling in the opposite direction of people going home from work.

The director uses light and dark and many other techniques to show the action of his movie.
Scene by scene he covers the little details that show what he wants us to see.

As writers we need to think as carefully as that director on how to work the details to convey the message we want to our readers.

When I went back to my writing, I rewrote the chapter I thought I had finished, using the director's message. We learn from the strangest places.

EXAMPLES
"If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul. " Joan Didion

"Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them." John Ruskin

"I've always thought of writing as active thoughtfulness thinking taken to a physical level made manifest on paper, where the thinker is able to account for his thoughts, reflect on them, question them, revise them, and ultimately, communicate those thoughts to others." Mary LaChappel, talking about Sarah Lawrence College in Jan/Feb 2005 Poets & Writers

EXERCISE
Watch your favorite movie. (Mine is LION IN WINTER http://www.lioninwinter.com/) And watch it through. Then go through scene by scene without the sound to see what you notice in sets, color, props and any other details.

NOTES

Author Linda Oatman High (http://www.lindaoatmanhigh.com/) will teach a writing workshop in Tuscany! Join Linda on July 2-9, 2005, in Cortona, Italy for an instructional and inspirational workshop. Package prices include meals, accommodations, and tours. Reduced registration before February 30th. For more info: http://hometown.aol.com/upcoevents/differentdrummerhomepage.html Tel. 717-445-8246

Sadly the library in Salinas, CA is closing because of funding problems. John Steinbeck's papers are stored there.

Although the American Library in Geneva is a warm friendly place that keeps me in Reading matter, it was a real joy to be in the Boston Public Library with its hundreds of thousands of books.
I met Louisa May Alcott when I was in Boston. No I do not need to be committed. Jan Hutchinson, who is the curator of Orchard House Museum, the house where Alcott lived and used as a model for LITTLE WOMEN did a one-woman show as Louisa May. She totally transformed the small theatre at the Boston Public Library, with her tales of nursing during the Civil War. She "confessed" that when people stopped to meet her because of her fame as a writer, she put on an apron, covered her hands with flour and pretended to be the maid. Orchard House as many small museums, could use help with funding.

No 31.Playing with Words

2005-05-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

THEORY
New writers often think they can write something once. Experienced writers know that our work needs to be cut, added to, polished, reworked. Even the slightest change can add depth or give your readers more information. In the same way stretching warms us up before exercising, reworking the same sentence or two can increase our craftsmanship. Supposing you want to get your character, John, up a hill fast - there are many ways to do it.

Version 1: John was running up the hill. (Okay, John is getting to the top of the hill fast where we want him. But is the writing as strong as we want it? It depends on the image we are trying to create in the reader's mind. )

Version 2: John ran up the hill. (Was +verb+ing is weak. Ran without the was and the ing is better.)

Version 3: John catapulted himself up the hill. (It implies John put himself into a machine and somehow launched himself up the hill, however, the force with which he got up the hill is stronger.)

Version 4: John bounded up the hill. (We see John as athletic taking the hill like Superman.)

Version 5: John sprinted up the hill. (Makes the hill seem smaller if he can reach the top with a
sprint.)

Version 6: Breathing heavily John struggled up the hill. (Instead of John being seen as an athlete easily running up a hill now he is struggling. We don't know if he is running or walking, but we do know that he is having problems.)

Version 7: John's feet pounded against the dirt path as he raced up the hill. (John is racing again, and now we know there is an unpaved path. Also we have some sound, pounding, adding another sense.)

Version 8: Breathing heavily, John ran up the dirt path until he reached the summit of Grey's Hill. (Now we have given the hill an identity. We have the sound of his breathing, but we eliminated the pounding.)

Version 9: Breathing heavily and with his backpack slowing him down, John ran up Grey's Hill. (Now we can see that John is being handicapped as he goes up Grey's Hill. We have increased the visual image with the backpack.)

Version 10: Breathing heavily and with his backpack slowing him John pounded up the dirt path of Grey's Hill. Trees hung low scratching his bare arms. (A new fact and we are back to pounding feet adding sound to the scene.)

We could go on indefinitely until John totally collapses from all those trips up the hill.
What does this prove? The more we manipulate words, the more of an image we can create. Playing and rearranging, adding and subtracting can increase the strength of our writing.

EXAMPLES
"Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."Gene Fowler

"The tendon part of the mind, so to speak is more developed in winter: the fleshy in summer. I should say winter has given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and blood."John Burroughs

"This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you're doing, or it comes out flat. You can't fake your way through it."RealLivePreacher.com

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

"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the
writing will be just as it should be."Mark Twain

EXERCISE
1. Find a paragraph in a book. Now rewrite it by changing the words, sentence order, etc. Rewrite it again. Rewrite it a third time.

2. Take a paragraph from your own writing and start polishing it. First change the verbs. Change the sentence order. Add another sense (smell, sound, etc) to the paragraph.

NOTES
The Writer's Guide to Places by Don Prues & Jack Heffron (2003) will help you write about 51 cities in the US and Canada. .

Good website: www.FabulistFlash.com.

If you are approached by Nobel House to publish your poetry, there have been some complaints that they do not send the books that you will buy.

As a fascinated reader or blogs, I finally started my own - theexpatwriter.blogspot.com. It's great therapy, much cheaper than a shrink.

A Russian friend who borrowed the Russian edition of my novel Chickpea told me there was a quote from the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan on the back cover. Not being able to read anything at all including my name and the title, I was pleased.

After two months of waiting I received the contract for the publication of my second novel, THE CARD. As always the novel had gone through many rounds of rejections, so to those writers who get discouraged and who doesn't, keep trying. This was the novel I wrote for my M.A. in creative writing at Glamorgan University in Wales, and I feel part of the credit goes of my mentor, Siân James, who patiently chanted "less is more" until it became my mantra. Siân also kept my characters in line, my descriptions believable and a thousand other nags that eight years later still are there. Thank you, Siân.

No 30. Make Description Work ard

2005-05-18T02:59:00.000-07:00

THEORY

If dialogue moves the plot forward, then description should flesh out scenes. Description puts readers into your story while engaging their senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, feel).
Victorian writers over described scenes giving credence to the statement "That's more than I needed to know." However the selective use of details (See earlier W3 www.wisewordsonwriting.com/newsletter-0202.html ) adds to the description.

The most common things writers describe are: character's physical appearance, clothing, neighborhoods, housing, furniture, scenery, weather. W3 will deal with writing about emotions and interior thought at some future date.

New writers often break into the story creating author intrusion especially when describing people. The reader is subjected to a litany of details about height, weight, hair color, etc. Slightly more experienced writers use the overworked mirror trick, letting the character herself describe how she looks - She watches herself in the mirror as she brushes her "long black shiny hair and puts a touch of pink lipstick to her full lips, etc..

Showing not telling is a better way to introduce appearance. Shortness could be shown when a character has to stand on a chair to reach the middle cabinets in a kitchen. Overweight can be shown by struggling into an outfit that refuses to zip, a man can rest his hand on the stomach that overhangs his stomach.

My pet peeve is the statement "she didn't look 45," which I've read in any number of books. I am not sure what 45 looks like nor 32 or 55 for that matter. At a high school reunion my classmates had aged at such different rates that there could have been 20 years between us instead of the real 12 months. Perhaps a better way to describe someone appearing younger than their years might be - Her face was unlined and she moved with the energy of a young woman. Then he looked at her hands and saw raised veins and age spots. - By adding the details the reader does the work instead of having to figure out what X number of years look like. We also get the reaction of the observer assuming he is a major character. Or if the woman is a major character she could hide her hands as a tell tale sign of her age if she were ashamed of it, or flaunt them if she were not. How we manipulate our description changes the story we are telling.

Likewise when describing a room make the description work - The cracked red leather was molded to his shape from countless hours of watching the boob tube. Although there was standing room only at the mandatory after-funeral feed, no one dared sit in Papa's spot, even though he would never sit there again. Instead they stood crowded together with their plates piled with baloney sandwiches and potato chips. My brother watched from the sidelines. Then he walked over and sat down in the chair. Everyone stared. The king is dead, long live the king, I thought. - That description tells a lot more about Papa, the son, the economic class of the family and the speaker than it does about the room.

The same goes for exterior description. A playground with brightly colored and innovative equipment built by a committee of parents is different from a playground with a netless basket rim, cracked cement and a broken swing. Each fleshes out the economic status and condition of far different neighborhoods with out giving the professions and incomes of the people who live there.

Personal perspective makes scenery more than scenery. In Switzerland I love looking up at the mountains and feel they are opening to eternity, but they mentally imprison a Swiss friend. They are the same mountains: an Alp is an Alp is an Alp. Which way a character reacts makes scenery work hard for your story. Does the person love the sea? Is it frightening because of an accident that killed a relative? Does sailing a boat through a storm represent a (wo)man vs. nature challenge?

Weather gives chances for all types of descriptions, but it shouldn't always rain at funerals or when characters are in bad moods. Describe cold to give readers a feeling of temperature without saying it is below freezing - Jenna's cheeks were bright red as she unwove the long hand-knitted scarf, unzipped coat. The smell of cold rose from the wool as she tossed it on the chair nearest the fire. "Thank God, you lit it," she said holding her aching hands out to the flames.

Noises and smells in a neighborhood can flesh out a story - the cock from the other side of the village went off about five minutes before her neighbor's alarm gave a ping ping ping that floated up from the window below. The street cleaner's broom scraped the pavement, followed by the village's new street washing machine that chugged and released a water scented with so much lemon that she wanted to vomit.

EXAMPLES
Notes on the samples: two novels both have windows. One character wounded in war recovers by looking out. The other with a woman wounded by love looks inward. Frazier doesn't say Inman sees a road, a wall, a tree, etc. but says it might have been a painting of the same yet we know the objects are within Inman's range. Rees, on the other hand, mentions looking out the window, but her description of everything is what is happening around her and more importantly for her novel, in her.

That summer, Inman had viewed the world as if it were a picture framed by the molding around the window. Long stretches of time often passed when, for all the change in the scene, it might as well have been an old painting of a road, a wall, a tree, a cart, a blind man. Inman had sometimes counted off slow numbers in his head to see how long it would be before anything of significance altered.COLD MOUNTAIN Charles Frazier.

She turns the bed against the other wall, under the slope of the roof so she can look out of the side window, moves the sofa to the wall opposite, settles her blue Indian cotton wrap over the table and arranges the fruit she brought on her way home in a china bowl. The two novels she plans to read she stacks on the floor by the side of the bed. OVEN HOUSE by Lynne Rees

EXERCISE
For the next few weeks keep track of HOW you write, WHAT you write, WHAT HAMPERS your writing, WHAT WORKS with your writing. Then look it over to determine any patterns that will help you plan your writing in the future.

NOTES
More on people writing in their second language. If anyone looking for a partner writing in their language wants to register with me, please let me know your email and the language you are writing in. I wish I had the resources to pair writing mates in English, but I don't. However, I recommend that highly. I would have not made the progress I did without mine, not just because her critiques were so valuable, but because it made me critique another person's work.
http://www.wakeupwriting.com/ For people who need help in doing daily writing. There's a daily assignment.

No 29. Do you need a writing degree?

2005-05-18T02:38:00.000-07:00

THEORY
In the last two decades university creative writing degree programs in Anglophone countries have cropped up faster than poppies in Afghanistab. Do writers need them? The answer is yes, no, maybe.

It all depends on what a writer needs to further the mastery of the writing craft.

What advantages and disadvantages can a university creative writing degree offer?

A publisher won't publish a novel just because the author holds a degree if the novel is bad, nor would they turn down a good novel because the writer didn't have a degree. However, the flicker of the idea that a person who held a degree was serious might cross their minds…or not. However, if the studies help someone write a publishable work, then the degree would be worth it.

If a person wants to teach creative writing, the degree is a plus. One university, Antioch in California offers a post M.A. in teaching creative writing.

Degree programs are varied. Some are heavy on theory and academics with courses called things like form and theory in literature, studies in short fiction, etc.

One of the most frequent pieces of advice given to new writers is to read. A degree program that insists students read the great writers and examine them for technique could offer an advantage to those writers who feel they are lacking in these areas. However, if a writer wants to devote as much time as possible to the writing, reading Nathaniel Hawthorne could be a time waster.

Other programs concentrate on writing itself putting students through writing workshop after workshop. These are ideal of the writers who want to do little else but write, but not so for those who want theory.

For many adults dropping back to full-time student-status is not financially possible. Distance learning programs or low-residency programs fill this need. Distance learning programs such as Humber in Canada pairs a writer and a student. Low-residency programs such as Goddard requires student to be on campus for short bursts of times then sends them off to write.

How important is it that a "name" writer is on the faculty? Working with a name writer might bestow status and may even result in an endorsement on the back of a novel when it is published. However, working with a name writer won't guarantee an agent or publisher introductions. Working with a university, however, sometimes brings connections. Many invite agents and publishers, but again it is not a guarantee of publication.

Writing students want to work with good writers (with or without a name) who can teach. The quality of individual teacher is only apparent after enrolment when students talk about who is good and who is bad. One writer, paired with a successful writer, spent six months working on the first twenty pages of her novel, but when she finished she was sure of every word and more importantly why the word was there. She could then go on with the novel and had a greater confidence in what she was doing.

The critiquing is a major element, but a writer involved with Open University felt that the criticism wasn't deep enough - certainly nothing like the woman who spent six months on twenty pages. In fact he felt the comments were so superficial they were almost useless.

Many of the people I talked with cited the major advantage for them was to be around other writers who could look at their work and see its strengths and weaknesses. They also cited the discipline. Having to write created or strengthened good work habits.

My own personal experience with two creative writing degree programs was mixed. One helped me make giant strides in my writing, thanks to the perceptive demands of my talented mentors writers Catherine Merriman and Siân James. Both pushed me to be the best I could be. The second program hurt my writing. I was caught between my own voice and what the school wanted and I dropped out.

Here are some things to check on:

Do graduates have publishing credits?
How much emphasis is there on writing vs. theory/literature?
Is the program accredited (depending on the country)?
What type of writing support is there?
What writers will be working directly with the students (guest name writers can be inspiring, but will they evaluate student work?)
Is it possible to take a test course?
Who is on the faculty and how much involvement do they have with the students?
How much professional writer-student contact is there?
How are workshops handled?
What needs to be produced for the degree (novel, play, chapbook, academic paper, etc.)
How long is the program?
Cost?
Are there networking opportunities?
Will the program help you improve your writing?

Only after you weigh what the degree offers with your own needs will you know whether to proceed or not. As for me I regret neither the program that brought me so much nor the one I didn't finish. Both advanced my own sense of my craft, albeit in very different ways.

EXAMPLES

Rather than samples from writers I have included samples from people who went through degree programs and were kind enough to share their feelings.

Lynne Rees THE OVEN
The MA was, both at the time and in retrospect, a very positive experience for me. I was at a very early stage in my development as a writer and the structure of the course - regular submission of work, feedback from my tutor and other students/members of staff at the weekend meetings, reflecting on my own processes and discoveries - gave me a much needed discipline and focus, and encouraged me to immerse myself fully into the world of contemporary poetry.

At the end of the two years, while I had a number of very strong poems and a few publication credits, my work was, generally, still in an embryonic stage and the submitted collection a long way from being ready for publication, though I was still awarded the degree. I like to think that my potential was recognised (my poetry has been widely published and anthologised in the last six years, this year my first novel was published, and a poetry collection is forthcoming in 2005) and I value that a great deal, and hope that tutors and leaders of all creative writing courses keep this in mind when assessing creative work. It's something I'm aware of as a tutor myself now.

No writer's development can be confined to a particular time scale. Some graduates…published very quickly and very successfully, others, like myself, needed more time and/or have published more in the world of the small presses, some are yet to place their work. But we have all succeeded in our own ways.

I understand that MA programmes thrive on the recognised publication successes of their graduates, but I'd still like to see a continuing place for the nurturing and encouragement of new voices, the recognition and celebration of 'good' writing regardless of it's ability to find a place in the current market.

Tony Curtis THE ART OF SEAMUS HEANEY, THE LAST CANDLES LOVE FROM WALES, THE ARCHES, WAR VOICES, TAKEN FOR PEARLS, The POETRY OF SNOWDONIA (and more)(Note: Curtis is a graduate of Goddard in the US and went on to found the creative writing program at Glamorgan University in Wales)

I decided to enrol in the Goddard program because it seemed like the right thing to do at my stage - I'd published one book and won a couple of prizes, but needed a kick. Goddard fitted in with my family and professional commitments (my college also paid the fees!!). Also, I was open to the American confessional approach because I'd dealt in my poetry with the recent deaths of my father and grandmother.

The Glamorgan Masters was based on the distance-learning program at Goddard. It was the first such in the UK.
Our course brings personal satisfaction, a professional qualification by a research degree and, for over two dozen writers, publication.

Kaytie M. Lee(Note: I have included this lengthy description to help those who want an in-depth program to share the experiences of one degree candidate.)
I am a thesis candidate…(for a) Master of Professional Writing Program. The MPW program is set up so that a student takes 15 units in a major, 9 Units of electives, and two mandatory classes, one with a thesis advisor and the other a survey course. The idea is that writers should be able to create in different forms, so diversity in electives is encouraged.
As a fiction major, I took fiction workshops with Gina Nahai, S. L. Stebel, Aram Saroyan, and Shelly Lowenkopf, and I was fortunate to take Hubert Selby Jr.'s last fiction workshop--he died in the spring, a few weeks before the end of the semester. Each instructor is a published and publishing author, and they each had very different approaches to fiction.
For electives I took non-fiction with Noel Riley Fitch, and two sections of screenplay development with Jason Squire. Though I had the opportunity, I did not take poetry, playwriting or technical writing.

I enjoyed the screenplay development classes. They helped me focus on dialogue and character development in a focused form because I was not able to rely on description and internalization for my characters. Story arc was more rigid than I was accustomed too - it's good for novelists to think in overall terms. Diversity of form is a benefit of the program--students are encouraged to try something outside of their experience--many traditional MFA programs limit a student to Poetry and/or Prose.

There are approximately 130 students enrolled in it at any one time, some just starting and taking three classes a semester, others at my stage, taking only a one-credit class with their thesis advisor. The large number of enrolled students is, I think, a benefit in the long run because every class affords a new opportunity for fresh perspective on writing, whereas I imagine in those smaller programs, the same faces across the table in each class might get a little predictable in commentary. Of course, it's difficult to develop camaraderie when people disappear after the class is over, but since I wanted to hear as many opinions about my writing as possible, the large student body worked for me - most of the time.

Some instructors used exercises and prompts, others assigned submission times and looked at whatever a student brought in.

Each workshop consists of a mixture of students-a fiction workshop is never just fiction students. While this mixture allows for a range of viewpoints, it became discouraging to me when students commenting on my prose claimed never to read novels because they were too busy watching films or reading poetry. It was when one (screenplay) student objected to an assignment that required reading novels in a fiction workshop that I began to long for a more traditional MFA program experience.

The MPW program wants its students to be writers, not scholars. Consequently there is very little emphasis placed on reading and discussion what's being published and virtually no study on literary critique. By not bogging down students with "homework" the program encourages students to "create."

While I am grateful for the extra hours to write, I think the program stunts its students by not giving them the vocabulary or even basic understanding of literary criticism that a Master's degree ought to deliver. It may not be a Literature Degree, but if we're trying to create it we damn well better know what's being said about it!

There were no novel workshops! As an aspiring novelist, I was looking forward to developing my novel and having the whole of it work shopped. This did not happen. Most of the instructors requested that students start new projects in their classes. I can see their point--it's difficult for a new teacher to take over where another left off, since comments and suggestions may be very different or even contradictory from one instructor to the next. And it never seemed to work when students brought sections from the middle of a novel that no one in the class had read-what could we say since we hadn't read the rest of it?

Since I wanted to take as many of the teachers as possible, I sacrificed continuity in my novel. I wrote more short stories (which was a good thing) and now that I've just got my thesis to complete (which is a novel) I am working solely with my thesis advisor. I suspect that novels would flourish more in a smaller program--but perhaps that's just me longing for greener grass.

My Own Bias: I prefer to read and write literary fiction -many of my peers want to write genre fiction. Nothing wrong with genres, and I'm pleased to know that there are writers of genre fiction who love to read and love to write and want to make their work of the highest calibre they can. I quickly found the other students who shared my interest, and we seek each other out when we feel we aren't getting the criticism we need. After the program that's what will last--the small community we created, our own salon of writers who write very different work but who share the sensibility that we want our writing to transcend the confines of genre.

I'm Terrified of the Creative Writing MFA Backlash: Now that I'm done I fear that my writing has ceased to be my own or that I have lost my "voice." Work shopping is a dangerous tool- if a person isn't stubborn or able to refuse suggestions (not belligerent in class, not that at all), she risks morphing into the sanitary graduate writer that some critics loath and deride. Is that me?

I don't know.

I think not--but the fear is there. Perhaps I'd have been better off toiling or traveling, working odd jobs and writing in coffee shops or laundromats.

When I get too angsty about writing I shut up, sit down, and just write. Better to do than to agonize over doing.

EXERCISE
Sit quietly and think what help you need to improve your writing: feedback from other writers, a single course, a writing group, a degree program. Then go out and find it. By the way the internet gives lots of degree programs if you enter university writing programs.

NOTES

We are coming into fall or autumn as my British friends call it. I've always thought of this season as the New Year, perhaps because this is the time of year to start school and new projects after the summer break. In the South of France cool weather alternates with leftovers of summer heat. Up in Geneva, a sure omen of fall is the appearance of the hot chestnut stands along with signs in restaurants announcing they are serving meals from the hunt. I divide my time between the two places, but it is one of the few times that I really miss the bright reds and golds on the trees of my native New England, Saturday night baked beans and football games.

Grammar questions? www.grammarbook.com.

No 28. VALS and Your Characters

2005-05-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

THEORY
When I was working in marketing at the now defunct Digital Equipment Corporation, I found a marketing tool called, VALS, Values and Life styles. It "explains the relationship between personality traits and consumer behavior. VALS uses psychology to analyze the dynamics underlying consumer preferences and choices. VALS not only distinguishes differences in motivation, it also captures the psychological and material constraints on consumer behavior. "
The company that wrote VALS can be found at http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/. If any of you are doing marketing, it is an extremely efficient tool.

However, I found a second use for it while I was working on a creative writing degree. I needed a research component about my writing, and I used their survey to categorize my characters by answering the questions as each of my characters would. http://www.sric-bi.com/vals/surveynew.shtml It helped me keep them in character by reaffirming that the traits I ascribed to them were consistent. The survey is also interesting in judging our own characters.

Admittedly, there is an American slant to it, but some aspects of human behavior transcend geographical borders. It is another way to think about the people we create.

The groups are as follows:

Innovators are "successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. Because
they have such abundant resources, they exhibit all three primary motivations in varying degrees. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers, and their purchases reflect cultivated tastes for upscale, niche products and services. Image is important to Innovators, not as evidence of status or power but as an expression of their taste, independence, and personality. "

Thinkers "are motivated by ideals. They are mature, satisfied, comfortable, and reflective people who value order, knowledge, and responsibility. They tend to be well educated and actively seek out information in the decision-making process. They are well-informed about world and national events and are alert to opportunities to broaden their knowledge. Thinkers have a moderate respect for the status quo institutions of authority and social decorum, but are open to consider new ideas."

Achievers are "motivated by the desire for achievement, Achievers have goal-oriented lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family. Their social lives reflect this focus and are structured around family, their place of worship, and work. Achievers live conventional lives, are politically conservative, and respect authority and the status quo. They value consensus, predictability, and stability over risk, intimacy, and self-discovery."

Experiencers are "motivated by self-expression. As young, enthusiastic, and impulsive consumers, experiencers quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are equally quick to cool. They seek variety and excitement, savoring the new, the offbeat, and the risky. Their energy finds an outlet in exercise, sports, outdoor recreation, and social activities."
Believers "are motivated by ideals. They are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional, established codes: family, religion, community, and the nation. Many Believers express moral codes that are deeply rooted and literally interpreted. They follow established routines, organized in large part around home, family, community, and social or religious organizations to which they belong."

Strivers "are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don't have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead."
Makers "are motivated by self-expression. They express themselves and experience the world by working on it-building a house, raising children, fixing a car, or canning vegetables-and have enough skill and energy to carry out their projects successfully. Makers are practical people who have constructive skills and value self-sufficiency. They live within a traditional context of family, practical work, and physical recreation and have little interest in what lies outside that context. Makers are suspicious of new ideas and large institutions such as big business. They are respectful of government authority and organized labor, but resentful of government intrusion on individual rights. They are unimpressed by material possessions other than those with a practical or functional purpose."

Survivors "live narrowly focused lives. With few resources with which to cope, they often believe that the world is changing too quickly. They are comfortable with the familiar and are primarily concerned with safety and security. Because they must focus on meeting needs rather than fulfilling desires, Survivors do not show a strong primary motivation."
All quoted material is from the company site that developed VALS.

EXAMPLES
Daisy had a job running a food bank. Though this might not seem like suitable work for a newly minted Harvard cum laude, Daisy saw it as a natural progression from the soup kitchen where she and Henry had volunteered as undergraduates and where her heart had leaped at the tenderness with which he had placed bowls of minestrone into scabbed and trembling hands.
(Notes: From HOST FAMILY by Mameve Medwed. Notice how much information is crammed into this paragraph. We learn where she went to school, which carried many social and intellectual connotations. We see she doesn't follow the crowd and look for top dollar in a job. We see what attracted her to her husband, as well as her sensitivity to those around her. I ran Daisy through the VALS test and her primary personality if a Thinker and her secondary is an Achiever.)

EXERCISE
Take one of your favorite characters in fiction and run them through the VALS suvery.
Take one of your own characters and run them through the VALS survey.

NOTES
This is from an artist, but the creative process can be the same for writers. So many times someone says, "I love your symbolism," and I reply, "what symbolism?"

I found this story of the creative process fascinating. Whether painting or writing, sometimes wonderful things happen. Thank you Barbara for letting me reprint it.

"I can tell you as an artist that paintings not only take on a life, but also take over at times so that I don't know what I've really painted until sometime later. Other artists tell me similar stories. A Montreal artist told me a story about a painting she was working in a workshop she attended with fellow artist friends. She commented to the artist at the easel next to her that she had no idea what she had painted. Her friend looked at the painting and told her it was so obviously her pet cat. On second look, her cat just looked at her out of the painting.

When I saw the painting, all I could see was her cat, yet she did not consciously paint her cat.

"This month I share a story of my latest painting "Saratoga Springs Passion," a red, black, grey and white painting on glass meant to be hung in a window.

"The Saratoga County Arts Council has a "Win, Place & Show" juried equine member exhibit every August when the Saratoga Race Course horses are running. Every painting has to have a connection with horses or racing. Never wanting to be a "me-too," I pondered over the image I would create.

"As luck or fate would have it, I acquired a nicely grained wood frame at an estate sale. I chuckled when I realized the framer had assembled the matted image backwards in the frame. Well, the last laugh was on me when I got it home and realized that the "framer" had glued everything into the frame. A die-hard, I refused to chuck it and painstakingly ripped and tugged at the mat and framed poster until it cleared the glass. Now, I had clear glass glued into a frame. And, I had just received some samples of professional grade liquid watercolour and acrylic I had been anxious to try. I always wanted to do reverse painting on glass.

"I am now in my Red Period and white horses were the subject. After I painted them, I decided to put a black silhouette of myself in the painting. The horse on the right looks menacing in hard darks into the white with some greys. The horse on the left looks as innocent as the horse it faced looked fearsome. In the middle, facing the viewer comes a galloping horse with mane moving. When I first looked at the painting, I saw the menacing horse as a racehorse hot to win.

"The innocent mare as a pet and the galloping horse as a wild horse. I named it "Saratoga Springs Passion" after the fascination and obsession with horses there exists here with our City mantra of 'Health, History and Horses.'

"Three days after I painted it, I woke with a start early one morning and got the message of what the painting really meant to me. Recently, three friends in their 60s were out of my life due to a variety of illnesses that confined them to spaces. One widowed friend was put in an adult home and was lost to me both physically and mentally and she was represented by the menacing horse. Another friend was suffering from a myriad of illnesses along with her husband and was represented by the innocent mare walking resolutely forward eyes to the ground. Finally, another diabetic friend went in for a routine colonoscopy where doctors discovered a cancerous polyp, which was removed with a section of her intestines. She is represented by the galloping horse running to take back her life. I am in shadow because they don't see me in their lives any more.

"So, a routine theme painting for a juried show turned into a picture of my heartache at the recent absence of my three friends in my life. "There you have the painted message my soul wanted to tell me."

Source: "Watercolors Your Way" free Monthly E-Newsletter (to subscribe please go to http://www.barbaragarro.com/ and click on "Newsletter.
http://mudsmith.net/bobbing.html#writing Has some interesting articles on writing.

A W3 reader is really clicking up some credits. To those of you who haven't yet seen your work in type or on the stage, keep working. Sandra Seaton, a playwright and librettist, has a play THE BRIDGE PARTY which won a Theodore Ward Prize for New African American Playwrights. The renowned actor Ruby Dee appeared in a 1998 production of the play Seaton's text, from THE DIARY OF SALLY HEMMINGS was set to music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom and has been sung at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Performances, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and other venues. Her most recent work, SALLY, a solo play about the life of Sally Hemings, premiered at the New York State Writer's Institute in Albany, New York. Website: www.grad.cmich.edu/seaton Congratulations Sandra.

One of my readers who writes in English as a second language asked me if I had any tips for people in her situation. At the moment I don't but if anyone out who writes in any language as a second language, has any ideas please let me know so I can pass them on to her.
Break through writer's block and embark on a journey of self-discovery during a Reflective Writing Workshop, September 10 to 12th, in the Swiss Alps. We will practice a number of journaling techniques and explore a form of meditative writing. For more information, email journalingingeneva@yahoo.com or call 33 4 50 20 26 23

The e-rater is a computer that grades essays for the GMAT, the exam students take in the US to get into business schools according to an article in the Washington Post. A spokesman "emphasized the modest goal of computerized scoring: to judge the structure and coherence of the writing, rather than the quality of the thoughts and originality of the prose. In college, he said, professors grade the development of ideas, while essay-rating computers "are better suited to judgment about more basic-level writing." The College Board which regulates the SATs (the exam taken by high school students and used as a tool by universities for admission) which are the entrance exams does not rule out that the future SAT essays will be graded by computer too.

Maybe I am being old-fashioned, but I always thought the quality of thought and originality of prose major factors in writing.

No. 27 Writing Habits

2005-05-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

THEORY
The Writing Process (with apologies to Dr. Seuss)
I can write in a carI can write by a fire*
I can write in a boat
I can write on a float
I can write on a table
I can write when I'm able.
I can write anywhere
*with my Boston accent fire, fah rhymes with car, cah

Many of my writing students ask if they should write the complete work then edit, or edit as they go along. They want to know should they create biographies of their characters before starting or invent them as they develop the work. Should a writer do the first draft by hand then type into the computer or go directly to the computer? Should they have fixed writing hours or not? Is it important to write daily or not? The answer is yes.

Confusing? Yup. As a collector of how-to-write books, all of which I have read, the amount of contradictory advice is only limited to the number of books I own. Does this mean that all writing advice should be disregarded? Not at all - if so I'd give up writing this newsletter.
When I talk to successful writers about their working habits, I have discovered they are as varied as their personalities. Some are extremely disciplined setting aside a time each day to write. Others cram writing time around other responsibilities. If any common factor exists, it is their extreme seriousness about their work.

Many things in this world can be standardized, but standardized creativity is an oxymoron.
The secret is to find what works best for you and throw away any guilt or inferiority that you are disregarding the advice of Best Selling Author X. Remember Jeffrey Archer once told would-be writers the only way they can be successful is to quit their jobs and write full time. Tell that to a single mom trying to finish her first book.

Does that mean the advice of Best Selling Author X is worthless? Absolutely not. Try their methods, but adapt them to your needs. Testing allows us to develop new skills.

So to continue the poem…
I can write on my head,
I can write in bed,I can write as I eat,
I can write on my feet,
I can write with ink
I can write in a sink,
I can write everywhere

What is important is to find what works for you and then have the confidence to do it as well as the wisdom to know when it needs to be changed. And do it without guilt.

The dichotomy of this topic is if you follow my advice, you will disregard my advice if it doesn't work for you. Do it with my blessing.

EXAMPLES

"I merely took the energy it took to pout and wrote some blues."Duke Ellington.

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long."Leonard Bernstein

Note: I know the first two quotes are about music, but writing music and writing words are variations of the creative process.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."Henry David Thoreau

Note: I know this is often quoted, but whenever I realise the crowd went in the other direction, I realise that it is okay if I don't follow.

"Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it." Jesse Stuart

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. "Joan Didion

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. "Thomas Mann

EXERCISE
For the next few weeks keep track of HOW you write, WHAT you write, WHAT HAMPERS your writing, WHAT WORKS with your writing. Then look it over to determine any patterns that will help you plan your writing in the future.

NOTES
One of the purposes of W3 is to share information between writers. Because we are an international publication, we welcome information from all continents.

Kwickee Bitesize seeks short articles and fiction. No registration fees or charges to writers. When work is downloaded by customers paying to view on mobile phones or PC's you'll receive royalties. Editors and Sub-Editors also needed and paid on a royalty basis. Read guidelines etc.at www.kwickee.com/

A person who happened on my website submitted this thinking my readers would find it interesting. It's a place to show your work. www.eliteskills.com/
Any artist who would like to rent art studio space or to give courses in Argelès-sur-mer, France, www.argeles-sur-mer.com/ email Christine at argeles.hostalet@wanadoo.fr / The studio is located about five minutes from the hotel. Argelès is a French-Catalan village on the Mediterranean less than hour's drive from the Spanish border. I find it a terrific place to work, but am prejudice since I have had my nest here for 17 years and divide my time between here and Geneva.

Spelling: W3 uses American spelling. The differences in the usage of English from country to country, is fascinating. Once I worked in office, with American, English, South Africans, Australians and Swiss who learned either American-English or English-English. We often needed translators from English to English.

When it was my turn to make the tea, I made it the English way, heating the pot, measuring the right amount of leaves, then adding the water. We all took our tea seriously, that was something we never disagreed on. "I've left it to steep," I said to the room where we had all gathered. A couple of blank stares.

"You mean draw," someone said. "Steep is an incline."

"Draw is what artists do," someone else said.

"Set, the tea is setting," another person said.

By that time the tea was ready (a word we agreed on), we had no problem on agreeing to drink it.

We had tons of this type of conversation describing tights-stockings-pantyhose-legwarmers, or shops vs. stores, chemists-apothecaries-druggists-pharmacies, parking garages vs. car parks (I suspect the latter have smaller spaces due to smaller cars) the American habit of changing nouns to verbs as in to party and to charge it.

English is such a rich language to write in.

The same company had the habit of opening a bottle of champagne for whatever good news came about. Maybe because champagne is a French word, we never debated that.

No. 26. Listening to What We Write

2005-05-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

THEORY
Let your computer read to you. Guest Editor

Many Text-To-Speech (TTS) programs are inexpensive, have almost human voices, and are designed for sighted people to operate. In the past, writers read their work aloud in order to catch grammatical errors and to edit mistakes more effectively. Even improper word choices which spell checkers might miss can be spotted and corrected with the help of synthetic voice software. Why not rest your eyes and let the computer read to you?

One of these inexpensive Windows-based software packages and one of the best as far as voice quality goes, is Fonix' i Speak. It can be purchased at the www.fonix.com web site. Not only does this program read text from the clipboard, highlighted portions, and from files but it can create MP3 versions of the text. This is useful for listening to your writing on an MP3 player while away from the computer, perhaps on a long bus trip or while jogging.
Read Please www.readplease.com offers a number of voices to choose from and it highlights the words or sentences being spoken. It also offers translations into four languages.
Real Speak www.scansoft.com can speak 21 different languages plus this software works in Linux as well as Windows.

Text Aloud www.nextup.com also makes MP3 versions of text files and is inexpensive too.
If you want to make use of an old PC, HELP Read www.helpread.com is free and runs with Windows 3.1.

Unfortunately there aren't many Mac TTS programs. Information regarding outSPOKEN, plain Talk, and KeyRead can be found at the www.apple.com/speech/ page. outSpoken won't work on Mac OS X and is not supported by ALVA Access Group but it still can be obtained for use with

Earlier OS versions. E-mail info@enablemart.com to learn more. Mac OS X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP have built-in TTS programs, making it even more convenient to hear your writing.
The previously mentioned programs are not screen readers, designed to verbalize everything on the monitor. People with extremely low vision or none at all need to use software packages like Window Eyes www.gwmicro.com, JAWS www.freedomscientific.com or HAL www.dolphinoceanic.com These programs are in the $1000-$2000 range but are a boon for computer users who can't see the screen. The next release of Mac OS X will have a built-in screen reader called Spoken Interface.

Speech-To-Text (SST) programs are a great help to writers who can't type, have diseases like carpal tunnel, or who express themselves more freely by talking. IBM's Via Voice www.scansoft.com and Dragon Naturally Speaking www.vocalinks.com are two of the best in this category.

There's a ViaVoice version for Mac users too. Another nice thing about these programs is that they have demo versions, allowing people to decide if the program is worth buying. Some demos are full working versions which run for a specific amount of time while others have built-in limitations.

Either way, this gives writers a chance to use and intelligently choose suitable software for your needs.

EXAMPLES
In keeping with the topic, I decided to use as samples that have the word listening in them. Very few people are good listeners but listening is an active, not a passive skill. Writers may listen more closely than the general public but we often superimpose our own stories on what is being said.

Example 1

"He did not know whether it was late or early. The candles had all burned out. Dolly had just been in the study and had suggested to the doctor that he should lie down. Levin sat listening to the doctor's stories of a quack mesmeriser and looking at the ashes of his cigarette. There had been a period of repose, and he had sunk into oblivion. He had completely forgotten what was going on now. He heard the doctor's chat and understood it." Leo Tolstoy ANNA KARENIN

Example 2
The Lion once gave out that he was sick unto death and summoned the animals to come and hear his last Will and Testament. So the Fox came to the Lion's cave, and stopped there listening for a long time. Then a Sheep went in and before she came out a Calf came up to receive the last wishes of the Lord of the Beasts. But soon the Lion seemed to recover and came to the mouth of his cave and saw the Fox who had been waiting for some time. "Why do you not come to pay your respects to me?" said the Lion to the Fox.

"I beg your Majesty's pardon," said the Fox, "but I noticed the track of the animals that already come to you; and while I see many hoof-marks going in, I see none coming out. Till the animals that have entered your cave come out again, I prefer to remain in the open air."Moral: It is easier to get into the enemy's toils than out again.Fable

Example 4
I should not dare to leave my friend,
Because - because if he should die
While I was gone, and
I - too late - Should reach the heart that wanted me,
If I should disappoint the eyes
That hunted, hunted so, to see,And could not bear to shut until
They "noticed" me - they noticed me;
If I should stab the patient faith
So sure I'd come - so sure I'd come,
It listening, listening, went to sleep
Telling my tardy name, -
My heart would wish it broke before,
Since breaking then, since breaking then,
Were useless as next morning's sun,
Where midnight's frosts had lain!
Emily Dickinson. Poem 76

EXERCISE
If you don't have listening software read your writing into a tape recorder and listen to it. If you don't have the software or a tape recorder, ask someone you trust to read it to you. Keep your eyes closed and listen. Listen a second time following the text on the paper. Mark whatever sounds the least bit out of kilter.

Conduct an interview and record it. Ask open and closed questions. (An open question has unlimited possibilities for answers. How did you feel about that? A closed question asks something that has a simple answer. How old are you? What is your favourite color?). www.businesspotential.com/charles_listen.htm and www.joansvoboda.com/listening_skills.htm have good information on how to improve your listening skills.

NOTES (guest writer and editor)
Bruce Atchison is a legally blind freelance writer who has appeared in a range of paying and non-paying magazines. He has written articles on a diverse range of topics ranging from being a cheapskate to the time some friends and I had a clandestine tea party in the blind school dorm after midnight. He is reviewer of electronic music.

Take a second each day to help. Subscribers to W3 come from over 16 countries. All industrialized countries except the US have some system of universal health care. In June it was reported that during 2003 82 million Americans at one point or another had no health insurance. One of the problems is that many people go without treatment including women who can not afford to have mammograms. The Breast Cancer site www.thebreastcancersite.com has a number of sponsors that if people click on the site once a day will fund a free mammogram for a woman who can not afford it. At the moment they are having trouble getting enough people to click. Please do this daily even if you are outside the US.

If you run a writing circle and want a special course for your group, I will come to you. Reasonable rates. donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr or call +33 4 68 37 90 11. I will also work with you online or here in my nest in Argelès- sur-mer France. (doesn't include accommodations but inexpensive housing and kitchen facilities available).

Warnings: How do we know if a magazine will pay us, an agent is honest, or a publisher is on the up and up? The internet makes it easier to check. Here are some sites to look at. www.sfwa.org/Beware/. Likewise another warning list www.nwu.org/alerts/alrthome.htm/ However,one warning holds true NEVER PAY A READING FEE. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER Another source of unreliable payers for free lance writers is www.writersweekly.com. Most of this is directed toward American writers, but any warnings from anywhere else of people who take advantage of writers will always be gratefully received and will be passed on to W3 readers.

Here is a list of 400 agents http://www.authorsteam.com/agents/ I have not verified quality.
Although many writers write me, the letter below brought me great joy.
Hi DonnaJust thought I 'd say many thanks for your excellent newsletter. In particular I sent off my first two query letters using the guidelines in your newsletter. Both replies were swift and exciting. I chose one. In short I've now signed a contract for a collection of short stories.
Thank you so much for your help

Cleveland W. Gibson

Cleve was willing to share his letter with our readers in the hopes that it will help others.

I am seeking representation for my ever-growing collection of short stories, Pure Adventure, currently at 38,000 words. I am enclosing a synopsis of the stories and a sample story.
All the characters are portrayed in an exciting way, often as being dark and ruthless yet imbedded in surreal surroundings. It is the interaction of characters with settings that create a spark of danger, tension and intrigue.

As a writer I already have credits to my name. I have been an associate member of the National Association of Writers Groups. My work has appeared in Acorn, Auguries, Link, LBF books, Thriller UK, Creature Features, Thirteen Magazine , Lost In The Dark, and other magazines. Some of the stories have appeared on the RD Larson and Mike Broemmel web site as well as the Star Trek web site. RD Larson is an EPPE award finalist and Mike Broemmel is author of 'The Miller Moth.' I have also had work broadcast by the BBC. I am a BeWrite.net writer
Thank you for your consideration of this proposal. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely
Cleveland W. Gibson

No 25. Why do we write?

2005-05-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

THEORY
What drives us to spend hours trying to create formations of words that resonate with others?
We can rule out wealth. For every rich Stephen King or Anne Rice there are another 5000+ writers toiling below the poverty line. We may make money as freelancers, journalists, or corporate communicators, but our creative work is much harder to sell. Even when a check arrives it usually gives an hourly rate of less than a person toiling on the land in a developing country.

I asked several writers the question: Why do you write?

A woman writer who has published a series of short stories in various literary magazines says, "I can't not write. Words pound in my head. Stories pop up all around me. I have to get them down."

A writer, one who is wonderfully talented but only submits her work to top commercial publications has a large stack of rejections, said, "People say I should build credits with the little presses, but I want my first publication to be a big name. I am good and sooner or later an editor will see it." This is a person who spends at least two hours daily writing despite the heavy demands of a family and a part time job. She has Erica Jong's poem about wanting a clean house but not enough to sacrifice writing time, taped on her refrigerator. Woe to the family member that interrupts her at her computer. They didn't even knock to tell her about 9/11.

"I don't know if writing makes me happy, but not writing makes me miserable," a poet told me. He scribbles his poems during his subway rides, at lunch, and when the boss isn't looking. A few have been published in literary magazines, and every time he sees his work in print he says,

"Knowing I've shared that moment with others makes it worthwhile."

A writer who writes for the Christian market said, "I feel God gave me a gift. I can't deny it by not writing."

"I love language, manipulating words on the page until they carry the exact meaning that I want," a writer in her 50s said.

"For me it's therapy. I've had so much pain in my life, that it is one way of getting it out. Cheaper than a shrink," said a man who seemed much too young to have suffered as much as he did.

"If I don't write, I'll shrivel up."

"I've stories to tell. I just hope someone will listen."
And on and on and…

Does it matter when we start to write? I don't think so.

At four I knew I wanted to create stories. The writing compulsion came to my writing mate late in life after realising that the corporate ladder and MBA was not what she wanted to do. Both of us take the same pride in our work ever searching for ways to improve ourselves in our craft.

Does it matter what genre we write in? I don't think so. A student in my creative writing class apologised that she liked to read romances and hoped to write one. A genre writer needs to work just as hard on technique. The need to tell a story in the best way possible is true regardless of genre.

Energy is the operative word. Whatever we write, when our work takes on energy, we experience an incredible rush. Sometimes the rush is for us alone. If we are lucky the rush will extend to a person who buys the piece and finally to an ultimate reader.

Years ago writer Pamela Painter, who was teaching at a Simmons College writing program, defined a writer as someone who writes, not someone who is published. Others believe you aren't really a writer until you are published. Under that definition if Emily Dickinson's poems had never been published, she wouldn't have been a poet. Although her words would have been lost to the world, would they have been any less moving? Is it a variation of if a tree falls in the forest and if no one hears it does it make a sound?

Last night at Les Flowers, a restaurant in Argelès, after we had satiated ourselves with magret de canard, I asked the same question of my two female friends, both excellent communicators.

"No, if no one reads the writing, only half the process has been completed," the anthropologist said. "I agree," said the photographer.

It is one of those issues that could be argued endlessly with no clear result. We write.

What we do with our writing is another thing. We may keep it for ourselves, share it with our
families or seek publication. One woman I worked with is writing her life story for a friend. Another is trying to capture the Baghdad of her youth so the world can see another view from that portrayed in the news. Many, many writers are working on peace issues whether through letters to the media or world leaders. Others work with International Pen to free writers in prison, feeling they need to use their writing to give back. For some it is a need to look inside to touch something hidden: call it a soul, heart, etc. Others want to find the universal in the detail. Some admit they want to see their names on the best-selling books list.

Writing makes us writers. Work makes us good writers. Why do we do it? Because we must.

EXAMPLES

Example 1
"' Success at any price' is not my motto. In particular I don't urge what Virginia Woolf called 'adultery of the brain.' Prostituting one's talents to the highest, most prestigious or only bidder is not ultimately satisfying. .. if we define writing with integrity as remaining true to one's own values, what counts in this respect will differ from person to person…Aim to find your own path to success as you define success and keep in mind that you'll probably feel your way through by trial and error."
Marcia Yudkin: FREELANCE WRITING FOR MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS: BREAKING IN WITHOUT SELLING OUT

Example 2
Anyone who has struggled to teach a creative writing course and explain to a bunch of would-be writers just what makes a piece of writing come alive, what makes it heat up and burst into life, will know what an impossibly slippery thing it is to define. What is that enviable, indefinable something that makes a piece of fiction fizz? What makes you believe in it absolutely and without question right from the start?
Julie Myerson reviewing ZZ Packer's DRINKING COFFEE ELSEWHERE in The Guardian.

Example 3
"My work and my art, it is life."
Montaigne

Example 4
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it immediately or in the long run."
Henry David Thoreau.

I included this sample because everything in life has a price and whether it is the time we devote to writing, earning a living, or anything else. Hopefully we will all make these decisions wisely.

Example 6
Lots of people want to be writers; just about everybody talks about writing a book someday. Most don't know about the typical annual income and the isolation; they know about only the cocktail parties and the bylines. Of those who wouldn't mind being writers, relatively few really want to write. It's work.

Talent is potential. Develop it and you have something; let it atrophy and you squander it. Talent is not ability.
Art Spikol

EXERCISE
List all the things about writing that frustrate you.
List all the things about writing that make you happy.
List what you would do if you didn't write.
List what you've discovered about yourself by writing.
List observations you have made because you write.
List the things you want to write.
List what stops you writing.

NOTES

When I moved to Europe I discovered different nationalities use different terms for punctuation: an American period is a British full stop. Because W3 has an international audience (14 different countries), I arbitrarily decided to use semicolon for ; in this note.

An editor once said he never bought a manuscript unless someone used a semi-colon (;) correctly on the first page; probably not a good way to find the next best seller, but I thought just in case you submit your work to that editor, I'd review their use.

Semicolons separate the clauses of a compound sentence that have no co-ordinating conjunction. Ex: Harry ran to the store; he did many errands.

Semicolons separate the clauses of a compound sentence in which the clauses contain internal punctuation when the clauses are joined by a conjunction. Ex: Harry, who is often late, ran to the store, stopped at the dry cleaners, washed the car; and he rushed home.

Semicolons separate the elements of a series in which items already contain commas. Ex: Many people attended: Dr. John Jones, president; Irene Dunn, ghost and actress; Jason Haskell, architect and artist; and me.

Semicolona seperate clauses of a compound sentence joined by a conjunctive adverb (nevertheless, therefore, hence, etc.) Ex: The electricity was off for several hours; therefore the play was cancelled.

Write in Italy
The Centro Studi Pokkoli, a non-profit organization, makes available to individuals or institutions, for a small fee, workshop space for up to 15 people, free lodging for instructors, and arranges housing and meals for participants. We are located in a historic building in the old center of Vitorchiano, a medieval town one hour from Rome. For information: contact Linda Lappin md2948@mclink.it

Write in Southern France
I will work with students either individually or in small groups for up to a week in my French-Catalan village, Argelès-sur-mer, in intensive workshops designed to your needs. The workshop includes an in-depth analysis of your manuscript. For more information contact me at donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr or call +33 4 68 37 90 11.

To the many people who commented on the article about Lee Gutkind and passed me information, thank you. Creative fiction has also been called the new journalism as many pointed out to me.

No 24. The Godfather of Creative Non Fiction

2005-05-16T04:05:00.000-07:00

THEORY
Lee Gutkind (Goodkint) ambled into the Geneva mansion, the current home of the local press club, with a beige paper cup of coffee in his hand. In Switzerland coffee is normally drunk in cafés but seldom carried around. However, Gutkind was there to lead a one-day workshop in Creative Nonfiction (CNF) not to follow local coffee-drinking customs.

Some call CNF a genre, but Gutkind considers it a movement. When he started CNF at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973 where he teaches, the powers-that-be did not consider it worthy of much more than a course. Now some thirty years later not only does Gutkind publish a CNF magazine with a circulation of 25,000, universities as far away as Australia are offering degrees in CNF. Gutkind has authored several CNF books including his latest FOREVER FAT.

As a CNF writer he spent four years with an organ transplant team, lived and worked with baseball umpires and been a circus clown. It is a life that writers stuck in routine jobs can only dream of.

Gutkind and CNF are not without critics. James Wolcott in VANITY FAIR damned the format as "confessional writing" and its proponents as "navel gazers." It was Wolcott who first called Gutkind the Godfather of CNF, meant derogatorily, but Gutkind adapted the title as a badge. It did not hurt the development of the format to have the term Creative Nonfiction adopted by the US National Endowment of the Arts.

Gutkind divides CNF into two types: Personal experience and emersion journalism. Gutkind defines CNF emersion journalism, where the writer "captures other people's lives or places" by spending large blocks of time with the subject. It is extremely marketable.

CNF does not create untruths. CNF involves imaginative ways to present the truth. There is no CNF police to stomp out untruths, but unlike journalists who must be objective, the CNF writer can be subjective. "The concept of trust and direction of accuracy doesn't stop us from interjecting ourselves into the story," Gutkind says.

CNF writers use the same techniques as fiction writers do. Scenes are the building blocks throughout the entire work. Gutkind was quick to remind the writers that "a scene is where something happens."

Scenes use dialogue that move the story forward. Gutkind does not work with a tape recorder because he feels it hampers spontaneity, but uses his memory. The second he leaves his subject he writes down as much as he can remember. He often shows his last draft to his subjects to make sure he was accurate. Almost always they accept what he has written with the exception of one person who asked that the swear words be removed so he could show the piece to his mother who didn't know he swore. Gutkind did.

Scenes use description. Gutkind uses the word "specificity" and just like fiction writing is stronger when someone says "yellow roses" versus "flowers". CNF benefits from this type of detail.

Scenes must have action or tension. Gutkind considers that CNF writers cannot be boring. He tells CNF writers that they must, "manipulate, seduce, twist readers around your finger to make them listen."

Gutkind draws a difference between CNF and straight journalism which often by necessity of space need to be brief. CNF allows a writer to be more expansive and he cited that a number of his CNF students who have worked as journalists who in the beginning had trouble producing 12+ page assignments.

Gutkind summarizes that "Creative nonfiction writers visualize a world in three multi-colored, multi-conflicting dimensions." In that aspect they are like fiction writers, but instead of plumbing the depths of their own minds, they base their work on what they have witnessed.

EXAMPLES

Here are two samples from FOREVER FAT.

Example 1
I was in the office of a dermatologist who, while tearing into the plantar's wart on my right foot, glanced curiously up at my chest. "Wait," she murmured, "Melanoma."
At the time, I did not know precisely what melanoma was, but I knew the word to which it was most associated: cancer. She tenderly touched the mole she had spotted as the likely suspect and commented: "I don't think this is malignant, but you need to have it removed immediately." She paused and continued in a hushed voice. "Not that I want to worry you." I braced myself for what was coming next. "But three weeks from now, in a worst-case scenario, you could be dead."
I smiled bravely. "I thought you didn't want to worry me. "

Notice the dialogue. It is short and realistic. The details are tight. The dermatologist wasn't simply removing the wart she was "tearing" into it. The circumstances certainly create tension.

Example 2
"My father, an egg-shaped, balding man of eighty-three, was struggling with a corrugated cardboard boy he had been lugging from the car into the terminal. Without asking, Richard decided to help. He snatched the box from my father's hand and flung it up over his shoulder-and then he almost toppled over backwards. 'What's in this?' he asked. My father didn't answer."

Notice the father's description. He is easy to visualize. We know we are in a terminal so in one word we can see the scene. We know exactly what the box looks like. It is neither a Bonwit Teller box nor a jewelry box, but a corrugated cardboard box. Gutkind doesn't need to tell us that it is heavy. He shows us because his father is lugging it, not swinging it. He reinforces the heaviness when Richard almost topples over from the weight. The father not answering builds tension. If we wrote a fiction scene, we could have built it exactly that way, except for on thing. This happened.

EXERCISE
Think of an incident that you witnessed, a mother hitting a child in a supermarket, a group of kids on a plane ride, whatever struck you strongly and write up the scene as accurately as possible using dialogue, description and tension. You can be subjective, but keep your involvement more as an observer.
Write a personal experience that touched you using CNF techniques.

NOTES
To order Gutkind's Creative Non Fiction magazine: www.creativenonfiction.org.For more information about Lee Gutkind: www.leegutkind.com. His books are available on www.amazon.com.

No 23 Writing Query Letters

2005-05-16T03:55:00.000-07:00

THEORY
Writing query letters is almost as much fun as writing a synopsis, and we all know how horrible synopsis writing is. But here are some of the common questions I've received when talking to new writers about marketing their work whether it is fiction or non fiction.

When do I need a query letter?
When you want to interest a publisher in your book.
When you want to interest an agent in your work.
When you want to interest an editor in article, story or to get an assignment not yet written
When you submit an unsolicited piece and require a polite cover letter. This is usually for short work not full books.
Should I send my query by snail or email?

Many publishers accept submissions by email. In the past we checked with different writer market directories but now most publishers have websites with publishing guidelines. I can not stress strongly enough CHECK GUIDELINES!

How do I know where to send my writing?
Research. Don't waste your time to mail science fiction to a mystery publisher. It won't work.

Is it important to send the query to an exact person?
Yes, yes, yes. Look at the website or directories and find the name of the correct person. The website should be up-to-date but the directory might not be. It is worth it to telephone to get the name of the current editor.

Does neatness count?
Yes, yes, yes. Although there are no hard and fast rules, the query should have good margins, a normal typeface, etc. 10 to 11 points, spacing between paragraphs. Neatness is the easiest part. Proof-read several times or if you're as bad at proofing your own work as I am, ask someone you trust.

What kind of letterhead should I use?
Create your own letterhead. Include all the relevant information: name, address, email, telephone number, fax, URL if you have the last two. However, don't use cute drawings.
Use good quality paper. A problem for submitting work internationally is that the US has a standard 8 1/2x11 size of paper and the standard for most of the rest of the world is A4, a slightly bigger sheet. However, an editor, agent or publisher won't say, "Although this is the best query I've ever seen, and the idea is fascinating, I won't use it because the letterhead is the wrong size."

What should I avoid?
Too much blah blach. Make every word count. Don't use meaningless phrases like "Attached please find." If the editor isn't bright enough to see an attachment, you won't want your work published by that person anyway. Also avoid trite phrases such as "in due course" which is different from due north.

What goes in the first paragraph?
You only have one chance to make a good impression. Your first paragraph should work the same way as the lead in a good news story. Make the reader want to go on.

Ex: fiction: Chickpea Lover (not a cookbook) is a 90,000 word novel about a woman who falls in love with a man who dresses as vegetables. Note: The title and the premise I hoped were strong enough to capture the publisher's attention.

Ex: feature article: Although absinthe, the liquorice-tasting drink that drove people mad in the late 1800s was banned in Switzerland in 1905, it is still made illegally in the Jura Mountains. Instead of asking guests if they prefer white or red wine, absinthe moon shiners in the little town of Môtier ask if they want red, white or blue. The blue refers to the blue fairy, another name for absinthe. Note: I didn't take for granted that the editor knew what absinthe was, so I identified it, mentioned it was illegal to titillate and then tried to add some color with words like moon shiners. I also tried to establish my expertise by giving one of absinthe's nicknames.

What should I tell them about myself?
Enough to show you are professional and any related knowledge depending on the market.
For fiction I use: I am an American writer living and working in Geneva Switzerland and Argelès France. My short stories and poems have been published in six countries and read on BBC radio. My novel CHICKPEA LOVER was published in paperback in 2003 and will be published in paperback in the US in 2004. It will also be published in Germany and Russia this year.
For non-fiction I use: I am an overseas correspondent for an American trade journal and the author of a novel that has appeared in the US and will appear next year in Germany and Russia. My news articles have been published in the US and the UK. Note: If I have some expertise in the area, I try and do it. While trying to sell an article to a religious magazine I added: For four years I judged the Templeton's Foundation Annual Religious Writing Award. The 3000 CHF ($2500) prize is awarded to the person who has done the most effective job covering religious issues for a major European newspaper. I gave them the Templeton Foundation website.
What if I don't have any credits?

If you have none at all, say nothing. A good idea is to join a professional writing group or say: I have a been writing for X years and am a member of: Otherwise try and find whatever, an article appearing in a magazine, a degree (if related) e.g. A writer sending an article on child development might say: I have been a teacher for 12 years and have worked with over 1000 students. In other words: establish you are serious about your craft and/or knowledgeable about the topic.

Do I include writing samples?
Although it depends on the guidelines, if you have a good sample it wouldn't hurt to send it along when looking for free lance work. One way to build a small portfolio is to have articles printed in small papers. If you have a small local paper try and work with the editor to get published.
For fiction it depends if the guidelines ask for sample chapters.

What about an SASE?
A stamped self-addressed envelope is required for your manuscript to be returned. However, in this time of cheap printing and high postage costs it might be more economical not to include an SASE and say, "Please notify me of your decision by email at Imasuccess@yahoo.com I also like to keep everything positive and saying things like "If you don't want my manuscript…" reminds me of the Girl Scout who knocked at my door and said, "You don't want to buy any cookies do you?"

How long should a query letter be?
No more than three paragraphs: a powerful opening, a paragraph about yourself and a closing. Short letters are less intimidating to read. If the opening is powerful enough, the person will probably scan the rest of the material. An editor once said he spent 30-second on a query and if it didn't catch his attention it was binned.

How should I end a query letter?
Successful sales people (when we trying to get our work published we are sales people) ask for the order. Writers need to be a little more subtle. I've had the best success with "I look forward to your response and thank you for your consideration" which is both polite and almost asking for something.

How long should I wait before I follow up?
I would say six weeks to two months so you don't look too pushy. Editors are busy people. They may not remember anyway.

Note: I find people outside the US much more polite and tend to send rejection letters or if interested get back to you immediately. Americans often don't respond at all. When I got the offer for CHICKPEA I needed an agent because I am NOT a detail person and have no idea of contracts. I emailed 15 New York agents and said "I have a firm offer for a book contract for my novel. I need an agent to negotiate it." Not one came back to me. Two years later I am still shaking my head that anyone would refuse business that was handed to them.

Is a cover letter different?
Unsolicited: The opening paragraph should mention the title, what it is and the word count. The second paragraph should be about you. The third should be a polite close. In that way they are the same. The cover letter is polite although the manuscript should speak for itself.

Solicited: Always mark the envelope and the top of the cover letter "REQUESTED MATERIAL" to make sure it isn't added to the slush pile.

TIP: Mark all the pages in the manuscript in the footer with your name and the number of pages. Nelson 1 of 5. Editors' desks are usually messy and things can get lost. This is NOT necessary with email submissions.

Although there is no 11th Commandment referring to query letters the guidelines above are just that. The best query letter is the one that works. Here are two books that might help:
QUERY LETTERS THAT WORKED! Real Queries That Landed $2K+ Writing Assignments hhttp://www.booklocker.com/books/1409.html
How to Write Attention Grabbing Query & Cover Letters by John Wood < href="http://www.amazon.com">www.amazon.com

EXAMPLE
Here's the query letter that sold several agents on Luck and ultimately led to a two-book contract with Bantam.
Specific person
Agency
Address
Address
Dear (Agent/Editor's Name):

I am seeking representation for my fantasy adventure novel, Luck In The Shadows, complete at 170,000 words. I am enclosing a synopsis and a sample chapter. The sequel, Stalking Darkness, is nearing completion and another free-standing book featuring the same characters is in outline form.

I love thieves and spies - those sneaky people who live by intuition, skill, and inside knowledge. In fantasy, however, they are often portrayed as dark, ruthless characters or relegated to second string roles, a la Falstaff, as useful or amusing foils for more conventional heroic types. Luck in the Shadows gives the rogues center stage.

Seregil is an experienced spy for hire with a murky past and noble connections; Alec is the talented but unworldly boy he rescues and takes on as apprentice. "I admit I've cut a purse or two in my time," Seregil tells Alec soon after they meet, "and some of what I do could be called stealing, depending on who you ask. But try to imagine the challenge of overcoming incredible obstacles to accomplish a noble purpose. Think of traveling to lands where legends walk the streets in daylight and even the color of the sea is like nothing you've ever seen! I ask you again, would you be plain Alec of Kerry all your life, or would you see what lies beyond?" Alec goes, of course, and quickly plunges into danger, intrigue, and adventure as their relationship deepens into friendship. The interaction between these two forms the core of this character-driven series.

I've been writing professionally for ten years and am currently a freelance journalist. My articles appear regularly in the Bangor Daily News, Preview! Magazine, and Maine In Print. I've covered everything from software to psychics; my interview credits include Stephen King, Anne Rice, and William Kotzwinkle. Thank you for your consideration of this proposal. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,Lynn Flewellinghttp://www.sfwa.org/writing/query.htm

EXERCISE
Write a query letter for the last novel you just read and enjoyed, but substitute yourself as the

author
Write a query for an article you read in a magazine, but substitute yourself as the author
NOTES
Getting grants
Writers can help fund their work by applying and receiving grants. Some countries are far more generous. Governments are not the sole funders for writers. Universities, individuals, foundations also help support artists and writers.
http://www.fundsforwriters.com/grants.htm (US)
http://www.lib.msu.edu/harris23/grants/3writing.htm (US)
http://granthelp.clarityconnect.com/resources.htm (US)
http://www.burryman.com/markets.html#awards (Ireland and other places)
http://www.anarchist-studies.org/grants (Ireland)
http://www.placesforwriters.com/funding.html (Canada)
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/ (England)
http://www.ozco.gov.au/ (Australia)

The list is just to get you thinking. The best way to find money is research. Sometimes the award is more than money. My writing mate who lives in France won a chance to work with a leading Australian editor to polish her novel. If anyone has a success story on finding financial help as a writer and would like to share it

No 22. Writing Dialogue

2005-05-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Riding on the bus from the Cornavin Train Station to the UN building in Geneva takes ten minutes. Two American young women sat near me. I knew they were American because their sentences were peppered with "like" and "you know." I started counting when we were at the main Post Office, half way. In five minutes they used the two phrases over 200 times.

"Like, you know, he called and like he said, like do you want like to do something you know?"

"Like what did ya say."

"Like I told him, you know, like…" and on and on and on.

Besides wanting to strangle them to get the story out without all the "likes" and "you knows" it reinforced the point that we can't merely copy real dialogue. We need to write dialogue realistically - a dilemma at best. (I admit to being an eavesdropper and have no desire to reform. It's a great way to get story ideas.)

For example the following conversation must be repeated millions of times each day, but makes boring reading.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," he said.

How are you," she said.

"Fine," he said.

One of the reason dialogues like this fails is because it doesn't serve one of its primary purposes, which is to move the plot forward.

Many novices make the mistake of putting in too much information that the other speaker knows.

"You know, Sis, our Auntie Helen who lives next door at 113 Embury Avenue, and is married to our Uncle Ed, and works at the same supermarket as you do, is coming for dinner."

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I've seen things close to that in the first efforts from my creative writing students.

Information should be imparted, but it has to be based on information the other speaker doesn't know. The same information given is more believable if done this way.

"Hey, Sis. Auntie Helen is coming to dinner. Did she say anything to you at work?"

"Didn't talk to her. When I went on break, she took over at the cash register. The store was mobbed today," she said. "Uncle Ed coming, too?"

"Don't know. Run next door and ask."

At least we know that Sis and Auntie Helen work together, Auntie is coming to dinner, she's married to Uncle Ed and they live next door. The rest of the information can be imparted in background information if it is necessary.

Dialogue can also be used to show character. People can be assigned speech mannerisms like the word "like" if it is not overdone. Gs' can be dropped, a man can talk down to a women by calling all of them sweetie, etc.

A character's educational level can be shown by the vocabulary used. A high school drop out might not use six-syllable words. A pretentious college professor would. However, if we use too convoluted language for the professor we'll lose our readers.

What people say can contradict their actions.

"I love you," he said right before he hit her.

Dialogue can also show accents, but caution is necessary. Too much can be hard to read. Consider this example of the Bostonian accent.

"I flunked out of Hahvahd, but Bawston College accepted me. That was too hahd for me, too."

A single sentence might work or wohk, but imagine reading that for 250 pages.

Dialect can be shown. While in Boston I was buying a camera for a friend, who wanted to take advantage of cheap US prices. The clerk waiting on me was from Russia. Later the same day watching a skating show, several Russian skaters were interviewed. I noticed none used articles in their speech. Likewise the English don't use the article the in front of the words hospital and university. They go to university, and are rushed to hospital. And if your character is a Scot, an occasional "wee" would not be out of place. Irish people sometimes refer to family with the word our.

"Our Maria will be late getting home."

If characters speak foreign languages sprinkling the foreign phrases is sufficient. Peter Mayle in his books does well in showing foreign language usage. A good trick is to use a foreign phrase and then explain it in the dialogue such as:

"C'est vrai?" Jean-François looked doubtful.

"It's true," Marie-Claude said.

Many new writers vary the appellation: she said, asked, replied, demanded, cried, smiled, grinned, screamed, whispered, etc. This marks the writer as an amateur. Use said or asked almost exclusively. An occasional whisper or screamed might be acceptable only in extreme situations. You want the reader to easily identify the speaker but you want the appellation to be invisible to the reader. Some writers avoid appellations as much as they can.

A way to get around it is to ascribe an action to the speaker.

"I won't go." Amy folded her arms across her chest.

"Oh, yes you will," Her mother grabbed her hair and pulled her.

If you want to check how your dialogue sounds, read it into a tape recorder and listen. Or have friends read it aloud. If anyone stumbles that is clue the dialogue doesn't work. Also what doesn't sound right becomes clear.

A quick word on punctuation based on manuscripts I've reviewed from new writers. (Experienced writers, please humor me). The correct formats are:

"I love you," he said. Quote mark-speech-comma-quote marks-lower case on a pronoun appellation-said-period (or full stop).

"You love me?" she asked. Quote mark-speech-question mark-quote marks-lower case on a pronoun appellation-period (or full stop).

Americans tend to use " marks and the United Kingdom uses '. Likewise quotes within quotes are reversed.

American: "I heard Aiden say, 'No way am I going,' and then he laughed, that laugh," she said.

English: 'I heard Aiden say, "No way am I going," and then he laughed, that laugh,' she said.

How you do quotations depends on which market you are preparing your manuscript for.

EXAMPLES

Example 1

This sample is from THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguro and is an excellent example of moving the plot forward. The butler Mr. Stevens, does not want to leave his duties. The housekeeper conveys the gravity of the situation in print. The hesitancy of the butler shows his character. He puts his job before his father. The relationship between the housekeeper and the butler is shown because it reveals what she did for the father and she is not about to accept no for an answer but calmly keeps adding information to convince the butler that he really cannot wait any longer.

'Your father has become ill, Mr. Stevens,' she said. "I've called for Dr. Meridith, but I understand that he may be a little delayed.'

I must have looked confused, for Miss Kenton then said: 'Mr. Stevens, he really is in a poor state. You had better come and see him.'

'I only have a moment. The gentlemen are liable to retire to the smoking room at any moment.'

'Of course. But you must come now, Mr. Stevens, or else you may deeply regret it later.'

Example 2

Jane Smiley in MOO doesn't use appellations in this sample. There is little doubt who is speaking. She does use ellipses and contractions. Notice the punctuation.

Marly, who had finished her shift after lunch and gone home without passing Lafayette Hall, was just waking up from a long nap when Nils called her from the emergency room at the hospital. She looked at her watch as she answered. It was nearly seven and she had slept through Father's suppertime. Where was Father anyway? She picked up the phone on the fourth ring after calling out. "Father" Father? You here? and receiving no answer. Rooms were dark.

"…pick me up because Ivar is all involved with the police," said Nils.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, my dear, you'll be happy to know that my injuries seem to be very slight, although I am sure that there will be neck problems later on. And I am going to press charges against that little mat -"

"Nils, I've been asleep, so I really don't know what you are talking about."

Example 3

This sample is from TRUFFLED FEATHERS, a mystery by Nancy Fairbanks and shows how incorrect speech can be used. A waitress is speaking.

"You'd have to ask the cops. They didn' tell us. Ask a hunderd questions, don' answer none."

Later the waitress says…

"Well, it's not like people don't get offed in Jersey, too. Ma's got MS. She thinks someone's gonna break in an' tip over her wheelchair. Like anyone would think she's got anything worth stealin'."

EXERCISE

Eavesdrop on a conversation somewhere and try and transcribe it as accurately as possible. What are the speech mannerisms? Can you guess the social status and/or educational level of the speakers?" Rewrite it to a meaningful dialogue. (Don't get caught listening)
Go to a movie or watch a DVD and listen closely to a dialogue between two characters in a single scene. Play it over and over. How is information given to the listener in dialogue? Unlike in prose, the background information is shown. Now go back and see what information you get from the set, the facial expressions, etc.

NOTES

NAMING CHARACTERS

An earlier W3 wrote about naming characters. Netscape has just reported the 20 most popular names for babies born in America during 2003. They are really different than names chosen even five years ago. As we said in an earlier edition we need to select names that are appropriate for the birthplace and birth date of the character.

20 Most popular boys names.
Aidan/Aiden/Aden (could this be because of SEX AND THE CITY?), Jaden/Jayden, Caden/Kaden, Ethan, Caleb, Dylan, Jacob, Jordan, Logan, Hayden, Connor, Ryan, Morgan, Cameron, Andrew, Joshua, Noah, Matthew, Addison, Ashton

20 Most popular girls' names:
Madison, Emma (did Rachel and Ross have anything to do with this?), Abigail, Riley, Chloe (Good thing I named the baby in my novel CHICKPEA LOVER NOT A COOKBOOK this), Hannah, Alexis, Isabella, Mackenzie, Taylor, Olivia, Hailey, Paige, Emily, Grace, Ava, Aaliyah, Alyssa, Faith, Brianna

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

As writers we are so concerned about getting the words right, but we seldom think of the units that make up words, units being letters. I came across a book I found fascinating called HOW 26 LETTERS SHAPED THE WESTERN WORLD ALPHABET by John Mann. I'll never take my vowels and consonants for granted again.

FAQs ABOUT W3

Q: Who is D-L NELSON?
A: D-L Nelson is an American who makes her living as a novelist and freelance journalist. Her fiction and poetry have been published in six countries. Her novel CHICKPEA LOVER (NOT A COOKBOOK) is in its second edition hardback and will appear in paperback this year. It will also be published in German and Russian this year depending on completion of translations. She divides her time between Geneva, Switzerland, Argelès-sur-mer, France and Boston, MA USA.

Q: Where do the ideas for topics come from?
A: The first few issues were topics that I taught in my creative writing class at Webster University in Geneva and in seminars. Over half of the topics have been suggested by readers. In two cases, I felt that other people would be better to write the theory part of the newsletter. Thus Larry Habegger, publisher of the popular travel anthologies Travelers Tales www.travelerstales.com and Susan Tiberghien, author of LOOKING FOR GOLD, www.susantiberghien.com were guest writers.

Q: Why do you describe it as an "almost monthly" newsletter.
A: To give my self wiggle room in case my life goes out of control.

Q: Why do you do this?
A: I started writing in a vacuum. I could have learned my craft faster had I known some simple tricks. Eventually through writing seminars, my M.A. in creative writing at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, and the support of the Geneva Writers Group (GWG), I began making progress in my writing as well as learning the business side of writing. People were extremely generous to me and this is my giving back. And it's selfish. I feel happier with myself when I share.

Q: Can I put announcements in W3?
A: I am happy to include announcements about retreats, seminars, contests as well as print letters and comments, space permitting.

No 21. Writing an Essay

2005-05-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

This issue is guest written by Susan Tiberghien of the Geneva Writers Group http://genevawritersgroup.org/ and http://www.susantiberghien.com/

THEORY

When Robert Atwan published the first Best American Essays in 1986, it was a gamble in the world of letters. But not only has the series continued every year since, other anthologies are also flourishing. Once a "second class citizen" (E.B.White), the essay today finds a regular home in periodicals ranging from the New Yorker to Creative Nonfiction, from Newsweek to Esquire. And it has seeped into all other kinds of non-fiction writing, from travel pieces, to op-eds, journals, commentaries, and to memoirs. As Annie Dillard writes, "The essay is all over the map, there is nothing you cannot do with it, no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed."

A short history of the essay would start with Montaigne, in the 16th century, writing essais (attempts), letting the subjective and the objective intertwine into a new form of prose. Montaigne was a gentleman farmer, his essays were conversations with an unseen neighbor. If we skip up to the 20th century, Virginia Woolf speaks of the essay as a balance of subject and style, each component equally important. When writing an essay, says Philip Lopate, "It's not enough to render the experience. You also have to put it in perspective. It's not enough to show. You also have to tell."

So how do we do this? Let's look at four steps, each step a new draft, and then let's pretend we're following the four steps to write a story about going food shopping in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But remember, we have to have gone food shopping in Cambridge. We cannot imagine the whole experience. This is the litmus test of nonfiction. We can embellish description, include dialogue, write in scenes, but the experience has to have happened.

Here are the four steps.

1. Choose an experience, or rather let it choose you. What experience do you want to write about? Close your eyes, go within and let the experience find you. Focus and frame it in your mind, like a photo, not everything, but the important part of the experience. Montaigne wrote, "Everything has one hundred faces, I chose one of them…I jab into it as deep as I can." Depending upon the subject, do some research, go deeper. Then write a first draft. Free write, and perhaps let the essay meander to another subject.

2. Now show the experience in a second draft. Think about the elements of story telling - specific details of setting and characters, tension, dialogue, plotting, and revelation. The protagonist, the "I" of the essay, has to discover something. Philip Lopate (The Art of the Personal Essay) writes that an essay has a rise and fall, "that it appears to dig up something, to reach deeper understandings than it began with."

3. Slowly start to polish your words. In this third draft, think about the elements of poetry. Essays walk the border between story and poem. Imagery: look for the images, which images reveal the meaning of the experience, what images are symbolic? Rhythm: find repetitions (alliteration and assonance), meter (try scanning your lines, where are the stressed syllables, read it aloud, does it flow?) And compression. What is the core of the experience? What is its truth?

4. And now set it aside. Let it gestate, at least overnight, more happily over several days. Rilke writes in Letters to a Young Poet, "Everything is gestation, then bringing forth." If you have the good fortune to have a writers' group, share the essay. And then rewrite: look at length of sentences, paragraph structure, shape your essay, look at descriptions, prune adjectives and adverbs, passive voice, highlight the imagery, listen to the sounds. Then find a home for it. If in the writing, you have discovered deeper meaning in one life experience, the reader will share this discovery. In moving from the personal to the universal, the essay is the writer's gift to the reader.

Now let's write our essay. Or rather let me write the experience that I had food shopping in Cambridge, for my daughter and son-in-law and three-day old baby - food shopping in a country where I had not lived for thirty years, but in a country that looked like me and spoke like me. First draft (step one), it was a sad experience. I felt out of place. Misunderstood. Second draft (step two), I started to make it into a story. I added some dialogue, some humor. Some tension. I moved towards a revelation. Third draft, I polished the images (paper or plastic bags, pink fingernails, the pin-striped suit), the rhythm (plastic or paper…the young man stopped and waited, the people stood still and waited). And the core? The truth of the experience? Well, let me ask you. Here is the story, as it was published in The International Herald Tribune, Meanwhile Column.

EXAMPLE - Plastic or Paper

"Plastic or paper, lady?" asked the young man with a pony tail, as I was looking in my purse for enough cash to pay the groceries.

It was summer vacation, and I had returned to the States to become a new grandmother.

"May I pay with my American Express card?" I said to the woman at the register, not yet ready to tackle the option of plastic or paper.

"No, Ma'am, only Visa or Masters."

"And a check?"

"With two identification cards, Ma'am," she answered, handing me the stub. Her fingernails were longer than I remembered ever seeing and painted brilliant pink. "Do you have a driver's license?"

I started to fill out the check. "I have a driver's license but it's Swiss."

The young man who had asked me about plastic or paper eyed me with curiosity. He had three earrings of different lengths all on the same ear.

"What did you say dear?" asked the cashier.

The line behind me was getting longer, but it was also getting interested.

"I said my license is Swiss. I don't live here, I live in Switzerland."

Everyone turned toward me. If only I had a hint of a foreign accent, no one would have paid attention. This was Cambridge, Massachusetts, where in summertime one out of two people speak a foreign language. But my English sounded like their English. Where did I come from? I looked American, I spoke American, but I didn't perform American.

"Let me see dear. I don't want to make you trouble."

Again the young man asked, "Plastic or paper, lady?"

Lady? I thought I was a woman. What was this lady business? And ma'am? And dear?

"Honey, he just means how do you want it wrapped? In a plastic bag or in a paper bag."

I had such a large, attentive audience that I found the question difficult. Which was more ecological? I should give the right answer. Making paper bags destroyed the trees and forests. But was the plastic bio-whatever? I never had learned that word. I made a wish that the plastic be whatever it should be and said, "Plastic, please."

The young man snapped open a large bag and placed it on a frame at the end of the check out counter. The plastic bag sat suspended.

"Your license please, and another piece of identity."

All this hassle for $22.20. I thought about giving the groceries back, but my daughter and French son-in-law were waiting for them - one romaine lettuce (not iceberg, but French and leafy), three red apples (they were so polished I squished one just a little to see if it were real), sharp cheddar cheese (they didn't tell me there were a dozen varieties of sharp cheddar), and steak (ah, I thought, after thirty years in Europe I could easily choose steak, but no, there were meters - I mean yards - of packaged steaks, each with different names.) I couldn't give it all back, it was to be our dinner.

So out came my Swiss driver's license, written in French, with a photo of me about twenty years back, well, maybe thirty. The cashier looked at me and then back at the photo. Skepticism. Next came my American passport, recently renewed, like one month ago. Mistrust. Grandmothers do age.

She rang for the manager, her bright pink fingernail poised on the bell.

I waited. The young man packing my groceries stopped and waited. The people in line stood still and waited. No one murmured, no one was impatient. This too was different. I could hear the air conditioners.

When the manager, dressed in a grey pin-strip suit arrived, I was so confused I reached out to shake his hand. I was ready to apologize. I had only wanted to do the shopping for my daughter and son-in-law and their new baby, born three days earlier. I had flown from Geneva to be a grandmother. I was even trying to be an ecological grandmother.

"Is this all right?" I asked, pushing the check, the Swiss drivers' license, the American passport in his direction.

"Yes. Everything is fine." He smiled and wrote his signature on the back of my check. I could feel the wave of general relief. "You know," he said, "I always dreamed of going to Switzerland."

The core: The little grocery store in Cambridge welcomed me back home.

NOTES

1. Susan M. Tiberghien, American-born writer living in Switzerland, has published two memoirs, LOOKING FOR GOLD (about dreams and Jungian analysis) and CIRCLING TO THE CENTER (about silent prayer) and many narrative essays in journals and anthologies on either side of the ocean. She will publish a collection of her essays, FOOTSTEPS, A EUROPEAN SCRAPBOOK. Tiberghien teaches writing workshops for the International Women's Writing Guild and C.G. Jung Centers in the USA, and for the Geneva Writers' Group and writers' conferences in Europe. And she is the editor of the literary review, OFFSHOOTS, WRITING FROM GENEVA.

Any wisdom she might wish to share would be patience! When asked how long it took to write her first book, she replies 60 years. And that included bringing up six children.

2. A few years ago I was showing a fellow writer Lowell, Massachusetts where I went to university. We were more interested in the textile museum and Lowell as Jack Kerouac's hometown than my alma mater. Peter picked up a stone and confessed he had a collection of stones from different writer's homes, graves, etc. For a time whenever I went anywhere near a writer's house I picked up a stone for him. On my own desk is a small white stone that was on the ground in front of the French writer Collette's grave in Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris. I admit to fingering it whenever I'm blocked. There is something about visiting the home, hometown, grave of someone you've read. Looking at places they've seen is often an inspiration and can create a new way to look at the influences in our lives that affect our writing. I know we can't all travel, but here's some websites and/or locations of different writers that may have influenced us. If you know of any good museums about writers, please let us know.

3. Louisa May Alcott: Walking through this museum is like spending a day with Jo, Meg, etc. www.louisamayalcott.org

Writer's Museum, Edinburgh, Scotland located in a 1622 townhouse. Desks, pens, clothing of famous Scottish writers. I find is amazing that these items still exist in comparison to our current throw away society.

Dublin Writers Museum: www.writersmuseum.com/

James Joyce : James Joyce died in Zurich in 1941 but is considered on of Ireland's greatest writers. www.jamesjoyce.ie

D.H Lawrence: Photos of his childhood home which has been restored to reflect what it must have been like during his lifetime. website.lineone.net/~alan.rowley/dhlpm01.html

William Faulkner: A photo of his house now the home of the Pirate Alley Faulkner Society. They are sponsoring a writing contest. www.wordsandmusic.org

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of Seven Gables. It reeks of Puritan New England. www.7gables.org/

4. Each year the American Library in Geneva holds a used book sale. The library is located in the American Church. Its wood panelling and stained glass windows inside could as easily be in the UK or New England and reminds me of my childhood church fairs. At this year's fair I went in time for lunch: homemade egg salad sandwiches, apple juice (in New England it would have been cider) and chocolate cake. No longer hungry, I started going through the tables and tables of books all priced between 2 and 10 CHF. New books usually start at 20 CHF and paying up to 50 CHF because of additional shipping costs isn't unusual.

In the textbook session where I was browsing for a learn Arabic text, I spied a book, WRITING HANDBOOK. Its title was in silver lettering on a plain brown written by Michael P. Kammer, S.J. and Charles W. Mulligan, S.J. and published by Loyola University Press. Although it was written in 1953, it is the most logical and helpful grammar book I have ever seen. I've checked Amazon.com and the book is still for sale, for someone who wants a great grammar reference. No matter that it is 50 years old. I recommend it highly.

No 20. Writing Synopsis

2005-05-11T06:12:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Even the most talented writers quake at the word synopsis. Spoken aloud it sounds like a disease. Perhaps it is the idea of reducing work that took months or even years to a few pages combined with the pressure that it should represent your best writing that makes writing a synopsis so hard.

Some publishers state what they want in the synopsis. Others don't. Check each publisher's guidelines. However, if you have a synopsis already written it is easier to adapt it then to create one fresh.

Your synopsis is a commercial for your work. First time novelists tend to do a chapter by chapter review of their work. This is NOT the way to create a powerful selling tool for your novel. Would you buy a soap product if the publicity only listed the chemicals? A mere listing will turn off the editors. You must make the story fascinating.

A synopsis is a deconstruction of your novel. After spending weeks/months/years structuring your novel deconstructing it can be painful.

Starting:

Free write the story. Sit down and just write about the story. Give yourself ten minutes and don't stop writing. Keep your pencil moving. Don't worry about spelling, corrections.
Mind map the novel. I've put two examples of mind mapping on my website at www.wisewordsonwriting.com One is a mind map of the major characters and the other is of the major story lines and subplots. A mind map is when you put down all the ideas as fast as you can, connecting related ideas with lines (it cannot be done fast on a computer. Use pencil and paper).
Pretend you have ten minutes to tell the story of your book to an audience.

Suggestions (not rules) on format:

Length - plan to write about a page for every hundred pages of novel unless the publisher gives you a limit. Think of a synopsis as a blurb on steroids. However, don't write to word count. Make it long enough or short enough to tell the story.
Use the present tense for a sense of immediacy.
Don't confuse the structure with the story.
Make sure somewhere in your presentation the number of words plus genre. "Title is a 65,382 mystery novel that…"
Chronological order usually makes more sense, even if your story is not told in chronological order.
Use the third person.
You don't have to include each scene.
There should be a flow from one scene to another.
Resolve everything. An editor will not want a cliff hangar.

The actual writing (gulp)

Lead sentence - A good story starts with a sentence that hooks the reader. The same is true of a synopsis. I used the following for CHICKPEA LOVER "From the moment Liz admits she's in love with a man who dresses as vegetables, her life was never the same." If you haven't got the opening sentence, don't let that stop you. You can write it later.
Flashbacks should be interwoven into the story not break up the flow of the story. Only include necessary flashbacks. For example if you've done a three-page flashback on a Vietnam war scene that haunts your hero, don't bring this in great detail but reduce it to the "The horror of watching an entire village die when his fellow office opened fire with an M14, still haunts John's nightmares.
Emphasise major and minor plots and connect them within the story.
Separate characters by giving each their own paragraph, but don't break the story line. Include their feelings and motivations.
Theme should be touched on. In my novel CHICKPEA LOVER the theme is how power is used in personal and professional relationships, but it is shown through the story of a woman who falls in love with a younger man as her marriage and career fall apart when she gets embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal at the college where she teaches.
Show how the characters have developed and changed.
Resolve all plot lines. Editors don't want to be kept in suspense.

After writing your synopsis

If you haven't a reliable critic, put it in a drawer to let it "compost". Look at it again in a month. If you have a reliable critic, have them read it and listen to their comments.
Go over every sentence to make sure every word is necessary.
Have you over worked the verb to be?
Are you being lazy and relying too much on adjectives and adverbs?
Spell check.
Reread to make sure their and there, you're and your and other words that spell check will miss are used correctly.
When you are satisfied that it is one of your best piece of writing, add sample chapters, a good covering letter and put it in the mail with a wish that it will motivate that editor to ask for your complete manuscript.
Treat yourself to something special. You've earned it.

EXAMPLES

The two examples are about telling stories. A good synopsis is a good story.

Example 1

"So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favour the stretch in between since it is the hardest..." Margaret Atwood

Example 2

"I'm a novelist; I write novels. It's convenient for everybody but the writer to categorize writing: readers know what they like, bookstores know where to shelve them, reviewers can slot them. But it's irrelevant to me Dostoyevsky also wrote crime novel. I'm trying to do what Faulkner or Fitzgerald tried to do. They just did it better. We're all trying to do tell a compelling story." Robert B. Parker in an interview in October 2003 Yankee Magazine.

EXERCISES

Take the most recent book you've liked and write a synopsis of it. You won't have the emotional involvement that you have with your own work.

NOTES

A reader comments on writing about place from a foreign country

I found your excellent newsletter significant for personal reasons as well. When I was 18, I ripped myself away from my comfortable English culture and background to go and live in Paris. Real identity crises! It was then and there that I started writing. So the topics you touched on struck very resonant chords. The problems related to (near) bi-lingualism have been dogging me for decades. Thanks for exploring the theme in the way you did. (Incidentally, I didn't pick up a single spelling error, so your singing must be improving by leaps and bounds!)

Kind regards,
David

(For all my advice about proof reading, I am a terrible proof reader of my own work.)

Take a look at this site

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No 19. Writing about Place Part II

2005-05-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

Last month W3 examined how writers "see" places they live. This month we look at the opposite - how foreign places influence writers' work. In this issue W3 talks with two ex-pats, American writer Jake Lamar and Canadian writer Lauren B. Davis. Both make their home in Paris. (See notes for a list of their work). W3 examines how living in a different culture shaped their writing and their attitudes. Not everyone can change countries, but as writers if we look at how other writers develop we can take from their experiences to improve our depth in our own work.

Any comments can be written here or sent to donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr

THEORY

Any writer who has ever read about the Lost Generation must have imagined themselves living and writing in Paris, jumping on the Metro, buying baguettes, sitting in cafés while scribbling in notebooks. Jake Lamar and Lauren Davis are two writers who live and work in the City of Light.

When Jake Lamar was growing up in the Bronx, he read James Baldwin GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN. His teacher told him that Baldwin lived in Paris. He thought that was pretty cool. However he didn't pack his bags just then. He went to Harvard, back to New York, and then to Ann Arbor, MI. Lamar was half way through his second book when he won a grant. It was then that he moved to Paris planning to stay a year. That was ten years ago.

Lauren Davis moved to France with her husband. She was first in Annecy then in Paris. As she was working on her first novel, she found herself accompanying her husband to New York, Canada and then back to Paris. Three international moves within a few months is not necessarily ideal for writing, but her novel THE STUBBORN SEASON made the Canadian best seller list despite the changes. She is now settled in a flat that overlooks the rooftops of Paris, a living postcard.

Davis' work area is a room inside her flat, while Lamar has a studio away from his home.

If their reasons for being in Paris are different, so are their reactions to how living in a foreign country makes a difference in their writing.

Lamar has seen an evolution in his work as a result of living abroad, although he says it has not made a "line for line" difference. At first he continued to use the USA for his settings. His third book used the OJ Simpson trial as a backdrop. He told W3 that the geographic distance gave him a perspective that he could not have had in the USA, which he said "seemed obsessed with the trial," where in Paris it was a quick blurb in the news. However, his book that will be released in November titled RENDEVOUS EIGHTEEN is set in his Parisian neighbourhood. The one he is working on now is also set in Paris. Lamar is using the same characters as RENDEZ-VOUS 18 with minor characters taking protagonist roles in the new work and vice versa.

When Davis was asked how living abroad had affected her work she said, "There's no doubt I write differently now than I did when I lived in Canada. Although I suspect that has as much to do with being sober and ten years older. Time and experience, both life and literary, certainly change you as a writer. Still, living abroad with the singularity of the perpetual stranger, as I have for over a decade, can't help but alter one's outlook. In turn, this affects the work. As a result of being confronted so often with opinions vastly different from my own, I am more introspective than I was. One has to think about beliefs one has taken for granted when in the company of people who approach life from a vastly different perspective. One is often asked, 'Why do you believe such and such…' When I first arrived in France I found that question unsettling, and discovered that to some degree, much of what I said I believed was simply what everyone around me back home had believed. I entered a period where I deeply questioned my assumptions, my perspectives, my beliefs. It's a period that has never ended, and frankly, I hope it never will. "

Davis's book THE STUBBORN SEASON was set in Canada during the Great Depression. She was writing about her home base as much as the untravelled Flannery O'Connor did. For Davis it meant leaving Paris. She said, "There was a point during the writing when I simply had to go back to Toronto to do some research. Not only did I want access to the libraries and archives, I found I needed to soak up the atmosphere of the streets. I think that was largely due, however, to the historical nature of the book. I find I write quite easily about Canada in general. Of course, this may be like writing about one's childhood, which is as much, I think, a question of imagination as fact. I often say the childhood I remember is probably not the childhood I had. Perhaps that's the case with the Canada I write about. But this is also true of any work of fiction, isn't it? I write about the Canada that is mine, related to my memories, my experience, and although I hope it strikes a chord of recognition with others, there's no guarantee it will."

Lamar, who knows Davis, says that he does not do the research she does, but he tends to use areas he knows. In THE LAST INTEGRATIONIST he used Martha's Vineyard as a location. His description was so vivid I became home sick reading it. Lamar admitted he had only been there once.

Like Lamar, Davis has changed to a Parisian setting for her next novel, THE RADIANT CITY. "One main character is a Canadian war correspondent, another a Lebanese woman who runs a restaurant, and a third is an American Vietnam Vet. A lot of the research involving the journalist I was able to do on the web - details of various conflicts, journalist reports, that sort of thing, and the same with the wars in Lebanon and Vietnam, but nothing takes the place of talking to people, walking the streets, listening to the voices, soaking up the sense details."

Being an ex-pat can leave you English-isolated. Lamar says French has become more and more present in his life. After his first three years in Paris, he became serious about learning the language and began to work with a tutor. Last year he started dreaming in French, and found he corrected himself as part of the dream. When he told his Dutch/Swiss wife, she pointed out that his original French was correct and in his dream he corrected himself incorrectly. Lamar now is comfortable in talking at book fairs in French. He doesn't see the mixture as a problem. He says he never expects to be proficient enough to write in French, but admires writers who can write fluently in a second tongue. Learning a language does take time and patience, one more chore for a writer's day.

Davis has strong feelings on living surrounded by a tongue not her own. "Up until about a year ago working in English while surrounded by another language made English almost sacred. I loved how precious it was, special, while there was a wall of other language just outside the door. French was the language of the street, the shops, the bureaucracy, while English was the language of my imagination and, because it's the language I speak with my husband and friends at home, also the language of love and even sanctuary. However, over the past year or so I find I'm forgetting words in English, substituting French words. And worse, I'm no longer able to conjure up the voices of characters whose mother tongue is English with the same ease as before. The rhythm of French has crept into my English construction. This is not good. It worries me, and to be honest I'm looking forward to going back to North America for this reason. Although it's obviously possible to write well in English while living in a non-English speaking country, I think, for me, it is important to spend a certain amount of time in an English-speaking place. Perhaps I haven't been back enough, for long enough, over the last decade - whatever the reason, it has begun to take a toll.

Hemingway hung out with Fitzgerald, but does Paris have a community of writers today? Lamar spoke of his writer friends, which include Davis, the late poet Ted Joans and Diane Johnson. Lamar said he found American writers he met in Paris, "more open and feeling of camaraderie then in the US." He suspects that "it may be a function of us being foreign."

Davis also has writer friends on both sides of the ocean. She says she receives "invaluable support from them all." She chooses careful. "In France the writers I know come from all over, and we're all living outside our primary markets, which does make a difference. We're not competing for the same publishing dollars from the same publishers, nor for the same prizes, etc. Although writing should never be a competitive sport, there's no doubt that the lions of jealousy and resentment have to be tamed by all writers. I learned the hard way to give a wide berth to people who haven't dealt with those sorts of things. The writers in my circle now, either here or in Canada are all dedicated craftspeople who delight in the successes of their friends and are generous with their support."

Lamar does not visualize returning to the States, although he says he does not consider himself in exile as some other Black American writers have felt. He has renounced nothing. He feels he is an American who loves living in Paris. Davis may or may not stay there.

On a personal note and as an ex-pat myself, I am aware that the perception of those that stay "home" about those of us who live in foreign lands varies from the reality. This became clear when I emailed a friend who was Stateside about meeting my daughter in Basel for lunch, the half way point between her home in Mannheim and mine in Geneva. His response -- "You have such a glamorous life." I didn't have the heart to tell him we'd lunched at Burger King. I then changed the laundry and took out the trash followed by sweating over a story I was working on and couldn't quite nail.

No matter where we live as writers, we have the richness of our surroundings for our stories. It is what we do with them. Ex-pat Hemingway said writing was more perspiration than inspiration. Those serious about their writing perspire wherever they write.

SAMPLES

These two samples are from LIFE IN A POSTCARD ESCAPE TO THE FRENCH PYRENEES by Rosemary Bailey. It's non fiction book about how she and her husband renovated a medieval monastery. It could be best described as the movie THE MONEY PIT meets A YEAR IN PROVENCE. Unlike A YEAR IN PROVENCE, which tends to mock the locals, Bailey treats them with a great deal of respect. In every line, the reader feels her reverence for the past as well as her respect for the present.

"The battered but beautiful thirteenth century Romanesque chapel was abandoned by the monks at the Revolution and has been used as a barn and cowshed ever since. Once after going in for firewood stored there we forgot to turn off the light and it shone all night, the only light in the darkness of the valley, just as if would have done seven centuries ago when the chapel was built and there was a hermit in residence to keep a candle burning day and night."

The place plays on her sense of well being, but she not only changes her life from the city of London to a tiny French mountain village, a flat for a monastery, but in her imagination she changes time zones and assumes the role of a monk growing herbs during the Middle Ages.

"I have responsibility for the herb garden, where we grow herbs and medicinal plants, for cooking and treating ailments. One of our most important duties is to care for the sick and needy and there are many in need in the village of Mosset. The lavender is ready to cut, so the flowers can be pressed for oil. It has so many uses: for bites and stings, rheumatism, and burns, as well as relieving tension and insomnia. The yellow flowers of St. John's Wort, good for wounds and bruises, and used to dispel melancholy, are already are already steeping in oil in the sun. I nibble a few feathery leaves of chervil which we can add to the salad tomorrow."

Throughout the book we see how her life is changed by her environment.

EXERCISES

1. Using what Lauren B. Davis said about belief, list five of your most common beliefs. Try and imagine the opposite. If necessary use the web and try and get into the head of a person who thinks totally differently. If you're a conservative, try and think like a liberal, if you're a sportsman try and think about being handicapped, if your religious think like a pagan, etc.

2. Find a newspaper on the web from another country and read it daily for a week and try and notice what the different perspectives are. If they have a classified look at the way flats and houses are advertised, help wanted (Example: an American might be surprised to see how many countries specify, age, gender, and appearance in their help wanted ads). Try and gather enough information for a short story set in that place.

NOTES

1. Lauren B. Davis was born and raised in Montreal, Canada and now lives in France where she teaches creative writing. Lauren is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection RAT MEDICINE AND OTHER COLLECTIVE CURATIVES (Mosaic Press 2000) and the best-selling novel THE STUBBORN SEASON (HarperCanada 2002). Her short stories, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous literary journals. Her website is www.laurenbdavis.com.

2. Jake Lamar is the author of BOURGEOIS BLUES and four novels: THE LAST INTEGRATIONIST, CLOSE TO THE BONE, IF SIX WERE NINE, (translated into French as Le Caméléon Noir) and the forthcoming RENDEVOUS EIGHTEEN. He grew up in the Bronx, is a graduate of Harvard where he studied literature. He worked for Time Magazine writing Milestones before being promoted. His web site is www.jakelamar.com.

3. Although W3 deals primarily with fiction, it is amazing how many different niches we can find as writers. We came across The Keeping Hearth & Home Series, an American publisher producing primers for living in the United States…100 to 150 years ago. The Keeping Hearth & Home series recalls the ideals of 19th century America through the "prescriptive literature" of its cookbooks, newspapers and magazines. Featuring culinary practices characteristic of their states and social advice pertinent to their regions during the second half of the 1800's, books on Old Alabama, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas and Colorado entertain with period quaintness and enlighten with timeless wisdom. Says author Carol Padgett, It is almost like a picnic under the family tree beside the river of time! Order at www.menasharidge.com. Meet the author at www.keepinghearthandhome.com.

No 18. Writing about Place Part I

2005-05-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

This is the first of two parts on writing about place. What is it like for writers who have always lived in one location? Next issue we will talk with ex-pat writers who find themselves far away from their home. We'll look at how location combined with experience can help or hurt us as writers.

THEORY

When I was growing up in a small New England town, my mother claimed she was English although our ancestors left England around 1635. She never got closer to England than a few waves into the Atlantic. She pushed our WASPishness (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) background against my Father's Frenchness, which was not considered acceptable. Because we concentrated on being so English I didn't think I had an ethnic background. That was the norm. I envied the Italians in town who ate spaghetti with every meal instead of periodically and my friends with names of O' something when they step danced. At the time I didn't think that my grandmother baking beans in her grandmother's bean pot every Saturday night, carefully balancing the mustard to the molasses and salt pork much as our Pilgrim ancestors had done, was ethnic.

In the same way, I thought school closings in winter were normal. Everyone had Robert Frost stone walls around their land, and went to Saturday football games and tried out for the baton squad.

I felt the same way as many writers I've met who've always lived in the same place. What can be interesting about things that are so common we don't even see them.

I was wrong. Place can often serve almost as another character in another dimension to a story.

The lesson was reconfirmed when I was doing my masters at the University of Glamorgan. I had written a scene where children ducked under their desk as an anti-atomic bomb drill when the town's siren went off. My seven cohorts, all raised in the UK, thought it was exotic, in the same way I envied them the details in their writing about vicars, jumble sales, A-Levels, gap years, the pub and dart games. These details would not have worked for a book set near Boston MA.

An anthropologist friend of mine said good anthropology can't be done in a person's own culture because people are too close to it. How sad it would be if that were true for writers. However, if it were true you wouldn't have wonderfully regional writers like US Southern writers like Flannery O'Connor, Australian writers like Janet Turner Hospital, etc. Not to mention the great English writers like Waugh or Lawrence who captured their own home areas to such a degree that readers feel we are living in the environment.

To truly reflect the regions that we come from, we need to almost pretend we are newcomers. What are some of the details that writers can use to create place:

Geography - Is the land flat, hilly, forest covered, near a lake or sea? A book set in Louisiana needs a bayou, and Paris without the Eiffel tower isn't really Paris. The question is - is it trite to mention it? Can another famous landmark be used? And if the region isn't famous, what in the landscape can make it vivid to someone who will only be there in their imagination.

Food - What are the local dishes and can you mention them without stereotyping? Catfish and grits come from the US south, lobster from New England, but MacDonald's exist almost everywhere (but not in Syria). If you are trying to write about another area make sure you have the local favourites down. An English writer once talked about Shoe Fly Pie as a Boston favourite. It is a traditional Amish dish in Pennsylvania, a good five hours away by car.

Weather - Despite climate change, a blizzard in Puerto Rico would seem out of place, but if you have a novel set in Maine in January, it is almost necessary. If it isn't there, then its absence says something.

Accents - How to write good accents could be a book in itself, not a mere paragraph in a newsletter. If overdone, it turns the reader off. Think of reading page after page of a Boston accent. I think I will pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd while I get a Hoodsie, and watch the Sawks and eat candy bahs while waiting for my Awnt and Uncle. (Note: You can't park in Harvard yard, because it is grass covered and the Harhavhd police will arrest you). A sprinkling of an accent can give flavour. Likewise expressions can trigger local feelings. In the TV show mystery "Murder She Wrote" Jessica solved the crime because the person who claimed he was from the area didn't know that Maine is known as "Down East".

Class - Place should also include the socio-economic status. A good choosing of details can tell a lot. Do the people work in a factory, or commute to Wall Street leaving their SUVs and boats behind. Do they mine opals? Have an air boat that ducks alligators? Place can be a neighbourhood as well as a town or region.

Environment - As humans we are affected by what is around us. If a character lives far out in the country does he long for a chance to visit museums? Likewise does a person feel trapped in concrete canyons of a major city and yearn for a garden and raises tomatoes in a garbage pail (bin if he's in London). Does the person who lives near museums but not go. Use the place to develop the character for your readers.

Limited place - a story can take place within a house, a room that has no bearing on which part of the world the character lives in.

Transportation - SUVs aren't popular in Europe. In fact big cars aren't appreciated what with gas prices at about four times those of the States. If your character has a bike, is he in step or do people think he's weird. If the setting is Holland, it would be normal, but someone biking to work in Los Angeles, might not ring true or be a wonderful character detail.

Clothing - As a child I read a series of books about twins all over the world and they always wore native costumes. Although you will still find Bavarian women in Dirndls, and farmers in jeans, clothing is a way to show about location and climate. A bikini is not worn outside in January in Montreal, but a person could put on a sweater, jacket, scarf, hat and mittens and still be cold "showing" something about the place and temperature without having to "tell" the reader anything. Or if something is based in Ocean Grove, NJ, bathing suits can't be worn anywhere but the beach.

Smell - Seasides have a certain odour, as do fish markets. Mud smells different in spring, a factory can ooze smells, as does any place near a bakery. The NECCO factory in Cambridge, MA used to leave a smell of caramelized sugar in the air. NECCO are round coloured wafers sold in rolls. I'm not sure if they are still made, but it is a detail that could add a special feeling to a story set in that city where MIT and Hahvahd students predominate.

Mores - What we consider normal, other people might consider exotic. A bonfire is normal to celebrate many occasions in various localities. Do people drop in unexpectedly or is it necessary to make plans well in advance?

Sometimes newer writers give too many details about a place. This was common in literature of the 1800s where every piece of furniture might be described until a reader wanted to yell, "Enough all ready!" It isn't necessary to describe each turn in the road to get from place A to place B. Choose the details that make the place jump out in the minds of the readers.

EXAMPLES

Example 1

"We've got a ranch house. Daddy built it. Daddy says it's called RANCH 'cause it's like houses out west where cowboys sleep. There's a picture window in all ranch houses and you're in one of them out west, you can look out and see the cattle eatin' grass on the plains and the cowboys ridin' around with their lassos and tall hats. But we ain't got nuthin' like that here in Egypt, Maine. All Daddy and I got to look at is the Beans. Daddy says the Beans are uncivilized animals, PREDATORS he calls them."

Notice how Carolyn Chute in the BEANS OF EGYPT MAINE, has used language. We immediately are in the scene with a narrator that is not highly educated. Interestingly she gives a picture of what isn't there.

Example 2

"Hazel Motes sat forward on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racing through tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing, very red, on the edge of the farthest woods. Nearer the plowed fields, curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked liked spotted stones."

Here Flannery O'Connor places us on a train, we feel the material and see the colour of the seats to get an interior sense of place as well as the exterior sense with red sons and a country setting. The name of the place isn't important, but readers feel it.

Example 3

"The Chamber of Commerce defines Cape Cod as comprising fifteen towns divided into countless villages, 365 lakes and ponds, long ribbons of good road and 399 square miles of land forming a strong flexed arm reaching out to grab a hunk of the North Atlantic. Nary a word about Marshfield, although when asked to describe the town, most locals hesitate only a moment before responding, 'down the Cape.'

"Marshfield, the so called 'Irish Riveria,' isn't exactly Cape Cod being that land divided from the mainland by the Cape Cod Canal with Bournedale, Cedarville and the Cape Cod Canal and Buzzards bay tacked on to gain access to lovely Sagamore Beach and including of course, those two famous islands, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, refuge of rock stars and presidents.

"Marshfield's too far north to qualify. Wrong county. A working class neighbourhood dotted with small, mostly neat cottages a half mile walk from an eroding beach.

"I am not talking 'summer cottages' as in Newport or the Berkshires. I am talking no loyer, walk smack into the living room, one or two bedrooms max…"

Here Linda Barnes narrows her place from region, to town, to type of cottages, to a tour of one of them all the while throwing in class comparisons.

EXERCISES

If you live in a town go to the centre. If you live in the city go to a park. If you live in the country go to a quiet spot. Make a list of everything you notice,
If you have always lived in the same place, find a newcomer and interview them about what they note as different from the place they come. (In Boston I was amazed when an exchange student was fascinated by all the different colour trucks he saw. I never had noticed.) If you are new to a place make two lists comparing the old place to the new.
Find out something about the region you've lived in all your life that you didn't know. If you are living outside your home region, go back and find out something you missed while you lived there.

NOTES

In Europe it has been the hottest summer in summer. The French use the word La Canucule to describe the heat wave. Although I love the way the word sounds as it rolls off my tongue, I hate what it is doing to the continent. Forest fires are ravaging France, Portugal, Canada. The Danube has lost two-thirds of its water, revealing a German ship hidden from view since WWII. Wherever you are, please work to help conserve this planet, before we all destroy it.

No 17 Naming Your Characters

2005-05-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Although she is 34, my daughter Llara, still hasn't forgiven me for putting the second L in her name. All my explanations that I disliked the commonness of "Donna" although I love D-L or Donna-Lane and wanted to give her an original name have not changed her opinion. No matter that she brushed aside the common name David for our Japanese Chin puppy in favour of Amadeus (now long gone to the great dog biscuit factory in the sky). However I got to name my villain David in my novel CHICKPEA LOVER NOT A COOKBOOK.

As writers we get to name far more people/animals than we get to do in real life. However, the names we select are another tool in developing the character of the person we are writing about.

Names tell us about nationality, age and much more.

Names have trends. Most of Llara's friends had names like Jennifer, Laurie or Lisa. If she were a teenager today she might be surrounded by Brittany(s) and Courtney(s) if she still lived in the States. An eighty-year old American Brittany isn't believable any more than a ten-year old American Mabel.

Old fashioned names can make a comeback. Emma(s) are beginning to be found more and more. I still think of Emma as the bitch my best friend's father used to date not the talented writer actress Emma Thompson or some little girl splashing in a plastic swimming pool on the grassy area of our apartment complex.

While an English writer might be happy to name a character Nigel or Simon, a writer wouldn't choose it for an American man. I have thought of a short story about an American politician named Simon and christened "Simple Simon" by the press because of his honesty. It's not the name that's giving me problems, but the idea of an honest politician in these troublesome times.

Living in Geneva where parents often transfer from country to county every four or five years, they agonise over giving names to their children that will work in many different lands. Some work cross-culturally like Thomas or Alexander for boys or Mary and Anne (Anna) for girls. However, many of you write from your own culture only, but if you ever have a foreigner in your stories, think of what works for your characters from other places. Remember there can be regional and class differences as well.

Gender can be a problem on naming as well. I did learn the hard way that a British Robin is male rather than female as in the States. The mother of the baby boy Robin smiled politely, after she opened my gift of a frilly pink dress. The lesson is if you use a sexually ambiguous name identify the gender immediately for your readers.

A writer with a Welsh character can't go wrong with the names Richard or Owen. Evans or Jones always makes a good last name and if you want to show Welsh patriotism, Bronwyn for a girl. However good a Scotsman by the name of Angus would be, it might not work for a Texan unless the father named his kids for cattle, which certainly shows character. Likewise Irish-ancestry characters can be Fiona, Shamus, Sean (of many spellings) and Liam.

In my classes at Webster University in Geneva, my Russian students all seemed to be named Elena, Oxana, Vassily, and Victor and one Thomas.

German names Ute, Elke, Regina, Günther, and oh yes, Thomas might work, but I am not sure of which age group to assign them too. I would rely heavily on my German friends if I were creating a German character.

Names have connotations personal and otherwise. For me the name Maud always conjures up my lavender-smelling, lace handkerchief carrying great aunt. She was nothing like the 14-year old living down the hall. But the name, added to the smell and handkerchief carrying, makes a character I can put it in a story.

Telling why you named a character can add to the depth of a story. Why did the mother choose Elvis for her son or why do people have numbers? A character named Thomas Witherington IV says a lot a person's status - or a family trying to gather status.

Romance writers seem to give unusual names, especially to their men. Thor, Stark, and my favourite by Sandra Brown, a Cajun named Cash Boudreau - half because Boudreau was my maiden name. Non-romance writers should choose more plebeian names because an unusual names draw attention away from a character.

Names are becoming more and more globalised. For example: Last year the most popular names given to babies in the Francophone part of Switzerland were Emma and Jennifer (I suspect because a Jennifer won the talent contest on Star Academy on TF1) and for boys David and you guessed it - Thomas. However these names might not work if you were writing about Swiss characters. (By the way if anyone wants to write about a Swiss-French woman over 50, try Madeleine.) However if we have foreign characters too American sounding names they just don't ring true.

My Australian mate says that names from Oz would include Bruce, Alan, Darryl, Gregory, Geoffrey, Jeffrey, Robert, Rob, John, Dick, Colin, Ian, Brian, Sue, Philippa, Margaret, Jennifer, Lyn, Marjorie, Cynthia, Christine, Chris, Diane, Cheryl, Sharon.

Where do we find our names? For my mystery set in Argelés, France, I walked through the cemetery there. I can guarantee regional authenticity, besides being able to look at the photos often sealed in the tombstones.

Name books, the telephone book, newspapers, name plates on apartment buildings, and death notices also are sources. Matching the age of a character to a name might work. Little English girls were often named Elizabeth and Margaret after the princesses in the 1950s and Diana became popular from the time of her engagement to Prince Charles.

One mistake new writers often make is to give names to their characters that are too close to each other. A short story with characters named Jean, Joan, Jane, Jack, Jenny, could drive the reader a bit batty.

My daughter should be grateful to her father for making me abandon the hippie name of Cloud in favour of Dr. Zhivago's 1969 name of Lara even with the second "l" as I'm grateful to a cocker spaniel named Bonnie, which would have been my name had my mother not met a dog with that name the night before I was born. That's Bonnie not Bbonnie. I like the name, but it doesn't fit me.

A note on name changes when you decide to change the name of a character after you've written a number of pages, there can be a problem with find and replace on your computer. I changed one character's name from Lou to Gino and found I had a lot of words like BGinoese, Ginoisiana, etc.

EXAMPLES

Sample 1

This isn't a sample you can read, but if you haven't seen the movie SHAKESPEAR IN LOV E go see it or rent the DVD or video. For those who have seen it, remember how the first title of "Romeo and Juliet" was "Romeo and Ethel" then Romeo and Rosalind" and then finally a character suggest Romeo and Juliet? Think of the line

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

It just doesn't work as well with the names Ethel or Rosalind although Romeo and Rosalind as a title does have a nice alliteration.

Sample 2

I think this is the greatest naming explanation in modern fiction. It is from THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving and tells the story of Garp's conception. Garp's mother, Jenny is a nurse and his father is a soon-to-die patient who is limited to one word. At one point she makes love to him and conceives her son, whom she names after the one word that patient could say. (Notice that John Irving breaks the rule not to use many!, but if you're John Irving, you can do that.)

"He cried 'Garp' when he was glad; he asked 'Garp?' when something puzzled him, or when addressing strangers, and he said 'Garp' without the question mark when he recognized you. He usually did what was told, but he couldn't be trusted; and he forgot easily, and if one time he was as obedient as a six-year old, another time he was as mindlessly curios as if he were one and a half…

"She gave up trying to teach him a new word. When she fed him and she saw that he liked, she'd say, 'Good! That's good.'

"'Garp,' he agree.

"And when he spat out food on his bib and made a terrible face, she'd say, 'Bad! That's stuff bad, right?'

"Garp!' he'd gag.

The first sign Jenny had of his deterioration was when he seemed to lose the G. One morning he greeted her with 'Arp'.

"'Garp,' she said firmly to him, 'G-arp.'

"'Arp,' he said. She knew he was losing him.

"Daily he seemed to grow younger. When he slept, he kneaded the air with his wriggling fists…But gunner Garp was not all baby. One night when he nursed at her, Jenny noticed he had an erection that lifted the sheet. ..

"'Ar,' he moaned. He had lost the P.

"Once a Garp, then an Arp, now only an Ar: she knew he was dying.

EXERCISES

Write out three series of character traits. Make them very different then come up with a name for the three people. Ask yourself at what point you decide on a name of your characters.
Take the last book you just read and see if you can think of a better name for the main characters.
Think of how you associate names with people. For example: in first grade a little girl name Brenda, who sat behind me in class, painted my new blouse and ruined it. I have a tendency to name my less nice characters Brenda. (apologies to all readers named Brenda) but then ask yourself is it a personal reaction or a general reaction.

NOTES

A letter from a reader on our last issue about more places to get story ideas:

Just meeting an odd word and wondering what it means can lead to interesting thoughts sometimes, too - in the end you might not even use the word in whatever you are writing, but it might set up a chain of events

Conversations are another favourite source, though I'm still trying to fit in the two old ladies I heard about 20 years ago saying that the country's woes would be cured by us having a "collision government".

Dreams - as worked for Robert Louis Stephenson - can trigger off thoughts, am currently working on a couple of short stories where I have wakened up with

a)a sentence and
b)an idea in my head.

Then don't forget pictures, past and present, famous, family... I'd love to know what other people use as inspiration, too!

CHILDREN'S WRITERS WANTED

Can you write a vibrant, gripping story that will make children want to read?

If you can then StoryPlus would like to hear from you.

StoryPlus is an online children's publishing company that aims to provide high-quality, entertaining stories that will help children develop the most fundamental of all educational skills - literacy - by making reading fun.

If you believe you can write stories that will grip children and carry them through page after page then please send an email to info@storyplus.com for Writers Guidelines and further information. Or check the website www.storyplus.com

No 16. Story Ideas

2005-05-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

THEORY

One thing I hear most often from new writers is where do ideas come from. What triggers a story or a novel?

Everything.

In our very active Geneva Writers Group when a member talks about a personal experience usually over lunch at the Café du Soleil, someone will almost always ask, 'Are you turning it into a story?' Thus a runaway child, a child that gets bad grades, a husband's affair, a grouchy boss, a death in the family, a broken-down car on the autoroute, a woman on the beach who talks incessantly are all potential stories.

When I was a new writer still unsure of everything I did, I visited an inner city Digital plant. The HR person told me how she wasn't afraid of being at a rather dangerous T-stop (T is the nickname for the Boston subway system) while waiting for the shuttle to the plant.

'Why?' I asked her.

'There's a wino with a big dog. He comes and stands with me. He says he's protecting me.' She laughed and shook her head. 'Not that he would be any good, but in a way, it's nice.'

This led to my short story, 'The Wino and the Woman.' The heroine changed races, age, and economic class, which became part of her story. An unsatisfactory boyfriend was added. He faired badly as a decent human compared to the wino. I showed the story to the woman who had triggered it, because I felt in I had stolen her story, but she was thrilled with it.

Many new writers when they use a life event often say, 'but it happened that way,' when a critic suggests this or that should be changed. One of the wonderful things about taking a seed of a story, is that the writer can change the results to suit themselves. Characters whose prototype never suffered for their bad actions can be penalized, the dead can live, the living can die, the fire can be put out in time or not. We don't have to follow the exact events but rearrange them to suit the story (would that we had the same power in real life). However, we have to be true to the story on what makes it work.

John Irving talks about starting with something real, but because it is boring he adds something here and there until he has an "autobiography on the way to becoming a lie."

Sometimes stories don't come from something as exact as a specific situation. Years ago, Dr. Hug, Leo Buscalgia, talked about old people still making love. This triggered my story 'Never Too Old' about how two grown daughters reacted to the discovery that their 72-year old mother was having an affair. One was shocked. One was thrilled.

Story ideas can come from the news, television programmes, an unsuccessful short story written earlier, but with a character that has something to say, from events, a sermon anything that you observe.

If you have writer friends sit down together and talk about story ideas. Try and write an anthology around a central theme: a fair, several people in the same movie theatre, a vacation resort, etc. Or take a sentence at random from somewhere and see what different stories develop from it.

Read Nathalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES and free write regularly.

The secret as writers is to find the seed and nourish it. To ask the what ifs - what if this happened, what if that person said this or did that. Maybe we need to do two or three different versions, highlighting different scenes, changing the balance between characters, cutting out or adding to the original idea.

The key to finding story ideas is to observe what is happening around you.

SAMPLES

"Story ideas come from everywhere and anywhere. I might see a wire service article in the LA Times and realise that it contains the kernel for a novel as I did when I wrote Well-Schooled in Murder. I might see an exposé in a British Newspaper and decide that it can serve as the foundation for a novel as I did when I wrote Missing Joseph. I might want to use a specific location in one of my books, so I'll design a story that fits into the location…I might see someone on the street or in the underground, overhear a conversation between two individuals, listen to someone's experience, study a photograph, or determine a particular type of character would be interesting to write about. On sometimes what stimulates the story idea is a combination of any of these things.
Elizabeth George in I Richard.

EXERCISES

1. Take a book you like. Find a minor character. Then using that character as a base, develop a life for that character.

2. Buy a tabloid. Using one of the stories about an event, 'Man escapes shark' or 'Little boy found after hours in the woods' and develop that into a story.

3. Walk around a shopping centre and listen to bits of conversation. Jot them down in a journal. Develop one into a short story.

4. List three events in your life where you were totally unsure of yourself. Narrow it down to one and create a character of the opposite sex that has a similar problem.

No. 15 Travel Writing

2005-05-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Remember the Story
by Larry Habegger.

The best travel stories are really stories about life, with lessons for the writer and reader about ourselves and the people and places in our still magical world. We don't have to travel far to explore both the outer and inner worlds.

Some of us love to roam the world, close to the ground, under the radar. Others would rather stay close to home, poking into niches in nearby neighborhoods and discovering new meaning in everyday things. It doesn't matter, really, which way you approach travel when you're interested in writing about it. It's all life experience, and the probing of meaning beneath the surface of things.

But travel writing is necessarily about place and the traveler's relationship with it. What is it about the place, whether it's a market in your own hometown or a souk in a medina, that captures, engages, or even repels you? What does that place tell you about the culture you are suddenly immersed in, the people who create it, and yourself? These answers don't come readily; they require observation, reflection, teasing out. They require taking your time to draw in what's around you and distil it through your own experience to find a truth for yourself, and then, once found, to communicate to others through your writing.

An easy way to begin this process (and a good way to get started writing anytime, even at your own desk) is to focus on all five senses and write about them in a simple journal. Think not just about what you see, but also about what you hear, smell, taste, and touch (or what touches you: the chair, the air, the breeze, the pen and paper in your hands). This helps you draw a portrait of the place and gives you entry points into deeper reflection, like a painter sketching a scene before applying the brush. This reflection will often lead toward vignettes that can develop into deeper, longer stories, but sometimes the vignettes will be enough to communicate a world of meaning. They tell a story of their own, sometimes the whole story. And telling stories is vitally important. It's the way we learn, teach, and share our humanity.

The Importance of Stories

The importance of stories to prepare for travel was at the core of the founding of Travelers' Tales, the publishing company started by James and Tim O'Reilly and me in 1993. When Tim, a computer book publisher (O'Reilly & Associates), was heading to Australia for a conference many years ago, he intended to bring his family along and take an extra week to explore the Great Barrier Reef. He read about places to go and things to do in several guidebooks, but as appealing as everything sounded, it all sounded the same, and he couldn't find a way to make a choice. In the end he didn't bother. On the way home he read a story about a family vacation on Lady Elliot Island in the in-flight magazine. Suddenly he knew where he wanted to go, but by then it was too late. If he had read that story while preparing for his journey he would have found the place he wanted and discovered it for himself.

Tim's experience illustrated a premise that is all too often overlooked -- the importance of stories in travel preparation. It started him thinking about a void in travel publishing and led to discussions with his brother, James, about creating a new line of travel books that would do for others what that magazine story had done for him - capture the imagination.

The story he had read of a woman snorkelling with her daughter brought Lady Elliot Island to life because it was presented through the lens of human experience. The story itself was not particularly dramatic-the author's daughter's encounter with a sea turtle was the centerpiece-but it made clear the relaxed, family-oriented nature of the island and the easy access to the reef. Mostly though, it was the human element of the personal essay that made Lady Elliot stand out as a desirable location, when the glowing paragraphs of the standard travel guides had given an overwhelming sameness to all the islands.

The point of Tim's story is that information is so much more accessible-so much more real-when communicated in narrative form. Stories act as vehicles to link information with different parts of your psyche so places stand out, ideas get translated, and you make the information your own.

Everyone knows the pleasure of a good story. When you've been on the road and had remarkable experiences, it's great fun to tell your friends about what happened and how it moved you. Or as we all know, when things go wrong, the story gets so much better once enough time has passed. In fact, creating our own stories is one of the reasons we travel. But stories are much more than entertainment.

Stories are the lifeblood of human interaction and have fueled the imagination about the outside world since time immemorial. Stories inform, enlighten, engage, communicate, open up the individual and create access to cultures and places that would otherwise remain mysterious, challenging, even threatening. Stories demystify while helping retain mystique. Stories make the exotic seem both more alluring and more accessible.

Stories act as a magic carpet to explore concepts you might never otherwise know and prepare you emotionally and psychologically for adventures into foreign lands. And in the most practical sense, they help you decide what experiences you'd like to have or avoid, what places you'd like to visit or bypass.

Who could imagine the hospitality of a Berber's tent before reading a story about the extraordinary feast a traveler had there? Who could conjure the interaction with the Tibetan llama on the flanks of Mount Everest without hearing the tale of the traveler who made the simple human contact? Who could comprehend the thrill of racing across the Mongolian steppes on horseback without reading the story of the traveler who did it?

Well, maybe we could all imagine it, but when reading these stories we know that these experiences are real and could be ours. Or we know that experiences like these are possible, and are possible for us. The power of stories is so strong that often all it takes is a few words to create worlds of meaning. Take, for instance, James O'Reilly's encounter in a French restaurant. In this simple vignette he communicates the influence of French culture on both dining and language and also on the behavior of outsiders, specifically, those with inadequate French.

The maître d' fixes you with an intense gaze, and with a sweep of his hand grants permission to leave his exquisite, perfect restaurant. He says only "Bonsoir, monsieur," but his words-so deep, rich (yes, mellifluous)-are a gift, a magnanimous act. You strive to reciprocate, but it comes out too high, absurd: "Bone-swahr," a German dog biscuit which goes skittering across the floor to clatter at the feet of frowning diners. Alas, you are a caveman. You may as well go now to the coat check and ask for your skins and your club and shamble into the night.

Or consider my own account of seeing the Himalayas for the first time in an Indian hill town. Again, a simple few words creates a profound understanding of the power of place, and puts the reader squarely there.

I arrived in Darjeeling in a dense fog. Above the window in the living room of the teahouse was a panoramic photograph of the most magnificent mountains I had ever seen. I asked where the scene was. The proprietor tilted her head as if I were nuts and pointed out the window. "There," she said. I looked out at the solid bank of clouds and vowed to stay as long as necessary to see that sight. Each morning I'd wake up and eagerly look out my window but it was always the same grey mist, until one morning I awoke at dawn and sensed something different in the texture of the sky visible from my bed. My heart started to race. I sat up and there, filling the window and most of the sky was the glimmering massif of Kanchenjunga, dusted a brilliant red by the rising sun and sprawling across the horizon as if embracing the whole world. For many moments I disappeared into it, overcome by the sheer gravity of the mountain. I had never seen a more powerful vision.

Or take James O'Reilly's thoughts while visiting a World War II site in Normandy. They bring the horrors and poignancy of war to mind with a force so powerful you can feel it in your gut.

I don't think the hideous intimacy of war ever quite came home to me until I visited the Peace Museum in Caen. It wasn't a picture of bodies blasted to bits, or gaunt prisoners, or tanks in flames, but of a 17-year-old girl about to be hanged in Warsaw. She was smiling, forgiving the whole thing with the beauty of her soul and her short life. But the most awful thing about the picture was the face of the German soldier with the noose. He looked so terribly unhappy. Poor bastard, I thought (standing there with my own daughters) he didn't want to do it. Perhaps he was even a father himself, and if he refused his orders, no doubt he would be shot. What awful set of events brought him to this moment? What daisy chains of evil and banality and failures of free will? What would I do in such a situation? What would you do? And then, a bit farther down the hall, a photograph of Hitler in Paris, smiling.

These vignettes communicate far more to the reader than any practical information could, and it's because they are stories. Stories touch our human core and reach our emotions, drawing us in to the possibilities in the world and between each other. Stories carry magical powers, and sharing stories can make all the difference in the world.

The story you tell about your travels might create the same wanderlust in your friends, and inspire them to embark on a journey that could change their lives. Or you might motivate them to explore their own surroundings with greater awareness. You never know. Stories are like that. They are treasures, not to be hoarded, but spread around, enriching all.

Now sit back, and let me tell you a story…

SAMPLES

For plenty of samples go to http://www.travelerstales.com/carpet/index.tcl.

EXERCISES

Take your journal to a comfortable place (an outdoor café is ideal), and write for a certain period of time (as little as a minute, or as much as five to ten minutes or more) from each of the five senses: I see, I hear, I taste, I smell, I touch. When finished, add a sixth: I imagine. What you write should produce a portrait of the place and you in it, and lead to ideas to develop

NOTES

LETTERS TO W3

About Literary Factories

· My first reading was the Hardy Boys and their authorship was attributed to a Franklin W. Dixon -- who in fact was a Canadian who wrote the first two or three. I've done some ghost writing for a brand name, and with no compunctions. It was just a bit of fun, and pay check) but I would never want anyone to know that (blank) occasionally writes under other names. Nor would I like it if anyone wrote under mine.

Take care,
Rod

· Hi, thanks for the e-letters, they're inspiring.

It's funny literary factories came up, because I was just thinking about this yesterday.

First, (it's hard for this not to come across as snotty through e-mail, but I swear I'm not sneering as I type this), it's Tom Clancey, not James Patterson who has the Op-Center series. Poor Patterson is innocent! (Note from W3 - I was quoting Writers' News) I have to say I don't find them deceptive at all because it says right on the cover "'Tom Clancey's Op-Center' by Tom Clancey (in big letters), written with blah blah blah (in small letters)." These books pop out once a week, so it's obvious Clancey's not writing them. He created the original idea and original world and deserves to have his name on the cover. The minion who actually wrote the thing also has his name there, it's obvious he did all the writing, so for me; I see no problem with these.

I WOULD be upset if I read a book that says by JK ROWLING and come to find it was written by someone else (as is happening in China -- Harry Potter and the Golden Tortoise, etc.).

Second, as an author, you want to be branded. You want your name to become a brand because that's how you get name recognition and pump up your sales so you can make enough money to continue writing. Nothing wrong with that, I'd love tobe a brand name someday.

Third, branded industries can be a source of inspiration when sharing a world. I'll give an example -- the Star Wars novels. These are more often than not written by hacks, but its a universe familiar to many, and many writers might enjoy writing within the decided boundaries of this universe and get to contribute to and expand on it, as well. Personally, I'd rather create my own little universe, but as a child I spent countless hours in the Star Wars world inside my head, and I can definitely understand the lure of wanting to go back there.

I admit, this is different from the Nancy Drew series -- here you have a character, not a world, so it's closer to you personally, as a reader. Happens to other branded characters, too -- James Bond, Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, etc. As long as the person who wrote it has his or her name on the cover and there is no deception involved, I see nothing wrong with it. At least you can shake your head and say "So-and-so sure doesn't write them like the creator!"

Ok, off to bang my head on my desk for a few hours...

-Derek Seklecki

No 14. Committing Acts of Language

2005-05-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

THEORY

When we finish writing a piece how do we critique it?

If we have just finished it we are far too close to be objective. I've never understood why writing, which was brilliant when I put it in the drawer, becomes so flawed when I look at it months later. Are their demons inside changing my pristine prose into blathering?

Giving it to friends and family isn't any good. Either they will love it not to hurt you or hate it to hurt you. There may be an exception if a family member or friend is a professional editor or writer. Most of us aren't lucky enough to have one of those. Also family members are forever thinking your characters are really them or resent that you use other family members instead of them.

I'm fortunate to have a writing mate, an Australian who looks over everything I do (and vice versa). Until Sylvia says a piece is done, I don't consider it finished. She ferrets out the scene that doesn't fit, the phrase that doesn't work, the plain old-fashioned typo, the character who has blue eyes in the beginning and green at the end. We may never agree on commas, nor prepositions, which we chalk up to the difference between American and Australian English, but it does short circuit drawer time for our writing. It took us years to build up both our critiquing abilities, but at the same time it helped us both develop as writers. Since we are both fanatic writers, we also boost each other when we have had a rejection and celebrate each other successes.

Sometimes there are writing circles or groups. The success of depends on how good the critiquing is. If members are out to prove how bad everyone else but themselves is, then you won't get the help you want. If members can't articulate why something is good or bad, it may offer some help in identifying that there is a problem, but not what the problem is. Comments like that comma should be a semicolon certainly don't go deep enough when you want to know if Marcy was believable when she left Jack or did you need more foreshadowing.

A few years ago I came across a helpful grid. The original was developed by English writer Alex Keegan (author of the Caz Flood mystery novels and originator of a writers' boot camp that was a hard-driving self-help group). A later incarnation of the gird, the one used below, was used for critiquing for submissions to the World Wide Writer's magazine and is available on my website at www.wisewordsonwriting.com or www.worldwidewriters.com.

Although all critiquing is subjective going through the list helps focus anyone who is critiquing another. I wish my writing mate and I had it in the early days. It would have helped show us what to look for. It is a tool you can give to people when you want them to evaluate your work with more feedback than saying "I liked it," or "I didn't like it." It also allows them to be a bit more objective in their criticism.

Learning to critique another's work helps you learn how to critique your own, although to some extent you will always be to close.

SAMPLES

OPENING

Superlative opening to a first class story 25
Original and inventive - attention catching 20
Intriguing start 10
Room for improvement - not best feature 5
Slow-pace for short story - picked up later 0
Flat, lacked pace and punch -5
Needed re-writing, an early letdown -10

TITLE

Suited the story 10
Needs improvement 5
Try again 0

PLOT/THEME

Strongest part of the story - Memorable 30
Confidently handled - an assured touch 25
Demanded and deserved full attention 20
Original but not totally convincing 18
A familiar situation but well handled 15
This scenario has been overdone 12
A touch superficial for the effort involved 10
Strained credulity 5
Neither important nor entertaining 0

ACTION AND PACE

Effortless and well constructed 25
Good control and well edited by the author 20
Deteriorated after a promising start 15
A re-write might improve the flow 10
Struggled for control 5
Too involved for a short story 0
Too many unanswered questions -5
Anecdotal - Lacked a good narrative -10

CHARACTERS

Strong, confidently drawn and believable 25
Easy people to understand and to recognise 20
A mixture - some good, some sketchy 15
Main character fine - lesser personnel flat 10
Stock types, one dimensional 5
Hard to believe these people could exist 0
Much more work needed on characterisation -5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT

A joy to read - Brilliant 40
Quality writing throughout 35
A page turner - as the Bookseller would say 25
Good, but slightly run of the mill 20
Some merit - competently told 15
Might appeal to a minority 10
Difficult to recommend 5
No merit 0

DIALOGUE (if applicable)

Vivid and crisp, in period, idiom and character 25
Story well told in the words of the character 20
Good, with one or two crisp exchanges 15
Good, with one or two crisp exchanges 10
More variety would have helped 5
The idiom failed to match the theme 0
Weakest point in the story -5

LANGUAGE

Effortless style, sensitive feeling for words 30
Smooth and easy to read 25
Flashes of originality gave it extra sparkle 20
Stylish but parts could be polished 18
Fluent without being striking 16
Good command - lacked memorable phrases 15
Good story slightly let down in the telling 10
Little feeling for words 0

ENDING

Totally apt 25
Room for improvement 15

DIRECTIONS

Add up all the points. It is interesting to see how several people score the same story.
Max Score 230
160+ is a good score
108 is average

EXERCISES

1. Take a short story that you have never read before and use the grid to critique it. Then give it to a friend to do the same and compare the results.

2. Give the grid and one of your short stories to at least two people you trust and ask them to grade it without telling them it is yours. Then compare the results.

NOTES

1. If any reader would like a FREE sample copy of Writers Forum please e mail your name and address to writintl@globalnet.co.uk of write to Writers forum PO Box 3229 Bournemouth BH1 www.worldwidewriters.com then check on manuscript checklist.

2. My writing mate Sylvia Petter's short story collection, "Past Present" is available on Amazon.

3. Alex's website is http://www.btinternet.com/~alex.keegan1/

No 13. Committing Acts of Language

2005-05-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

THEORY

How many of you have confessed to a stranger that you are a writer only to be told, that they too are planning to take a month off to write a book? Yet can any of us imagine saying to a brain surgeon that we'd take a month off to learn to operate on the brain? (One writer friend claims to have said exactly that to a doctor after the doctor said he was going to write a book during a two-week holiday.)

Those who don't write often think writing is easy something to be whipped out on whim. You put words on paper in a recognizable format making sentences with a subject, verb, a direct object, maybe a preposition here or there. Add a period, a question mark or more rarely an exclamation point. Then after the first sentence, there's another and another, until you a paragraph, a page, a story, a novel. It's magic.

Good writing does not appear like magic. It takes work, discipline, commitment. As writers we commit acts of language.

It is not any noun or verb committed to paper that makes turns our work from a ditty into an opera, it is which noun and which verb is the best. It is building a sentence, a paragraph, a story, a novel as deliberately as carpenter constructs a house.

Words aren't just squiggly lines on paper. They have power to those that can decipher them. In a French movie, SWING, a middle class boy gives a gypsy girl the notebook where he had committed the contents of his soul to paper. After he leaves, she looks at the words and throws the notebook away. She can't read. His gift of words was lost to her. He, however, carried them away in his heart. Even without an audience, the young boy had committed acts of language.

Words carry weight, give color, make music. Words can say things that aren't there, reveal secrets, tell truths or lie. We as writers choose which words to give our thoughts. Sometimes they flow out of fingertips faster than we can type. Other times they stay locked in boxes as we search frantically for the key. One writer I know when she can't find the right word puts in a wrong one and marks it with color. She confessed that she will get up in the middle of the night if she wakes knowing the word that escaped her earlier to fire up the computer and scroll down until she finds the color and substitutes the better word. She says she needs to commit to a word. To know that it is that word and no other, that anything other than the final word she has chosen will weaken her story. Writer Isabelle Huggins in a workshop mentioned that once something wasn't working in a short story. It turned out to be the name of a piece of music. When she changed it, everything else fell in place.

Another writer was talking about his current work. He said he was at the stage when he was going over each sentence to decide whether to change a word here or there, rearrange the order, take out or add a detail.

When we start as writers we are often happy just to get the words on paper. As we learn our craft, we then begin to control our finished projects by realising that we can do without that adjective, we are better to show that action rather than tell about it. At this point, our writing although perhaps still inspired, becomes polished AND inspired. We become more confident that we have truly nailed that phrase rather than doubt our ability. We also develop an instinct of when, where and how our writing can be better.

Writing calls for deliberate and constant decisions not just on what our characters do, say, look like, feel and feel, but the language we use to describe all this. If a journey starts with a single step, a story starts with a word.

Is the color to describe the flower lilac, mauve, lavender, purple? Does the child run, lope, gallop, stumble across the yard? Is anger shown by throwing a vase or dropping it on purpose? Are his eyes guarded, open, laughing, tear-filled? Whenever we choose one over another we have committed an act of language.

Then when we have the right words in the right sequences we further commit ourselves to stacking them together in a way that pulls our readers along with us.

For example think of the following four sentences:

· She was sitting in the chair.

· She sat in the chair.

· She sat in her chair.

· She was rooted to her chair.

The last sentence gives a much stronger image to the reader than the rather mundane first one. Yet there may be a time when we want the mundane. The difference is when we consciously select the right words to create the right tone. That is when we commit acts of language.

I have always proudly told people I am a writer, but now I'm seriously thinking when someone asks me what I do, I will say "I commit acts of language."

EXAMPLES

"When I had written the first draft of Women and Nature, the book had a disorganized quality. I had several small chapters, some a paragraph, some a few pages, and no final sequence for them. And so I put the little pieces all in a logical order, by topic, or chronology or whatever seemed most reasonable. But his order did not 'work'. It was like a well-built bench that had no grace, and so one did not want to sit on it. So I began again putting the pieces together next to one another where the transition seemed wonderful, and that was when the shape of the book began to seem beautiful to me."
Susan Griffin THOUGHTS ON WRITING A DIARY

"…one morning I took my three-hundred page manuscript and began to lay it down on the floor, section by section. I put a two-page scene here, a ten-page sequence there. I put these pages down in a path, from beginning to end, like a horizontal line of dominoes, or like a garden path made of tiles. There were sections up front that clearly belonged in the middle, there were scenes in the last fifty pages that would be wonderful near the beginning, there were scenes and moments scattered throughout that could be collected and rewritten to make a great introduction to the two main characters. I walked up and down the path, moving batches of paper around, paper-clipping self-contained sections and scribbling notes to myself on how to shape or tighten or expand each section in whatever necessary way."
Annie Lamont BIRD BY BIRD

"The great writers keep writing about the cold dark place within, the water under a frozen lake or the secluded, camouflaged hole. The light they shine on this hole, this pit, helps us cut away or step around the brush and brambles; then we can dance around the rim of the abyss, holler into it, measure it, throw rocks in it, and still not fall in. It can no longer swallow us up. And we can get on with things."

EXERCISES

Find a paragraph from some published fiction work of a minimum of 100 words and copy it. Then rewrite it by changing nouns, verbs, etc. Rearrange the sentences to see if it makes more sense.

Take a piece of your writing done as far back as possible. Choose something you were not happy with but didn't throw away. Change the name of your main character. Change sixteen verbs. What does this do the piece? Keep on making small changes. If you have passive sentences, make them active. Or if it is very active, put some things into the passive voice. Rework the order of your paragraphs. Play with the piece and see what each set of changes does to the overall work.

NOTES

Mary Wesley, the English writer who published her first novel at age 70, died at the age of 90. Wesley was passionate about what she did, deliberately sought out friends of all ages, and once said her success was an example of "arrested development." Wesley is a hope to all of us that it is never too late to become successful.

No. 12 The Year in a Life of a Writer

2005-05-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

THEORY

Because I was travelling on assignment from Geneva to Boston, I was given the luxury of business class, something my thrifty New England heart would never allow had I been paying for it. However, I had no problems enjoying the new seats that allow passengers to stretch out completely. Unfortunately, it was a day flight. Sleeping was unnecessary. Movies passed the time. One of the special selections was a documentary about English mystery writer, Minette Walters. I watched every minute trying to glean hints on how to write better.

The documentary covered the year plus Walters spent writing THE SHAPE OF SNAKES. What she talked about can be an example to all writers.

Walters sat at her computer and bragged how she had finished three chapters that day. However, before I could go into a complete funk on my own lack of productivity, another scene had her moaning it had taken her twelve hours to write two sentences. Thank goodness. The woman is human.

When she wrote about a ridge she carefully changed the "ridge" to "spine" and then gloated because "spine" was more picturesque. If we are dealing with serpents it fits. In fact in the book there is a bit more slithering going on than in some of her other books. Whether it is a snake image or another detail, Walters was extremely careful in her selection of each word.

A small English village was the setting for one of her scenes. She visited it to get a feel for the area, and told the viewers that her foreign readers love when she gives a thoroughly English feel to a scene.

Poet Rita Dove said in a "Poet & Writers" interview a few years back reading lets us live other lives. As a reader I'm grateful to Arthur Golden for letting me live as a Geisha or Barbara Kingsolver for sharing a drive to Arizona with her and an Indian foundling. Walters was giving her readers another life, and as writers we should think about creating other worlds for our readers. What may seem mundane to us, can be exotic to others, a lesson I learned at the University of Glamorgan. I had written about a 1950 bomb drill in a grade school as routine. My cohorts, all English, found it fascinating, but couldn't understand why I was intrigued by a Barbara Pym jumble sale.

Walters invited her readers into a lot of other lives, and her research added depth to her writing. Because one of her characters sculpted, Walters visited a stone quarry and from that visit picked up just enough extra details to make her scene more vivid. (see samples)

Later in the year she announced she finally figured out who the murderer was. Hurrah!!!! Despite the school of thought that all details, characters, etc. should be worked out in advance, not everyone does. For those of us who write it as it comes, watching a best-selling writer do it my way felt wonderful, but then we all know that there is more than one way to create. Creating to rigid rules stunts creativity. For all of you who determine all details in advance if it works for you, don't stop. If you don't and feel guilty about it, pack away that guilt.

I was equally cheered when her agent hated part of the book. This isn't because I wish her ill will, but the idea that a best-selling writer could be so challenged was inspiring. We all can be better. Walters had relied heavily on letters and documents as part of the story, which was what her agent wanted taken out. They stayed, but I bet if she were a first-time author she would have lost the battle.

She had her doubts. At one point she sat at her kitchen table and figured she had enough money to quit writing. She wondered why she was putting herself through the torture. The next day she was back at the torture machine, her computer, puffing her cigarette and taping out new text.

There is something comforting in knowing that as writers we all have moments of self-doubt, moments of satisfaction when we nail a phrase, critics, etc. So much of our time is spent alone, but we are not alone in our experiences and in our hope that tomorrow we will get up and the words will flow from our brains to the keyboard exactly as we want them to.

SAMPLES

All samples are from THE SHAPE OF SNAKES

"We heard the sculpture workshop before we saw it. A constant rat-a-tat of hammers on chisels, over laid by a whistle of wind through a polythene canopy, that had been rigged above the sculptures heads. It was a scene of intense industry because everyone was there for a purpose, to learn how to work in three dimensions. White stone chippings littered the ground and a fine white dust clung to arms, hair, clothing like baker's flour.

My last port of call that day was a small 1930s semi in Isleworth with pebble-dashed walls and lattice-style windows.

"You better believe it," I agreed slithering around the bonnet of the car.

The following day I drove my mother to Kimmeridge Bay on the Isle of Purbeck. It was a beautiful summer morning with puffs of white cloud dotted across the sky, and we climbed the cliff path to the Clay Tower on the eastern arm of the bight. Larks sang in the air above us, and the occasional walker passed us by, nodding good day or pausing to look at the bizarre folly behind us that some long-dead person had built as a sentinel to guard the ocean approaches.

EXERCISES

1. Visit some familiar place and try to make a reader from another country feel the place. A New Yorker might chose a Deli, a Swiss might find a café with a fondue specialty, a person in Holland a walk along a canal with or without a windmill in the background. However if you do include a windmill, does it make a sound? Do it in less than four sentences.

2. If you are someone who writes as it comes, try mind mapping the plot for a short story. Mind mapping involves writing a word, circling it, and then letting your mind wander and adding words, connecting them, etc. It might start out as the word tree. You'd write branch, gift, to father, ten years. This might trigger the thought red flannel shirts, jeans, work boots. When you have the details, then list all the habits of your main character. Outline the way the plot flows.

If you are someone who always plots out in advance everything in your story, try to free write. Sit for five minutes and keep writing no matter what. Don't lift the pencil from the paper (or take your fingers from the keyboard). If you can't think of anything keep writing the last word. Just let it flow.

(This is not a suggestion that you change your technique, it is just to stretch your working habits into new areas one time.)

NOTES

Immediately last month after I mailed out my newsletter which contained the suggestion about starting or improving a writing group, I came across this book, WRITING ALONE, WRITING TOGETHER. It's available for $10.47 from www.amazon.com and tells how to maximize the benefits of working in a group.

D-L Nelson is an American who lives and writes in Geneva, Switzerland and Argeles-sur-Mer, France. Her stories and poems have been published in six countries, including being read on BBC World Radio. Her novel, Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook, will be published in February 2003. She works as the Overseas Correspondent for Credit Union Times covering credit union activities around the world and teaches writing at Webster University's Geneva campus.

No. 11 Fighting Discouragement

2005-05-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

THEORY

"What am I doing?" Is there any reader of this newsletter who at one time or another hasn't questioned why they are slaving over a hot computer?

How do you find the strength to keep going when you reread your work and feel it might have been better if you had hit the keys with your feet?

Do you want to give up when your mailbox spits out another rejection?

You forsake an evening with friends because you want to finish a poem or a story only to have someone ask, "How much are you going to make from this?" Do you fantasize strangling the speaker?

Do you wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you can ever say what you want to say, how you want to say it, when you want to say it?

All writers have down moments. Sometimes these last weeks and months. I'm not talking writers block, I'm talking stomach-churning doubt that you will not be good enough. It happens to new writers. It happens to published writers who take too seriously the statement, "you are only as good as your last published piece."

How do we get the courage to keep fighting? With few exceptions we as writers will not experience the financial rewards that many of our societies say is the mark of success. We have to have the courage to set our own benchmark for success that reflects our values and not that of the society around us.

There are two situations for writers. Those who have a supportive environment, be it family members and or other writers or both, have it easier than those surrounded by people who do not understand our need to write.

A fellow writer giving constructive criticism is beyond value. A family that gives you time alone to write, maybe brings you a cup of tea when they feel you need it, is wonderful. I've been lucky on both fronts. Geneva, Switzerland has a supportive writing community with people always willing to critique and share marketing tips. I also have a daughter who encouraged me. When someone asked if she didn't mind all the hours I spent at the computer, she replied, "Are you kidding? If my mother succeeds, it will be my inheritance."

What if there's no writing group near you? Start one. Put up notices on bulletin boards or in local papers. If there is a college nearby see if there is a writing department.

What if you are already in a group, but the participants are back biting, refuse to share, show off, and do not give the feedback you need? Perhaps others feel the same and they would like to change it, too. Get them to discuss what they want from the group and possible ways to get it. One writing group that was clearly dysfunctional switched to the Peter Elbow's method of critiquing
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~writprog/director.html.

Members weren't allowed to criticize negatively. Feedback was given in the form of a metaphor, which stimulated each writer's creativity. The majority of the group functioned better. Two of the worst members, who were always posturing but contributed little, left. If your group can't adapt to being helpful, leave. Constructive criticism is a gift. Destructive criticism is to be avoided. We can create enough doubts on our own without seeking them from others.

If it is family making you doubt yourself, that is harder. Husbands and children may resent the time you are spending. Parents, if they are not readers or writers, won't understand what you are doing. Disowning family, although at times tempting, may not be the best solution. Don't try and make them understand. Write when they aren't around and don't discuss it. It's an old public relations truth not to waste time on those who are negative. Work with those who are positive or at worse neutral.

Writers need encouragement as much as flowers need water. Try and find people to encourage you the same way you search for the right word in a sentence to convey your exact meaning.

And the rejections? Always make sure you have several pieces out. When one comes back, you have the hope that the others might find a home. Then send that one back. I always keep all my work circulating. I usually do major mailings after a particularly painful rejection, and somehow out of those mega attempts my greater successes have come. Remind yourself of all the great writers that have been rejected.

Buy Bill Henderson's PUSHCART’S COMPLETE ROTTEN REVIEWS & REJECTIONS Under the misery loves company school, it is nice to know even the great writers have had their share of rejection. Read Annie Lamont's BIRD BY BIRD.

So many writers I know have started out making all the normal mistakes, too many adverbs, telling not showing, etc. But as they gain experience, their work becomes crisper and cleaner. Some writers, even after their work has been published, still fight doubts. They were accepted in a minor not a major literary magazine, their book didn't sell as much as they hoped. Anyone who is creative enough to write can be creative enough to wallow in self-doubt.

The problem with doubt is that it saps the energy we need to make our work stronger.

Pamela Painter at a writers conference long ago answered a student's question, "How do I know when I am a writer? Do I have to be published?" with "A writer is someone who writes." I would add a writer is someone who tries to write the best s/he can and is constantly looking for better ways to say it.

It was Garfield's creator who gave one bit of advice to cartoonists that we can use as writers. He said to keep trying. If you send out 32 samples of your work and are rejected 32 times send it out again. Maybe the 33nd will say yes and you don't want to miss out.

SAMPLES

Sample 1. Michele Murray CREATING ONESELFS FROM SCRATCH. This is an excerpt from her journal. She died of cancer at 41.

May 25, 1972

I think of abandoning writing - that is abandoning myself - to teach or write for money. After so much? I think it is age, the end - the lingering end - of my youthful dreams and belief in my talent and inviolability…it gets more difficult, more complex-the books make very little money and the work is even more difficult….

May 18, 1973

Good reviews of both my books.

Sample 2. Ingrid Bengis, THE MIDDLE PERIOD

When the thoughts and feelings come over me (and they arrive not infrequently) I am quick to invent a new career for myself: chef, psychotherapist, lobsterfisherwoman, diamond cutter, filmmaker, each of which, from a distance, appears to combine in its own way the intensity and symbolic weight and singularity of being a writer with none of its disadvantages. As a diamond cutter, I am part of a highly specialized working community, involved in the transformation of a lump of matter into an aesthetic object universally recognized for its value. I have a useful, financially stable trade and participate in an activity that engages a broad spectrum of society, from miners to merchants, Hasidim, movie stars, Irish, Puerto Rican, Jewish, and WASP brides, of old moneyed families, and royalty. As a chef and master of culinary aesthetics, I move back and forth between my two preferred environments: the marketplace the kitchen. As a therapist, I work with the same intensity as a writer but deal with the inner lives of others rather than with myself. I see specific results. I am not alone. As a lobsterfisherwoman, I am alone, but nonetheless part of a tight inter-dependent community, daily testing myself against nature in its purest form.

These fantasies have been very important to me, giving me an imaginative freedom that I rarely possess otherwise, providing me with a momentary breath of fresh air, releasing me from the sometimes claustrophobic intensity my own work engenders. But at the moment when it becomes necessary for me to do anything about them, I always balk. For each new imagined career, even as it is stimulating me, is raising a dread spectre as well…that if I become too deeply involved with it, I might stop being a writer. The prospect pitches me headlong into such an acute state of anxiety that I instantly discard all my career fantasies, resolving to protect at all costs the cast inner space in which everything I want to write is obliged to germinate.

EXERCISES

1. List the things about writing that make you feel good.

2. When you find yourself writing a sentence or paragraph that you feel is especially good, print it and put it on your computer to remind yourself, you can do it.

3. Whenever you get an acceptance, a word of encouragement, anything positive put it somewhere you can see it for the times when you aren't as sure.

NOTES

ITo the reader who asked about writing ghost stories here are some sites to look at.

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~agg/ghosts/

The Ghost Story Society The Ghost Story Society P.O. Box 1360 Ashcroft, British Columbia Canada V0K 1A0 Telephone: (250) 453-2045 Fax: (250) 453-2075 E-mail: ashtree@ash-tree.bc.ca About the Ghost Story Society Find out about the GSS, its history, http://www.ash-tree.bc.ca

http://www.visitorinfo.com/ghost/fright.htm

No 10 Chicken/Egg--Writing/Marketing

2005-05-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

THEORY

When we write do we think of where we can sell our work then write it or do we write and then hope we can find a market? The answer can be yes and no to both methods.

It depends on us and the type of writing we do and why.

Poetry: The beautiful poems that have touched me are usually written because the poet had to write them, not that they have found a market and then wrote the poem. Of course, this isn't the case 100%. A poet laureate is asked to create poetry on demand, but we have no poet laureate subscribers (yet). Most literary magazines print poetry and it's a matter of researching the various literary guides, the web or looking at the classifieds in Poets & Writers www.pw.org from the U.S. or Writers News from the UK www.writersnews.co.uk. Other sources are THE POET’S MARKETPLACE, THE DEFINITIVE SOURCEBOOK ON WHERE TO GET YOUR POEMS PUBLISHED; LITERATURE AND THE MARKETPLANCE, ROMANTIC WRITERS AND THEIR AUDIENCES IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.

www.writersweekly.com is a free weekly newsletter giving markets. Benn's www.gospelcom.net/guide/benns.html is used by advertising agencies in helping them set their media budgets but also can help writers find markets. It is costly. Some good libraries may have it. If you have an area of expertise besides writing, it is worth it to get the schedule of a magazine in that field and think of articles that will make the editor want to assign the topic to you.

Fiction: This is the hardest to advise on whether someone should write for the market or write what they feel. Robin Cook's first novel was not a great success. He studied the market and developed the formula for the medical thriller based on criteria for other thriller categories.

On the other hand Frank McCourt wrote ANGELA’S ASHES from the heart. He had tried writing it, but at one point put it aside and then went back to it. When he finally published it memoir was at a peak. I know that's not fiction, but sometimes after we write our work, we hit the "in" form. However, if we try to follow fads, we might spend two years writing a book, only to find the genre has gone out of fashion or changed.

Some of the Asian writers are complaining that they are trapped within their genre of cross-cultural Asian-American writing. As a reader, I would have been really sorry if Amy Tan hadn't written THE BONESETTER’S DAUGHTER but at the same time, how much more would I love another type of novel from her? Probably a lot.

Short stories represent a much less heavy investment than novels in time and energy although some writers spend months getting a short story just right. Canadian writer Isabel Huggan author of THE ELIZABETH STORIES told about being uncomfortable with one of her stories for months and fiddled with it and fiddled with it, until she discovered what was wrong was the music she mentioned. And although there are not a lot of paying markets as there were in the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there are a respectable number of literary magazines, often sponsored by universities where a writer can submit. Again there are a number of directories, plus the web to research potential markets.

However for creative writing the best work is that which passionately engages the author. If we don't care why should any of our readers?

My personal feeling is to divide commercial and creative writing. My news articles are agreed upon in advance. I am lucky enough to have established a good relationship within the credit union industry that provides me with a fairly steady source of work, which I find interesting and enjoyable.

My creative work, however, is based on what my heart wants to write - subjects that I want to examine. The results may or may not be commercial, but I have found that if I do my really best to tell the story, a good amount of my work will find a home. They may be rejected many times, but eventually, someone will see the same thing I saw when I wrote them.

Rejection is a big part of any marketing attempt. Any number of writers says they always circulate more than one submission. Then when a rejection comes in they don't feel that everything is lost. Another says that they always have all their work in circulation, and another package of that same work ready to go when a rejection comes in.

Writers new to marketing often ask about double submissions. There are three schools of thought.

1. No. Editors don't want to go to the work of reading a work that another person might be accepting.

2. Yes. Some magazines/publishers can take years to respond. Some never do. A salesman would never make only one sales call for a product if he wanted to be successful. Get the work out to as many potential buyers as possible.

3. Maybe. Send the work to as many potential markets as you want, but keep track of where you have sent it so you can withdraw it if someone offers to take it. The other is to give a source three months and if you've heard nothing, send it elsewhere. Follow-up letters are seldom successful

One writer friend reports that she devotes one Sunday a month to marketing.

The person who requested this topic stated that making a decision was difficult. Whether on the web or in directory, most magazines give some guidelines. If they say we don't accept science fiction, don't send them a science fiction piece.

Most important send your work out. As a new writer, a publisher will not knock on your door and say, "I heard you were writing a short story (novel, play, song or poem), please give it to me." Once your piece is the best you think it can be, after it is free of typos, after it is on clean paper and double-spaced with proper margins, you need to be aggressive. Get it into the email or snail-mail - over and over until someone says yes. If it is really your best work well written, sooner or later someone will see the merit. While you are waiting get back to your writing. Once it slips into the mailbox or cyberspace, there is nothing more you can do. It's like sending your child off to university. If you have been a good parent, it will succeed in the world.

SAMPLES

"From somewhere in my memory, either amateur hour TV or the boardwalk in Venice, I remember a sideshow act called plate spinning. The object of this entertainment endeavor is to rotate plates balanced on thin wooden dowels. The practitioner gets several pieces of supposedly good china spinning at once and then must quickly move from dowel to dowel, keeping everything spinning and aloft. Particular attention is paid to the plate in the middle of the formation. By virtue of its position, it is the most important of plates. If it goes down, it invariably takes several other plates with it and you have broken china all over the ground and an empty tip bucket.

In my mind I often liken writing a book to spinning plates. There are many, many different things you have to keep up and panning at all times…" (Michael Connelly from WRITING MYSTERIES edited by Sue Grafton. He was talking about plot elements in mystery, but it also applies to what we writers must do to keep our balance between creativity, commercialism and marketing.)

Here's how Maxine Hong Kingston juggles her work.

"I have almost finished my longbook. Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of a the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem. Poets are always happy. I want to be always happy. No plotting and more plots. For the longbook (about the long wars in Vietnam and in the Middle East) I sacrificed time with my child, grown and gone, and my husband and family and friends, who should have been loved more. The long book has got to be done soon, and I'll be free to live. I won't be a workhorse any more; I'll be a skylark. (From TO BE A POET to be published by Harvard University Press this month. The excerpt appeared in the Women's Review of Books in July 2002.)

EXERCISES

1. Set aside one day a month to research markets and after you purchase the relevant directories or find them in libraries, web, and magazines.

2. Have a list of what you've written (or want to write) and compare that to the sources.

3. Develop a database to track what you are doing. This can be done on file cards, databases or on spreadsheets.

NOTES

If anyone wants to share comments , ideas, information about special conferences, retreats, etc. please let me know. We had a great number of letters this month in response to the silence newsletter as well as the letter that inspired this month's topic.

1. Inactivity has forced me to spend time looking for help with my writing from sources other than real live people. I discover that, whereas for academic work, I would have no difficulty, I'm having trouble - not to say that I seem to be paralysed - when faced with doing a market study on the web. I have found a couple of interesting e-zines, but seem unable to analyse what I'm looking at in such a way as to determine whether : what I write will interest the editor, or whether (how) I might adapt my idea so that it is likely to interest him/her.

Apart from word count, and general style (more or less narrative, more or less dialogue ...), I don't really know what sorts of things I should focus on. At the moment, I'm not bothered about being paid. Just getting something into print would be nice. So, I was wondering whether you have thought of giving help with this sort of thing in Wise Words on Writing? If you can help, that would be great. Thanks. And if you can't, thanks anyway for taking the time to read this.

2. . I am rather old, but at this point my ambition for writing is to get to know myself better and to put my history of a feeling life into a concrete form so that I can examine it.

My "real" life with my family, husband, work, chores, travels, and household moves keeps me from writing more.

I write a little and still have hope to write more. But when is a question that can't be answered yet. Thanks again for the newsletter about this problem!

3. Thank you for the inspiring message and technique. This is just what I needed. Your writing reminded me I'm not alone and to keep the focus where it belongs.

4. Thanks for this great message. I have on many occasions gone to cafes where I thought I'd be able to sit quietly and write. But the silence, and concentration, are shattered by the constant din of tinny music, and by the sense that they want the chairs revolving with new customers. So, one continually looks for a quiet place, particularly when you want to get out of the apartment for a while. It would be so great to find writing cafes, where there is a bit of silence, but not solitude. It is also good to know that the classic writers went through self-doubt. This is very helpful, and comforting.

5. I sat in my peaceful kitchen at 6:30 am last week - by 7:45 am the dog had ripped the curtains, the washing machine had flooded (twice), and the cat had brought in a huge frog. I remember thinking 'I bet Jane Austin didn't have to deal with this!' On the other hand, it's something to write about...I look forward to your letters each month, especially as we are starting a new evening writers' group in October. I wonder if you could incorporate any tips about writing ghost stories for our winter gatherings? (By the way, I rescued Froggy)