My 25 Most Influential Writers

Jennifer tagged me to list my 25 most influential authors. I really like doing this because it lets me honor wonderful writers, and it allows me to share a bit about myself. I placed the writers into categories and ordered the categories based on their personal significance to me.

Put simply, these writers helped me in every way:

1. Leo Tolstoy

2. William Shakespeare

3. The collective writers of the Old Testament

These writers taught me that I could express the darker side of my emotions:

4. William Faulkner

5. Yasunari Kawabata

6. Cormac McCarthy

These writers influenced the way I create characters:

7. Gunter Grass

8. Jonathan Safran Foer

9. Homer

These writers influenced my writing style and voice

10. Chaim Potok

11. Maya Angelou

12. Kathy Fish

13. Jhumpa Lahiri

These writers gave me permissions to access the thoughts of my characters and freed me from the "show don't tell" rule:

14. Virginia Woolf (almost in the first category)

15. Fyodor Dostoevsky

These writers taught me how to express my own experience of the world through detail and description:

16. Marcel Proust

17. F. Scott Fitzgerald

18. John Updike

These writers taught me about story construction:

19. Dante Alighieri

20. Banana Yoshimoto

21. Alice Munro

These writers remind me to be inventive:

22. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

23. Kuzhali Manickavel

24. Don Delillo

This writer taught me how to evaluate writing:

25. Harold Bloom

I've love to see anyone else's list! I find this quite fascinating.

Oh, no you didn't. Writing in the negative.

Writing in the negative involves using words that emphasize what isn't there instead of what is.

Virginia didn't know what to do. The man with the gun didn't see her, but she didn't think she could escape without him hearing her footsteps. No one came to her rescue.

I've been warned against using negative writing because the story ends up not being about anything specific. The top paragraph, people argue, doesn't allow for the creation of tangible objects (except the gun). Intead, I could write:

Virginia tried to come up with a plan. The man with the gun had his back to her, but she knew that if she tried to escape he would hear her footsteps. She waited for someone to come and help her, but the only thing coming through the doorway was the sound of the traffic.

Writing in the affirmative forces you to imagine more details that help the reader to better experience a scene. I agree with this most of the time. The revised paragraph, for example, allows me to be clearer about the gunman's position in relation to Virginia. He has his back to her. The last sentence also creates a slightly better sense of scene. We know there is a door leading outside. We know there are cars somewhere close by.

But, what about the first sentence? Is there a difference between them, or do they conjure up the same idea and create the same experience for the reader?

I once had a story where a boy was talking on the phone to a girl. He upset her during their conversation, and for her response I wrote that, "He couldn't hear a sound on the other end of the line." I was persuaded into revising it, which resulted in something like, "All he could hear were the sprinklers from her yard coming through the telephone line." This new sentence required more creativity and allowed the reader to experience more, but at the same time I felt how difficult it was for me to come up with that detail. I had to really strain to imagine what someone could hear on a phone when the person on the line wasn't speaking. It may have entertained, but it didn't feel natural or authentic. Was it better? I'm still undecided.

If you want to avoid negatives, you should remove all of the sentences like:

No one said a word.
They didn't move.
She didn't know what to do.
I couldn't help it.
Carly hadn't arrived yet.
Isidoro didn't win the race.

But, sometimes I think these sentences feel completely natural and maybe they aren't so problematic after all. I end up using nagatives in my writing still, but I stop to think of my alternatives before I make any final decisions. How do you all feel about it?

Defensive Writing And Your Unique Voice

From the age of fifteen to about twenty-eight, I was obsessed with the idea of originality, which to me translated as style (when I was painting) or voice (when I was writing). Now that I feel more confident as a writer, I worry less about being original--I just try to write what I want to write. The cool part is that, I think the less we try to be original, the more original we become.

Yesterday I talked about not trying, the idea that if you just relax and approach writing naturally, you will end up using your own voice. Today, I'm discussing something similar, but it is a distinct strategy in my mind. This is the idea of writing defensively, which is not as bad as it sounds.

It's hard to write a perfect paragraph, never mind using the perfect voice. Your first drafts might have too much telling, or not enough telling. It might have too much description, or not enough description, etc. As you revise, you try to balance these things out. You try to use language that doesn't sound too vague or too formal. You try to make the dialog sound more natural, or more funny, or more whatever. The idea is that you try to fix all these things that are broken with your earlier draft. You don't have time to worry about using any sort of voice; you're really just trying not to sound like a stupid loser. (My language seems to have become more crude. I blame it on writer Scott G. F. Bailey, who made me start my Tuesday morning with the word bitchcakes.)

Anyway, as you are just trying your best to cobble together that most primitive of competent stories, your unique voice naturally emerges as a consequence of trying not to do anything wrong. Everyone has their own idea of what is ideal. I have a concept of how much description I like in a story that may be different, even if just by 0.0002675% from the next writer. Given all the different elements that make up voice, the likelihood of any two people having the same combination of preferences for all of these elements is tiny, probably 0. (Ever notice how no two people give you the same critique?) Just fix what's broken and, voila, you have a voice!

So, I guess I see today's idea working with yesterday's idea this way: First, you start a story by trying to free yourself of all those other influences you admire. You don't try to copy anyone or build off of anyone. You just be yourself. Then, as you revise, you strive to fix all those things that you find wrong with your writing. As a result, you end up with that rare combination of technical elements that only you think is perfect. Thus, without trying to have a unique voice, you end up having a unique voice.

More and more I read about how important voice is to agents and publishers. I'm not sure if what I'm advocating is in line with them. For me, as someone who usually writes in third person, the voice I'm seeking is the narrator's voice, which more often than not is what I consider MY voice. I think a lot of times agents are looking for character voices, either from narrator characters or from the characters in the story, such as when something is told in first person. I think this sort of voice has an extra step in that the writer must be able to step into that character before speaking. But, once you are there, then I would guess that it's again a matter of relaxing and trying to write as naturally as possible from that different point of view. I've only done this a few times, but that has been my experience.

Finding A Unique Voice: The Path Of Least Resistance

I constantly struggle with developing my unique voice. Ever since I was young, this was something I personally found to be important. Loving Yasunari Kawabata and Leo Tolstoy, I couldn't decide which voice was my favorite. So, I wanted my voice to be a combination of all the great writers I encountered, and usually I accomplished nothing because I didn't even know where to start.

Only recently did I come to understand that these writers were not opposites of each other. Great writers cannot be placed on two ends of the same spectrum. Sure, if you focus on a particular element, they may appear to be that way. But, each writer is unique, like a point on a star, or a branch on a phylogenetic tree. They may originate from a common source, but they evolve and move in their own direction. It was this realization that helped me to recognize my own voice.

Voice, for me, is a combination of every technical component of writing. Voice includes vocabulary, sentence construction, rhythm, metaphor usage, punctuation, pacing, length, perspective, point of view, and many other components. For every page we write, we make hundreds of small decisions that affect our voice. With all of these decisions, it's impossible to create anything that is a successful compromise of previously written work.

Now, while I think it's important to study the writing of others, whenever I try to consciously use a technique I've learned from someone else, I feel myself being pulled away from my own sincere thoughts. If I study a writer to find out how they transition from scene to scene, then I learn how they transition from scene to scene, not how life transitions. If I study how someone creates dialog, then I learn how they create dialog, not how dialog really sounds. Every attempt to use someone else's technique suddenly makes me use a different part of my brain and less of my heart. It feels like study rather than play. It feels like resistance.

For me, finding my own voice is a matter of following the path of least resistance. Whenever someone else's book changes my style, I become a follower of that book and its writer. A book that tries to be the next Anna Karenina may always be inferior to the original. It may be limited. Its glory, if it finds any, may have a lifespan. The components of that writing that will be unique will probably only exist between those followed elements in the story--maybe even only in the places where the writer has failed to follow accurately.* On the other hand, a book that tries to be itself will be harder to compare to anything before it, and, thus, harder to make inferior.

I'm sure that I will always flip through the pages of great books as I'm writing, but I find myself trying harder and harder to invent my own technique and let my writing flow out of me as resistance-free as possible. The better I get at writing, the more I realize the importance of not forcing myself to sound like anything at all. When I can no longer hear my voice because it is so perfectly tailored to me, that's probably when I'll have created something truly unique for the first time.

*This week I'm planning at least three posts about voice. And, as the opinions I'm expressing are not all my own, they will contradict each other. The failure that I mention here will come up in a more positive light later.

Revising My First Chapter

Early this week I had the chance to visit the surprisingly humble grave of my Broccoli Writer. Even just thinking of him cleaned up some of my recent prose. Sadly, I was not the one to give him the flowers or to write him a nice French note you can glimpse on the right border of this shot.

I really appreciate all of the comments you left me last week regarding my novel opening. Honestly, you gave me a lot to think about.

I haven't quite settled on the opening yet, but I wrote a new version of it. My book has two story lines, one when the protagonist, Bao, is a man and one when he is a boy. I had always started the book with him as a man, but I thought it could work to have the first chapter be about boyhood, about the last day when Bao and his brother Daeng (the antagonist) got along with each other.

Here's my original opening paragraph:

A gunshot roars through the Chiang Mai bungalow. The flash of light catches Daeng Phamduong's smug, fat face. He tumbles out of his teak recliner, making it skid across the polished floorboards. He has been hit in the side. He tries to cover the gash with one of his meaty hands, but the blood comes out between his fingers. A lung has been punctured. Its collapse is like a knot, massive and tightening, in his chest.

Here's my new trial paragraph:

The dirt is perfect. A light powder blankets more densely-packed soil underneath. It stays settled down, even when the boys jump on it to feel for its spring. They are poor boys in this fishing town of Ra-nong. Their feet are bare. Their T-shirts are thin. The soccer ball is worn to the threads.

I haven't made any final decisions. The original paragraph sets up a pattern of violence that will come up again twice in the book. It's one slice of bread in a violence sandwich.

The new paragraph gives a better sense of the general tone of the book, so it might help to orient readers sooner. The new paragraph also allows some of Bao's happier moments to come out before his life goes downhill, which is the rest of the book.

P.S. Feel free to post your own writing samples in the comments at any time. If anyone wants to submit a sample with a question as a main post for discussion, let me know. I think it would be great to use the blog as a workshop space.

SmokeLong and the Merits of Online Publishing

Some of you may know that I'm a staff editor for an online magazine called SmokeLong Quarterly. The weird name comes from an old Chinese term used to describe short short stories (under 1000 words) that can be finished during a cigarette break. A couple of my stories had been requested by them a few years ago, and last year, as a result, they asked if I would join the team and help them sort through the hundreds of submissions they get every week.

Our latest version just came out yesterday, so I wanted to give a little plug. But, I also wanted to talk about the merits of online publishing. Agents and grants will often give less value to stories that have been published online. For one thing, online magazines have more space for less money, so technically they don't have to be as selective. Online magazines are also newer, so they have not had the chance to build a reputation yet.

But, online publication has its advantages. I was skeptical at first. As soon as my story came out, though, I was really surprised by how valuable this publication was. Agents may only be looking at big print names like Ploughshares, Manoa, or Zoetrope: All-Story, but the average person is more likely to learn more about you from the internet. When my story was published, within weeks it was the top hit you got when you Googled my name, swamping out the records from my previous five years of scientific research. As a result, two blogs ended up liking the story and posted links to it on their blogs. These were people I didn't know, so they were helping to get my name out into the world without my having to ask them. In 2008, SmokeLong got over one million hits on the internet, with nearly 90,000 unique viewers. That's a lot of readers.

Nowadays, I think online publishing is getting more respect as some publications have been around for a few years. SmokeLong is going on six, and there are other publications that I really admire like FriGG and Noo Journal. These places have editors that usually volunteer their time (like me) and who write themselves. They tend to take care in their readings and, because they make no money, they are doing it to help promote writers. SmokeLong reviews everything anonymously and several editors read through the story before almost all decisions are made. We also interview every writer who gets published in each issue. It's some nice exposure.

Of course, it's important--if you are trying to publish through mainstream publishers--to also get the agent. For me, I work on having stories that will help my query letter look good and stories that will be read by as many people as possible. That means publishing both online and in print.

Serve The Crab In Its Shell

I recently went to the Palais Garnier and saw a ballet choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj. (Check out the video clip in this link to see the most passionate ballet kiss ever.) I enjoyed the entire evening, which had a mix of traditional sections along with darker sections starring the ominous "gardeners." There was only one dance in the middle of the show that I found to be particularly boring. The women were dead and dressed in black and slowly rolling around on the floor. It brought up a concept I have in storytelling that is not very well favored by other writers I know. I argue that, in order to make a reader (or viewer or listener) feel satisfied, one often needs to include a boring center section. The crab only tastes good if you have to dig it out of its shell.

The knee jerk reaction that most writers will say is no. They'll argue that nothing in your story should be boring. Even if you slow the pace, it has to remain interesting and engaging. Everything has to be good. But is that really true?

In everything I have experienced that I find satisfying: earning my Ph.D., hiking Mt. Whitney, finishing my first novel, everything has had its tedious middle section, that horrible time when you think the goal is impossible to reach, when you consider giving up. I'd argue that without those bad times, the good feeling I got upon finishing wouldn't have been so good.

Reading a book, at least for me, brings about a sense of satisfaction. I'm always just a little proud of myself when I make it from front cover to back cover, even for a short book. The task seems even more worthwhile if there was a section in a good book that I found to be particularly slow. And, if you have other friends who have also read the book, isn't that difficult section the one that you end up discussing the most? "I loved the beginning and the end, but, dude, those hundred pages about horse genealogy really dragged" (wink, wink).

Notice I'm actually talking about bad, boring writing. I'm not talking about well-written slow scenes that balance out fast-paced action scenes. We'd probably never intentionally put boring sections into our own stories, but chances are, at least in the first draft, there's already something in the middle of the story that could use a little sparkle. What if we ended up leaving that dud section alone? Does it give the reader that feeling of accomplishment when they get past it? Does it maybe enhance the rest of the book by setting up a contrast and allowing the reader to realize how hard the task of writing actually is? I'm guessing writers will never strive to keep anything in the book that they find bad, but I'm saying maybe bad isn't such a bad thing, served in small portions.

The Sentence Cult

In Brian Reynold Myers' article "A Reader's Manifesto", Myer's criticizes the prose style and insight of writers such as Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, and Don Delillo. He says "literary fiction" has such a bad reputation because readers are only exposed to mediocre modern literary fiction promoted by what he calls "the sentence cult".

Myers argues that modern literary fiction is a term used to describe writing that is slow-paced and often adorned with decorative language. This style of writing gives readers the impression that they are reading something above them that must be admired. It allows the members of the sentence cult to praise a book by pointing to a single sentence rather than making the effort to criticize the story as a whole, including the insight, the plot, and the characters -- all of which are lacking in modern work. Classic literary writers such as Tolstoy (Myer's example, not mine!) strive for clear language, simple story-telling and depend on depth of character and insight to make their work great. And, because they think of their story as a whole, it's harder to point out a sentence or paragraph that makes them great writers.

I agreed with a lot of his points, and I know a lot of you readers also dislike literary fiction. I'm wondering if you agree that there is a difference between modern literary fiction and classic time-tested literary fiction -- for those of you who have read both. And, how do you feel about writerly writing? If you say you hate it, are you successful in avoiding it in your own work?

Who Do You Write For?

Most people think about their writing as a way to communicate. So, as we're writing, we must have some sort of reader in mind. Maybe this is your "target audience" when you think about publishing your book. Or maybe -- a mindset that I advocate and try to preserve -- the person you are writing for is yourself. No matter who this reader is, it's a good idea to recognize the reader you have created for yourself and to figure out how anticipating that reader affects your writing.

Mary Yukari Waters once told me that her ideal reader is herself...but not exactly herself. She said she imagines a better form of who she is, a copy of Mary that is cooler, smarter, funnier, deeper, and superior to her in every way. She writes for that better person in the hopes that, when all is said and done, her own imperfection in her craft will result in a piece of writing that is perfectly suited for her. Other writers may have a broader audience in mind. For lack of a more personal example, a man who writes scientific stories for lay people has to keep in mind that not everyone understands the fertilization process of a sea urchin, even if the writer himself knows it like the back of his latex-gloved hand. That writer cannot simply focus on self-indulgence.

When I think deeply about this (and it does take some effort), I realize that I have two types of readers in mind. The first group is a bunch of highly intelligent, no nonsense people. The type of people that refuse to let you get away with any BS. Maybe it's best to call them critics. I see them as knowing more about my subject matter than I do, more about people than I do, and more about emotions than I do. They're waiting to judge me and bring up any flaw in my writing. My second reader is myself in the future. I realize that a lot of what I do is determined by my fear of embarrassing myself down the line. An early story that I got published online was called "Maya's Secret Flavors." Just writing about it now makes me break out into a cold sweat. It's about a college student, Maya, who has an affair with an older man only to find out that he's married. As a result, she ends up throwing herself at a younger, more innocent guy and ruining her reputation in her own eyes. I'm actually fine with all that. The clencher, the part I'm embarrassed about, is that the entire story had this extended metaphor that compared her heart to a lump of cheese that was left in the sun. Ugh. I was so happy when the journal collapsed and my story was no longer floating around in the world. Or maybe it's still out there.

I don't think that the readers I have in mind are ideal. They may not even be healthy. But this is who floats around behind my computer screen as I write. As a result, I think I push myself harder to find the real emotions in my characters and to do the proper research on my subject matter. On the downside, these mental readers also make me feel defensive, and that may be limiting my creativity. So, I have to remember that whenever I am being too safe in my writing.

Who are the readers you have in your head when you write? How do they affect what you create?

And, if you don't have a reader, keep in mind that your best work probably results from writing what you want to read rather than writing what you want to write.

The Problem With My Novel Opening

Since a bunch of you counted your suddenlys yesterday, I was reminded of a nice tool available online. It's called Wordle. You paste your manuscript into this program and it gives you a nice list of all the words you use and how many times you use them. It also gives you a really nice pictorial diagram that emphasizes your most used words. Not only is it pretty, but it's quite useful. When I put in my novel, the top three words I used were the names of the three main characters in my book in the order that I would have predicted, which was nice to know. I also saw that some other words I used a lot were the other characters' names, the word "hands" came up, the word "back" came up -- which is appropriate since the book explores returning to the past, and the word "something" came up, which let me know that I had some imprecise language. Thankfully, there weren't too many of those and I was able to change a bunch of them. So go get your Wordle on!

On the publishing front, I have been working on revising the first chapter of my novel. Here is the dilemma I face. I'd love to get your opinions on it.

My book is about a man, Bao Phamduong, who ran away from his hometown of Ra-nong, Thailand to escape from his abusive brother, Daeng. Twenty years later, Daeng is killed and Bao goes back to Ra-nong to try and reunite with the family he left behind. His brings his wife and son, both of whom have their own histories and conflicts.

(I tell the story through alternating past and present chapters. I use a third person point of view where I allow myself to go into the heads of Bao, his wife, and his son.)

I originally started the story from the moment when Bao got the news that his brother was dead. It was sort of boring -- phone call, internal struggle. Then, one night I wrote a chapter in which Daeng's killing is actually shown. It gives an initial glimpse of the antagonist of the story right before he dies. It's sort of his one chance to defend himself for the reader. Here's my problem. I've let about twelve people read most or all of the book, and all of those people say to keep the first chapter the way it is. I've let about ten people read just the first few pages, and some of those people say the first chapter is misleading because it seems to be about Daeng rather than Bao, and because it sets up a tone that this book will be violent and graphic, which it isn't. So, while I like the book as a whole the way it is, I'm worried that the first chapter will turn off too many readers, including agents who request small partials, such as the first five pages. Does anyone have any thoughts on what you would do in this situation?

Something Suddenly Came Up

"Suddenly" has become a dreaded word among writers. It's use, we're told, almost always seems to fail its purpose of creating that feeling of...of...of...something happening without warning, or happening abruptly -- which is its definition.

The clock repair man took out his handkerchief and wiped the grease off the first of twelve large Roman numerals. Suddenly, the bell chimed and the man lost his footing, dropping twenty feet before his hood was hooked by the ever-turning second hand.

No! we're told. "Suddenly" takes out the suddenness of an action scene. It's best just to say it without.

The clock repair man took out his handkerchief and wiped the grease off the first of twelve large Roman numerals. The bell chimed and the man lost his footing, dropping twenty feet before his hood was hooked by the ever-turning second hand.

This version is supposed to be better. It shows the mark of a sophisticated writer. Isn't that the case? Whenever I come across a scene like this, where a sudden action happens without the use of the word "suddenly" I think to myself, Yes, this is a sophisticated writer. And, briefly, before continuing on with the story, I imagine that sophisticated writer sitting in a burgundy chair, surrounded by tapestries and tea cups and looking quite intelligent.

I agree that "suddenly" often doesn't work in an action scene. But -- and I may well be alone in this -- when I'm most honest with myself and most sensitive to my reading, the alternative of NOT using "suddenly" is equally problematic. Action does actually come at different paces. Some things happen suddenly. To deny that becomes nothing more than a writer showing off how well-trained he or she is. Not using "suddenly" suddenly becomes a sure way of becoming self-conscious, of showing off fake sophistication. Same thing with exclamation points. Never use exclamation points! It's amateur! Good writers will use the context of the story, the language to show their excitement. To me, this restraint often results in writing that feels cordial, robotic, and cold. Not my ideal lover.

I think in some ways, the art of writing good action scenes has been badly damaged by all of the restraining orders that have been put on writers. Don't describe in action scenes. Keep the pacing fast. Use incomplete sentences. No exclamation points. No using the word "suddenly." Many, if not all, of these rules make a lot of sense and should be considered when writing an action scene. But, perhaps the best advice when writing an action scene is to loosen up and try it your own way. As with all rules, following them too rigidly makes us forget their original intent, and we become blind to the occasions for breaking them.

Fight Scenes and Sex Scenes: It All Goes Back To The Details

Some of the most exciting scenes in a book, any book, occur when characters surrender their normal rules of civility and act on a more primal level. Some of these scenes are so memorable for me that I can write an autobiography based on when I encountered them. I was in my dorm room bed at UC Davis when I read about Shingo Ogata lusting over his daughter-in-law, Kikuko. I was in a Brazilian hotel room, surrounded by muddy geologists inside and prostitutes outside when I read about Rabbit Angstrom coming home to encounter his wife and son after having left them for several weeks. And, I was in a refrigerated room of the UCLA biochemistry building, purifying an enzyme, when I read the scene in The Road where the father and son open a hatch in the floor of a house and go into a basement only to discover...

Action scenes that reveal the most about individual human nature are some of the hardest things to write about. How often have we been tempted to skip over their details when we include them in our stories?

They looked longingly into each other's eyes. The next day, Tina felt embarrassed by how she had behaved in bed.

or

Peter inflated his chest and asked Hugh to step outside with him. The fight lasted all of two minutes and then Peter was lying on the ground.

In a way, skipping over the details seems justified. We writers don't want to get our fingers dirty. We don't want to expose our readers to any sort of discomfort. Or, as people have mentioned in comments on this blog, we don't want to bore our readers with the nitty gritty details. But, at least for me, one of the best reasons to read is that I am allowed to witness some of the most private fantasies and some of the most desperate times for characters. Whether literary or not, I appreciate when an author makes the effort to imagine important action scenes in such detail that they (and I) are able to experience these scenes vividly and entirely.

I have a fight scene in my novel. A teenager is tied up and forced to confront a fighting rooster. My first attempts to write this scene involved me summarizing some of the graphic details. My excuse was that I didn't want my story to suddenly fall into an action genre. But, the real reason was that I didn't want to take the massive amount of time and energy that was required to really think out every twist and turn of the scene until I knew exactly what happened. Eventually, though, I did it. I wrote it out detail by detail, action after action. I was not trying to make my details serve more than one purpose. I was not trying to include symbols or character revelations beyond what was revealed by the fight. If anything, this scene is one of the more "shallow" description scenes I have, only because my sole intention was to see as much of what happened as I could, and I didn't worry about being boring.

When I read it out to my writer's group, my friend Norm said something like, "I feel like I'm reading a real book." It was a very new experience for me. For the first time I realized that emotion and depth were not the only things worth sharing. Action can reveal the most powerful elements of human nature, and they deserve to be written thoroughly and precisely, often with a lot of detail.

Reversible and Irreversible Actions

Sit in a half-lotus position and close your eyes. Imagine your characters in their current states in the beginning of your scene, whatever scene you happen to be working on. Imagine where your characters are on their journey, both physically and mentally. Inhale. Exhale.

When thinking about our characters' actions, we need to understand the concept of reversible versus irreversible actions.

Reversible actions are those things that a character does in a scene that are not important enough to transport them to a different state by the end of a scene. For example, suppose your character, Stella, is on a journey to climb the Matterhorn. She's been at it for three days, and on the fourth day she drops her pack ten feet down and has to back track to get it. She does so, and a moment later, she is back where she started and ready to start her climb again. This little blip on her way is probably not enough to make or break her will. At best it was an inconvenience that is probably forgotten by the next page if not sooner. The action that she did, dropping her pack, was reversible, and she is back on course again.

In an irreversible action, the character is transported to a different state after the action has taken place. Stella is climbing the Matterhorn. On the fourth day, she drops her pack in a deep crevice. All of her food is now out of reach. Her climbing partner, Rodrigo, is looking pretty tasty. Here, we see that the action of her dropping the pack has changed her state. The stakes are higher. She's going to go hungry. She's closer to eating Rodrigo. The plot has progressed toward the conclusion of whether or not Stella makes it to the top (and back down).

Keep in mind that the irreversible action can be psychological. Your character can make a decision. Your character can come to a realization. Both of those things are valid and irreversible. Remember the first time you encountered heartbreak? Or death? Doesn't that change your life in an irreversible way? If Stella only dropped her pack ten feet and that somehow convinced her that she was not going to make the journey after all, then that act could be considered irreversible -- although, technically, I guess it's the realization that is the irreversible act, not the dropping of the pack.

In general, while reversible actions may be true to life, if you want to write a focused story where the action is continually progressing toward the climax of your story, every scene should have at least one irreversible action. Every scene should end with your character being in a different state than they were in at the start of the scene. If they only do reversible actions -- breaking up with their lover only to make up with them again -- they are not climbing that unavoidable slope up to the climax of your story. If a scene only has a character doing a reversible action, chances are, that scene can be cut.

Sign Me Up For The Decathlon -- with a brief digression on short story submissions

Last week a few of you stressed the importance of action and plot in stories. Agreed! The longer I write, the more I see how essential a great plot is and how entertaining and gripping some good action can be. I've spent almost all of the last few years submerged in classic literature, and while some of it is drenched with action (e.g. The Iliad), some of it is not (e.g. To The Lighthouse).

I want to kick off Action Week with a rant about the distinction between a plot-driven story and a character-driven story.

In all of my writing classes, in all of my readings of great writers giving out their opinions, people almost always say, "Start with character." But, when I read some of the stories that are really popular these days, many of them don't have characters that blow me away. I recently read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and After Dark by Haruki Murakami, and I'm currently in the middle of Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. All of those books were compelling and have exciting plots with twists and turns -- I could see why people liked them and I'm enjoying them myself. The characters in those books were perfectly fine, but none of them were as fascinating as, say, Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. So, are they somehow worse books for being so? My answer is, not necessarily, and one can't necessarily judge the talent of a writer based on this criteria.

So, while the rule of starting with character is a good one, I've decided to abandon it. I still want to craft the best characters I possibly can. But, I'm deciding that I will let my inspiration come from different areas, whether it be character or plot or setting or the small crocheted finger-puppet that caught my eye in a store window. The fact is, your inspiration can start from anywhere and your job, as a writer, is to flesh out that idea until the other components of the story are equally developed.

Along with that, I'm also deciding to leave the camp of people who defend themselves by saying that they write character-driven work. That's a hard group for me to leave because the members sort of held themselves above the other "Plotters", those vagabonds that only cared about entertaining people. (Who wants to entertain? We're making art!!!)

So, instead of identifying myself as preferring character-driven work versus plot-driven work, I'm going to strive to bring them both up to the same level, so that these elements marry and propel each other. Maybe we're being too easy on ourselves when we are choosing one element over another. Maybe, as writers, our event should be the decathlon instead of any of the individual events alone.

It's great to write an entertaining story. It's great to write one with depth. What if we as writers strove to do it all? And, with people out there like Lady Glamis, I know I'm not alone in this opinion. So, while I have eschewed action in the past, I'm embracing it now. Bring on the war paint and the army of dogs, I'm ready to make something happen!

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Ahem.

A Short Story Submission Digression.

On Friday Justus asked for some tips to submitting short stories to literary magazines. I didn't want to put that off, so I'll mention a few tips here.

Literary magazines are great because they are often run by people who make no money who just enjoy showcasing the hard work of writers. I'm a staff editor for one, and trust me, I'm making no money and expending a lot of energy. You can find a database of them at Duotrope and other places. Specify your genre before searching to narrow down the field. If you're using literary magazines to help you get your novel published, then you will want to try and get into more popular places, such as the New Yorker or Ploughshares or Glimmer Train or Zoetrope: All Story or Manoa. These are not easy to get into, but once you do, you'll often have agents coming after you instead of vice versa.

Once you have picked some journals to submit to, go to their website and find their "Submission Guidelines." Sometimes this will be in a "Submit" link, but the more popular magazines will hide it a bit because they get so overwhelmed, so check out "Contact Us" or other tabs. In the guidelines, you want to find out how they want to receive your work (hard copy or email or whatever) and the approximate word count of the stories they publish and what times of the year they receive submissions. Basically, just follow the directions. You also want to find out the name of the Fiction Editor of the journal. Don't address stories to "Editor" if you can avoid it. Be personal so that they know you care about their journal.

Once you know all there is to know about the journal you are interested in, you want to write a cover letter. This is not a query letter. This is a very brief letter that accompanies your short story, along with an SASE if they ask for it.

The letter should say something like:

Dear (Name of Editor),

Enclosed is my short story, "(Name of story)" for your consideration. My work has previously been published in (list other fiction publication bylines you have, if any. If you don't have any, leave this out).

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Davin Malasarn



It seems too simple, but this is the generally accepted format, so use it if you want to blend in. The goal of the letter is to have it be ignored so that the editor pays attention to your story.

So, then you are ready to submit the story. If it's electronic, find out whether they want the story as an attachment or whether they want it in the body of the email. If they want a hard copy, mail the story in a large envelope. Don't fold it. Don't staple your pages together unless they ask you to. Include the SASE with proper postage.

Once you have submitted a story, wait. Don't bother the same journal again until they get back to you. Some of them can take months. I often send the same story to multiple journals since they usually get rejected and I don't want to wait eight years to publish a story. Journals will specify if they allow this "simultaneous submission." Some don't. I tend to ignore the ones that don't because I think that's inconsiderate.

Once they have reviewed the story, you are going to get one of three results. One, you will get a form rejection. Fine, don't worry about it. Don't let it get to you. Two, you will get a personal rejection, which means that you got REALLY close to getting in. My journal gets hundreds of submissions a month and we write, perhaps ten personal rejections a year. Three, you'll be accepted. Congratulations!

My Publishing Journey

This weekly update on my own publishing attempt is seeming a little too quiet, so I'll start with someone else's GREAT news. One of our fellow blogging buddies just got a great agent yesterday! I don't want to give away anyone's name in case she or he prefers to keep it private, but keep your eyes open for an official announcement of the good news!

In my own world, I've been back to concentrating on the writing. Writing. One of my goals is to try and get into some better-known literary journals like McSweeney's or Zoetrope: All Story or Glimmer Train or that one magazine whose name I'm almost too scared to mention for fear that people will think I'm an idiot for even trying...The New Yorker. The fact is, yes, maybe I'm an idiot, but I'll never know unless I try and I shouldn't be ashamed of trying.

So, this last week I worked hard to finish the first draft of a personal short story I've had hanging around for two or three years. It's just an early draft, but I decided to let two of my friends read it. The results were lukewarm. But, I'm planning to revise it and flesh out one of the characters, and then I'll have to see if it stirs up some more excitement. I also finished the first draft of another short story based on a Mormon father who abandons his family but still wants to have a relationship with only his youngest son. I'm excited about this one because it feels new, it feels quirky, and I love the exploration of this strange behavior -- it's based on a true story.

Regarding my novel, I'm revising the first two chapters. I've been told that they are the weakest in the book, and I realize in my own mind that I'm not completely in love with them either. I kind of took a break in February, thinking that the novel was done. But, I have some renewed energy, so I saved the old draft and am playing around to see if I like the new one.

I'm writing and I'm blogging and critiquing and reading. Nothing on the query front for me so far. I'm realizing how much time everything is taking. After getting home from my job, I only have a few hours to critique or read or write or get out on cyberspace and find other writers. How does everyone handle it? What component of writing do you spend the most time on? What component of writing do you think you SHOULD spend the most time on?

I loved our discussion this week on description. Next week, I'm going to start a few talks on the action of stories to see what ideas we can come up with!

Revise Boring Descriptions

This post is in response to Lady Glamis's request for ways to avoid detail dumps in your writing. Detail dumps are those long descriptions that tend to intimidate or bore or infuriate most readers. (The comments in the last few posts definitely agree with this conclusion.)

In a detail dump, a reader feels like they are being stalled or overloaded with unimportant information. They want to skip ahead to the action or movement in the story. Sometimes they DO skip ahead. So, what can we do to make sure that we give out information in an interesting way?

I'm turning back to a lesson I learned from the wonderful writer, Mary Yukari Waters. She was also the one who got me to rethink the show-don't-tell rule. Keep in mind that this tip applies more to getting readers than to getting in touch with your own personal preferences. This is a tool for how you can improve your chances of connecting with strangers (such as agents) as they read through your manuscript. In other words, this may not be important to you.

Mary didn't directly address detail dumps, but she provided a tool to avoid what she called "skim-worthy prose." When writing prose, we have the goal of giving out information along with moving the story along. To keep the prose interesting for as many readers as possible, a writer must make sure the prose is doing as many different things as possible. The more things the prose is doing, the more likely a reader will like one of those things. It's statistics.

Here's a boring description:

Janet went out to the balcony. She wore an oversized cotton sweater and a pair of blue jogging shorts. She had on a wedding ring with a small diamond in it. She looked out at the lawn around the estate. It was sprawling with rows of squared hedges and rose gardens and water fountains. It led up to some low grassy hills. Between the hills, there was a view of the edge of a lake, the ripples in the water shimmered in the sunlight.

This isn't too long, but I think we get the sense that the details aren't providing us with much information about any sort of story or conflict. All we get here is a view of this woman, Janet, and where she is standing. To get more information and to feel like the story is moving, readers want action and insight into Janet's situation: her actions, her mood, her history, her thoughts. So, we can add all of this throughout the paragraph to give:

For the last time, Janet went out to the balcony. Although she usual wore delicate cashmere sweaters, today she had on an oversized cotton sweater and a pair of blue jogging shorts -- she didn't want anyone in the neighborhood to recognize her. She still had on her wedding ring, with the small diamond in it, but not for long. She slipped it off her finger and dropped it over the marble handrail. It landed with a tiny thud into the dirt below. She looked out at the lawn around the estate. It was sprawling with rows of squared hedges and rose gardens and water fountains. She once loved all of this, but now she hated it. She crossed her arms. She shut her eyes before she could see more. She knew that the lawn led up to some low grassy hills, and between the hills there was a view of the edge of a lake. The lake was the only thing she would miss. Not the house, not her husband, just the lake.

This second paragraph has all of the information that the first paragraph does, but it goes beyond that to keep the story moving and to reveal where Janet is on her journey. In the first paragraph, we got a bunch of details that didn't point to anything. In the second, the details give insight to what she likes and doesn't like. It tells us about her past and predicts what her future has in store. And, in the second paragraph, I have added some action, that of her taking off her wedding ring and dropping it down below. She has made a tangible move and we know that it was an important one.

So, how does this increase our chances of getting people to like the second paragraph over the first? Well, if the reader likes action, there is more action than there was before. If the reader likes psychology, there is more psychology than there was before. If the reader wants history, there is more history than there was before. AND, if the reader likes description, the description is still there. While the first paragraph only did one thing, the second paragraph does multiple different things. So, statistically, you are more likely to catch a reader's interest.

It's true that some people prefer simplicity. In my stories, I tend to choose really simple language and not much detail. The thing I risk is that I have to hope that the readers I'm targetting prefer the limited range I give them. It's like going to a restaurant with a fixed menu versus going to a grocery store where you can buy whatever you want. The restaurant might prepare a better version of cassoulet, but if you don't want cassoulet, the grocery store is the better bet.

Take a look at published books and short stories. Find a dense paragraph that has description in it. More than likely, you'll find that this description is interspersed with other details and action and flashback, etc. Most published writers have mastered the art of having their descriptive paragraphs serve multiple functions.

Mary had a simple way to evaluate your own writing. Read each paragraph and count on your fingers how many things it is doing. For her, if a paragraph is only doing one or two things, she revises it.

Show Off Your Metaphors And Similes!

In my quest to support lesser-known writers, I stumbled upon a book called The Sea by John Banville. It was a great book, and only after I decided to read it did I realize that it won the Man Booker prize. So, he's not exactly unknown, but at least I tried! Anyway, Banville had some of the most original and comical similes and metaphors I have ever come across.

Here are two that delighted me:

The smell in the hall was like the smell of my breath when I breathed and rebreathed it into my cupped hands to know what it would be like to be suffocated.

and

...the girl's swimsuit, lying where she had tossed it, limply wadded and stuck along one wet edge with a fringe of sand, like something thrown up drowned out of the sea.

I remember a metaphor from the first story I ever published. My main character cut off two of his fingers while trying to slice a tomato. As he searched his apartment for a bandage, he made red bird prints on the wall.

What are the best or most embarrassing similes/metaphors you've ever written?

Physical Character Descriptions Revisited

I'm trying hard not to use the word "orgasmic," but yesterday's comments were exciting. I was up late thinking about this new idea that physical description is not only less important, but even unwanted by some readers. Thanks for all the great comments and ideas Rick, Lady Glamis, beth, Justus, scott, Crimogenic, Robyn, Anette, Reason Reanimator!

To quickly repeat my original point. I was saying that I think most readers have a certain average person in mind when they read a story with no physical character details. This isn't necessarily a problem, but I think it's good to be aware of it whether you want to change that image or not. Justus and Scott, you mentioned that some of your favorite characters are only minimally described. That struck me as very interesting. I'd love to hear who those characters are. Scott, you mentioned some favorite stories. Those are some of my favorites too. Do they also contain your favorite characters? I went through my list: Mahlke from Cat and Mouse, Brod from Everything Is Illuminated, Anna Karenina from a book I promised myself not to mention this week. All of them are very visual for me, described with a set of key descriptions. Yes, as many people brought up, detail overload is never the goal.

I think it's time to launch our first official Literary Lab Experiment.

Experiment #1

Question: Do physical descriptions help or hinder the ability of a person to interact with the story?

Background: Some comments from yesterday's post suggested that physical descriptions can get in the way of the movement, depth, action of the story, and that details make it harder for the reader to interact with the story. I think we all agree that physical descriptions should be relevant. The more important issue is whether or not leaving out details allows the reader to engage more with the story by being able to add their own information and by being able to avoid getting bored. I'll try to present both sides of the case so that each writer can make up his or her own mind. And, I'm currently undecided, so this will be good for me.

Materials and Methods: Rick Daley posed some great Why's and How's to the scene about the suicidal man and the woman watching. I'll use his suggestions to flesh out the all important action and motivation of the scene. I'll use one of Robyn's details too. Then, I'll write the scene again and add physical descriptions of the characters.

Results:

First, the no physical description version.

A man stood stiff and determined on the window ledge of a three story building. It was early in the morning, and there weren't any cars in the road below. He thought of his Ponzi scheme that had just been discovered the night before, the panicked calls that came into his office phone, his cell phone, his home phone. He had only answered one of them, a call from a father of four. That was all it took for him to decide to end his life. He shuffled his feet closer to the edge. His hands fell away from the brick wall behind him so that he teetered unsteadily. He had been calm before, but at that dizzying height his breathing grew unsteady. As if seeking one last vision to die on, he noticed a woman walking down the street in his direction. He thought of all the women he had flirted with in those blue-lit, gin-smelling clubs he frequented, how that lifestyle was gone for him now. At first the woman did not notice him. Her stride was casual, carefree. Then, she stopped and looked up. It seemed to take a moment for her body to react to what he knew she saw. Her form tensed. She shouted, "Don't do it!" to which the man replied, "It's too late," before dropping. His eyes stayed open. In the three seconds of freefall, he watched the ground. Each time he blinked, he got a snapshot of the gray mass of the asphalt speeding toward him, and each snapshot was a closer view of what he had done and who he truly was.


Second, the version with the physical descriptions.

A man stood stiff and determined on the window ledge of a three story building. He was twenty-something, trim, scruffy but handsome -- he looked like a man who could go places. It was early in the morning, and there weren't any cars in the road below. He thought of his Ponzi scheme that had just been discovered the night before, the panicked calls that came into his office phone, his cell phone, his home phone. He had only answered one of them, his voice unusually timid as he listened to a panicked father of four. That was all it took for him to decide to end his life. He shuffled his feet closer to the edge. His hands fell away from the brick wall behind him so that he teetered unsteadily. He had been calm before, but at that dizzying height his breathing grew unsteady. His face -- the clear eyes that had never encountered defeat before -- suddenly widened with shock. As if seeking one last vision to die on, he noticed a woman walking down the street in his direction. He thought of all the perfect women he had flirted with in those blue-lit, gin-smelling clubs he frequented, how that lifestyle was gone for him now. At first the woman did not notice him. Her stride was casual, carefree. She looked more wholesome than the women in the clubs. Even from this distance he saw that her face was warm, loving. She looked like someone who could make a good wife someday. She stopped and looked up. It seemed to take a moment for her body to react to what he knew she saw. Her form tensed. She shouted, "Don't do it!" to which the man replied, "It's too late," before dropping. His eyes stayed open. In the three seconds of freefall, he watched the ground. Each time he blinked, he got a snapshot of the gray mass of the asphalt speeding toward him, and each snapshot was a closer view of what he had done and who he truly was.

Conclusion: ???

A Tip For Developing Unique Characters

The first part of this post is a short exercise, and please follow the directions precisely if you want it to work.

First, read the following scene:

A man stood on the window ledge of a three story building. It was early in the morning, and there weren't any cars in the road below. He shuffled his feet closer to the edge. His hands fell away from the brick wall behind him so that he teetered unsteadily. He noticed a woman walking down the street in his direction. At first she did not notice him. Then, she stopped and looked up. She shouted, "Don't do it!" to which the man replied, "It's too late," before dropping.

Okay, now without trying to be consciously creative in any way, describe what you imagined the man and woman looking like in this scene. Don't reread it. Read the rest of the post when you're done.

Done yet?

I imagine the man to be about 5' 9", 35-years-old with brown wavy hair that hasn't been cut in the last few weeks. I see him in an affordable gray suit with a darker tie and a white shirt. He has a hairy chest. He's trim. He has brown scuffed shoes, a watch, no undershirt. He's Caucasian. His face is shaved. The backs of his hands are hairy.

The woman is thirty and 5' 5" and also Caucasian. She has shoulder length, straight mousy brown hair with lighter highlights. She wears a turquoise blouse with a dark printed skirt and sometimes when the wind catches it, her slip shows just a bit. She's slender. Her clavicles are visible below her smooth neck. She wears a thin gold chain and lght make-up. Her breasts are small. Her legs and toned. She wears high heels but not too high.

Who are these people? Well, for me, these are my concept of "average" people in my version of America. Whether or not they are really the average of every person in this country doesn't matter. What matters is that, when I start to read a book, these are the characters I imagine in my head until the writer has given me more clues. And, I'm willing to bet that these characters are at least sort of similar to the characters you imagined in your head. Maybe not the turquoise blouse.

When we set out to create characters for a reader, we always have to contend with the "average" character that most readers bring with them in their imagination. So, we cannot assume that they will know that the man is actually blind or that the woman has a blue beehive hairdo like Marge Simpson. More importantly, perhaps, we can't assume that the reader knows that a character is Guatemalan or Korean or Hawaiian without telling them. In the current status of American readership, if our characters have any trait that is different from the average person people imagine, the reader expects that trait to be revealed to us early on in the story. Otherwise, if they find something out later, they will feel deceived or that the writer has made a big mistake like a bad set up for the punchline of a joke. (Oh, what I forgot to tell you was that Ed was a two-headed horse.) I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but I do think that's an interesting idea to be aware of when we are trying to create unique characters.

The term "creative writing" implies that we are making something out of nothing. But, more often, I think we, as writers, are actually changing what is already there. A reader starts a story with preconceived notions of what to expect in their characters, and our goal is to alter that notion so that a character is unique and the reader can be entertained or engaged in some way.

(Of course, other things in the book can bias a reader's opinions. If the novel is called Eating Curry in Beijing by Yongqin Jiang, the reader might start off thinking that the characters could be Chinese. For me personally, this is sometimes interesting to learn since people often think that I am Latino or some other nationality based on my name.)

These assumptions by readers, including ourselves, affect what details we need to reveal and what we can take for granted, if anything. Sometimes, when describing someone we don't bother to get beyond a few superficial details. Sex, age, occupation, name -- maybe the length of their hair, their eye color, or the shape of their nose. But we have to realize that any detail we leave out will be filled in by the stats of this "average" person. If we really want to make a lasting impression and surprise a reader with a living, fully-formed and unique character, we need to keep the idea of what readers assume on their own and then create a character that deviates from their original image. What makes a person memorable is their originality, not their sameness. And, what if your character really is average? Even the most average-looking person has unique physical features if you look at them closely enough. Find that frog-shaped mole on the small of her back.