Don't Touch That Subject Matter!

Happy Monday everyone,

Don't forget that tomorrow's the big day! The Notes From Underground Anthology will be available as both a print book and an e-book. If you've signed up for our mailing list, we'll hopefully be sending you a discount code very soon. We're also sending our wonderful contributors the cover of the image ahead of time--check your e-mails later today!

I spent my weekend reading about Tibetan dialectics and Buddhist views of reincarnation. It's a bit amazing that I was raised Buddhist and yet don't follow the logic of reincarnation very well. I'm glad the narrator of Cyberlama isn't Buddhist herself, otherwise my ignorance would really show through.

Religion has always been an interesting topic for me to explore. When I was a child, my mother--whom I love dearly--was always very open-minded about religion. I often went to church with some Mormon friends that I was very close to, and later on I would go to church with some Catholic friends.

But, although I was very interested in religion, I was afraid to bring it up in my writing for a long time. So many people take religion so seriously that writing about the subject matter always made me feel like I was playing with fire.

When I finally did allow myself to explore the topic in my stories, it was very freeing. I created characters that were atheists and Mormons and Catholics and Buddhists. I had them interacting with each other, which also allowed me to explore bigger themes in my stories. Overcoming my fear of offending my readers has really broadened my range and made my writing a lot more interesting, at least in my opinion.

Are there topics that you consider off-limits in your writing? Religion? War? Sex? Racism? Miley Cyrus? Are there topics that should remain off-limits? Have you ever written something that offended others?

Friday Filler: Fields of Gold and What's UNDERGROUND

It's Friday Filler, and I have spent much of the week listening to Eva Cassidy's version of "Fields of Gold". Check it out here, if you want. It's beautiful and it makes me want to cry.

In other news, today is February 25th, and tomorrow is February 26th, and very soon after that, it will be March 1st, and on March 1st The Literary Lab's Notes From Underground Anthology will be available!

Here's a sneak peek of the cover:

We're not showing you the whole thing yet--you have to wait for that--but rest assured the entire image is quite aesthetically pleasing.

Much more importantly, I want to say sincerely that I'm honored to be publishing the stories in this collection. When we decided to put together an anthology that gave writers the freedom to do whatever they wanted, there was a lot of potential for disaster. It was incredibly heartwarming for me to see the amount of love and energy that our selected writers put into this. As I read through each piece, I was repeatedly surprised and impressed by how much talent was out there. And, as I had really been hoping for, I think these stories showcase each writer's unique voice and perspective. Thank you so very much to everyone who was willing to participate.

For the 25 writers we selected, you done good, and I am humbled.

For the many others that we weren't able to select, thank you as well for understanding our vision and sharing our excitement.

I hope you'll come back on March 1st to celebrate the release of our second anthology of short stories.

Also, don't forget to put your name on our mailing list! Sign up here at this link or in the sidebar. We might even include amazing articles you won't see here on the Lab, book recommendation, and discount codes for the anthology. Just sayin'...

Fear

I'd like to introduce you to J.S. Chancellor. If you  haven't already met her, you've been missing out! J.S. Chancellor is a good friend of mine. I met her through a review she did of my novella, Cinders, after which I discovered Rhemalda Publishing - now my current publisher.

J.S. is the author of the Guardians of Legend series. The first book of the series, Son of Ereubus, is currently availalble. The second book of the series, Blood of Adoria, will be released this fall. Also, don't miss out! In a few days J.S. will be giving away Son of Ereubus for free for the entire month of March! No strings attached. Keep your eye out. I've included J.S.'s blog information down below.

Special thanks to J.S. for guest posting here today on the Lab!

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"In the cold, shivering twilight, preceding the daybreak of civilization, the dominating emotion of man was fear." ~Paul Harris

Ah, fear. Perhaps this would have been a better post for October, but alas...here we are...halfway through February.

If you've never seen the M. Night movie, "The Sixth Sense," then I'd suggest you skip this next paragraph because I'm about to ruin it for you (if you haven’t, where have you been all these years? I lurve that movie).

Bruce Willis is dead. Dead, dead. Not glittery vampire dead. Really dead. And the whole way through the movie, he's none the wiser. I happened to see this work of genius on opening night, and was blessed to gasp along with the other 400 people in the theatre with me, when the truth was revealed. As always, I relate such an experience to being an author (and a few other professions, but we'll let those folks blog about that).

I've learned valuable lessons lately; some concern the politics of the publishing industry---others involve fear---and through this, I can only come to one conclusion: I've been fearing the wrong thing.

I'm like Bruce Willis, trapsing through the story of my life, believing one thing (or another) while some larger, scarier, truth exists beyond my comprehension. It's ironic really. I read about a man in Chicago who spent his whole life avoiding planes because he feared a catastrophic crash and wound up dying in an ordinary traffic accident while on vacation with his family. Had they flown that day, instead of making the 300-some-odd mile trip, he'd still be alive (the rest of the family lived, just fyi).

As writers, we fear even admitting that we have fears. Once those fears are tapped, we fear not being able to contain them. We wrestle with how our characters explore such emotions all the time, but when it comes to our own lives...well, that's another matter. All paths are different, so I won't even try to address this topic on a specific basis...but overall, writing and fear are no more strangers than love and writing. In fact, writing is kind of a hussy 'cause she gets around quite a bit. Occasional flings with jealousy and a closet bondage kind of relationship with rage. It's a wonder she can keep track of everyone's whereabouts.

All kidding aside...I really have been fearing all the wrong things. I thought I'd feel one way about reader reviews, and I've found that my feelings differ drastically from my expectations. I thought I'd flourish under deadlines, and I don't...I flounder. At least I had the first four letters right. I also spent an inordinate amount of time wrapped up in non-writerly writing things that at the end of the day just stress me out. Why do I do this? Again...fear. Out of sight, out of mind. In a small way, it makes me want to travel back in time to the days when the internet didn't exist and writers could suffer...ahem...work in silence. The net is wonderful and necessary for networking and building relationships (so long as you are aware of all of your actions and their consequences), but it's tiring.

Tiring to the point where my muse starts to go on the hunt for mistresses. And I can't be having that...

So...the real question here is: What do you fear?

Now that you’ve answered that, let me ask: What do you really fear?
____________________________

You can find J.S. Chancellor on her blog, Welcome to the Asylum. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Does Your Fiction Have A Comfort Zone?

Some years ago, I was petsitting a cat, Ricky, who had all of his teeth removed. He had been a stray and suffered from malnutrition. The pain from his rotting teeth bothered him so much that he refused to eat.

I was happy to do the favor...until the day I had to get Ricky into the pet carrier for his follow-up appointment at the vet.

A cat + a pet carrier = crazytown

I've never been a very good salesman, and the honest pitch about why Ricky should get into the cramped little carrier wasn't working. I tried to lure him in with treats. I tried to coax him in with a loving nudge. I eventually had to force him in, which resulted in a lot of hissing and plenty of scratches on my forearms.

I got Ricky to the vet and waited anxiously for the nurse to call his name. I figured I'd be facing another struggle, this time getting Ricky back into the carrier after his check up in the presence of a vet who probably expected me to be much better at the task then I actually was.

The time came. The doctor opened the carrier and lifted Ricky out by the scruff of his neck. She looked into his mouth. She weighed him. Then she put him back on the examining table, where Ricky slinked back into the carrier of his own accord.

I was a bit stunned. I looked at the doctor wide-eyed.

"He's behaving like a good, scared little kitty is supposed to behave," the doctor said.

Suddenly, what had been an instrument of torture at home became a place of comfort at the vet. It really made me understand that the idea of a safe haven was relative.

* * *

As a writer, being original is often something I try to accomplish, and I think it's something that readers appreciate to some extent. At the same time, I'm aware that the reader in me often seeks something that falls into my comfort zone. That's why I read some books over and over again. I like to re-explore familiar places and relive enjoyable times, something that seems even more desirable as the problems of the world press down on us.

For a fictional story to be successful then, it seems to require components of newness integrated with more familiar material. I think a reader is more willing to explore something new if they also feel the security of something familiar at the same time.

Originality is probably something we all think about. But, what about the familiarity?

For me as a reader, comfort zones come in many forms. Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic The Road might not seem like it should have any comforting elements in it. But, I found that the consistent beauty of the prose style created that warm blanket that wrapped around me while I looked out at the desolation of the story. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical One Hundred Years Of Solitude created comfort by describing emotions that I could relate to, even when the characters and the setting were foreign to me.

Most recently, I became aware of the creation of comfort zones while I was reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This book is TOTALLY bizarre. I was scratching my head for the first 500 pages of the book, and it's only about 600 pages long. The story was so fragmented, so fantastical, so quirky--for much of the time I couldn't figure out why I stuck with it for as long as I did.

But, as I went on, I realized that Murakami had created comfort zones in a really odd way. He made me comfortable by repeating the same bizarre elements over and over again. Through the repetition, the newness became familiar and comforting. I started to crave it.

I've often thought that some writers have to first "train" their readers to read them. In a way, Murakami did that in this book by returning to story elements that seemed bizarre at first but that grew more familiar each time I re-encountered it. From the beginning of the book to the middle, he had trained me how to read him.

This idea of originality mixed with newness isn't specific to writing. I'm guessing that's why covers are successful in music, and why fusion food is in, and why some production companies are so willing to remake the same movies. People want something new, but they don't want it to be too new.

Where does that leave us?

It may be a requirement to mix the old with the new in our writing, but how we choose to create that hybrid is completely up to us. I've found comfort in many books, and often that comfort is created with elements. In my own work, I try to create comfort by describing the mundane. I mix that with some dark elements and some magical elements, and as a whole I think it holds together.

However you choose to do it--and whether you choose to do it at all--will come from your own personality and your own views.

Guest Post: Receiving Critiques by B. Nagel

Last week, after my critique experiments here, here, and here, B. Nagel mentioned that it might be helpful to have a post on receiving critiques. I asked if he would do a guest post on the subject, and he kindly accepted. Check it out below. B. Nagel is a great writer, and I'm quite the fan of his. He uses words like "milquetoast", which is almost as cool as "maths".

"Receiving Critiques"

by B. Nagel

You've been lurking around the writing blogs, the community theater, the creative folks. Maybe you're even taking a creative writing class at the college. You've been playing with a few story ideas, but one in particular reared back and smacked you with its potential. You burn the midnight oil and the coffee filters, trading sleep for creative time. Finally, you've polished it to a high gloss and are ready to share.

You present a pink and newborn piece to the class/group/listserv for viewing.
Then these, these monsters begin to point out typos, to confuse the plot, to recommend cutting off a finger here, a toe there. Sure, they try and sweeten the poison with saccharine, but all you hear is hate.

Your creation is under attack. You want to roar in defense and defiance.

This is natural. But for the sake of your work, don't.

The most important aspect of receiving a critique is actively listening.

The truth of the writing gig is that the story you put on paper is not the same as the story that lives in your brainpan. We do our best and, with practice, we get better. But because you already know the primary story, you cannot experience the secondary story. Your swashbuckling, darkly romantic MC could very well read like a milquetoast. The second twist of your thriller, the payoff itself, may be painfully obvious from the third paragraph. Or your voice could be so dense and subtle that it's impenetrable.

If one person mentions something, take a note. If several people nod along, circle it. If no one 'gets it' or winds up even close to what you were trying to say, take a big note. Where they wound up is not as important as the fact that they got lost.

You need a fresh set of eyes. Treasure all that they see.

And those saccharine tidbits? They are drops of purest honey. No one has to say anything, positive or negative.

Only by listening to the critique can you see how your story stands: knock-kneed and grimacing but unbowed by the ponderous weight of meaning you've piled on it. Your critiquers have to read the story as it lies. If you publish, the same is true for your readers.

So, keep your mouth shut, your ears open and your pencil moving. The quickest way to shut down a critique session is for the author to open his gob and give some bit of backstory or justification. Even worse if this happens before the critique begins.

This isn't about you, it's about how well you told your story and helping you get better at telling it.

--

Remember: You are the ultimate author. You make the final choices. This data should inform your decisions, not dictate them.

Dreams and Names, Names and Dreams

Happy Monday, everyone!

Last night I dreamt that Nicole Krauss and Jhumpa Lahiri came over to my apartment for a snack. I had just gone to the Thai bakery and had some containers of kanom chun and kali puffs. Both writers were very nice, and I slowly steered the conversation towards the question of how one becomes a full time writer. Unfortunately, as all dreams seem to do, it ended before I got any sort of useful answer. So, Nicole and Jhumpa, I want my snacks back!

I finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this weekend and have a couple of posts I'll be writing about it. It was an educational book, technique-wise. Next, I'm reading In Exile from the Land of Snows: The Definitive Account of the Dalai Lama and Tibet Since the Chinese Conquest. This is research to help me on my Cyberlama book. I really wish I had a proper name for Cyberlama. I've started to collect words that might go into the final title. So far, I have "tomorrow", "sight", "gain", "never", and "last", so if any of you can think of anything let me know. Nicole and Jhumpa will probably be of no help on that one either.

I hope you all get to enjoy the day doing something fun. This week, we've got a couple of guest posts coming up that will be great!

Friday Filler: 3.43

For some strange reason I love it when I'm driving around and happen to catch gas station workers changing the prices on their tall corner signs: the little suction rod they use to slide the numbers in and out.

Laundry day is coming up, and I'll be curious to see if my little dryer that could is still chugging along for free. A quarter saved is a quarter earned.

What am I working on you ask. Well, I'm about 17,ooo words into Cyberlama. And, I'm on Chapter 2 of The Sister Soul, which is a scarier sequel to my novella The Boy Who Was All Alone. I'm excited about both projects. And, as of last week, I came up with a little cameo role for the son of one of my blogging buddies that I'm anxious to write. Here's a hint: it has to do with purgatory and rainbows.

In other random news, if you aren't already watching "Raising Hope", I highly recommend it. I'd also like to recommend "Gnomio and Juliet", mostly because I know a bunch of people who worked on it, and I'd like it to do well. There are some fantastic little moments in this movie. Oh, and another movie I'd recommend is called "Another Year". If anyone has seen that, let me know. I'm dying to talk to someone about it.

Question: Should short story collections be named after one of the stories in the collection?

Why Do We Keep Repeating Everything?

I recently went through every single Literary Lab post and made sure they were all labeled correctly. I deleted unnecessary labels and added new labels to our list of helpful posts in the column off to the side. This took me all day - about 12 hours. I had to skim through every single post to see what it was about. The most interesting thing, although not surprising, was how much we repeat ourselves on here. I noticed that in three or four of my posts I say the same thing, just in different ways. Some of these posts had more comments than others, but that could be a combination of many different factors. They are spread out over the course of the two years we've been blogging here as a team.

This has raised concern that we're not being extremely helpful over here, but I also realize we get new readers every day, so maybe it's shouldn't be a huge concern. Still, wouldn't it be better to simply re-post the things we've already said? Or do we say them better the second or third or fourth time around?

In this frame of mind, I started thinking about the stories we tell as writers. Aren't we repeating the same things? I've struggled with this issue for a long time. I recently put up a post on my private writing blog about it, and I'm happy I did because a lot of my friends there explained (in very nice ways) that running themes in our writing are important and that I'm the same person writing my stories, so why would every single story be drastically different? It's a good thing if I shine through on every single one. I can tell the same story Davin tells, and it will be completely different. We did something to show this when we took on a short story challenge a few weeks ago. You can read those stories here.

Let me get to my point before I bore you to tears. What I really want to say here today is that even though we repeat things here at the Literary Lab, I don't think it's a bad thing. I repeat myself on my other blog, too. I read hundreds of blogs and see the same things being said over and over and over and over again. It's frustrating sometimes, but I'm also beginning to see that as humans, we need things pounded into our heads before we truly understand something.Writing is complicated and messy and intense. I don't have to read the posts I don't think will help me because I've already read about the same subject five billion times. I can skip those posts, but someone else might need to read them.

I'm going to stop complaining about the blogosphere and how everything is repeated. In a way, it's nice to look at it as a celebration of the writing process. It's something we never seem to get tired of exploring and talking about, and that's exciting to me. However, I do need to step back and take a break every once in a while since it is so intense. I'll be doing that soon, and perhaps that might be a good time to re-post some of my favorite posts I've done here on the Literary Lab.

What do you think? Are you annoyed by the amount of repetition that goes on in writing circles? In your own writing? Or do you think it's fun - even necessary - to see the same thing through different lenses?

Let's Play Nice

On Monday, I offered up my version of some Tiger Mother reviews. Overall, the consensus from the comments was that the reviews could have been nicer, but they weren't too mean. Thanks to everyone for commenting and also for providing your own reviews of my excerpt.

I want to emphasize that the point of my reviews was not necessarily to be mean, but to hold writers up to the highest standards, something I admit I don't always do. While I think those reviews might have been helpful, I hope today to convince you that being critical isn't the only way to show someone how they might improve.

For the following three excerpts, I'm focusing on the positive, with the idea that if a writer sees what works well, they can choose to do more of it. This isn't my version of sugar coating, because I'm being very sincere. Rather, it's just another side of the coin, leading to the same purpose.

Excerpt A

I was nine again. The word "again" here is unexpected and very interesting. Mother told me that my real father was a goat. There are some nice hints that this is going to be an interesting story. I like the phrase "my real father", and of course the idea that he's a goat is intriguing. William the Goat. Not the man who slept in Mother's bed, the man who Mother called Bill, the man whose dried lather and specks of hair fouled our bathroom sink every morning. This borders on being nonsensical, but in a way that really works for me. "Fouled" fits in perfectly in this spot because it creates a slight shock and keeps the tone of the piece from being too syrupy. We had homeschool every day. Even the idea of homeschool, and all of the connotations it carries with it fits nicely here. I associate it with families that are perhaps smarter than average and unusual in other ways. That meant I helped scrubs the floor and kept watch at the front window for Bill. After homeschool, Mother told me stories of my father and how they met when she was young. How he was strong and had a beard, a man’s beard, wild, dark and full. How he ran and leapt. And the way he laughed: distinctive, loud, an honest sort of bray. "Bray" here works the way "fouled" works above. It keeps the piece from getting to clean, and of course there's the whole goat thing.

It was May. Nice rhyme. Using candles during a rainstorm, I found a box of wood and brass, smallish good word, at the top of the closet that Bill used for his clothes. Inside, folded papers wrapped in red ribbon. I cut the ribbon with the little scissors Mother gave me and found letters; letters from Anne to William. I unfolded the top one.

You always smoke those silly cigars, cigarillos cabritos, little goat cigars? I loved you from the moment you laughed. Will you marry me, William the Goat? I will make you laugh always and we can do whatever you want, visit the lake country, live in a Paris garret, just make me yours and laugh with me always. I like the development of the mother character and the strength and open-mindedness she has. "Cigarillos cabritos" is also great.

Overall, I really appreciate the language in this piece. It really gives the writing a specific tone that suits the material perfectly. Throughout, there are a bunch of details that help keep the world of the story consistent. And, though this is short, I trust in the depth of the characters.

Excerpt B

Broad Street is empty as I approach the subway entrance, the early morning quiet broken only by a distant siren, a small dog barking a block away, the slow flutter of the flags That's a great detail that is quite unusual. I immediately hear the flapping sound. hung from the lightpoles. The humid August air clings to my skin, a fitful breeze bringing no relief, only the scent of damp pavement, exhaust fumes, and rotting fried chicken in the dumpsters beside the all-night diner This is another great detail. I like that you save these gems for the end of your sentences where they carry more power and work to add a little climax at the end as if each sentence was a mini-story on its own. The few patrons visible through the restaurant windows look tired and drawn, black and white alike partaking "partaking" is a cool word here that creates an interesting relationship among the characters and place. It creates a nice interaction between the two and pulls the elements of the story together. of the same fluorescent-washed pallor. The waitress, silent behind plate glass, argues listlessly on her cell phone. That ending is a lovely image as well.

This writing feels very vivid to me, and there's a poetry to the language I can appreciate. It's a short paragraph, but it gives me a good sense of the bigger world of the story.

Excerpt C

"Whitefish Lake"

Terri noticed a boot print in her sister’s blood. Having the intrusion be a boot print rather than, say, a tennis shoe, makes this already-brutal sentence even moreso. It instantly shocked her into a battle ready state that's a cool phrase that got me thinking. I feel like I can relate to that idea of being shocked into a ready state, even though it seems counterintuitive at first. and she drew her firearm. She should’ve realized that there could’ve been another perp I always appreciate the use of the word "perp", just as I appreciate the use of the word "maths".

She backed up into the shadows of the corner and waited for something to move. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the babbling from his dying counterpart this is a nice surprise that gives the character more strength and credibility hundred and eighty yards away. She silently waited.

After ten minutes, she heard a slow creak she recognized as the door to the basement. It was slow and deliberate - the other intruder knows I’m here I like this. The word "deliberate" is nice, and it's an interesting transition into an inner voice that works for me. She fixed her gaze on the laundry room looking for a shift in the shadows.

She saw movement and took aim. She knew his back was against the little wall where the pantry was. It would be the best place to peek out into the room. He made the faintest of whistles. This puzzled Terri. Interesting! Did he expect her to signal back? Marco, Polo? She knew her best chance was to shoot through the wall before he made his move. She judged the placement of the studs and fired two rounds into the drywall Again, I like how these details make me feel more secure that the character knows what she's doing, right down to the studs. He cried out and fell forward. She ran toward the doorway firing twice more. The first shot missed but the second shot hit his right hand sending his gun to the floor. She pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger but the rounds were spent. The intruder charged her sending both of them into the kitchen. He pounded her with his fists several times before switching for the cast iron frying pan. He didn’t see her reach for the knife and she plunged it into his
neck.

I feel like the details have been very carefully considered in this piece. The vocabulary works. The details help to build the character and the situation without slowing the pace down at all.

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So, what do you think? Is it useful to get the positives? Do you think a writer can learn from this type of one-sided review? My answer is yes.

I'm guessing that most people usually provide reviews that are a mix of Monday's and today's styles. We've heard the term "compliment sandwich" tossed around already. (My sandwiches are open faced, for the record.) But, I'd like to suggest that it might be worthwhile to mix it up a little. If you're in a writer's group, or if you get together with someone else on a regular basis, consider trying different crit styles for each session. You could try Tiger Mother, or nice nice. I've heard of styles that only involve asking questions, or even styles that only allow digressions. If nothing else, it keeps the sessions fresh and probably helps every one stay on their toes.

Note: I know I've got a couple of other reviews left to do. You'll have those emailed to you today!

Note added later (I thought I put things well in one of my comments, so I'm adding it here):

Charlie, your comment is helping me to articulate something that I wasn't able to express well before. I think to properly use both types of reviews, one needs to hold the idea of an "average" standard, where the writing is neither good nor bad. If we hold onto that for a moment, then I'd say the Tiger Mother review points out the things that fall below that line while the nice review points out the things that go above that line. If you only care that your writing meets the average, then you'll get nothing out of the nice review. But, if you want your work to ALL go above that line, then you could focus on the parts that didn't get compliments because, perhaps, they were just average.

The Roar of the Tiger Mother!

Happy Monday, everyone! (And, Happy V-day for those of you who care.)

Last week I proposed to review some excerpts using the Tiger Mother philosophy. As I approached each work below, I told myself to trust that each writer was strong and capable of being of the best writer in the world. I left the names of the writers out, but they can feel free to reveal themselves in the comments if they like. My comments are in blood red.

At the bottom, I'm also offering up an "anonymous" piece of writing for each of you to critique Tiger Mother style.

What do you think? Is this kind of critique helpful or only hurtful? If you do offer up your own critique, how does it feel to be a Tiger Mother?

Excerpt A

They came to the hill with shovels, all three of them. All three of what, shovels? This sentence needs to be better constructed. Shovels and oxhide cloaks and high bell-shaped hats purchased at a costume resale shop. The hats had caught Jasper’s fancy, who--of the three--had a hair of the dramatic in him. The word "hair" here sounds funny since the discussion is about hats. I don't like that strange interplay. Unlike his brother Mel This, I think, is meant to mean that the hats did not catch Mel's fancy, but the way the sentence is constructed is awkward. It could be interpreted to mean that Mel did not catch Jasper's fancy, who seldom had more than three words to spare, if he spoke at all, each one dropping out from under his dust-broom-sized mustache like a stone. "Like a stone" is a boring metaphor. This is the result of lazy writing. Bel, the youngest by a shade, led the trio up the slope, hunched against an angry side-chopping wind that seemed determined to knock their ridiculous Whose opinion is this? Who thinks the hats are ridiculous? hats of their heads. But no matter how fierce it blew, no natural wind would succeed.

Except for a few scrubby bushes, the summit of the hill was bald.

“This is the spot,” Bel said. He flexed his gloved hands against the bitter cold What does this mean? The action of flexing his hand against the cold is unclear to me. and sniffed. The other two hats dipped forward in agreement and they readied their shovels.

The shovels were stubby wicked things, with shafts carved from lightning-struck trees and kissed by witches to keep the wrong sort of ghosts from clinging while they did their peculiar work. The blades had been banged out from junk air-plane propellers, which was a good thing in this case, as the they typo could tell the ground under their boots was no spongy garden loam, yielding to any old turf-mover I really don't know what "they" refers to. I thought it was the shovels because they were magical, but the shovels aren't wearing boots. No, this was dense soil, chocked with rocks and frozen stiff.

Overall, the clarity of this section was a problem for me. I think you should pay more attention to each word you put on the page, rather than just the ideas they represent. I usually don't mind hyphens and hyphenated words, but here I feel like they result from being too rushed in the writing and not thinking about the vocabulary.

Excerpt B

I looked up Tarrant County in an atlas once. It was during Mrs. Snyder’s social studies class and we were in the library --This sentence is boring. I was supposed to be writing down the names of the counties in New Hampshire, where we live, but, you could say I took a detour. Maybe you could call it a short-stop This second discussion feels excessive for a minor detail in the story, because I stopped at “K” for Kentucky, before I got to “N” for New Hampshire, and there it was, right in the middle of that key-shaped state. Tarrant County. So, at least that part was true. There is a Tarrant County.

That’s as far as I got though, because that sneaky Mrs. Snyder came up behind me. “Melanie Foss, I do not believe that we live in Kentucky. This tone of this feels a bit derivative to me, even given the fact that Mrs. Snyder specifically relies on cliche. I believe your assignment is to research the State of New Hampshire. So kindly, get to the task at hand.” That’s the way Mrs. Snyder spoke. All clichés and such. She was always saying, “Put your nose to the grindstone” and “Give it your best shot.” If you listen to Miss Russell, clichés are phrases that are used so often they become ordinary. I guess being ordinary didn’t matter much to Mrs. Snyder.

Later on that week though, I went back to the library during free period and took my sweet time Does this cliche mean that the character also doesn't care about being ordinary? Is she unconsciously revealing her own flaw? looking at Tarrant County on the map. When I was little, eight maybe, I used to drive Mama crazy another cliche to point to the fact that being ordinary doesn't matter to the narrator? asking her questions about the beauty pageant. Mama and I are a team of two. She’s only been saying that for about a million years. But even if we are, it seems to me that the team had to get started somewhere. I don't understand this sentence. If they are a team of two, then does the team start when the narrator is born or before that? What exactly is the thing that had to get started somewhere? I mean, I know she grew up in Kentucky. The thing is, other than telling me about the Honeydew Festival, she never talks about it.

This is an interesting excerpt for me, and it has its strengths. But I think you need to accentuate the important details and not waste the reader's time on the less important ones. Paying attention to every single sentence is also important.

Excerpt C

Daydreams

She sure doesn’t look the way she did last summer, when everyone was at the water hole and all she did was sit there with her knees to her chest. Yeah, I used to tease her, but everyone did. She made it so easy, being that odd sort of quiet. Always to herself at the edge of the group, or her face in a book or drawing something. Though the idea of an insecure character is captured here, I don't see enough originality in the details. The description seems to be based on the same descriptions used by too many other writers. I didn’t mean to make her cry, with that bucket of frogs and I sure didn’t think it would take a whole ‘nother year before she’d even talk to me again. Again, this reaction by the character lacks originality. What makes this specific and unique compared to other stories about similar relationships? The punctuation feels sloppy to me as well.

When Mickey Pritchard called her the boobless wonder, I should have punched his lights out. Does this cliche really fit the character's voice? Do people still say "punched his lights out?" in a serious way? And I should have whispered her the right answer when Miss Whimbley called on her in front of everyone in math. Maybe I should’ve left a note with the valentine candy I put in her desk, or signed the picture I drew of her, with her pretty, long hair—the one she folded and stuck in her book. I'm still looking for more originality. Even if a situation isn't so unique, I think specificity can really make a passage stand out. If there were more specifics here, it wouldn't seem to much like other works I've encountered.

I think she smiled at me during lunch, probably no comma here today, even though she wouldn’t show me what she was reading when I asked. Maybe if I happen to be hanging around the old hickory tree she always walks past on her way home, she won’t mind if I ride my bike beside her…

“Boy! Stop day dreaming, and get out and open the gate.”

This writing is too safe here. The situation is a lot like other stories I've read, so I need more from it, otherwise I feel like it's redundant. Dare to take a risk! Why is this story special? Why are the people special?

--------------------------------

ROAR!

There you have it, my critique of a few words from some writers who were kind enough to offer up their work. Now, feel free to give me your own Tiger Mother review on the passage below. It's an excerpt taken from the middle of a short story.

Excerpt D

The rainy season announced its arrival with a thunder storm. Tuk and Raymond looked up at the sky with worried faces. They were planning to return to the states and would come back to Tayang once Kimchaa's visa was approved. Kimchaa herself began making a list of things she wanted to take with her, scribbling items clumsily on the back of an envelope with her arthritic hands. The items were silly things that Nam was sure she would be able to find in America: soap, tissues, a bottle of drinking water—but the family decided that this was a good distraction for the old woman.

At night, Nam cried to herself. She had no doubt that the visa would be approved. Families transformed so easily these days, and nothing was ever permanent anymore. Her sister had moved to America. Nam had come to live on this farm. Now their mother would spend the last years of her life in a new world, one far different from what she was accustomed to, her natural place.

Friday Filler! Spill the beans and spill the milk!

Happy Friday, everyone! Say whatever you like. This post is completely uninspired, but we've been saving our inspiration for the Notes From Underground anthology, which is well on its way to being done.

This weekend, I have plans to hang out in a nice library and do research on Lamas of the Dalai variation. Someone's also making flapcakes for me! Hooray!

Write Like a Sword-Wielding Martial Artist

Good morning! I've been super busy as we get the Notes from Underground anthology underway. The final release date is for March 1st. Let us hope and cross our fingers that this sticks. This is going to be one sweet book, you guys. You. Will. Want. To. Buy. It.

Today is a treat! One of our loyal readers and authors who will be in the Notes anthology is guest posting here today. Read this post! It's made of awesome. It talks about swords and what lies at the heart of what we should face as writers.

Welcome, C.N. Nevets!
________________________________

If you've been around the Literary Lab for very long, you've heard this message: write bravely. There are other variations, but it's a theme that comes up again and again. Over the past year or so, this has been one of the greatest challenges set before me in my own writing, and I'd like to cover some of what I have learned. I'll present these as confrontations, because I rather like the image of myself as a sword-wielding martial artist fighting against the evil hordes of my own worst bits of writing.

Confront Your Inadequacy. Try writing something you don't feel adequate to write. Challenge yourself. You can do it in baby steps, but the more times you accomplish what you previously felt you could not, the more stories you will be empowered to tell. I did this with a flash fiction piece I called, "Discipline." It's a story that's inspired by the story of my great uncle, an underage soldier in the Pacific theater of WWII. I didn't feel I could do it justice, and when I look at it I know it could have been better. But I've gotten a few precious bits of feedback that tell me that, at least for a few readers, the message got across. For me, that means it was well worth while.

Confront Your Darkness. Darkness comes in a lot of forms, but the kind that you need to confront is the internal darkness. I personally struggle a lot with writing the kind of things I do whenever I'm confronted with the reality of terrible evil. This past year, I've had more than one brush with this, including a teenage suicide and the disappearance of a good friend and his wife. The darkness you face may be less Hollywood. Perhaps you write YA romance and are suddenly uncomfortable with it because of the heartbreak your daughter goes through. Perhaps you write epic fantasy and face pressure that makes you feel guilty for dealing with fantasy rather than the real world. Some writers go a long time before facing this kind of darkness; few avoid it forever. If you face it, deal with it, and then write. It's okay to take a little time to sort through something, but there's no reason to let your writing be silenced.

Confront Your Detractors. Every writer has stories that get rejected. Often times, we develop nemeses who just plain don't like our writing and want to make a point of it. Sometimes it's just a bad comment on a single website, or an unfair review. Whether your detractors are critics or those annoying kids in your writing class, you cannot write in order to avoid their scorn.

Confront Your Supporters. Perhaps the hardest thing I've yet done in writing was to submit, "I Need This," to Domey, Michelle, and Scott.The writing itself was risky. The voice thick and easily misconstrued in a blind reading. The topic was dark, and portions were frankly vile. The Literary Lab had shown some confidence in my writing during the Genre Wars contest, and I didn't want to jeopardize my standing in their eyes. Writers spend so much time being rejected, it can be very hard to risk losing the support of those who have accepted our writing -- but you can't write for them any more than you can write to avoid your detractors.

Confront Your Self-Image.  What made "I Need This" extra difficult is that, within it, I crossed a few of my own lines. I wrote things I never thought I would write. I took on the voice of the kind of person whose work I had grieved when I was doing forensic anthropology. I integrated photographs in a way that felt very uncomfortable for me because of that work. Much of this would not have been hard for any of the rest of you. And that's the point: there are few things that are harder than challenging your own idea of yourself. But by doing so I threw off chains that were weighing me down.

A lot of this can be boiled down to this:

Confront Your Inside Voice. When it comes to writing, use your outside voice. I'm not saying there's no place for restraint in language, or for quiet prose, or for still moments. What there's no place for, though, is fighting against your self and holding yourself back.

The benefits of writing bravely are many, from self-satisfaction to improved quality. Sometimes, the benefits are even practical.  I'm currently finishing up a novel, Sublimation, that I will be querying for publication. I've had to write bravely several times in the course of this work. When I posted a synopsis and a quote from the book on my website, it got the attention of one of my writing heroes, who then reached out to me to express his appreciation and support. That has been a tremendous encouragement to me -- and it could not have happened if I had not taken the leap into writing bravely.

.Nevets.


(p.s., If you care to read, "I Need This," you can do so by going to to the http://www.nevets-qst.com/">Nevets-QST website and clicking on the Websclusives tab. "Discipline" can be read at the same website, under Flash Fiction.)

The Value of Being A Tiger Mother Reviewer

If you haven't already heard about the semi-controversy over Amy Chua's book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, it basically involves a woman who presents the values of a stereotypical Asian mother as the best way to raise a child. A lot of people are criticizing the book because they claim that pushing a child too hard and never being happy with them borders on abuse rather than proper parenting.

I'd like to note first that Amy Chua was NOT 100% serious in her book. Much of the controversy was probably the result of book marketing--which has apparently worked since BHotTM is #10 on Amazon.

More importantly, I'd like to talk about how this discussion got me thinking about my own reviewing techniques. It affects you.

I read excerpts of "Tiger Mother" with an initial bias against it. I felt a lot of pressure to be the best in my teenage years, and I think it caused a lot of needless stress. But, as I was reading, something Chua wrote really struck me. It deals with the concept of expectations.

To paraphrase, Chua argues that a parent who pushes their child to be perfect holds the fundamental view that their child can be perfect. Conversely, a parent who refuses to push their child to be perfect might be assuming that their child cannot be perfect.

For me, that was a very profound insight. I realized that in reviewing the work of my fellow writers, I often soften up because I worry about pushing them too hard. The assumption I'm making is that I don't truly believe that my fellow writers can be as good as Tolstoy or Shakespeare or Woolf or whoever.

This is sort of a sad admission isn't it?

I'm trying to be helpful, but my expectations are possibly too low to ever make anyone better. At the same time, I love it when someone gives me a truly hard critique because it almost always makes me a better writer. (Don't read too much between the lines here, because it really does make me look quite bad the more you think about it.)

So, I wonder. When you all are reviewing each other's work, do you give them feedback with the view that the person you're reviewing could be the best? Is there value to holding that Tiger Mother mindset?

I want to propose an experiment, but I'm really scared it will backfire, so approach at your own risk. I'd like to ask three of you to send me paragraphs that will be reviewed publicly. But, the catch is that I'm going to review them Tiger Mother style. I'm going to assume that you can be as good as the best writers out there, and I'm going to expect that from you. I'll be very critical, and we'll see if it makes you a better writer, or if it just makes you mad at me. I'd also like to ask three of you to send me paragraphs for the opposite type of review. I'll be nice and supportive, only bringing up the good points. I know from experience that this technique also makes a writer better. So, if you're interested, send me excerpts (up to 250 words) to dmalasarn@gmail.com. Tell me if you want a Tiger Mother review or a nice review, and I'll take the first three people in each category. I'll post them up on Monday and Wednesday, and I'll also post up some of my own writing for YOUR Tiger Mother reviews.

The Authority of Experience (Write What You Know)

Last Thursday, Michelle listed "Write what you know" as one of the Nine Big Lies about writing, and I chimed in with my own derision at the idea. "Write what you're interested in," I said. My old agent used to say, "Write what you care about." I like that one.

"Write what you know" goes wrong in a couple of ways:

1. When it encourages people to essentially just write memoir, assuming that their life or the life of their grandmother or whomever, is going to be fascinating to everyone else. That's rarely the case. "Write what you know" gets interpreted as "write about yourself." We are usually not as interesting as we think we are.

2. People tend to write less than spellbindingly about subjects with which they are intimately familiar, because they can't really capture the shiny newness of first contact with the coolness of their subject. If you've ever heard an expert talk about something, you may have noticed your eyes glazing over just before you fell asleep. "Write what you know" gets interpreted as "write an encylopedia article." Facts and history do not necessarily make compelling reading.

To sum up, "write what you know" tends to result in lackluster prose about not particularly interesting subject matter. Middle school may have been a real bitch, filled with daily trauma for you, but it was just like that for everyone else and no, we don't so much want to read about it. Unless your middle school years were when you began to think that you were the Messiah and you wrote a 1,000-page novel about it called The Instructions.

So, if you think that "write what you know" is an exhortation to write about yourself because you are a unique, beautiful snowflake with an important story to tell because Every Life Is A Biography, you might want to think it through again, Fagin.

But: There is a time when "write what you know" gets it exactly right. This is not when you are writing confessional memoirs, but when you are using your firsthand knowledge of a subject to flesh out the world of a novel. This is when you speak with authority about a topic and imbue your narrative with truth.

Lord of Misrule, the 2010 National Book Award-winning novel by Jaimy Gordon, is set in the world of cheap horse racing. Jaimy Gordon, back in her youth, worked at a down-at-heel race track and was able to use her memories of the time and place to paint a compelling and believable background for her story.

Antonia Byatt spent a good deal of her adult working life in the world of academia, teaching writing and literature, and this firsthand experience adds the weight of reality to several of her books (The Game, The Virgin in the Garden and a bunch of others).

Iain Pears' job as an art dealer came in handy when he was writing his series of Jonathan Argyle murder mysteries, which are set in the world of--that's right--art dealing and art theft.

I will spare you an exhaustive list. My point is that "write what you know" is often poor advice when you are looking for subject matter, but excellent advice when you are building a fictional world.

Also! Important announcement! The proofs for Notes From Underground have gone out to the authors! That means that we are close to publication date, which we've declared to be on or around March 1, 2011! That's soon! Be excited, because we are!

How To Create Tension

Happy Monday, everyone! First things first, the magic clothes dryer was still magical when I went to the Laundromat this weekend. I may never have to spend another quarter on drying clothes as long as I live. Now, onto tension!

Last week, we had an interesting discussion of tension. It started here, and Scott mentioned it earlier here, but Andrew also had a nice post about tension, including the idea of high stakes, here. His examples are great, so go check out the post.

I wanted to throw in my own thoughts, not so much on whether or not we should have tension, but on how to create tension, as I see it.

Start actual blog post content now.

I'll first define tension as that element in a story that makes a reader want to keep reading. General, yes. And, my definition is not based on any text book or anything. I was experiencing it last night, actually, as I was reading more of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami. (The chapter titles alone make this book worth reading.)*

How do we as writers make a reader want to keep reading? I can think of four approaches.

A. What's in the shoebox?

The first approach is what I think of as the What's-in-the-shoebox? approach. It's a technique that I see most often in contemporary fiction, and it can create a lot of tension.

I became aware of this technique when I was reviewing a WIP that involved a character who had received a mysterious shoebox from a long lost friend. At the start of each chapter, the character tried to make time to go up to her room to open the shoebox to see what was inside, but by the end of each chapter, she got too distracted by life crises to actually do so. I raced through the book, asking myself, "What's in the shoebox? What's in the bloody shoebox?" Talk about tension. The writing could have been horrible, and I still would have kept reading if only to find out what was in the shoebox.

The advantage to this approach is that it's straight forward and pretty thrilling. I think of all the techniques this one probably makes me read the fastest. The disadvantage is that a not-so-good writer can make a reader angry by holding off something too long.

Distractions are a must in this technique. Every time you postpone the reveal of what's in the shoebox, you have to offer up another bit of writing that's equally interesting, otherwise, the reader will skip ahead or toss the book out of the car window...if he or she happened to be driving while reading.

The best writers will set up this tension in a natural way, so it doesn't feel so much like a tease, but a normal progression of the story. Michelle uses this a lot, and she does it well. Check out Cinders, for example.

B. The Fortune-teller told you so

If I could fake a gypsy accent, I would do so now. You know what I mean, right? A character decides (usually against his/her will) to visit a fortune teller, and the fortune teller says something like "You will die underneath a blue light by the kiss of a poisonous tree octopus."

In this form of tension, a reader is told the end of the story, and then gets the excitement of figuring out how the character reaches that end. It's not about point A or B, but about all the stuff in the middle.

I don't often use this technique, but I've been experimenting with it more and more. What I like about it is that it makes the reader focus on the middle of the story sections, which, hey, is most of the book!

Of course, the writer always has some wiggle room. The prediction doesn't have to come true, and a character might be able to change the future. That can also create tension.

The bottom line for this technique is that the reader already knows the end and focuses instead on the road to the end. The skill involves making that road interesting and surprising.

C. She didn't just do what I think she did, did she?

In our discussions, I think Scott and I opt for this method of creating tension the most often. The way I describe this approach is that the writer presents everything in real time. Nothing is held in secret, nor is the ending revealed ahead of time. The tension comes from the possibilities of what might happen, given the circumstances.

I think the skill in this technique is to present enough "supporting evidence" so that the reader can see the possibilities of what might happen. It means having a lot of interesting background and dropping hints along the way.

Will your character have a heart attack? You can create the tension by showing him eating potato chips and bacon all the time. Maybe every time he's in a scene, you show him gasping for breath and cramming food in his mouth. The readers will worry for him, and that worry makes them want to read on and find out what happens.

With my current style of revising as I go, this technique works well because I'm able to polish up the background and find the clues before I move forward. The more sensitive I am to what questions I have as a reader while I'm writing, the better I am at using that information to create tension.

D. Good thing I like Haruki Murakami.

This last approach isn't really an approach, but I'm finding it to be true for a lot of books I read lately. Basically, I think a skilled writer can somehow convince a reader to trust them enough to follow them anywhere. Then, they can present material that might seem random or disconnected, and it creates tension because a devoted fan will wonder how it's all going to come together. They'll read on to find out.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is working that way for me. Partially, I don't get it at all. It seems like a bunch of disconnected pieces and details. But, because I've read another book by Murakami and some of his short stories, I trust him. I know he's good, and I'm willing to go along for the ride.

Maybe this only works if you have a reader that's already committed. But, what I like about this is that, once you have the readership, it really frees you up to experiment with new structures. I'd guess that this could be done even with a new writer, as long as she or he is able to make the reader feel secure early on. Great writing right away can do the trick.

So, there you have it. My take on some different ways to create tension. Do you have other techniques? Do you play around with any of these?

*Wow, I'm rambly today, sorry.

Friday Filler! This Week's Episode: Bad Advice

Happy Friday, mighty writers! As usual, I am relieved and somewhat amazed to have survived the week. I am also somewhat amazed to be awake just now, as Mighty Reader and I were up late on a school night at the Pacific Northwest Ballet's dress rehearsal of "Cinderella." I've never attended a dress rehearsal of a ballet before and was surprised when, at the end of each act, the dancers would wander back on stage with the director, choreographer, dance coaches and God knows who else to go over anything that seemed a little rough. The children dancers rehearsing their curtain calls and bows was priceless. My point, however, has nothing to do with the cuteness of tiny people dressed as pumpkins and falling onto their backsides in public. No, my point is that I'm a bit tired and drifty so this post is likely to be even more hazy than usual. Good luck.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a friend of mine wherein he offered some writing advice. My friend is not a writer, and though I love him like a brother he also doesn't read much in the way of literary fiction. I'd been telling him about my next book project and how the story features a sailing ship. I want to make the ship into an actual character so that when something tragic happens to it, the reader will be sad.

My friend wrote a lengthy bit about that, giving me his best advice. I appreciate the effort and thought that went into it, but gosh, he was really off the mark and I found myself not a little annoyed. Honestly, everything he said was all wrong and I already know how I'm going to present the ship to the reader as a character (anthropomorphism, mostly).

Anyway, it occurs to me that once in a while someone will give me very specific (and usually unsolicited) advice about something I'm writing, and that advice will be so far from useful that it makes me cranky. Because I'm exceedingly self-aware and sensitive (shut up, you), I realize that I've probably given annoying, unsolicited bad advice myself. Heck, I can almost guarantee it, though I have no idea what it is because all my advice sounds to me like the wisdom of Solomon when I hear it coming out of my mouth.

So to anyone to whom I've given bad advice, I offer you my apologies. The more I write, the less comfortable I am telling people how to write. Which, you know, makes it hard to co-author a writing blog. Irony, right?

Also: Happy belated lunar new year! It's the year of the golden rabbit! As a rabbit, I warn you to treat my year well or I shall be very put out.

Also: Go Steelers!

Lies You Believe

I get a lot of emails from other writers asking for advice, and most of the time I have no idea what to tell them. Honestly, I'm making things up as I go along, fumbling around the same as everyone else. I suppose, however, that when we reach certain points we forget about things. For instance, I've forgotten how difficult it used to be to start a novel. These days it's nothing. I've written enough first chapters and experimented enough with what kind of outlining and research works for me that starting a novel may still be frightening, but it's not insurmountable by any means. I don't paralyze myself at the thought.

As writers, especially new writers, we believe a lot of things people tell us. Many new writers read blogs like a hungry bear, craving whatever direction they can find. Sadly, I've fed new writers some pretty juicy lies. Not that I knew I was doing such a thing, but I'd like to dispel a few things here today in order to share some advice, in a way.


Lie #1 - write what you know

I am not a spy. I am not Cinderella after she has been married. I do not have a sister with three eyes. I have never been kidnapped or abused.

I don't write what I know. All this deceiving phrase has ever boiled down to is to write confidently. Period.


Lie #2 - you must write like someone else to be successful

No, you must not. Writing like someone (or everyone) else is a Bad Idea. Buried in their actions, I've seen many writers believe that to catch the eye of an agent, they must write like the other popular voices out there. Imitation may be a good writing exercise, but if you continue to ignore your own path and voice you'll never truly stand out. Temporarily, you might make it, but in the long run you will get buried underneath a pile of identical, life-crushing boulders.


Lie #3 - always follow the rules

We've all heard the rules.

Don't use adverbs. Ever.
Flashbacks are bad.
Back story dumping is bad.
Don't use prologues.
Don't ever start a story with your character waking up.
Don't repeat the same word in the same sentence.
You should always outline your book first.

and on and on and on...

The thing to remember is that these are not rules. Rules are things like you must put a period at the end of a sentence or use lay instead of lie if you're talking about an object and not a person. Grammar stuff. Those are rules. Everything else is subject to change. Seriously. You can use adverbs, flashbacks, and a prologue if you want. If you read enough and write enough you'll learn the right balance that works for you. For some writers, flashbacks never work. For others they are a brilliant literary device. Everyone is different. Don't limit yourself to a box made of rules. Experiment. Learn. Write.

More of these "rules" are listed below.


Lie #4 - if you're bored by your own work during the writing process, your reader will be, too

Lie. Lie. Lie. I'm bored by my own work all the time. I work on my novels hours upon hours, days upon days, sometimes years upon years. Yeah, I'm going to get bored. I know things the reader will never know. As writers, we get so close to our work that it's often impossible to judge how a reader will react to certain aspects of the story. We shouldn't be worried about that, anyway. When you're finished, put your book aside for a few months and come back to it later. You'll probably still be bored by certain things, but that gut-feeling inside of you will speak otherwise. Listen to it.

Also, this is why I have a few beta readers. They can often help me spot problematic areas I would never have seen before. I'd like to write in a complete bubble and keep all the credit to myself, but in all honesty, I'll at least need one or two people to see my work before I can call it completely finished.


Lie #5 - your first sentence must hook the reader

Not true, and besides, it's impossible to hook every reader with one sentence.


Lie #6 - your book must fit into a genre

Not true. Genres are best blended, bended, and torn apart, in my opinion.


Lie #7 - you must know your story's theme before you write

Not true. I never discover my story's themes until I've pretty much finished the book. Honestly, I don't think it's any of my business what the themes are. It's my job to write the story, not preach it.


Lie #8 - there must be tension on every page

Not true. Leave your reader room to breathe, for crying out loud.


Lie #9 - here at the literary lab we know everything

We wish.
______________________

So, readers, what are some lies you'd like to dispel today? Go on. Write them out. You'll feel better. Anything here you don't agree with? We're always up for discussion!

Taking Smaller Steps

When I was first starting to write, a friend of mine once compared the experience of reading my work to speeding down the road beside passing billboards.

I had been sharing my stories with her as part of a writing group for a couple of months, and it took her awhile before she figured out how best to explain what she was feeling. She said that as she read, she saw flashes of imagery and scenes, but it was hard for her to keep up with the narrative because there was not enough "connective tissue" holding these flashes together. In other words, she couldn't see the narrative thread.

I realize that this is still a problem for me today. My mind seems to rush through a story, and have to slow myself down to make sure I get all of my sequential thoughts down on the page instead of just abbreviating them. I can't just write the parts of the story that stand out for me; I have to be sensitive to the other parts that I assume.

Here's an example from Cyberlama that shows how the scene originally came out:

The cores were brought in and laid down on a large examining table. I didn’t pay much attention to them until Norman told me to watch on my monitor. He scanned the cameras over the core.

And here's the scene again after I put in the "connective tissue". This time, I told my self to take little steps and make sure I wrote down all of the thoughts I was experiencing:

The material was brought in and laid down on a large examining table that was equipped with cameras we could maneuver. Each segment of the core was a narrow cylinder about three inches wide and perhaps seven meters long. At first glance, they looked like nothing at all. Just pieces of hard-packed dirt. I didn’t pay much attention to them until Norman tapped me on the shoulder and told me to watch on my monitor.

Slowly, he scanned the camera over the core, moving from the segments that were closest to the earth’s surface down to the deeper sections. As he pointed them out, I noticed several changes in the rock. Some regions were made up of alternating bands of red and brown. Some sections had a brilliant yellow color. Yet other sections looked gray and speckled with round rocks that shimmered with crystals.

This second time around, I felt like I had to put my brain on slow motion so that I could record everything I was seeing. But, I think it makes the scene both more logical and more vivid.

I'm not sure if this recounting will be useful to anyone, but for me it's one of my biggest writing mistakes. I constantly battle with my own tendency to race through my scenes and have to remind myself to take smaller steps.

One Book To Rule Them All

In one of his books (I can’t swear to it but it was probably “On Becoming A Writer”), John Gardner said that he was only able to write the novels he wrote because he was avoiding writing the novel he didn’t think he could write yet. That is to say, there was a book he wanted to write but didn’t feel that he had the craft for it yet, and wrote other things while he was gathering his strength and sharpening his tools and generally getting to be a good enough writer for the One True Book he wanted to someday write.

I understand what Gardner was talking about. There is a novel (called “The Builder’s Wife”) that I have been avoiding for the last couple of years. Since 2006 or 2007 maybe. It’s a dark comedy about love and infidelity and marriage and it features composer Franz Josef Haydn in a prominent role and it’s a fabulous story. But I have this idea that I’m not quite the author this book needs, at least not yet. I have a mental list of future books to write and whenever I get a new idea that I know I can make into a novel, it gets added to the queue and “The Builder’s Wife” gets pushed farther back into the depths of the future. Because I’m not a good enough writer yet.

Honestly, I know how foolish this is. I do. Mighty Reader sometimes asks me when the “Haydn book” is going to get written, and I wave the question away and mumble something about “when the time is right” even though the truth is that I could likely write the damned thing today if I sat down and made myself work on it. But I’m sure somehow that if I wrote the book now, the prose wouldn’t live up to my vision—however hazy and ill-defined that vision might be—of the book so I will put it off a bit longer. There are plenty of other books to be written in the meantime.

Am I alone with the late Mr. Gardner in this situation? Do any of you also have a One True Book that you’re avoiding by writing other books? Tell me about it, do.

Also, author Alex MacKenzie now has a proper blog about writing. Go follow her!