Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

HConn said:

I have a question for Uncle Jim and anyone else who'd like to chime in: My first novel will be coming out next May (data point for the previous post--it's 104K long, which is close enough for hand grenades, I think) and I'm currently working on the sequel.

This is the first novel I've ever written with a contract and under deadline. It's a little stressful, sure, but I haven't needed smelling salts yet. What I have been doing is talking about the writing process on my LiveJournal.

Some of this is "What a productive day I had!" or "I'm grateful to the protagonist's best friend for solving a plot problem without any prompting."

On the other hand, some is "What am I doing?" "Why do these characters keep sitting around talking when I want them to go out and protag?" and "Somebody shoot me."

You know, the normal stuff that happens anytime I write something.

But I have to wonder if I'm scaring readers off. Are they likely to read that stuff and think "This guy don't know what he's doing. Avoid!" or should I not worry about it. The LiveJournal isn't there for promotional purposes, and it's mighty helpful to have a place to vent.

Thought?

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Once you're in the public eye, be very careful with regards to venting.

Don't say anything, anywhere, that you don't want to hear Dan Rather read on the Six O'Clock News.

But, having said that, there's nothing wrong with showing that you're human. You'll be building up a bunch of people who will be looking for a book by their friend. They're watching its progress, rooting for you to finish it, and looking forward to buying it the minute it comes out. What's the harm in that?

To Uncle Jim:

A long time he wrote a post regarding a John Grisham novel and commented, "This falls in line with the principle that we answer the readers' questions a moment before they ask them."

But doesn't the writer often delay answering a readers' questions, sometimes for most of the book? The reader may not find out who the killer is in a murder mystery until the next-to-last page. Often questions aren't answered, even on relatively mundane mattes, to heighten suspense. Am I missing something here?

I think that the failure to answer a question *is* a way of answering a question.

In Angela Johnson's novel "The First Part Last," the main character, Bobby, is a teenage father who has sole custody of his infant daughter. This is an unusual situation that immediately raises the question, where is the mother in this picture? Johnson makes sure that the reader raises the question - and then doesn't answer it, because the mother's absence is a hugely important part of the book, and Bobby's attempt to deal with the mother's absence is also a hugely important part of the book.

So if the reader asks a question that remains unanswered, the reader is going to be led to think that it's an important part of the story - you don't want to leave it dangling if it's completely irrelevant! (Example: I read most of "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer thinking that the main point of the story was "When is she going to figure out that her vampire boyfriend is controlling and borderline abusive?" when the point of the story is actually, "Is she going to be able to stay with her totally hot and awesome vampire boyfriend?")

There are questions, and there are questions.

The point of a Whodunit isn't who done it. It's how will the detective figure it out. Thus the question that the author must answer the moment before the reader asks isn't "Who's the killer, anyway?" but "Why the foo is Poirot sending Captain Hastings to Cardiff?"

So, could you say that there are
a) questions you do want the reader to ask, like "Who's the killer?" "What happened to Joe when he went into the cellar?": questions that cause them to keep reading, and
b) questions you don't want the reader to have to ask, like "Where is this story happening?" "Why doesn't she just call the police?": questions that cause the reader to be distracted from the story?

-Barbara

batgirl said:

b) questions you don't want the reader to have to ask, like "Where is this story happening?" "Why doesn't she just call the police?": questions that cause the reader to be distracted from the story?

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Like:

Why don't I just ditch this book and go for pizza?

Mmmm. Pizza.

"Why don't you just shoot him?"

-- Scott Evil

caw

batgirl said:

b) questions you don't want the reader to have to ask, like "Where is this story happening?" "Why doesn't she just call the police?": questions that cause the reader to be distracted from the story?

-Barbara

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Isn't that just a result of bad writing/ plot layout etc., or is there such a thing as deliberate bad writing?

b) questions you don't want the reader to have to ask, like "Where is this story happening?" "Why doesn't she just call the police?": questions that cause the reader to be distracted from the story?

-Barbara

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Well, it depends. Not revealing the setting, for example, can be a way to create suspense (where the heck are we? An alien spaceship? But where, and how?). Of course, the answer should be presented, better sooner than later.

As for "Why doesn't she call the police?" -- it depends on a few things:

a) if it's totally out of character and illogical. If that's the case, then I'd say it's a plot/character issue and yes, it will distract or even cause the readers to throw the book across the room;

b) if it's not something a reader would do, but it fits the character, then you will ask, "Why did the do that? What's the motive?" Again, it becomes suspense. There's something she's not telling us. She's hiding something! And suspense makes us turn the next page.

Jake Barnes said:

"This falls in line with the principle that we answer the readers' questions a moment before they ask them."

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Jake, I interpreted that advice differently: just another way of saying "Never tell the reader anything before he cares!" which Uncle Jim has posted earlier in this thread.

Hello SRHowen,

what are these edits you are describing? Can you explain? Thanks!

pictopedia said:

Hello SRHowen,

what are these edits you are describing? Can you explain? Thanks!

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Hi, pictopedia --

This thread is nearly 7,000 messages long. Can you give us a hint what post you're asking about?

HConn said:

But I have to wonder if I'm scaring readers off. Are they likely to read that stuff and think "This guy don't know what he's doing. Avoid!" or should I not worry about it. The LiveJournal isn't there for promotional purposes, and it's mighty helpful to have a place to vent.

Thoughts?

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Do you read other authors' blogs? Just within LJ there's a ton of 'em. And as far as I can tell, talking about writing and her joys and frustrations with it has not hurt Elizabeth Bear's readership any. Or Emma Bull's, Steven Brust's, or a horde of others.

Dichroic said:

Do you read other authors' blogs? Just within LJ there's a ton of 'em. And as far as I can tell, talking about writing and her joys and frustrations with it has not hurt Elizabeth Bear's readership any. Or Emma Bull's, Steven Brust's, or a horde of others.

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Gets your name in front of people.

Hello Jim, hello everyone,
hm, sorry, thanks for asking. I had a question somewhere around post 800, when I was still young and innocent, and posted it foolishly, and off it sped into the future, from 2003 to 2008. I'm trotting after it ever since, trying to catch up with it, have aged and wised up rapidly in the process, but am still in 2004 (post 1197). I'll work my way towards you guys here in the present first before asking again.

Btw, thanks for all this here (she added and smiled, before disappearing in the dark tunnel sucking her back to the year 2004)

Hello again, back from the tunnel, sorry for interrupting,

I wanted to read the entire thread before posting, but an emergency has come up and I seriously need your help right now. I'm at a critical point in my WIP (mainstream fiction novel, 125000 words, in beta reading), and have started to doubt the underlying guiding metaphor, thus challenging future editing on the piece as it is. Please read on.


+++++++Long book synopsis+++++++++
Noah is an addict, escaped convict, and boat owner. He fought his way to freedom and survived the first flood, now making his way through a drowned world on his boat, diving for his needs in sunken cities. Is he “the” Noah?. He doesn’t feel chosen. White-knuckling with guilt ridden memories from his past, he runs from himself, stumbling into ill fated encounters with other survivors and asking himself “Why am I surviving”. As he nearly escapes a deadly fight with ex convicts on a small island, suddenly there is Adam, a strange rescuer, friend and enemy, who leaves him stranded in an empty city where he is confronted with the enemy in himself, but then Adam reappears and brings him to a camp where survivors are constructing a large ship. Noah’s attempt to flee fails, leaving him in the worst prison he has ever experienced. His only rescue is to dream of a woman in the camp, he secretly loves. But as his evil twin Darryl, a man on the other side of the law breaks him, and makes him work on the ship, Noah discovers something about himself that changes everything, but also, gives him no choice but to flee once again, and leave the woman behind, if he wants to protect the new found ground. Just then, the flood comes again, trapping him in an underground bunker with Adam where they learn to depend on each other. They get out, but the woman is dead, leaving him to ask himself why he destroys what he loves. Again, Adam saves him, as suddenly, Darryl forces Noah to take the final jump over his inner line in a last showdown, revealing that his rescuer Adam has betrayed him. But he finally turns into what he always was, boat owner and captain, leading a last group of eight survivors into a new world to complete his journey to higher ground.


+++++++Short book synopsis+++++++++
A fucked up guy who's name happens to be Noah who happened to survive a flood, in a boat, does a lot of really fucked up stuff, almost dies several times, then realises he has build himself an inner ark all this time, finds his strength, and finally gets on the goddamn boat (figuratively and really), thus becoming a new man.


Here is the question:
Should I drop the whole "Noah and inner/outer ark" thing? This could potentially be an entertaining book about a fucked up guy named "Jack", surviving a flood in a boat, finding himself. Might not be as strong, though, because what drives the story is the fact that you wonder how he gets to the ark at the end (it's not the ship he was helping to build, but his original boat). I'm just not sure if it is a bad choice for a first novel, being overdone, silly, not sellable, no matter how fantastically I pull it off? (I don't have any beta feedback so far, am currently hiding under my desk where they can't find me)

Hey, it could work. Just make sure the story is strong enough to support the book even if the guy was named Jack. Watch the climax. "And they all got on a boat" seems a little weak for 125K words.

Just be sure you haven't written Waterworld by accident.

James D. Macdonald said:

Just be sure you haven't written Waterworld by accident.

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Thanks Uncle Jim, I just started getting a rash just thinking about that horrible movie.

ToddWBush said:

Thanks Uncle Jim, I just started getting a rash just thinking about that horrible movie.

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Hi ToddWBush and Jim,
thanks for the feedback. *gulp* I was hoping I was far enough away (don't have futuristic clothes and swimming platforms; date is around 2033 and about half of it happens in buildings and on land). Is that already inside the accident, or so close to it that I'm being sucked in? I can't tell.

Two questions are strangling me. Please help me out. I've already come up from under my table and started the next book, but I need to know this for the *autsch* waterworld WIP:

1) Would you say that it's that whole "people surviving a flood" subject that's a hot iron? Should one steer clear of subjects linked to failed projects we all remember? (I'm not sure I'm good enough at this point to fight with Goliath, this being the first thing I've written and all)

2) Do you happened to have any examples from the top of your head of books that have a "Jack" as leading character and sold ok? (not detective, secret agent, in contact with aliens, superhero, real person (faked or really autobiographical), war hero, biblical character etc, just an ordinary guy)

Thanks!

Jack and the Beanstalk?

Lee Child's MC - Jack Reacher.

Ok, the lazy fairy tale boy and the disgruntled ex elite military cop, two totally ordinary, everyday people named Jack. I guess I asked for it.

But, really, Jack is drowning here. Any other advice for him, before he is sucked back into the tunnel and forced to live on in waterworld? (Something he could fix his mind on? The tunnel is so long and dark)