Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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Sonya

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Hi everyone!

Just started reading through this thread. I have a confession to make. Thanks to my dad, I grew up reading Louis L'Amour and the Travis McGee (spelling?) series. For a few days, I thought James D. Macdonald was the guy who wrote that series.

But I think I've got it straight now and I'll jump in with a question.

When writing, how do you battle yourself.....the inner voice that tells you what you've written is stupid and no one will want to read it? Does that ever go away?

Okay..two questions...

Sonya
 

kmm8n

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James D. Macdonald said:
(I'm assuming you've posted the chapters in order, beginning with the first one, rather than random chapters from the middle of the book.)

Yup, I posted them in order

Anyway ...

The most important of those questions is "why do we care?"

Recast your story in your mind as if each of those minor characters were the hero of his/her own book. What would their stories be?

When I did this, the comment was about too much detail, is this important, etc?

Take your favorite novel. Re-read it, paying special attention to the minor characters. How does the author introduce them? What are they doing when they aren't providing an important clue later on in the story?


Great idea...I will do this.
Thanks

Back to reading the beginning of this thread!
 

jdparadise

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Sonya said:
When writing, how do you battle yourself.....the inner voice that tells you what you've written is stupid and no one will want to read it? Does that ever go away?

From what I've heard, alas, if you have it when you start it never really goes away, even when you're a Big Famous Writer. It just shifts to "will this be the one they find out I'm a fraud on?" instead.

The good news to this--and there is good news to it--is that, realizing that it'll never go away, you recognize that you're not really in the best position to judge the quality of what you're doing. Of course you think it sucks--you think everything you write, or have ever written, sucks.

So maybe this is brilliant. Who knows? Might as well keep writing and find out...

Hey, it's a cheap trick, but sometimes the cheap tricks are the most effective ones...
 

reph

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Julie Worth said:
I’d rather not say. Even though he’s a small independent...
You can use pig Latin. Nobody here understands it.
kmm8n said:
I posted several of my chapters with an on-line critique group and a few comments centered around secondary characters. For example: "Who are these people, why should we care about them, what do they have to do with the story?"

I write romantic suspense and these characters are important to the overall story and their involvement becomes clear in later chapters.
It sounds as if the critiquers complained that the characters weren't presented so as to get the reader to care about them. This is independent of the writer's interest in them based on their role in the structure of the story.
 

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Exactly right! I queried a publisher, with the opening chapter attached. I like what I see, he said, how long is it? 90 thousand words? Perfect, he’ll read it in two weeks. So I emailed it to him. A day later he replied—he must not have gotten it all, because there’s only 75 thousand words. So I explained that I used the 250 words per page method. What was I talking about, he’d never heard of such a thing.

Our correspondence deteriorated from there. The last email I got from him was apparently to someone else, saying I was a liar.


Oh, maaaaan. Life is way too precious to deal with lunatics like that. I don't know a single editor who doesn't know about 250/per count; and if by some weird quirk an editor doesn't, then all he needs to do is explain the difference. I haven't had to suffer many ultra-rude editors, but when they're like that, you're better off without 'em.
 

jdparadise

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Finding the Voice

Maybe some of the more accomplished writers here can spur something in me.

Up front: I've completed two novels (haven't sent 'em out much, I'm not that confident in them, hey, lay off, okay?), so I do know how to start, middle, and end books (or at least how to keep BIC until I get to the end, which, for purposes of this question, is good enough). Advice to "just write" isn't what I'm looking for--I well know the value of that advice, and practice it :)

All that said (and oversaid, likely)...

I've outlined my WIP book; I love the outline. I can't wait to get to work on it. But I can't find the voice to the piece.

My typical approach is close-third-person, a little too serious, a little too heavy on the moment-by-moment details. I -could- use that, or some variation... it would be appropriate, written well. But it doesn't feel exactly right--perhaps because there's so much worldbuilding I have to do.

Part of the problem is probably that my first two books were modern-day fantasy/horror; this one is second-earth fantasy, with cultures and mores that would be foreign to the reader. So there's a lot more culture/worldbuilding necessary in this one.

Another part might be that while the opening scene is important for all concerned, and there's good external conflict going on, the important conflict is about maintaining a balance. (My MC is a judge; the opening scene is the end of a trial. His goal is to sentence the guilty party in such a way as to appease the hostile masses gathered around while not being unfair to the guilty person, whose crime was a) provoked, and b) not that bad.)

So I've tried it in first person. I've tried it with an omniscient narrator, present tense. I've tried changing the present tense in the omni to past and focusing on the character more closely, only pulling out for brief removes. (I'm not going to try it second-person.) In any event, nothing seems to feel "right" for this story.

And that's the problem, because once I decide on the narrative voice, I'm going to be stuck with it, or face a massive rewrite. I'd rather get it as right as I can the first time...

So. What haven't I thought of as I try to figure out how to tell this story?
 

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jdparadise said:
Another part might be that while the opening scene is important for all concerned, and there's good external conflict going on, the important conflict is about maintaining a balance. (My MC is a judge; the opening scene is the end of a trial. His goal is to sentence the guilty party in such a way as to appease the hostile masses gathered around while not being unfair to the guilty person, whose crime was a) provoked, and b) not that bad.)
You say that this scene is about maintaining a balance. Your main character seems to be aware of that balance and of what he's doing. From the little I know so far, I don't see that he would be an *inappropriate* POV character for the scene, in either first or third. What framing device did you try for first?

(Oh, and there's no reason you can't do fantasy worldbuilding in tight-third, either, but I need to go home and look at bookshelves before I can suggest examples.)
 

jdparadise

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Kate Nepveu said:
You say that this scene is about maintaining a balance. Your main character seems to be aware of that balance and of what he's doing. From the little I know so far, I don't see that he would be an *inappropriate* POV character for the scene, in either first or third. What framing device did you try for first?


Thanks, Kate.

No, it's not that he's an inappropriate choice... it's just that it's not feeling "right." Which could be a function of bad writing, not an inappropriate choice.



Here's the "frame" in the current iteration that I think you're asking for, the bit that defines it for me as omni...
All things of import to the children of Mahom happen in the centers of circles, for the circle's center is where Mahom, the axle on whom all worlds turn, can be found.
And so, agrumble with the heat of the summer morning and their dissatisfaction at having the trial held in Mah'hin court, a crowd rings the central circle of the Mah'tin'issit, the Mah'hin crafter's ghetto within the city that the Falyai call Poricy. Some--Mah'hin, mostly--are quiet, chewing slackgrass and meditating upon the spectacle at the center of the circle. This placidity is the face of a people who have long learned the value of peaceful compliance in the face of superior numbers and a hostile occupying force.

But the Falyai--Cheapsider and merchant alike--gathered in their colorful spun-glass clothing to witness the trial are less sedate. It was one of their number, after all, who was last night struck in the face by the Godless heathen at the center of the circle.

The sun-leathered boy kneeling in the grainy red dust, no more than fourteen years of age, is the assailant in question. Puddles of darkness--sweat, turning the dust to mud as red as spilled blood--gather and crack around his knees. His bruised eyes are weary. Black-ink tattoos twist around the clean brown planes of his scalp, curling down his neck and across his lean-muscled torso. In other surroundings his shaven head and tattoos might make Marko Mah'Tenji look fierce despite his scant years and slight build; this morning, looking up at the judge's high chair as he is, they only make the boy look naked.

The Mah'hin judge whose high chair he kneels before, Pel Mah'Gandy by name, looks no more comfortable than does the boy, and if Judge Mah'Gandy is older than Marko it isn't by more than a decade. He shifts in his seat, plucking at the fraying bottom of his rough gray shirt as the crowd mutters around the circle.

I'm honestly not sure if this works or not. If it does, I could probably use this tenor (the narrator is Pel, the MC, who's (SPOILER) narrating the piece from his view in the afterlife (/spoiler)), sliding back and forth between close third and the more removed limited-omniscient.

But I suspect that, for all the pretty words, it doesn't work. Sigh.

Anyway, now you know what I'm talking about :). Thanks for helping.

EDIT: I think I may have realized what I dislike above the above--it just took retyping it to figure it out. Because I'm not starting with character-on-character conflict, maybe the above is just coming across as throat-clearing?
 
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James D. Macdonald

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jdparadise said:
So. What haven't I thought of as I try to figure out how to tell this story?

Rather than a different person, you may need a different point-of-view character.

Does this judge have a sidekick? Think about Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes or Boswell to Dr. Johnson.
 

jdparadise

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James D. Macdonald said:
Rather than a different person, you may need a different point-of-view character.

Does this judge have a sidekick? Think about Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes or Boswell to Dr. Johnson.

Interesting idea. Given the events of the novel as outlined (many private settings, including a love scene, a jail cell, a monastary of sorts, and the shared dreams of the MC and another character), I don't know how that could possibly work. But I'll give it thought. Thanks!
 
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Kate Nepveu

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In addition, it's probably not a bad idea to think _really hard_ before doing the spoiler thing you refer to above, as it's the kind of thing that a lot of readers will hear about and say "ugh" reflexively. If it's what's necessary, fine, but be sure.

(And, um, another such thing: apostrophes in names.)
 

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jdparadise said:
The Mah'hin judge whose high chair he kneels before, Pel Mah'Gandy by name....

Confusion of antecedents. Is the judge, the chair, or "he" named Pel Mah'Gandy?

(Apostrophes in fantasy names are a cliche. Consider well before using them.)

Don't get tangled in adjectives.

Let's try something a bit more ... direct.



Judge Pel Mah'Gandy pulled at the edge of his shirt and tried to look comfortable. It wasn't working. He shifted in his seat and looked down at the naked boy kneeling before him.

The boy, at fourteen a scant ten years younger than Pel himself, didn't look any more comfortable than the judge felt. Not too surprising. They were both in the center of circle upon circle of grass-chewing Falyai -- merchants and Cheapsiders dressed in colorful spun-glass -- and the sun was beating down. The odors of sweat and mud mingled in the air of the crafter's ghetto.

The boy's tattoos would have made him look fierce in another context. Here, the snakes and scorpions that decorated his shaven head and lean torso looked pathetic.

"Marko Mah'Tenji," Judge Mah'Gandy began. "You have been called before this court to answer the charge of assault. The evidence has been heard. The terms have been given. Have you anything to say before I pass judgment?"
 

jdparadise

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James D. Macdonald said:
Confusion of antecedents. Is the judge, the chair, or "he" named Pel Mah'Gandy?

Eep. I plead draft0.

James D. Macdonald said:
(Apostrophes in fantasy names are a cliche. Consider well before using them.)

Hrm. They're also indicatative of possessive, though. The language I cooked up for the Mah'(sorry!)hin uses lots of possessives in multiple positions (the city's name has two in it, because it's the city of the people of the god). They are overused, I agree. And possibly I'm stepping in a snakepit. But... other than inventing a new punctuation (do we REALLY want | pipes? :) ) or discarding the language, I don't see a way around it. (by the by, the Falyai don't use the apostrophe... and hate it when the Mah'hin do. :) )

James D. Macdonald said:
Let's try something a bit more ... direct.

That's exactly it. Obviously, my wording rather than yours, since it's my piece and all, but the more direct approach is definitely called for. Clears it right up from being such a g*d* mess.

Now I just need to figure out how to work all that worldbuilding in without drowning the poor reader, as I did in both implementations I tried.

Thanks so much, Jim and Kate!
 
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espz

I don't usually chime in, I'm more of a lurker...

But jdparadise is on the right track when he said he wasn't starting with character on character conflict. Those four paragraphs as posted were HARD for me to get through! It reminded me a bit of the 200 page "shortcut" story in a way! I'm not a fan of the flowery stuff, and Jim's straight forward words were far more interesting to me, which is a lesson I've been working on!

I've noticed that a lot of fantasy books start out with a scene setting, the two that come to mind are David Edding's "Pawn of Prophecy" and Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's First Rule", for some reason they come to mind (mainly cuz I liked 'em! :) But their world building is simple stuff, a boy on a farm, a man in the woods. Then all the magical world building stuff comes AFTER we know who the main character is. We explore the main character in a simple context, one that anyone can understand, and learn what makes that person tick, THEN they get thrown into a whole new world that we get to explore WITH the main character.

Thanks! That's a little breakthrough for MY second draft WIP!
 
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brinkett

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jdparadise said:
Now I just need to figure out how to work all that worldbuilding in without drowning the poor reader, as I did in both implementations I tried.
I think Uncle Jim's rewrite gave you a big hint about how to do it without drowning the reader. :)
 

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Theory:

In your discussion of your opening (Rather than in the scene itself), you mentioned that this particular trial is tricky because the judge has to balance appeasement of the crowds with actual justice (Or mercy?) for the boy. This is the prime reason for the scene.

This hasn't come out yet in the segment you mentioned. I'd say that's more important, up front, than who the crowd are, than where this takes place. The initial setting could be described almost as briefly as "INT: Courtroom". The only information we'll need now is that the people watching are upset and demanding X, the consequences of refusing the demands of the populace are Y, the law regarding this crime says Z, the Judge's opinion is A, the conflict is between all these. The rest of the world-building can come gradually. I'm willing to wait for background if the trial's conclusion is sufficiently riveting.

If you put it in tight third-person POV from the judge, *not* narrating from some future time but stuck in the moment, the conflict might well come forward, as he has no idea what will come next. Sometimes narration from the future means the narrator can leave tidbits and teasers to add tension - sometimes instead, it drains it away, because there's the underlying, "I know how this all turned out...."
 
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Julie Worth said:
I explained that I used the 250 words per page method. What was I talking about, he’d never heard of such a thing.
Somehow I've been unsubbed from this thread and missed this. Fixed now. What sort of word-count method was this knobbo using, anyway?
 

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jdparadise -- I'm not qualified to give any critique so I won't try. I am a voracious reader so I'll speak from a reader's perspective and chime in to say, based just on the snippet you posted, I was interested enough to say to myself, "wonder what's going on in this story, what's going to happen next? I think I'd enjoy reading the whole thing."
 

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espz said:
I don't usually chime in, I'm more of a lurker...

But jdparadise is on the right track when he said he wasn't starting with character on character conflict. Those four paragraphs as posted were HARD for me to get through! It reminded me a bit of the 200 page "shortcut" story in a way! I'm not a fan of the flowery stuff, and Jim's straight forward words were far more interesting to me, which is a lesson I've been working on!

absolutely. Often it's said that lawyers don't use one word when fifty will do. Most times, writing is the opposite- don't use fifty words when ten will do. The reader shouldn't get bogged down trying to read the sentence, but be carried along by it, soaking in the action (or suspense, or whatever).

I've been guilty of it, but going back and reading out loud is a a great way of clearing it up. If your tongue stumbles over it, rewrite it.
 

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Yay! I finally got my copy of Logical Chess (and a few other books on the list, including Amphiogory. Well, it has The Unstrung Harp in it.) Time to get reading.
 

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This is in response to the posts above about the 250/page word count. I tried to quote, but I messed it up somehow so I'm putting this in instead.

I'm going to have trouble with this, I think. If I use the 250/page count, I come up with 140,000 words for my manuscript. If I use MS Word's count, it comes out around 107,000 words. I've already cut about 10,000 MS count words, and I don't think I can cut anymore. I'm sure an editor could, though.
 

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alaskamatt17 said:
This is in response to the posts above about the 250/page word count. I tried to quote, but I messed it up somehow so I'm putting this in instead.

I'm going to have trouble with this, I think. If I use the 250/page count, I come up with 140,000 words for my manuscript. If I use MS Word's count, it comes out around 107,000 words. I've already cut about 10,000 MS count words, and I don't think I can cut anymore. I'm sure an editor could, though.

You know it. :)
 

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alaskamatt17 said:
I'm going to have trouble with this, I think. If I use the 250/page count, I come up with 140,000 words for my manuscript. If I use MS Word's count, it comes out around 107,000 words. I've already cut about 10,000 MS count words, and I don't think I can cut anymore. I'm sure an editor could, though.

Matt, do two or three different word counts, and use the one that gives you the number you prefer. Don't worry about it. The story is what matters, and as long as the count isn't egregiously wrong, you're good.

And you should look at your work with an editor's eye. Put it in a drawer and read it like it was written by someone else. Some jackanapes named HConn, for instance.

If you were reading my pages, you'd have all sorts of suggestions on how to tidy them up. Attack your own work with the same ruthless, disinterested objectivity you would give to someone else's.

And take multi-vitamins. They're good for you.
 

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Paring down word count

Well, I let a couple of friends read it, and they only had a few suggestions, mostly at the beginning where it was slow. I cut about twenty single-spaced size 12 pages out what was previously the first forty pages, and they agreed it was much better. They both said that the second half of the novel cruised along anyways, even in the first draft (one of them read the last two hundred pages in a day, the other read the whole book in three days).

There is the danger of having only the opinions of people who like you, so I submitted the first chapter to a writing group on campus that contains many people who do not read sci-fi. One of them loved it--he even asked if he could see extra chapters--and many of the other people thought it was well-written, although it was not their favorite genre. Interestingly, nobody suggested that I take anything out, but there were several suggestions to expand certain sections. Looking back through the chapter, I can see that they're correct: many things which were originally in the rough draft were cut when they should have just been trimmed. I completely left out a whole piece of back story that is vital to understanding the current situation of the world. Before, I had an info dump at the beginning (the bane of so many sci-fi/fantasy writers). When I axed it, the piece lost continuity. I think, though, that the problem is fixed now.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions in regards to obtaining a "favorable" word count. I think I'll go with the MS count, because the 250/page one puts my book too far beyond the 80,000-100,000 range desired of first-time authors.
 

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Well I haven't written anything since the 29th (I blame university. I've just had too many assignments and tests lately. On the upside: I think I not only maths test, I think I did well in it), so I just churned out a thousand words then. And not only was it easy, it was fun :D

Thanks a lot for the help everyone. I'll definitely be pestering you for some more ;)
 
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