Turning Point

Here's a thought and a question. I think most writers have a turning point in their writing--obviously one point is making it to the pro stage. But i think something happens even before then.

A place in the road where suddenly all those how to books make sense, where the articles in various how to forms and magazines are helpful and not a study in frustration--I don't understand what they mean by this, how do they do it?:huh

I used to write monster novels--huge loping 300,000 plus things. They were good, got good rejections on them--but all ended with some form of this is just too long a work etc et el.

Then I read a Writers Digest article, it was in the Feb 2000 issue I think, might have been 2001, anyway, this article talked about the formula for a first time novel. As short and simple as that article was it was an epiphany for me. I sat down to write a novel based on that idea--chapter length, number of scenes per chapter, number of sub plots and so on--I still did not plan ahead, other than to keep those numbers int he back of my head, no more than 3000 words per chapter, at least 3 complete scenes in each chapter and so on--

I ended up with a great novel. (commercial fiction) That article was my turning point where i finally "got it."

So what was your turning point? Or are you still looking for it?

Shawn

I do have a system (similar to that one) when it comes to writing my novels. But I can't say I am yet at that "turning point." Dunno, maybe I need to be selling the books, going through the rounds of rejections and trying something different before I have that moment. :shrug

I continue to have turning points. The first one was a year ago when I sat down to try to write the one or two novels in my head at the time.

The second was when I decided the first novel idea was too hard to write, so I started with the second one, which used the same characters, different time frame.

Third turning point was finding a critique group who knew more than I did and told me a few things I was doing wrong, like writing from an omniscient, head-hopping point of view.

Fourth was learning to work with an outline. Having been an outline snob, I rejected the idea of using them until my story became so complex I needed help remembering where everybody was. So I changed, developed an outline from what I had written, took that outline further out, wrote from it, worked on the outline some more, finally finishing it.

Fifth, I finished the book in about nine months. As I let it sit for a couple of weeks--all the while still getting crits on the beginning parts--I heard about a contest to win a publishing contract.

Sixth, I entered the contest and won in my mystery/suspense division. That was a major turning point, I think, though all the previous points held importance in my growth as a writer.

Now I have a business card that says I'm the author of THRIPS, the winner of blahblahblah, with a 25-word synopsis of the plot, my Web site, and email, and a little teeny picture of me. When the cover gets done and the book is on the shelves (October 2004, if all goes on schedule), I'll put a picture of the book cover on the card.

Turning points....

Bob/bfdc

There continue to be turning points; at least I hope there will be. I didn't think I could write dialogue, and I ended up up writing for TV, which is a whole lot about dialogue. I even won an Emmy. That was huge for the ego, but it didn't really represent any turning point. Didn't think I could write a novel, but I did and darned if it didn't sell. Now, I'm thinking I'd like to write a humorous mystery, but I didn't know if I'm capable of doing that. But, then again, I didn't think I could do that other stuff either.

No, if there was one, significant turning point it was when I discovered my own writing voice. Took me forever to find that elusive critter. Once found, it is reflected in everything I write -- teleplays, novels, even letters.

Linda

I keep learning and improving. I haven't gotten to the point where I'd say "hey, I've made it." And I doubt I ever would (I'm my own worst critique).

However, what really enlightened me was the first creative writing class I took. It was like "Eureka! That's how stories should be written." I learned almost everything we've discussed here. Of course, doing it is different from knowing it. That's why I am still practicing.

Although I'm not published with fiction, my turning point in comprehending what I needed to write was when I read "Story" by Robert McKee.

McKee's STORY is one of my must-have writing books in my library. The other is THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING by Lajos Egri. Although this is geared to writing a play, his discussions of character and dramatic structure are masterful.

Linda

I think I've had my first serious epiphany about writing novels, and that is an intuition about the distinction between the craft of telling a story in the written word and the story being told.

It has most come home to me in my studies of movies. I looked to movies as a means of enhancing basic storytelling skills. But movies share plot with books, not the craft of storytelling - because obviously a movie is about showing through images, not words. And the two things are quite different. A camera angle, focus and frame are analagous to a certain choice of words, voice and tense, but it's not the same.

So the advice of "read, read, read" is coming home to me now, as well as all the stuff about the difference between storytelling and plot that has been discussed ad nauseum. After that, there are all the points of craft about the written story. Use of all the senses as appropriate, telling what needs to be told for the story and no more, the role of conflict, plus many other important things.

As for turning points, I think that's one of those things that we understand after the fact. So I won't attempt to claim to understand where my turning point was for quite a few years.

JB

SRHowen,

Could you share the points of the article which you read and were important for you?

.

I've never read a How-To book or article, and don't ever plan to, so I have no idea if I'll ever reach a turning point based on "getting it" regarding those. My How-To books are just reading a crapload of novels, and I can definitely remember a period in High School where I stopped just reading books and started really reading books. Indirectly at least, I would imagine that's helped me become a much better writer. But I also imagine I won't recognize any particular turning point I reach in direct regard to my writing until much later, when I can actually look back and pinpoint such a moment with the advantage of hindsight.

Turning points

I never had a turning point working up to pro writer, or when I reached pro writer stage. I didn't go through any of this.

When I decided to try writing, I read a grammar book and some Writer's Digest magazines, this took about three weeks, then I sat down and write a short story, a novelette, really. This took two days. I sent it in and they bought it. I write a couple more short stories equally fast, and they sold. Then I wrote a novel in three weeks, and it sold.

The check for that first story was large enough that I quit my day job the day after it arrived.

So all my turning points have come since I started selling.
But they do come.

I take two weeks each spring and two in late summer or early fall or early winter to do nothing but study good fiction. I literally tear novels and short stories apart, scribble all over them, mark them up with highlighter pens, trying to understand what makes them work so well, how the writer does what he does.

The last real epiphany I remember was a couple of years ago when I spent one of these weeks studying Ray Bradbury. I was reading "Green Shadows, White Whale," Bradbury's somewhat fictional account of the time he spent in Ireland with John Huston, writing the script for Moby Dick.

During one long passage it suddenly hit me. I understood exactly how he did what he did to get the affect he was looking for. I jumped to the keyboard and wrote a couple of quick pages. They came out vintage Bradbury.

There was also a time when I was trying to sell stories to Ellery Queen without success. I think I'd had four or five rejections, and it was discouraging. Then a phrase I'd probably read fifty times made all the difference. Everyone has probably read it somewhere. "Editors want something just like everything else they buy, only different."

I was reading back issues of Ellery Queen, trying to learn what all the stories had in common. Suddenly I realized it wasn't what they had in common that was the key, it was what they didn't have in common that mattered. It was the way they were different. And the stories, especially those by new writers, did have a couple of key differences, and each time they were in the same area. While everythign else about the stories was pretty much the same, these two areas were almost always different.

That was really a eureka moment.

It took about fifteen minutes to start working on a story where these two things were different, maybe five or six hours to write the first draft. I knew that story would sell, and it did.

Re: Turning points

Jamesaritchie,

Please can you expand in more detail "the two things" that you were speaking about (I find your posts very interesting to read and I'd also like to say a big thanks to everybody from this thread for sharing with us the precious 'turning points').

Regards,

Pencilone

points

For me, and I say for me, meaning the point of a turning point is different for everyone. I think we all start out with certain strengths and then can develop the rest of what we need as we go, if we are willing to do so.

One thing that struck me as soon as I read that article was that feeling of this is it--let me try this.

The article suggested a chapter length of 2,500 to 3,000 words, but to vary the length so the novel didn't take on a sing song rhythm. You can have chapters of any length--as long as they work. But for me this was a good guide. I kept that is mind and ended up wrapping up most chapters at said length. It somehow gave me a stopping point, which helped keep the novel down to a reasonable length as well.

It also suggested a writer have at least 2 to 3 complete scenes per chapter. This also worked well for me. I did have many complete scenes in my chapters before--and what I mean by complete scenes is very much like what someone said in a different thread about each one being a mini short story, it has a beginning a middle and an end, the same with each chapter--but the chapter wraps up the point of the mini scenes, but foreshadows the next set of them with enough question and curiosity in the reader's mind that they have to turn the page.

The article also suggested a length for first time novels be 70,000 to 100,000 words--that hit me in the head--no wonder I couldn't sell a novel mine were 3 or 4 times that amount. But by following the chapter length rule and the scene rule I came up with a 90,000 word draft.

I learned a lot by writing by the "rules" this article set out. It's in the February 2001 issue of Writer's Digest and i can no longer remember what it was called. But if you have back issues or your library does you can read it.

Shawn

Re: points

I hope my turning point is up ahead, otherwise I have to reverse back a real long way!

SRHowen wrote:

A place in the road where suddenly all those how to books make sense, where the articles in various how to forms and magazines are helpful and not a study in frustration--I don't understand what they mean by this, how do they do it?

Click to expand...

One major turning point for me was the day I was in a bookstore, browsing through the writing books section, and realizing that I didn't need any of those books. That the mechanical learning I needed to know, I already knew; that what was left was simply the discipline and the practice.

Those, alas, are harder.

Have Fun,
- Steve Eley

Please can you expand in more detail "the two things" that you were speaking about

Click to expand...

I'd be more interest in the process James used, rather than the "two things" he spoke about, because those two things were specific to that magazine, whereas the process could be used by a writer to examine almost any market. Could you elaborate, James?

magazine

I didn't mean to make it sound mysterious. The two things I noticed were both commonplace, thngs every writer deals with in every story. They are setting and character.

While the stories of the new writers were still abut murder and mystery, what I noticed was that first time writers who broke into the magazine almost always had a setting that was completely different from the settings in the stories by the established writers. Not just a different big city or cozy English town, but a setting where none of the others stories took the reader. The setting was also painted very realistically to show the writer knew all about it. The setting was something new, but a place you could tell the writer knew intimately.

The other difference was in the protagonist. He wasn't the standard private eye, police officer, or amateur detective. He, or she, too, was somethng new.

So I thought, okay, new setting, new protagoniost. I wrote two stories that essentially used myself as protagonist, and that centered on the fact that I was a western writer. One started at a book signing, and the setting then turned to ghost town in one, with the antagonist being a modern day Billy the Kid who hated the way I wrote western novels. The setting in the other was New Mexico, and dealt with sacred Gold and Ghost Apaches, but at a location of the type I knew the magazine had never used, but that I knew well.

The third story was set in Millville, IN, birthplace to Wilbur Wright, a small farm town of 100 or so people, and the place where I was raised. Again, the protagonist was essentially a teenage me, and I made the setting as real as possible, showing I knew the place in a way only someone who lived there could. In it, the protagonist murders his pregnant girlfriend, blames it on his best friend, and gets away with it. The best friend actually believes he is guilty.

You can't really tell it from these brief descriptions, but the stories were very different in the areas of protagonist and setting, and all three sold. The little blurbs the editor puts at the front of the stories reflected these differences.

If you can pull it off, I found this works pretty well with just about any magazine. Read a couple dozen issues, then write stories with different setting and different protagonists. It puts you one step ahead of the game. The mystery editor still gets a mystery story, the SF editor still gets an SF story, the fantasy editor still gets a fantasy story, but all also get something new, something just like everything else, only different.

It's still story that matters, but these are two things that set your story apart from all the others in the slush pile because most writers don't give the editor something new in these areas.

The only thing I'd add is that it isn't as easy as it sounds. The protagonist still has to fit the story, absolutely must come off as realistic, and the setting, too, must fit the story and come across as realistic.

If it appears either of these are done just to be different, the story itself will likely fail.

There is one other trick I learned that goes along with these two, but that one I'm not giving away until I've used it a few more times.