Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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ChunkyC

Re: Archaic printing

Heck, fifteen years ago being a Selectric repairman was guaranteed full time employment.

I work at an office supply store. Several years ago, a five or six year old girl came in with her mother, went to the office machine section, and while standing in front of an electric typewriter, said:

"Look mom! A printer with a keyboard on it!"

Uncle Jim is right. Nothing is likely to be the same as it was fifteen years ago.
 

James D Macdonald

On Outlining

I've said that I wished I could show you a picture of an outline. So I think I will:

Here's an <a href="http://shop.webomator.com/cgi-bin/cpshop.cgi?storecrc=cb&target=prod&page=1&trail=&st=&p=bws01.4397456" target="_new">outline for a novel</a>.

"What?" I can hear you say. "That's a friggin' box!"

Oh, dearly beloved, let me explain.

Look at that design. Notice that it has limits; thus we know that it is art. (It also has balance, and symmetry.)

See how the threads intertwine, appearing and vanishing? See how they all form a pleasing whole?

Each of those threads is a plot thread. Each of those curves is a story arc. It's okay to write character names right on the thread, and follow that character through the story. It's okay to name each thread for a theme, too.

When I outline, I don't set up one of those "outlines" like you learn in high school: Roman Numerals, capital letters, arabic numerals, small letters. No. (I'm certain that somewhere there's a writer who uses that style of outlining and makes it work: the master rules are "Nine-and-sixty ways" and "Does it work?") Nor yet do I do a Powerpoint series of Plot Points. (Again, somewhere, I'm quite sure, some writer has done it and made it work.)

Instead, I draw pictures of my plots. And the pictures that I draw are Celtic Knotwork. (For example: our <a href="http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/wiz1head.htm" target="_new">Circle of Magic</a> series was based on a <A HREF="http://www.webomator.com/bws/data/freeart/celtic/circles.html" target="_new">circle</a>, with six nodes, each linked to the point beside it, to the point two away, and to the point three away. Once the knotwork was complete, I labeled the threads for the characters (Randal, Lys, and Walter), for attributes (hand, heart, head), and for themes (honor, loyalty, stability).)

Then I watched how the threads interacted, which ones were on top, which more buried, and wrote the books based on the interlacing of the cords. If you're wondering why certain characters appear and vanish in the various books, why first one then another is the protagonist, there's where and how the decisions were made.

Here, for your own use, are <a href="http://www.entrelacs.net/en.index.php" target="_new">workshop instructions</a> on creating your own Celtic Knotwork.

You can adapt this to single novels (as I have) by saying that each node is a chapter, and again naming characters and themes as they're moved around and through, come in contact, are brought to the fore, and are hidden again.

Listen, for I will tell you a true thing: Your readers expect order, a plan. Even if they don't know explicitly what you're doing, they will sense whether you're in control.

<a href="http://www.entrelacs.net/en.6.php" target="_new">Here</a> are some outlines that could become dandy novels.

This is the book that taught me how to draw Celtic Knotwork: <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486229238/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction</a> by George Bain.

Celtic knotwork is deeply embedded in Western thought. It dates back thousands of years. It's ingrained in the hindbrains of our readers. When our readers run into it, even though they don't consciously notice it, their imaginations will play along.

And that, my friends, is one of the ways in which I outline.
 

Prometheus76

Ulysses, that Great of Greats

I accidentally posted this as a new topic instead of a reply in this forum, so please forgive the double post, but this is where it belongs. To wit:

The Official Authority on English Letters or some other Official-sounding Group voted Ulysses as the Greatest Book Ever Written or something like that, so I picked up a copy from my local used book dealer. I could hardly believe my eyes. Mr. Joyce used adverbs in his dialog attributions more frequently than some high school short stories I've read. To the tune of 30 or so in the first 15 pages. Here are some choice examples:

...he cried thickly.
...Stephen said gloomily.
...he said contentedly.
...asked impatiently.
...he said very earnestly.

Really, I'm just scratching the surface here, but you get the idea. Here's what I'm wondering: should I listen to that voice in my head that has a remarkable resemblance to my AP English teacher of yore and NEVER EVER EVER use "-ly" words in dialog attribution, or do I follow in the footsteps of Great Writers like Mr. Joyce and tell all the post-modernist minimalists to go drink a latte? Who should I listen to, he asked desperately. What is a young writer to do, he asked pleadingly.

P.S. I have read the entire board up to now and have been really entranced with the amount of relevant information here. The BIC has taken me to the doldrums of the mid-book, but that's a lot farther than I ever got before! Thanks, Uncle Jim!
 

Pthom

Re: Typesetting

Once upon a time, typesetters looked at the copy to be set, went to the type case, picked out letters, one at a time, and set them into lines in a rack . . . backwards!

Then, someone figured out how to do it much faster. Photographically. Big disks of 'fonts' in negative that whirled about as the type was 'set.' Yet the typesetter still looked at a "typed" copy (some of the more magnanamous ones would accept hand-written copy) and keyed in the copy on a keyboard.

In both of those methods, a system was invented to ensure the result was what was desired. You can look in most good dictionaries and see a list under "proofreader's marks."

When computers and laser printers arrived, the process got even faster. I used to take carefully prepared copy to a typesetter, watch as the guy (or gal) looked at it while keying into the typesetting machine. The output was a long strip of paper, justified or centered or whatever, all the bolds and italics in place. If I noticed an error, the typesetter called up my file in his machine (which had a computer of sorts in it somewhere) and corrected the error, printing out a new strip of set type. I then gleefully went back to my studio and cut it to shreds, glued it down and ... well that's another story.

THEN:
The desktop computer was invented. I was there. I had one of the first. Not long after that, desktop publishing arrived.
What happened to the typesetter I used to go to?
He's still there, older now, but still "setting" type.
BUT:
He uses a desktop computer, a software program that any of us could purchase, if we are so inclined (I was; I have an old version), and he does look at hard copy but he really would rather not.
His preference currently? "Gimme a file, babe." He prefers .rtf, since it's more or less universal, but accepts .txt, .doc, .wp ... pretty much any kind of digital file on either the MAC or WIN platform. Why? Because he doesn't have to work as hard with them; all he really needs to do is select the font and size. He also charges less for setting type from a file than from keying it in again . . . and makes fewer errors, too. In fact, the only reason I go to him to get type set anymore is because he can prepare negatives ready for press. He likes the situation; he'd rather be snowmobiling anyway.

So, what's my point? akaEraser asked, "How come we can't just make the italics or bolds or whatever to begin with?" My friend the typesetter is a small outfit; has only a few hundred clients. Uncle Jim, seriously, do the big guys still set type for whole novels by reading 8 1/2" x 11" typed copy? Especially when it's so much easier, quicker, and more error free to do it from a file. I betcha that 95% of us writers prepare our manuscripts using a word processor on a computer.

Surely, modern publishers utilize the most current and efficient technology. Don't they?
 

WordSoup

Re: Typesetting

Pthom, you described three (possibly more) generations of typesetters. Nice history! The desktop publishing is my generation..(my Mom type out the long strip of paper)..I guess I have to learn some new tricks. At this point, though, I just need a job. If I walked in and they had an opening in the bindery to run the saddle stitcher, I'd be grateful. Does your typesetter friend need any help? :lol

OK, back to Outlines....

- Jen
 

maestrowork

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

Follow Hemingway instead. He rarely used adverbs in his dialogue tags. Really. Certainly. Absolutely. :ack
 

maestrowork

Re: Typesetting

It's not about typesetting sometimes. Remember editors read hundreds of manuscripts and it is simply easier for them to read something that has fixed-width font, 12pt, double-spaced, etc. etc. Bold and Italics are hard to make out sometimes with courier font so underline is still used to emphasize. There's absolutely nothing wrong with preparing a manuscript with Times Roman with bolds and italics, but you're just distracting the editors.
 

Prometheus76

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

Why should I choose to follow Hemingway's style instead of Joyce's? What is it about adverbs in dialogue attribution that is so bad according to modern methods? It used to be just fine. What changed? Who decided it's bad, and why? I like to understand the principles behind dogma. Thanks in advance.
 

Stephenie Hovland

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

Pro,
It goes against the advice "show, don't tell." I'm working on a short story now and just came across a part where I could've said "Why?" Erik asked angrily. Instead, I wrote "Why?"
From the placement of the dialog, it was clearly Erik talking. By his actions (cursing and kicking a rock, and other actions mentioned later in the story) it's clear that he is angry. I didn't need to tell the reader, because I am showing it.
Also, seeing lots of -ly words on dialog tags gets old for this reader. It seems like lazy writing to me.
Stephenie

(who is a rather lazy writer herself.)

p.s. My spellchecker says it's dialog not dialogue. I've always spelled it the second way. Which one is correct?
 

evanaharris

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

Because adverbs encourage laziness. They are of the devil. Don't sell your soul to adverbs!

Sure, Joyce did it, but did it work, in your opinion? That's all that matters. Does it work?
 

ChunkyC

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

My spellchecker says it's dialog not dialogue. I've always spelled it the second way. Which one is correct?

I have two books on the subject and they both spell it 'dialogue'.

'Dialogue' by Lewis Turco
'Writing Dialogue' by Tom Chiarella (the better of the two, IMHO)

Spell checkers in software using their US dictionary generally drop the 'ue' from words like dialogue, prologue, epilogue, etc. Uncle Jim might be able to verify that the 'ue' spelling of such words is preferred in the writing industry, another reason not to completely trust your computer's spell checker.
 

PixelFish

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

I see adverbs like cilantro. (Or maybe curry. Pick your favourite spice.) I have only barely taken up cooking and the one time I cooked a full meal for friends, I used cilantro. Sparingly. Cilantro won't taste great with everything, and if you use too much, it overpowers the other tastes, and it makes your fingers and mouth and everything taste like cilantro for a few hours afterwards, unless you scrub your hands and brush your teeth.

The smell clings.

So...while I will use adverbs, I've been trying to crop them except where the flow and sound of the words really seems to demand it AND when it aids understanding of the story.

I guess Jim will say, as he always does, "Does it work?" Otherwise, the advice proffered by Stephanie--showing, and not telling, and letting the dialogue speak for itself-- seems quite sound.
 

DBellamak

Breaking the Rules

Hello everyone,

Stephenie, that was one of the clearest show-don't-tell examples I've seen in a long time. Thanks for sharing it.

Hi, Jim. Thank you for the time and effort you've devoted here.

My boyfriend brought your thread to my attention via boing-boing. It took a couple weeks to catch up to the current posts, but here I am and yes, I've ordered my copy of Logical Chess: Move by Move.

As I read the posts here, I applied the rules mentioned to the Harry Potter series (book 1). It seems J.K. Rowling breaks every rule and convention I see supported here. And yet--to me--her books work.

I like exploration and I like to trail-blaze. However, with writing, I sometimes get hung up and insecure about the rules. I write myself into a corner I can't escape. My characters become prisoners of that insecurity. They start to look one-dimensional, chained to convention (and hate me), and before I know it, a good story goes bad.

In your writing process, when and where is it okay to break the rules? Are they rigid (letter of the law), or flexible (spirit of the law)? Are they reserved for novices only? Or are they intended to set industry-wide standards?

Have a wonderful day,

Diann
 

maestrowork

Re: Point of View

I think the "chess" analogy is an excellent one. I do believe that a "character-driven" story is better than a purely plot-driven one. By "character-driven" I don't mean a Jane Austen period drama or THE HOURS. I mean the plot is driven by the characters' motives, desires, conflicts, etc. instead of the author shoehorning the characters in a plot "twist" that does not make any sense. Beside, I think writing a story like that (more organically) is a lot of fun.

Speaking of POV, I think it's one of things (beside dialogues and character development) that even seasoned writers struggle with sometimes. I personally find the 3rd person omniscent intrusive and annoying, unless it's done extremely well.

Also about "somehow." I agree with James about the narrator should be precise: "somehow the door is kept open" vs. "a dead mouse on the floor prevents the door from shutting." One exception in the case of an "unreliable" narrator and the story is told in first person POV. In that case, I think the narrator (author) has more freedom to be "unsure" either about the situation or a feeling -- more so the latter. It makes it a more vivid story if the narrator can describe details about things around him and events, but remain "clueless" if you will about his/her feelings:

"Somehow I think Jane still loves me."
 

maestrowork

Re: Breaking the Rules

Once you know the rules, you can break them. But not before. I break rules all the time, but not everywhere in the manuscript. I use sentence fragmentation to quicken the pace or to punctuate the narrative. I open sentences with conjunctions because they feel more natural, so does "ending with a proposition." So on and so forth. It makes my prose more interesting and more stylish -- and it sounds better.

There are rules that shouldn't be broken though, ex:

"Knowing the risk of getting lost, crumbs were left on the road."

What is wrong with that sentence? I'll let you tell me.
 

ChunkyC

Re: Breaking the Rules

"Knowing the risk of getting lost, crumbs were left on the road."

What is wrong with that sentence? I'll let you tell me.


Sounds like the crumbs themselves were aware of the risk. A common error in sentence structure that newer writers are prone to make. Also easy to fix:

"Knowing the risk of getting lost, he left crumbs on the road."

Still not an eloquent sentence, but the meaning is now clear. I don't know if this is an example of a 'rule', however. There is nothing grammatically wrong with the first sentence, it's just confusing.
 

DBellamak

Re: Breaking the Rules

"Knowing the risk of getting lost, crumbs were left on the road."

What is wrong with that sentence? I'll let you tell me.

Howdy Maestro,

Well, I'll give it a shot.

It's passive voice, awkward and lacks detail. Who risked getting lost? A single person? A group? Who left crumbs?

I'm sure I've abused every rule in Elements of Style at least a dozen times (if not a gazillion). In the beginning, I did so out of ignorance. Now, as I work more toward crafting and less at just writing, I break them by choice. If doing so doesn't work out, it gets red-lined.

By your reply, it sounds as if you follow the spirit of the law. But what about rules outside of grammar? What about tone, or theme, your target audience or chosen genre? Do you treat them the same way?

Thanks,

Diann
 

Prometheus76

Re: Ulysses, that Great of Greats

Wow, thanks to all for responding with such cogent suggestions/examples/advice. I wasn't necessarily arguing for adverbial dialog (That's the U.S. spelling for you. I don't know why "dialogue" came out of my fingers, but Canadians and Britons didn't notice.) I was just trying to understand the "why" behind the rule. In thinking about Mrs. Rowling's audience, her extensive use of adverbial dialog attribution probably works better for her younger audience because a lot of them haven't really established that "reader's voice" in their head yet, so she uses those clues for younger readers. On the other hand, I understand and prefer pristine and whittled-down prose. "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway is my favorite short story. A remarkable example of the Zen approach to writing.

Write on, fellow writers! Thank you for the overwhelming response to my high-school-debate postulation of a straw witch. I've definitely learned a lot from reading this board. Thanks again, Jim!
 

Yeshanu

Dialogue

I've just spent the last few days cleaning up a few things on the first draft of my novel, which was written some time ago, and here are two things I noticed:

1) Too many adverbs make my work sound amaturish, as if I didn't really know what I want to say. Joyce may have succeeded in spite of them, but I'm not Joyce so I'll take them out of the next draft.

2) Americans seem to have this problem with the letter "u". I ran the whole novel through a spell-check, because the original word-processing programme I used did not have a spell-checker, and almost every "mistake" was either a name or a word like colour, honour, armour, or humour. As for dialogue and prologue, that's the way they are spelled in my (American) Funk and Wagnall's dictionary, but down at the bottom of the entry it says, in small type, "also dialog" or "prolog." So both are correct, although I think the "gue" ending is more common. Not that it matters. I don't think the word "dialogue" occurs in my novel at all, and in accordance with the advice earlier in this thread, I took the word "prologue" out and replaced it with "Chapter One." ;)

Ruth
 

maestrowork

Re: Interest

(pardon my late participation... I just recently found this site! Great stuff)

Themes should work at the subconscious level. When I write I have strong themes in my head. In fact most people do, they just don't consciously know about them. That's great because the readers shouldn't have to be "preached" about the themes. Themes takes many forms:

- love (parental, romantic, friendship, etc.)
- hate (revenge, evil, etc.)
- redemption
- salvation
- knowledge/experience (coming of age)
- grieve/loss
- greed, lust, etc. (seven deadly sins)

If you think hard on the books you've read or the ones you've written, you would be able to pick out some of the overriding themes.
 

maestrowork

Re: Breaking the Rules

You do have to adjust to the themes, tones, styles and genre you're writing. Obviously if you're writing romance you wouldn't write it like you would a mystery and vice versa.

For contemporary story I use a more casual style. A bit punchier. When I write something more literary, I use more long, complex sentences with metaphors, etc. (but no purple prose, please). Comedic writing and dramatic writing are different, too. So on and so forth.
 

James D Macdonald

On the Climax

Here's a good line from that page of <A HREF="http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/quotes.html" target="_new">chess quotes</a> I gave earlier:


<blockquote>
<hr>

"If you have any doubt what to study, study endgames. Openings teach you openings. Endings teach you chess."

-- Stephan GERZADOWICZ, Thinker's Chess.

<hr>
</blockquote>

So.... let's think about that in writing terms. How many times have I heard "XXX started off well, but it fell apart at the end"? Lots of times, and lots of those times were when discussing why books got rejected.

We spend an awful lot of time talking about openings: opening lines, first pages, first chapters. Not to say those aren't important; if the first page doesn't invite the reader to turn the page that reader will never come to your ending. But ... you'll be able to mess with the opening in your second and third drafts. When you start your novel you may not have a clue what the real opening of the book is; even if you think you do, you may be wrong, and may find this out when you've finished your draft and read it through.

The climax is what pays off the reader for going with you. The climax is what entices the reader to buy and read your next book. (The reader will buy and read your next book, even if the opening of that book is slow, because of the promise of a strong ending.)

<Blockquote>
<HR>

"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else...."

-- Jose Raul Capablanca, World Champion 1921-1927

<hr>
</blockquote>

The climaxes of novels, however, are difficult to study compared with the openings. The opening exists as a unity, it comes from a blank page, it's creating itself as it goes. The ending, of necessity, grows from the middle and the beginning of the novel. Where we can look at an opening chapter in isolation, it's difficult to look at the final chapter without having the rest of the story in mind. Take, for example, the classic last line from <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/0451524934/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">1984</a>: "He loved Big Brother."

As part of the whole, that's chilling; the epitome of horror. Taken without the rest of the book, it's meaningless.

The last three chapters of <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/0553213113/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">Moby-Dick</a> are the novel. All that came before was necessary to allow the reader to understand those three chapters.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<HR>

"Modern chess is too much concerned with things like pawn structure. Forget it - checkmate ends the game"

-- Nigel SHORT

<HR>
</blockquote>

But, again, you may ask, what is the climax?

(Homework: Read a bunch of novels in many genres from literary to best-seller. Identify the climax. Go and do, in your own work, what the masters have done in theirs.)

Here is the one big secret of climaxes, from which all others spring: The reader must be in no doubt that this is the climax.

I said, earlier, that there's only one ending to the novel: The good guys win. I quoted, just a bit above, the last line of 1984. Did the good guys win?

I say yes: and I also say this: you must define, in the course of your narrative, who the good guys are, and what "winning" means. You cannot assume common views in today's society; you have to establish those views in terms of your fiction.

The book that does not so much end as stop, that appears to run out of steam, or where the author got to a certain page count and wrote "The End," those are not good climaxes.

For most writers at most times, "It was only a dream" and "Then they were all run over by a truck" are not going to be satisfying climaxes. (Unless you can make it work, of course. <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/0812504186/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</a> is an example of the first, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0449213943/ref=nosim/madhousemanor" target="_new">All Quiet on the Western Front</a> is an example of the latter.)
 
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