Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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James D. Macdonald

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It's been a while (since March, 2004, if you must know) since I've done a wrapup of the books and movies and articles we've discussed and linked to from here. So that can be this morning's project.

The Best of HapiSofi:

Lee Shore Literary Agency

Need Advice

Agents Charging Fees


Sex Scenes, version II

Typesetting

1st Books was OK

Prologues

Midbooks

Tone

PA Authors

ST Comments I Love It!

All PublishAmerica Titles are in the Library of Congress

Decent Typesetting

================

Font:

Dark Courier

====================

Books:

Cut and Assemble Victorian Shingle-Style House
Cut and Assemble Victorian Cottage
Modern English Usage
The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
New Skies
Between the Darkness and the Fire
The Apocalypse Door
Werewolves: A collection of original stories
Otherwere: Stories of Transformation
Murder by Magic
Writers Digest
The Killer Angels
The Price of the Stars
The Stars Asunder
A Working of Stars
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004772.html
Hunters' Moon
Marvelous Max: the Mansion Mouse
Tournament and Tower
Aquatech Warriors
Tiger Cruise
Camelot
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Vampires
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Conjure Wife
Starpilot's Grave
The Summons
The Street Lawyer
Bruce Coville's Book of Spine Tinglers
Understanding Comics
Psycho
The Silence of the Lambs
The Foxfire Book
Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Far Futures

====================

Links:

Advice from Bookslut
Parody of Jane Austen Doe
Harry Potter and the Horrid Pain of the Artiste
Why 98% of the slushpile is unpublishable
International Slushpile Bonfire Day

H. W. Fowler
Yetanother Variant
Warnings and Cautions for Writers
How Gramatically Correct Are You?
Medieval Numerology
The Last Real New Yorker in the World
Bestseller Lists 1900-1995
Windhaven Press
Viable Paradise Student Sales
The Certainities of Life
The Literary Life
You're Published. Now the Fun Begins? Think Again.
Scrivener's Error
CafePress
Print On Demand
Five Deadly Sins
What Kind of Writer are You?
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jspThe Fight Crime!
Celtic Knotwork
Harry of Five Points
Pericles, Prince of Tired Plots
Skinhead Hamlet
Romeo and Juliet, as performed by Peeps
The Cask of Amontillado
Viable Paradise
ISBN Checksum Calculator
Fold a paper pressman's hat
Speed Writing
On the Getting of Agents
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Panel Looks At Financing of Book by Rowland's Wife
The F-word Song
Hang on the Bell, Nellie
A Visit from St. Nicholas
Sovay
Lime Pie
Slushkiller
Susanna Clarke's Magic Book
Jump-starting a Stalled (or Dead) Career
Stalled Careers, Writer's Block, and Monsters Under the Bed
Bookslut
Writers are Terrorists
Bakeless Literary Prizes
Holly Black's Writing Resources
Storytelling
Report to the Authors Guild Midlist Books Study Committee
Le Bar aux Folies Bergere
L'Empire des Lumieres
Origami Crane

====================

Movies:

Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"

Jose Chung's "Doomsday Defense"
A Fistful of Dollars
Shakespeare in Love
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
28 Days Later



 
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James D. Macdonald

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Looks like that thread has been removed. (Occasionally inactive threads -- ones that haven't gotten post in year or two -- get trimmed.)

Not to worry -- most of the same material was reposted in this thread and this thread isn't going away.

I'll delete the dead link.
 

Nangleator

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What's involved in serializing a novel for magazine publication?

Would I be done if my novel had chapter breaks at the 1/3 and 2/3 position, with fairly strong story breaks? Or would it need to be written so those breaks were definitely cliffhangers?

Does each of the last two installments have to have a summation in the text, or written by the author?

Finally, is it a good way to publish a novel? (Assuming the magazine just gets first time rights.)
 

James D. Macdonald

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If there's a magazine that still serializes novels ... work it out with the editor. Generally they'll go with chapter breaks. Your chapter breaks should all end on a strong note, at a natural breaking place, with the urge for the reader to start the next chapter built in.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Sean D. Schaffer

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Royalties are trickling in. Just got the money from Harcourt, with the three "Dozens" anthologies: A Wizard's Dozen, A Starfarer's Dozen, and A Nightmare's Dozen. Total around forty bucks, but then these have been going, twice a year, since 1993. A tank of gas....


I'm impressed ... not by the forty bucks obviously, but rather by the fact these works have been in print so long.

Even so, the forty bucks is somewhat of an encouragement to me, because of my past association with a house prominent in the Bewares and Background Check forums. The forty makes me realize a good working author can make a lot more than said house claims, even years down the road.
 

AnnaWhite

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I have at last re-emerged from four months' hell, where too much work meant I had to give up writing. I'm back in my writing chair now, and determined to organise my life so that nothing will push me out of it again (except for eating, and sleeping, and reasonable bread-and-butter work, and other basics).

I'm re-working a novel where the main 'good' character is born to defeat the main 'bad' character. So, an important part of the story happens before the birth of the heroine. Originally, the book started with the birth of the heroine, and later in the story, she and her friends read about the 'bad' character in a history book. This made for a slow start to the story, and a thoroughly boring history lesson.

I feel the story would be more alive if I ‘showed’ the baddie in the first chapter - it means a much more dramatic start to the book, especially because I could catch the moment of change, when he is 'becoming' bad.

But now I'm worrying about the fact that the heroine only appears in chapter two. I remember Uncle Jim saying that the main protagonist should always feature in the first paragraph, that it's a bit like baby ducks imprinting, you need your hero/heroine right at the start.

I wonder, though, if it would be acceptable because although he is not a hero, the main baddie is in no way a secondary character; in fact, the story would never have existed without him. In a way, he is even more necessary than the heroine. Even if later on the story is about the heroine and her friends, the baddie is always the elephant in the background.

On the other hand, being a novice writer I don't want to break any rules - though I'm aware that like many other writing rules, this has occasionally been broken by experienced writers. But I’m not in the rule-breaking category yet.
 
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jdparadise

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Me, I'd use Big Bad in Chapter 2. Maybe with a leadout (if the MC knows about BB) where she's talking about him with her friends...

If you do this, though, you -must- go back to BB's POV in later chapters; you can't just use it once and throw it away.
 

Chris Grey

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Badness

Your story is about your villain.

I'm inferring a lot, so correct me where I'm wrong. You want your story to be about your heroine and her friends and their exploits, but your heroine is boring. What is her motivation, what are her dreams? The way you describe her, she doesn't have anything heroic to do until she learns about the villain-- and this is why you need to introduce him immediately. A compelling story tends to begin with a character in a place with a problem. Your heroine doesn't seem the kind of girl who'd get into trouble on her own, so you need the villain to push her out of the nest and make her fly. (Alternately, you could have Gandalf show up and make her chase after dragons)

So, story's about the villain, as told from the point of view of the heroine. Story's not interesting until the villain gives her a problem to get in, though. And you need the Interesting Stuff in the first paragraph. So... solutions?

1. in media res it. Start after the villain mucked things up for her, when she's already left home to defeat him and has already gotten in trouble. Then backstory the rest as subtly as possible.

2. Put the heroine's world in the villain's shadow. Not a page goes by in a Harry Potter book without mention of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or some repercussion of his actions. Voldemort changed the world, and everything reflects that change. He only shows up like three times, but even happiest moments of the series are in his shadow.

3. There's a time to show and there's a time to tell. Showing is for emotions ("___ trembled" vs "___ was afraid"), telling is for when it works. Compare the red-shirted ensigns of Star Trek (or the nunnery that exists just to get sacked) to Frank & Alice Longbottom. Nobody cares when that guy who just got introduced gets killed, and most readers can see that trick coming a mile away. But all we got on Neville Longbottom's parents was a little exposition and it worked chillingly. Slip some exposition into the action subtly enough and your readers won't care that you didn't show it.

5. Whatever works.

No reason you must show your villain in the beginning, even if he is the driving force to your story. Hint at him, talk of him, cast the world in his shadow if you must, but don't show him until you're ready to.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Write the book.

Later, in the rewrite, you can figure what goes into chapter one and what goes into chapter two.

For all we know the second draft will start with a chapter you haven't written yet and both your current chapter one and chapter two will be in the discard pile.

Get the words on paper. When you reach The End the contents of chapter one will be clearer to you.
 

AnnaWhite

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I'm inferring a lot, so correct me where I'm wrong. You want your story to be about your heroine and her friends and their exploits, but your heroine is boring. What is her motivation, what are her dreams? The way you describe her, she doesn't have anything heroic to do until she learns about the villain-- and this is why you need to introduce him immediately. A compelling story tends to begin with a character in a place with a problem. Your heroine doesn't seem the kind of girl who'd get into trouble on her own, so you need the villain to push her out of the nest and make her fly.

Hey, Chris, did you read my book already? Your inferences are too accurate for words! Especially the bit about the heroine not being the kind of girl to get herself into trouble on her own :D

Thanks heaps for all the suggestions.
 

allenparker

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Okay, I'm lost

I used to believe that I understood these things, but after reading AW for a couple of years, I realize that I don't. So, when you don't know, you either ask a stupid question of a smart person, or ask a smart question to yourself.

Here goes.

What defines a prologue?
What makes it any different than an introduction?


What are the main advantages to each?
What are the disadvantages?

Who will care which you use?
Who will care if you use neither of them, both of them, or mix and match as the wind gives direction?
 

Nangleator

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I could spend forever puzzling over how to write it, otherwise.
Don't make my mistakes! Don't let these things stop you cold while writing the first draft:

"Oops, I'm straying from my outline"
"Uh-oh, I don't have an outline!"
"I can do the opening better."
"This is all crap. I'd better edit before I write more."
"I need to research first." (Okay, there's some stuff you have to research, I suppose. Maybe do that research before you start the book.)
 

Lilybiz

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Don't make my mistakes! Don't let these things stop you cold while writing the first draft:

"Oops, I'm straying from my outline"
"Uh-oh, I don't have an outline!"
"I can do the opening better."
"This is all crap. I'd better edit before I write more."
"I need to research first." (Okay, there's some stuff you have to research, I suppose. Maybe do that research before you start the book.)

Ha, Nangleator, that's great. You're so right. The reason I got through my first draft is because I was clueless enough to think I was good, so I didn't edit until I finished it. I wrote the whole novel and set it aside for a couple of months, then read it. Oh, it was bad!

But it was finished, and it had some gems in it, and I had enjoyed writing it. So I got to work on the second draft, at the same time studying good writers and doing everything I could to learn to make my writing better. The second draft took forever to write. I kept editing. It was much, much better and much, much longer. Waaaaaaaaaaay long.

Third time's a charm, they say.
 

Chris Grey

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Hey, Chris, did you read my book already? Your inferences are too accurate for words! Especially the bit about the heroine not being the kind of girl to get herself into trouble on her own :D

Thanks heaps for all the suggestions.

I haven't read your book, but I have read lots of comic books ;) Heroes tend to want life to be peaceful and good, so they fight crime and right wrongs. But they only do so when crime exists to be fought and wrongs exist to be righted, right? What would Superman do if every ___ Luthor in Metropolis retired and just spent their days playing golf? What would your heroine do if the villain tripped over his own feet and fell to his death?

It's a protagonist vs antagonist thing, and the protagonist tends to be the villain. Who is on the quest to conquer the world or rob the liquor store? The villains. They're the ones with the dreams (of ill-gotten gain) and the plans, they're the ones with motivation. Who gets in their way and tries to stop them? The heroes. Villain acts, hero reacts. It works.
 

James D. Macdonald

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I should mention that it's entirely possible for someone who died before Chapter One to be the protagonist.

============

Meanwhile, Good News! This year's Christmas Challenge story sold, to Fantasy & Science Fiction. They have up to three years to publish it, but they pay on acceptance. Go team us!
 

BardSkye

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Go you! Congratulations.

Not that anyone on this thread expected any less, of course. :D
 
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