Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

black winged fighter · Apr 24, 2005

Good for you, wurdwise! Oh, and asuggestion; make sure that you get some kids to read through the final product, and ask them how they feel about the slang and dialogue.
Also, I would go hang out at the blogs, like livejournal and such. A lot of kids hang out there, and the way they communicate themselves is...educational.

wurdwise · Apr 24, 2005

Thanks. I've got a 12 year old bookworm waiting to read it, smart as a whip and not a family member, and she won't worry about hurting my feelings, she's too much like her mother, who's a friend of mine, she'll let me have it with both barrels if it ain't up to snuff.

zornhau · Apr 25, 2005

wurdwise said:
Thanks. I've got a 12 year old bookworm waiting to read it, smart as a whip and not a family member, and she won't worry about hurting my feelings, she's too much like her mother, who's a friend of mine, she'll let me have it with both barrels if it ain't up to snuff.

I'm not a biker, but there's a motorbike scene in my current novel. I knew what results I wanted and asked the barman at my local biker bar how to achieve them. How do you get a bike up a hill? What kind of thing would knock you off the bike? What sort of bike would I need for this range? And so on.

In your case, I suggest you do the same. Write the story - or sections of the story - using made up or half remembered slang from your own youth. If you get really stuck, just use square brackets e.g. Jenny said, "[something really very hurtful ]" Then print it out, mark up the bits which need to be in teenage slang, and hand it to your pet 12 year old to do the translations.

As for cussing... if this is a middle reader, you're probably not allowed to use it anyway. Check examples in the same genre.

KyleDHebert · Apr 25, 2005

When to asterisk?

This may have been answered here before--in fact I'm sure I've seen it--but a quick search of the thread and a perusal of the sticky didn't help. My question is when do you used an asterisk to divide sections of a chapter as opposed to spacing? Is there a uniform style for this, or is it the writer's choice?

pianoman5 · Apr 25, 2005

Asterisks

It was dealt with surprisingly recently, Kyle. It's here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11030

James D. Macdonald · Apr 25, 2005

For those who don't want to click away to a different thread, short answer: To show a linebreak you use a pound sign (#) centered. How this will show up in the printed book is up to the book's designer.

Meanwhile, for those who do want to click away to a different site: Dealing Poorly with Rejection.

James D. Macdonald · Apr 25, 2005

Watt-Evans' Law of Literary Creation: There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story out of it.

Feist's Corollary: There is no idea so brilliant or original that a sufficiently-untalented writer can't screw it up.

For more fun:

The Evil Overlord Plot Generator

zizban · Apr 25, 2005

I like LWE's rules of fantasy. I hold him in high regard.

Jason M. Dyess · Apr 25, 2005

Thank you, Uncle Jim and everyone else, for the information. I'll check out both Rashoman and The Poisionwood Bible when I get a chance, but for now, I'll just get the first version (mostly chronological) out and see what I need to do with it later.

Mr. Underhill - I meant the same event (with slight variation, since the characters aren't always together) from different POVs. I will check out the films, but I would love some more examples of novels (or romances, as Uncle Jim woud have it) written this way.

alaskamatt17 · Apr 25, 2005

asterisks

I don't know if this is right, but I use a blank line when I want to indicate a shift in time for the POV character, and three asterisks when I want to show that I'm switching to a different character in a different place.

SeanDSchaffer · Apr 25, 2005

A few questions on linebreaks, if I could

James D. Macdonald said:
For those who don't want to click away to a different thread, short answer: To show a linebreak you use a pound sign (#) centered. How this will show up in the printed book is up to the book's designer.

Uncle Jim, may I ask you a few things real quick? I prepared my manuscript with linebreaks that used the pound sign (#) like you said, but I didn't center it. I kept it on the left side of the page.

I've already sent the manuscript out to a prospective Publisher. Would the placement of the pound sign as I have done it be undesirable in the average editor's eyes? Would it be considered by an editor to be a lack of professionalism on my part?

Or is it merely a matter of preference where the pound sign is placed?

Please forgive me if I sound worried by this, but honestly speaking, I am. I want to give the editors who look over my manuscript the best first impression I possibly can.

alaskamatt17 · Apr 25, 2005

I don't think it really matters, but it would probably be best for Uncle Jim to answer the question. I sent a manuscript once to a publisher whose guidelines stated that it should be on the left side. That was just their preference.

James D. Macdonald · Apr 25, 2005

If you just use a blank line you may be in danger of a copyeditor closing it up. The pound sign is used to mean, "no kidding, really, I meant for this line to be blank."

No one is going to reject your manuscript just because you put your pound sign flush left rather than centered. (It'll get rejected for lots of reasons, but not that.) Nor will it be rejected only because you used three asterisks rather than a pound sign, or something silly like that. A compelling story overrides linebreak symbols.

If the publication has a specific format specified in their guidelines, of course, you follow their guidelines.

katee · Apr 26, 2005

James D. Macdonald said:
One that's never been submitted.

Uncle Jim, if I may be so bold as to ask - and to back the discussion up a few pages while I'm at it - what made you not submit that first novel?

I'm now 15k words into my first novel. I'm concentrating on getting the words down onto the paper, er, screen, because I want to reach "THE END".

But I have started thinking about the eventual edit. When I re-read what I've written, typically as a warm up in to BICing, I find it hard to judge the quality of my work. Is this a knack you pick up? Or am I doomed? Any hints?

maestrowork · Apr 26, 2005

alaskamatt17 said:
I don't think it really matters, but it would probably be best for Uncle Jim to answer the question. I sent a manuscript once to a publisher whose guidelines stated that it should be on the left side. That was just their preference.

When there's a guideline, read it and follow it. Some publishers/agents ask for Time Romans, 12pt, for example. Do follow the guidelines.

If there's no guideline, use the standards. You really can't go wrong with that. Everything else you run a higher risk of rejection.

Of course, like UJ said, a great story/writing overrides minor formatting issues. (obviously if you submit something in Brush Script, 8pt, single-space, it probably will go straight to the trash).

stranger · Apr 26, 2005

First I'd like to thank everyone who posts here in particular Uncle Jim, I've been reading and appreciating the excellent advice for a while now without posting.

I'd like to re-echo Katie's sentiments, how do you know it is good. I'm in a similar position and I know the best thing is to finish the novel first but....

There are many ways which the writing will improve in later drafts but I also feel that the fundamental story will not change. I'm writing the first few chapters and the characters and the world building is developing and there are various mini-conflicits but there is not a huge amount of action in the part I'm writing at the moment nor will there be for most of the first third of the novel.

So I'm worried that I'll finish the book and that it'll be fundamentally flawed through bad pacing no matter how much I re-write it.

On a more micro level, I'll introduce a character and a subplot and a corresponding bit of worldbuilding and I'll be wondering whether this is sufficently compelling to be included in the story (I guess I can remove these subplots in later drafts).

James D. Macdonald · Apr 26, 2005

katee said:
Uncle Jim, if I may be so bold as to ask - and to back the discussion up a few pages while I'm at it - what made you not submit that first novel?

It stank.

I find it hard to judge the quality of my work. Is this a knack you pick up? Or am I doomed? Any hints?

Let's assume that you don't look at it after it's spent a month in your desk drawer and say, "Man, this one just didn't come together." How do you know you're good? You don't. Other people tell you that.

Your beta readers start handing copies of your book to their friends. Their friends start bugging you for your next book. Things like that.

If you're a writer you're doomed anyway. Think nothing of it.

James D. Macdonald · Apr 26, 2005

stranger said:
I'd like to re-echo Katie's sentiments, how do you know it is good. I'm in a similar position and I know the best thing is to finish the novel first but....

Yes. Finish the novel.

So I'm worried that I'll finish the book and that it'll be fundamentally flawed through bad pacing no matter how much I re-write it.

That's a valid concern, and it's one of the ways a novel can be fundamentally flawed. So, what is going on in the first third? Is there psychological movement? Why is the reader following along?

It may come when you're at second draft stage that you'll be cutting that entire first third.

On a more micro level, I'll introduce a character and a subplot and a corresponding bit of worldbuilding and I'll be wondering whether this is sufficently compelling to be included in the story (I guess I can remove these subplots in later drafts).

Yep. That's second/third draft territory.

Marcusthefish · Apr 26, 2005

Jason M. Dyess said:
I will check out the films, but I would love some more examples of novels (or romances, as Uncle Jim woud have it) written this way.

You should check out Millennium, by John Varley. I read it a bunch of years ago, but remember it as a fast-paced, highly-entertaining time travel story that uses the multiple-views device to good effect. They made a movie of it as well (I never saw it).

MTF

stranger · Apr 26, 2005

James D. Macdonald said:
It may come when you're at second draft stage that you'll be cutting that entire first third.

Remove the first third. Gulp. It's taken me so long to write this much and I'm only one sixth of the way through. Gulp.

No, I think I've enough happening, just not action as such. The protaganist finds out his sister is in danger in the first few pages, then discovers what kind of danger and figures out a way to save her. The second third begins with the sister being saved from that danger. I guess I could compress the first third in later revisions if necessary.

It's a fantasy book and some of the ones I've read lately have swordfights left, right and center which got me doubting my story.

James D. Macdonald · Apr 26, 2005

stranger said:
It's a fantasy book and some of the ones I've read lately have swordfights left, right and center which got me doubting my story.

Car chases and explosions aren't the only sorts of movement that're possible. Psychological movement is just as good (some say better).

Read widely. Read the top award winning and critically successful books. Read the top selling books. Read the classics.

Read. We can't write otherwise.

maestrowork · Apr 26, 2005

stranger said:
Remove the first third. Gulp. It's taken me so long to write this much and I'm only one sixth of the way through. Gulp.

It seems so "difficult" to do, but if you really objectively look at the work, you may find that it might just be necessary, and as a professional writer, you do what is necessary.

I cut out 15,000 in my subsequent drafts, out of a 90,000-word ms. And it was necessary; it made the book stronger. As much as I hated to lose some nice writing, good character development, etc. I was pleased to remove that fat. It was necessary for to write that fat (and almost a year of my life), so I could get into my main story and my characters. But it was not necessary for my story.

jdparadise · Apr 26, 2005

Going back a few days...

black winged fighter said:
For fantasy/sci-fi world building, I find that minor characters offer excellent opportunities for injecting world structure. They have minor, everyday experiences and talk about them, a sidelines-commentary on the world. Also, pubs (or space bars, in SF) provide an easy fix to insert some explanation dialogue.

I'm currently mulling over Noah Lukeman's "The First Five Pages." Lukeman's a commercial/literary agent, and has what seems like a lot of good insight into writing.

On "informative" writing, the kind BWF seems to be talking about here, Lukeman has this to say (typos, if any, mine):

There are many ways in which dialogue can be "fake." The most common example is informative dialogue, that is, dialogue used as a vehicle for conveying information"...

...This type of dialog may fill the reader in on some missing facts of the plot, may provide him with a piece of information that the writer could not get across otherwise, but the price paid is great: it is dialogue that characters would never use in real life, interchanges that are not artistically real, that don't spring from characters' needs, desires, and relationships. Instead, this is dialog imposed on them by the writer...

...By using dialog to convey information, you prevent yourself from getting to the core of who your characters are, prevent interesting character growth...

Now, I've also heard it said that carefully crafted dialog--dialog that reveals character, frex--is a better place to provide information to the reader. So maybe Lukeman's just mostly upset about "As you know, Bob" dialog. Which, okay, no problem.

But, on the other hand, when an agent says something like the above, it makes me at least think twice about using dialog the primary purpose of which is to convey information.*

FWIW...

*One thing I can see is the MC sitting in a bar and overhearing an argument, a b*tch session, or a problem-solving attempt that might reveal world.

SeanDSchaffer · Apr 26, 2005

Thanks for the information

James D. Macdonald said:
If you just use a blank line you may be in danger of a copyeditor closing it up. The pound sign is used to mean, "no kidding, really, I meant for this line to be blank."

No one is going to reject your manuscript just because you put your pound sign flush left rather than centered. (It'll get rejected for lots of reasons, but not that.) Nor will it be rejected only because you used three asterisks rather than a pound sign, or something silly like that. A compelling story overrides linebreak symbols.

If the publication has a specific format specified in their guidelines, of course, you follow their guidelines.

I highly appreciate it.

Andrew Jameson · Apr 26, 2005

jdparadise said:
Now, I've also heard it said that carefully crafted dialog--dialog that reveals character, frex--is a better place to provide information to the reader. So maybe Lukeman's just mostly upset about "As you know, Bob" dialog. Which, okay, no problem.

But, on the other hand, when an agent says something like the above, it makes me at least think twice about using dialog the primary purpose of which is to convey information.

Well, but I think the key to Lukeman's comments is where he says that he objects to "interchanges... that don't spring from characters' needs, desires, and relationships." So, like you say, two characters sitting around talking about the Eastasian's recent invasion of Plimptonland, something well-known to both, which they have no particular reason to talk about ("As you know, Bob...") is fundamentally unsatisfying.

BWF's suggestion, however, is to craft a minor character -- a spear-carrier -- as someone who *has* a need and desire to talk about it. Bring in the Frapple dealer, who's been cut off from Plimptonland, the world's only known supply of Pure Mountain Frapple, and he'll fill the reader's ear full of moans about the state of the world in general and Eastasia's invasion of Plimptonland in particular.

At least, that's how I read it.

Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

AW Addict

Swordsman

KyleDHebert

Means well

Your Genial Uncle

Your Genial Uncle

SeanDSchaffer

Your Genial Uncle

Fear the Death Ray

practical experience, FTW

Your Genial Uncle

Your Genial Uncle

practical experience, FTW

Your Genial Uncle

Fear the Death Ray

Talker of Good Games

SeanDSchaffer

(not his real name)