Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

SeanDSchaffer said:

I know Uncle Jim has stated in the past that I should write what I want to. But I worry somehow that editors will laugh at the work. What ought I to do?


Thank you for any help you can give me.

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I'd say, listen to your Uncle. Maybe editors will laugh. I expect they probably laugh at all of us at times. So what? First and foremost, you have to write to please yourself. If you can do that, in all honesty, you can please a lot of other people, too. But if you deliberately short-circuit your own instincts because of what someone else might think, you will end up pleasing no one.

Good luck.

SeanDSchaffer said:

Thank you kindly. I will finish the book and see if publishers like it or not.

...

This ms is, in fact, the second work I ever wrote all the way through on the first draft. For this reason, it's very special to me. Of course, it was not publishable (in my opinion) when I finished the first draft, because of its diminutive length and overabundance of exclamation points. Also the large amount of phrases written in all-CAPS did not inspire me, either. I have since learned a lot in the writing field.

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I have some stories like that. The teenage enthusiasm and the lack of ability (In my case, a startling number of my early drafts have people doing things for no obvious reason, then encountering something that gives them the motivation to do what they've already done.) but underneath, a story that could be redone into something solid. Some are on the back burner until I figure out how to deal with them. Two, with near identical plots, I need to figure out which character works better for capturing theme, and ruthlessly murder the other story. One I thought I was rewriting, but the characters and themes and plot have all changed so much it's actually raised an old conundrum: if you've replaced every single part in a car, one piece at a time, is it still the original car when you're done?

I also do remind myself of the term "turd-polishing". There are more polite versions of the term, but for the life of me I can't remember them. It means trying to salvage a work broken past repair due to sentimental attachment, rather than looking at it with a critical eye.

It's a narrow judgement call between a good story ruined by inability to write, and an irredeemable story being constantly worked over and worked over. Some of my teenage ideas are also left in the bottom of the trunk, their pencil marks slowly going less and less intelligible, and good riddance.

Don't dismiss your old ideas just because they're old. On the other hand, don't love them just for that, either. You can miss cool new ideas and new characters.

Dreamweaver's avatar looks just like my late kitty Puffin!

Orwell's rule

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

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is similar in intent to Rule 2 of COLREGS 1972 (International Rules For Preventing Collision At Sea, aka the Rules of the Road):

Rule 2 Responsibility
(a) Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master, or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, or by the special circumstances of the case.
(b) In construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger.

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That's the General Prudential Rule or the Rule of Good Seamanship: You should follow the rules at all times, unless following the rules would result in a collision; at that time you are required to break the rules.

The rules of writing are all very well and will keep you out of trouble most of the time, but you'll break those rules if you must to avoid the literary equivalent of a collision at sea.

James D. Macdonald said:

...You should follow the rules at all times, unless following the rules would result in a collision; at that time you are required to break the rules.

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The Federal Aviation Regulations has a similar clause.

91.3 (b) In an emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this Subpart or of Subpart B to the extent required to meet that emergency.

Flying, commanding a ship and writing a novel: Three of the last activities where authority is commensurate with responsibility.

Turd Polishing

Lenora Rose said:

I also do remind myself of the term "turd-polishing". There are more polite versions of the term, but for the life of me I can't remember them. It means trying to salvage a work broken past repair due to sentimental attachment, rather than looking at it with a critical eye.

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I love that term.

This weekend, I reread -- for the first time in years -- the unfinished second draft of the SF novel I wrote in college. I wrote the first draft my sophomore year, and I now understand the meaning of the term "sophomoric." The heroine was an interstellar peacemaker who was supposed to be unbiased and understanding, but she came across as pathologically, not to mention preachy and grouchy. I swear, she looked just like this --> The hero (her lover) was a little better, except when he got jealous and annoyed because she had to (gasp) do things related to being a peacemaker instead of going to dinner with him. The sort of... anti-villain..., who, I always remembered as being arrogant in a sexy way, came across as a whiny child.

Aaargh! What happened to the wonderful story I once wrote? If I didn't know any better, I would swear that when I wasn't looking, someone came in and rewrote all my files.

I would love to rewrite this story, but after what I've read, I may very well make the peacemaker into the villain... Ahem! OK, maybe I won't go that far, but I will definitely do major surgery. I might simply rewrite it from scratch to avoid all my writerly thingies from the past.

I do not read the "novel" (30,000 words) I wrote in college. I do not allow other people to read it. I don't let my husband read it. If I could go back and erase the minds of everybody who read it as a work in progress, I'd do so.

At least it was a valuable learning experience -- it taught me so many things not to do!

(The novel I wrote just out of college came out much better, though not salvagable. I'm going to pluck one or two of the characters out of it and give them a story of their own.)

there is a necessity...

to write those older novels that everyone has stuffed in a drawer. It is a growing process. We all had to write the first novel, persevere to the end, and see a work in print.

For the 6 billion people on this planet, only a fraction will have the mental thoughts to create a story. Fewer will place their backsides in a chair and begin to make this creation appear on paper.

Of this small group, fewer will finish the task. Although I do not know of any statistics to back this up, I believe that , for every finished novel, there is ten times as many that were started and left to die alone.

The difference, I believe, is that we finished our novels. We persevered the storms of other tasks that begged for our time and completed the wretched thing. Then we move on to another.

My first was a murder/mystery set in Richmond, Virginia. As a strange aside, the basis of the story became reality twenty years later.


Allen
< My advice is still worth what you paid for it. Sell the advice and get your money back.>

Creating memorable characters

Gentleman Jim:

I'm struggling with the actual process of transforming my characters from the bios I've created to the printed page. Some of my readers tell me I'm writing from too much of a distance. They are having difficulty getting into the characters. I get the impression they understand the thoughts, conflicts, etc. My phrase and word choices must be keeping the reader at arms length.

Can you provide some examples of how I can bring my readers closer? Things that draw the reader into the charcter's head and help them to feel like they are a part of the story. I'd appreciate any insight you can provide.

Respectfully.

Kaku

kaku -- Would you feel comfortable posting a short excerpt (either here, or in "Share Your Work", with a link) of your own writing where you felt the point of view was relatively up-close, but your readers felt the distance was too great?

I ask because I can think of a half-dozen things you could be doing, unconsciously, that would artificially increase the distance between the reader and the character. If that were the case, pointing out a few examples of what not to do in your own writing might be useful.

I started reading Eragon. Or trying to.

Story may trump everything, but I need the microwriting to go with it.

kaku said:

Can you provide some examples of how I can bring my readers closer?

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Not easily. I'd suggest you go to your bookshelf and analyse how other writers have done the trick in book-length works.


(One possiblity -- give them something they want that isn't directly tied to the plot of the book, but is tied to the theme.)

Paul J. Andrew said:

I've finished Eragon. There is definitely a reason it sits in the YA section at Target. I didn't think it was bad, in fact I admire the kid who wrote it, but it isn't as heavy as some of the other fantasy I've read.

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YA fiction doesn't mean the prose has to be without charm.

Paul J. Andrew said:

I didn't mean to imply that it did. I meant that as I was reading it I often found myself thinking it was too easy to read. It wasn't until after I finished it that I knew it was YA. My wife bought it for me because she knows I dig fantasy and she liked the cover (which I thought was horrible, go figure).

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Just curious, but what do you mean by "it was too easy to read"?

kaku said:

I'm struggling with the actual process of transforming my characters from the bios I've created to the printed page. Some of my readers tell me I'm writing from too much of a distance. They are having difficulty getting into the characters.

...

Can you provide some examples of how I can bring my readers closer? Things that draw the reader into the charcter's head and help them to feel like they are a part of the story. I'd appreciate any insight you can provide.

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Not Jim, but I'll see if I can help.

The goal as I understand it, in character-centered fiction, is usually to make the reader empathize with the MC--to make the reader want what the MC wants. The character, in most cases, must be "real" to the reader to give the writer a chance to accomplish this.

In the LOTR movie, did you sympathize more with Frodo, Aragorn, or Gandalf?

I think most viewers sympathized with Frodo. He struggled with enemies both inside and out; his conflict threatened to not only kill him but absolutely destroy him. Aragorn and Gandalf both struggled mostly with external enemies, though Aragorn's struggles did have a bit of an internal component. But the worst that could have happened to them, personally, would have been death. Frodo faced something much worse.

So it seems clear to me that risking the character's soul is as important as risking his skin. And risking a character's soul is one way to make him seem "real" to the reader.

Now, plenty of authors succeed quite well in telling wonderfully engaging stories where the MC's soul is not at risk; it's certainly not a requirement. But it's a way to engage the reader.

Another way to build reader empathy is to show the character in (plot- and/or theme-related) situations where he's at a disadvantage for whatever reason; if it can be worked out that he's at a disadvantage because of his own inherent properties, so much the better. At the beginning of Lois Bujold's Curse of Chalion, Cazaril has been beaten and battered by circumstance--caused by his faithful service, as it turns out--to the point where someone offering him the simple kindness of a blanket moves him almost to tears. This, to me as a reader, made him extremely empathizeable... the corrolary to this approach, however, is not to make him weak in every direction. Cazaril has a backbone, and a sense of humor, and he has a toughness to him that's evident from the first lines. But he's waaaaay down at the start of the book; that toughness has been pushed almost to the breaking point.

Again, you don't have to do this. But you can.

Giving a character a genuine sense of humor helps. People like people who they can laugh with.

Making him the butt of everyone else's jokes also works; file it under the 'disadvantage' category above. Again, the character can't be completely hapless, or the reader will scorn him, too.

Give her something that readers will go to bed thinking about. Chances are, it won't be her stunning red hair--it'll be her insight, her wit, her abilities, her flaws, the tragedy she couldn't prevent that haunts her to this day.

Mostly, make it evident that the character is a person, not a placeholder for a plot point. Put him in places where his weak points are brought into sharp focus, and where he can use his strength to overcome them.

Some thoughts. Hope they're useful.

-j

It may be that going from a bio to a character is dry, and the bios themselves are flawed.

Try writing the book, then write the characters' bios from the people they turned out to be -- then use those to go back and ensure consistency.

Would you recommend writing bios, then? Or would it only be for people used to using them?

Use bios if they work for you. Otherwise don't.

Some people cast horoscopes for their characters. Other read Tarot cards. Myself, I take filecards (one per character) and write details about the character on 'em as I learn more about the person in the writing of the book.

The file card system, for me, has proven to be a very simple and uncomplicated way to keep track of character traits and the importance of that character to re-surface later in the plot. This is especially true when wanting to make sure names are not confused.

I am in the process now of reading a major publishers release that confused the sheriff and sheriff deputy's names. Which caused confusion in the dialog sentence structure -- making it necessary to re-read the sentence over a couple of times to get the drift of the statement. This example reinforced my belief that the file card format is a helpful tool.

However, I have an idea that the above may have been an oversight on every ones part, since the two names were introduced in the same chapter and paragraph. The author of this particular book does have a habit of introducing too many characters in close context, causing re-reading several times to keep track. It has caused me to analyze my own style to make sure I do not do the same thing.

Paul J. Andrew said:

I mean there wasn't anything in it that challenged me as a reader. I like it every now and then when a book throws me a curve with a few words I don't know or something to effect. For example, I rather enjoyed reading the Chronicle of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson because he uses a lot of words that your average fourth grader doesn't know. Granted, he occasionally frustrated me because he would use two or three of them in one paragraph, but I always thought reading should be a learning experience and I didn't feel like I got anything out of that book that I hadn't seen somewhere before. Just my opinion.

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I have a serious problem with this. One of my pet peeves, and im sure others share it, is IMMERSION. the last thing i need in a book is to have to grab a dictionary every few pages in the middle of a gripping story. Sure, its great to increase your vocabulary, but at the cost of breaking your flow in the book?
I dont like to be distracted as a reader. usually when i come across words that im unfamiliar with i simply infer the meaning by the use in context. If i cant, i skip over it. Why waste the time then? If the story is good enough, ill read it again sometime and then take the time to learn the meaning of that slippery word.
I think the real challenge for the writer is pushing the reader's imagination, letting one envision the scene while keeping them hungry for the next word. Granted noone wants to read books on a sixth grade level, but clear simple writing will shine with a great story.

What vocabularly is appropriate -- and which words your readers do know, should know, or ought to know -- are a cursed subject.

There's been a long-standing joke about finding and stealing Stephen R. Donaldson's dictionary.

Some authors (Lord Dunsany, for example) deliberately use archaic words. (This has been going on for a thousand years at least -- one of the early Arthurian works uses only words of Anglo-saxon origin rather than French.)

The meaning of a word should be reinforced by context. Nothing relieves you of the obligation to choose the right word with the exact meaning you intend.