Let the Page Hold Your Weight

It’s been a trying time lately. Sad, difficult and unexpected events have happened to people all around me, close friends and family members. I feel like I’ve been sitting inside a thin tent in a Saharan windstorm–protected, but barely. Eventually, the silt gets in, even if it isn’t yours.

On my low days, I take it into my very cells and feel heavy with it. Stay in a bad mood. Snap at my son and husband.

On good days, I channel it into writing. It just so happens that the protagonist of my novel and her best friend/co-protagonist have to get into some seriously screwed up situations, too. And on a regular old sunny day with blue sky flaunting herself out my window, it’s hard to get into writing about these emotional tangles. 

So these difficult days, days like today, when the funk is thick and the mood is blue–I can go there into the sorrow, the conflict and the muck. I can shed my pain in my pages, let my characters wear it instead of me.

***

If you want to learn more about this, I’m teaching a 1 week online class called “Method Writing” the week of December 14th. www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html. Just $49, or, if you want to sign up for the three week series, it’s $129 for all three.

 

Marrying the Muse

Guest Post by Eros-Alegra Clarke

Seven years ago, when my husband and I announced our engagement, we were counseled by an older couple to develop a habit of ‘couch time’ for our relationship; a time each day where we sat and talked. We laughed and nodded and said, “Yes, of course.” The couple, who had three children said, “No, really, we’re serious.” Now that we have our own two kids and a third one on the way, we understand. We know how seductive exhaustion can be, how easy it is to turn on the television and tune out. It is tempting to believe that our marriage is self-maintaining, that it will continue to write itself the way we want it to.

I have come to believe that crafting a novel requires the same sort of commitment to couch time as a marriage does. It is a different type of relationship maintenance than that required by short stories. Working on a short story is a brief and passionate affair. The short story muse can knock on my window in the middle of the night and whisper, “Let’s go walking beneath the stars.” And I follow that flash of brilliance and let it unfold because it will only last so long. Sleep can be caught up on; small issues can be obsessed over; spontaneity held in high regard because at the end of our time together, we can retreat to our separate lives. The revision happens without children in the background jumping on the furniture. I can focus on the scene at hand, perfecting it without worrying about how the choices I have made will show up 10 or 20 scenes into the story ahead. A short story is like taking care of someone else’s child for a few days. I can be full of patience. I wonder and delight in the child’s mischief. I can buy some quiet time by feeding them cookies after midnight without worrying I have just turned the cute little Gizmos into Gremlins.

A novel, from the first chapter, is a marriage with children and a mortgage. It requires the balancing act of being in the inspiration of the moment while tending to all of the daily responsibilities. I have to make sure the characters, like my children, are fed, bathed, happy, played with, growing well, learning the lessons they should be learning. I get up in the middle of the night when one of them cries. I make sure the plot is a solid home for them to live in. I pay the bills, keep the car running, clean the toilets, do the laundry, and agonize about important decisions for the future. And at some point each day, I need to sit with the story and talk. I dig out the issues. I listen carefully. I edit what no longer belongs. I try to be honest. I have to let everything else go and tune into the heart of the relationship.

The work is intense, but as is often said about parenthood, “It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it is also the most rewarding.”  I love the intimacy of working on a novel. Looking back over the rough drafts is like tracing the developing lines in my husband’s face. They are a roadmap of the life we have chosen together. The daily hard work, even when I am complaining every step of the way, is a testimony of how deeply I love the world I am creating.

 ***

Eros-Alegra Clarke is currently writing her first novel under the mentorship of her agent. In the meantime, she has been slowly building publications including a story “Naming Shadows” in the literary journal Bitter Oleander. A wife, mother of two (with a third on the way), and graduate student, Alegra contributes to Maria Schneider’s website Editor Unleashed for writers: http://editorunleashed.com and can be found blogging about life, writing, and everything in between at: http://alegra22.wordpress.com .

 

The Perfect Material

Psst…Hello–you there, NOT doing NanWrimo, let’s talk.

You wouldn’t build a chicken coop out of straw, a car out of wood, a house out of plastic blocks…(If you would, don’t bother reading on) right?

The perfect material exists for every structure, and this is also true in writing. The perfect material unit for building a narrative is… the scene. I can turn this into an advertisement if you like:

The Scene!
A sexy simulacrum of real time…a self-contained unit that never fails to make a story when stacked one after the other. Now bigger, sleeker, with 50% more.

Okay, so maybe not. Still, I cannot repeat enough how powerful a tool the scene is. And lest you think it’s optional, like alliteration or deus ex machinas, let me disabuse you of this notion. Scene. Not. Optional. That would be like building your house without the framework. Scenes are an integral part of the structure of any narrative (don’t get me started, however, on the exceptions, from Beckett to Saunders).

A quick snapshot:
You’re in scene if your characters are engaged action, whether big or small. Make that action meaningful and plot relevant, with a small but vivid ldose of visual setting and detail and you are more than on your way. Remember to begin and end your scene in a compelling or suspenseful way, and you’re there, baby. You’re there.

So whether you’re doing NanoWriMo next month or not, don’t forget your friend the scene. If you’d like to learn more about scenes, take my crash-course, Fiction’s Magic Ingredient, beginning Nov. 2, and again in the New Year.

I’m also launching a Scenes for Non-Fiction Writers course in December.

Hie Thee to a Network of Social Origin (That does what you love)!

I tire of labels pretty quickly, and I already find myself bored when I hear the phrase “social networking.” It’s not the actual thing I take issue with–I quite enjoy my networks, social and professional–but I’ve always had a little bit of the nonconformist’s tendency to eschew something I hear over and over.

I hope this makes me a good cliche killer in my writing, too.

Anyway, my point–I swear I have one–what new thing can be said about social networking that other sites like www.Mashable.com aren’t saying already?

Well whether or not what I have to say on the subject is fresh or new, I’ve responded to a striking number of emails and phone calls lately from writers, some completely starting out for the first time, and others who are newly on the path, asking for direction and guidance. And I’m finding myself giving the same advice over and over:

Hie Thee to a Network of Social Origin (That does what you love)!
When I first started to get serious about writing, before Twitter and Facebook were megabytes in their founders’ hearts, I joined the Zoetrope Writer’s Studio–where writers critique each other’s work for free and join groups to discuss the craft. The writers there are 100% responsible for teaching me how to write a bang-up query letter, which ultimately scored me an agent (two, actually). They are responsible for helping me polish every short story I published up until about 2003. Several of the friends I made there are STILL my go-to critique buddies when I have finished a draft of something. It was the single most profound virtual experience I have had to date…I credit much of my writing success, both fiction and non-fiction, to the people who supported me there.

So first, of course, all non-luddites should use Facebook and Twitter and Ning and Linkedin and the bazillion social networking sites I’m totally clueless about. But it’s also really great to find networking sites that specialize in what you love to do, a gathering of the specific geeks and freaks of your trade/hobby/craft, people of your ilk, who will support you to do what you love.

In Praise of Zeal

There are many kinds of writers, but a certain breed of them is gathering energy right now, building up storage for the long month of November, when they will eschew family, jobs and social mores to write 50,000 word novels just because. The fact that “Nanowrimo” is now a word more often recognized than not, is a testament to the power of creative zeal.

It is the zealous who madly whip out novels in a matter of months or days, who carve out new paths toward publication with the mighty power of “whythehellnot!” in their pen. Not only have I been lucky to interview tons of these folks during my time as a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest magazine, but the fact is, I am one of them. And you probably are, too.

The revised product of my first round with Nanowrimo garnered me an agent and changed how I looked at “free time to write.”

The second round produced a book that I wrangled with for over a year before eventually abandoning it for what it was: a mess that would take a lot of breathing room to figure out. But it taught me a lot about novel writing that I’ve taken with me into what I’m working on now.

Both results were worth the trouble.

Now, I’m 225 pages into a novel that has been written most often in 20 minute bursts since the birth of my first and only child 16 months ago.

Both Nanowrimo and motherhood have taught me the same thing:

• You have far more time to write than you think you do.
• Writing done hastily is still better than no writing–all writing can be revised
• The sheer power of creative zeal is often enough to get you knee deep into a very worthy project.

So go for it.

But if you don’t do Nanowrimo this year and are looking for something else to do with your November, I’ve still got a few spots in Fiction’s Magic Ingredient! www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html.

A New Home

Maria Schneider over at www.EditorUnleashed.com  has been offering great resources for writers on the state of publishing, social media, and more since she launched her site a year ago.  Has it really been a year? Maria and I met some years ago now when she was Editor of Writer’s Digest magazine and I was the persistent, hounding, perpetual writer who pitched her probably weekly, if not daily, until she finally decided that the only way to keep me off her back was to take me on as a contributing writer. I honestly don’t think I have ever had more fun writing than under her tenure for those glorious years. I interviewed some of my favorite writers, followed writing trends , and felt part of something great.

So when she, well, unleashed herself, and launched her own writing site, I knew it would also shine brightly, and the community of thousands of writers who have followed are a testament to this.

So I’m honored and thrilled that once again I get to be part of Maria’s world, as she’s made a home for my writing workshops in the EU forums. All the group participation will take place there, and you’ll benefit from the wonderful existing forums already there. I hope you’ll join us!

Accountabilibuddy

This week, students in my online course “Finish What You Start” have been encouraged to strike up a relationship I call the “accountabilibuddy.” (Yes, I borrowed that from an animated tv show).  This is someone, preferably another writer, whom you both respect, and  fear a little. By “fear” I mean that you will listen to this person’s admonishments and criticism. You take them seriously. The accountabilibuddy’s job is to hold you to the goals you set for yourself as a writer. I have my students write a letter to this person using the following template:

Dear x

You know that I’m a writer, and frankly, I am a damn fine one! But I need support to help me finish my writing goals so I don’t whittle away my time trying to find naked pictures of Johnny Depp online when I should be writing. I respect you, trust you and know that you can help me be accountable to myself and my writing. My goals for myself are as follows: I will write x hours or words, x number of days per week on Project X until I finish a draft. I would like to send you my log each week. If I completed my goals, please cheer me on and tell me that Mother Theresa has nothing on me, for I am great. If I did not, please remind me that life when I am not writing is as bad as a forced marathon of Steven Segal movies in which I am not allowed to take a bathroom or snack break.

 Your buddy,X

So what are you waiting for? Go get yourself an accountabilibuddy today!

***

Meanwhile, there’s still time to REGISTER for my next 1 week online course, “Learn to Layer Scene Types.”

Self-paced. $49. Begins Oct. 19

Image Building

Even though I am a sucker for a good plot even if the author has not been as careful with the prose, what I am most seduced by in a book are the images that arrest me along the way, and for which I am glad to have been stopped.

Betsy Cox, one of my grad school mentors, was the first one to really drive home for me the evocative use of images, one involving flies sipping on milk foreshadowing death in Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. Before then, I’d been unconsciously aware of these stylized visuals designed to conjure emotion and to ping on the tinny submarine of the subconscious.

Since then, I look for them in everything I read, often disappointed when they aren’t there, and giddy when they are. Images may at first seem to be mere setting description, but they hit us below the conscious mind and are  incredibly powerful in fiction and non-fiction alike. They speak a symbolic language, and conjure layers that plunge a reader deeper than the sentences at hand.

Here are a few examples:

From Scented Gardens for the Blind, by Janet Frame:

…If only she were sitting now in her desk at school, turning the pages of Shakespeare…observing the stain of creation where word had joined word, blood had been shed, and the letters were lying tangled and asleep, bound by their dark cages upon the cloud-white paper.”

From Veronica by Mary Gaitskill:

On Animal Planet, people are putting computer chips under the skins of beautiful lizards in order to help save them from extinction. The camera zooms in on the writhing creatures. Their eyes bulge; their hinged red mouths fiercely gape. One strikes the air with a stiff webbed claw. Joanne presses the mute button to say grace.

***

If you’re interested in honing your own image building skills, I’m teaching a 1 week online course in the subject.

Image Building. 1 week online class. REGISTER
Nov 30-December 6, 2009. $49.

The visual world of your novel or story is a powerful way to evoke mood and feeling. There may be nothing more effective than using “images”—stylized, poetic visuals that specifically conjure a feeling, a mood, or a theme. Images are different than mere descriptions in that they speak to the reader on the unconscious and emotional level. They bypass the logical mind and resonate in your reader’s mind and heart long after the page is turned.

Learn to create and use images in your fiction.

The Left Brained Writer Learns to Show, Not Tell

Guest post by Mike Fine

I suspect I may be one of the most “left-brained” writers out there. After 20+ years as a software engineer and managing technical teams and technical projects, I discovered—lo and behold—I love writing! How strange is that? Well, probably not very strange to you if you’re reading this post, but it was certainly strange to me when I first realized it about 10 years ago.

There’s a great deal about being educated and trained as an engineer that works against me as a writer. First, while all of you were probably reading the great works—Austen, Bronte, Melville, Tolstoy—you know the list better than I do—I was taking the easiest Language Arts classes I could find. I had all of these advanced math and science classes, you see…

Second, and more seriously, engineers are trained to distill an issue to its core. The essence of a thing is what matters to engineers; we like to simplify and abstract, to get right to the point. The good news is that because of this, I rarely struggle finding a theme or central idea for my writing. I rarely fear that I’m going to write some long-winding run of flowery prose with no point. I am rarely without a solid outline. The problem is, readers don’t want to be hit over the head and be told the morale or theme, they want to feel it, to experience it. Stories are supposed to immerse the reader in a detailed world with believable characters so that they—the reader—infer the message(s) from the story. And, of course, sometimes, readers will infer things we never intend as writers. I have to force myself to remember this—something I think comes more naturally to most other writers with their predominately right-brained brains.

 Third, because I’m focused more on the essence of the primary arc of the story and the critical characterizations of the main characters, my writing often feels rushed, too much like a treatment than a story. The structures of my stories are usually sound; I struggle with adding enough detail. My wife often says that I’ve painted the trunk of the tree and the larger branches, but none of the smaller twigs or the leaves. Again, I suspect others with different educational backgrounds and personalities have an easier time with this sort of “inside out” nature of writing. I have to constantly remind myself: show the leaves in all their splendor, and let the reader infer that there’s a tree holding them up.

 Like many writers, I struggle to ensure that my writing follows the old maxim, “show, don’t tell.” For years, I couldn’t get my weak engineer brain around this concept. Then, finally, I came up with a way to think about this. I think even you non-engineers out there might benefit from thinking about things this way.

 When we’re guilty of “telling” instead of “showing,” what’s really the problem? It’s that we’ve summarized too much. If I tell you that “Abe and Ben fought,” your experience is much different than if I describe the right crosses, the chipped teeth, and the broken tables. I get that. You get that. Most everyone gets that. But how do we ensure that we don’t fall into the summarization trap? Simple: engage your left brain a little bit.

 Here’s the idea: allocate a certain amount of space—words, paragraphs, or pages—for a scene. Say to yourself, this scene has to take X pages. Let’s take our fight scene. Imagine it’s important to our story. We want to slow time down and stretch this conflict out for all the drama we can milk out of it. So, how many pages should the fight take up on paper? Three pages? Five? Ten?

 Once you decide how many pages (or paragraphs) you want the fight to last, you simply cannot summarize “too much.” If you do, your writing will stop short of your allotted space! If I write that “Abe and Ben fought,” I have to stare at the remaining 9 ½ blank pages for the scene. I have to fill them up. How can I do it? I can start to describe what happens in more detail and by slowing down time. I cannot stop editing and improving my scene until it fills up the space I’ve allocated for the scene. Is it possible I can introduce other kinds of problems into my writing—dialogue that drags, character descriptions that are too lengthy, etc.? Sure. But one thing that’s almost certain: my writing is much more likely to slow time down so that I provide enough details. And that’s something my readers will hopefully enjoy.

 ***

Mike is the co-creator of the Young Writers’ Story Deck Writing Program. He writes technical, marketing, and educational pieces for high tech companies and school districts. He has written novels, short stories, screen plays and stage plays. His stage play “Building a Bridge” was produced in the 2008-09 school year in Sebastopol and received rave reviews. See www.buildingabridgeplay.com  for more information about the play. His short screenplay “Time Capsule” is slated for production for some time in 2009 or 2010. In February 2008, Kansas student and forensics competitor Taylor Montgomery performed Mike’s piece “Pushed”, placing 2nd out of 40 competitors and qualifying for State Champs. Mike’s creative writing can be found at www.blackfoxbooks.com. Mike is an active volunteer in the Mount Diablo Unified School District, and has been an active volunteer in the Morgan Hill Unified School District and at Rocketship Education in San Jose, California.

Write for Pleasure

Guest post by Veronica Hoyle-Kent, of PerSePress

 Remember when writing a story was an act of pure pleasure?  I’m talking back when you didn’t have to be concerned with characters, plot, and conflict.  Back when you would pick up a number two pencil and write a story filled with fantastic creatures, faraway places, and incredibly vile villains. 

Nowadays, writing is such hard work.  Don’t even get me started on the mind-boggling, “what happens when I’m done with the story.”  I want to write as if I didn’t need an agent, wasn’t worried about query letters, and didn’t give a hoot if my words ever appeared in hardback, soft-cover, or e-books.

I think we’d all be better off if we wrote with the ultimate goals in mind…will Mom hang my work on the refrigerator, will Grandma tell me it’s the best story ever, will the teacher give me a gold star?

I consider myself lucky because my mom and my grandmother are still my biggest fans, but it’s so easy to forget that writing is supposed to be about my enjoyment, my amusement, my fulfillment. 

I’m thinking of keeping a separate journal for the inner-child where the words will flow freely without thought of content, punctuation, or grammar.  The first page will read, “Burn Upon my Death” so that I need never worry about being judged on the material contained within.  It will be filled with imaginary creatures, implausible plots, incorrect spelling, and an abundance of adjectives (not to mention ample alliteration).  It will also contain more joy and fulfillment than most of the stories I work so painstakingly to perfect.  Perhaps I will glean from one of these “terribly-written” stories a spark that will ignite the perfectionist in me and inspire me to clean it up, nurture and polish it, until I find the perfect gem lying beneath the dull stone.

In any case, it will release the writer in me to once again feel the joy of a child who believes that anything is possible, that all my writing is magical, and that my destiny is to be a famous and much-admired author.  At the very least, tomorrow I’ll go out and buy myself a big box of gold stars!

***

Veronica is the co-creator of Young Writers’ Story Deck Writing Program. She is the mother of two and a dedicated volunteer in the Morgan Hill Unified School District (California). She writes children’s stories and has worked with young writers in the classroom for many years.

Who Doesn’t Like Free Books?

I like books–it’s no secret. So what’s better than books? FREE ones! I enjoy receiving books as gifts, ARCs in the mail, recycled books–you name it. I love free books.

So I thought, hey, why not give the joy of free books to others, as well? Here’s how you can take advantage of this:

Sign up for any of my online courses and I’ll send you a free copy of my book with Rebecca Lawton, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life.

Successfully refer a friend to my most popular online course Fiction’s Magic Ingredient in November, and I’ll send you a $10 gift certificate for books from an online book provider (not sure which one yet), for EVERY person you successfully refer who signs up. For anyone that you get to sign up for my 1 week mini-series, I’ll give you a $5 gift certificate. And yes, you can earn as many gift certificates as you sign up people. Your friend just needs to mention you as the referrer.

Tell me that isn’t a deal?

There may even be more free book offers soon…stay tuned!

JPR

A Writer’s “Touch-up.”

For writers like me, fall is the real “new year.”  Cooler weather and darker days drives me to my desk, to my writing. But it’s also when I crack open writing books, sign up for classes and take back in the fuel that helps me do my job well. 

Give yourself a writer’s “touch-up” this October. Three 1 week mini-classes for just $49 each, or if you REGISTER before September 20th, you can have all three for just $129.

Method Writing. 1 week. Self-paced.
October 5 through 9, 2009. $49.  

REGISTER before September 20th for all 3 for just $129!

Some of the most widely acclaimed actors from Sean Penn to Robert Deniro  use an acting strategy that is said to have “revolutionized” modern cinema: “method acting.” In the form, rather than attempting to simulate emotional experiences in scenes, actors draw from their own emotional stores, channeling real feelings of their own to create characters so vibrant and alive that the line between actor and character vanishes.

In fiction, writers can use this same concept to create compelling scenes and characters rich with believable emotion. I call it “method writing.”

In this intensive 1-week course you’ll learn to draw from several rich personal fonts for the energy and emotion needed to make scenes feel authentic.  REGISTER

_______________

How to Finish what you Start. 1 week. Self-paced.
October 12 through 16, 2009. $49

REGISTER

When the powerful momentum of a writing project starts to flag, how do you keep yourself going to the end? This 1 week class will explore practical and playful ways to bypass your sabotage techniques and get you back on track!

_______________

REGISTER

Learn to Layer Scene Types. 1 week. Self-paced.
October 26 through 30. $49. 

REGISTER by September 20th for ALL THREE for just $129.

You might be a master of the scene, but now learn to layer them for powerful effect. Avoid “monochromatic” fiction that lacks variety and texture. In this intensive you’ll learn about the ingredients of, and how to wield, different scene types, from slow, contemplative scenes, to heavy-hitting dramatic scenes and dozens of others in between.

A Picture is Worth (at Least) 1,000 Words

Guest Blog by Tanya Egan Gibson

I’ve never been a picture-person–one of those folks who whips out the camera just in time to capture baby’s first step or a butterfly alighting on a puppy’s nose. On vacations, I miss the sea lion/dolphin/whale breaching the surface and end up with photos of water, water, water. Yesterday at Six Flags my camera’s battery expired before I could get a shot of my daughter touching an elephant’s trunk. (Apparently you’re supposed to charge the battery every once in a while?) When I do manage to extract a working camera from the depths of my purse, I’m likely to decapitate my subjects or backlight them so excessively that they seem walking shadows.

And yet, strange as this might sound, I consider my digital camera one of my most important, and best-used, possessions. Rather than taking notes about a new place or interesting object I might want to include in a story, I photograph it, keeping what amounts to a visual idea notebook on my computer. Even if I’m not the person to whom you’d want entrust the big group photo of your once-in-a-lifetime four-generational family reunion, even I can take a close-up of a pile of shells. (After all, they don’t wriggle or blink.)

Until I had children, I was in the habit of taking extensive handwritten notes about anything that caught my eye. But on a visit to New York when my daughter was two years old, I discovered how hard it is to jot down more than a few words at a time about, say, the Long Island Sound when your little tyke is trying to run into the Sound. In March. In her shoes and coat.

Desperate to pin down everything possible about the Sound for a scene in my novel, I ended up using my camera (which I’d brought along to take cute-and-hopefully-not-headless photos of my daughter at the water’s edge) as my substitute notebook. I snapped countless photos, unworried about centering or composition or lighting: closeups of rocks and shells and drying sepia-colored foam, tight shots of the patterns windswept beach plants and runnels of water left behind in the sand, wide shots of gulls flying past broken pilings far out from shore.

No, the camera couldn’t capture the smell of the air or the texture of the sand or the sounds of lapping water and gulls, but these were at least easier to recollect, later, with this array of images in front of me later, transferred to my computer.

Since then, I’ve taken to “collecting” images wherever I go. I gave to one of my characters the flesh-colored koi my daughter spied in a pond outside a restaurant. I take photos of clothing (on hangers–not on people, as I think it’s intrusive to take stranger’s photos) in which I outfit my fictional people. I snap pictures at floral shops and in gardens to use in my pretend people’s flower arrangements and yards.

In folders on my computer are weeds on the side of a highway. Puddles. Dirty snow, up close. The ugliest doll in Toys R Us. Black paint eroded by the acid of thousands of tiny hands on the metal spinning wheel of an amusement park teacup ride. A spill on aisle seven–glass and pickles and brine.

For many of these I can already envision places in my next novel and short stories. But there’s of course a folder, too, for things that grabbed me without my knowing why. A folder of images for those days when it feels like nothing is new. Sparks of novelty. Jumpstarts.

They’re not centered, usually. And certainly nothing you’d ever frame. But then again, neither were the scribbles in my notebooks.

Tanya Egan Gibson is the author of the novel How to Buy a Love of Reading published in May, 2009.  An alumna of Squaw Valley Community of Writers, she is mother to a four-year-old who produces countless construction-paper “books” that she insists Mommy “get published” and a one-year-old who teethes copies of HTBALOR, and wife to the most patient man in the universe.

The Art of Plausibility

I’ve had the good fortune to professionally edit writers’ manuscripts (as a freelance editor) for the last seven years, and have judged several writing contests, sifting through on the order of hundreds of essays or book-length manuscripts (so please don’t begrudge me such a long first sentence). Though I’d never deign to suggest I see as many ms’s as an agent’s slush pile, I’ve gotten quite an education in the school of “implausibility”—or topics/ideas that every writer should seek to omit or reconsider before pursuing an agent. Yes, fiction is a license to make things up, but there’s a line!

Violence and Gore (not Al). Recently I edited a manuscript that involved obscene, gory sex between unfeeling “clones.” Though the author eventually made an elegant point about humanity, the imagery was so grotesque that it felt as though the author’s only purpose was to gross out his reader. It was so difficult to read that I had to play incredibly cheerful music at the same time just to make it through. Violence, murder, and death all have their place in fiction—but remember you want to entice readers first. Shock ‘em a little bit later. Talking Animals. Disney cornered the market on talking animals about seventy years ago. Unless you’re writing children’s fiction (and even then, be selective), opinionated penguins and babbling beavers “young down” your writing and can appear silly.

Beautiful People. Except in Romance, literature is the place where flawed people get to be flawed. Therefore every character need not be “Five foot ten, with a stunning mane of blonde hair and killer blue eyes” or the male equivalent (You can decide for yourselves what else is wrong with a description like that). Beauty is fine—but let it be real beauty. Scars, off-kilter noses, chipped teeth and moles can add up to a composition that is still attractive. And sometimes, frankly, beauty is boring (no offense to the beauties among you). Let your characters be interesting over beautiful if you can.

Meetings of Convenience. There’s nothing that stretches credibility more in a novel than when you put your characters in places where they conveniently interact with, or “know” each other because you haven’t thought out your plot. For instance: A girlfriend flies to another state to be with her new boyfriend, only to walk in at the precise moment he’s trysting with her best friend—didn’t they figure this might happen? Or your protagonist “bumps into” the very person crucial to taking your plot to the next step somewhere he always goes. Meetings must be organized and timed to be surprising and dramatic. I’m not saying that there is never a place for coincidence or convenience, but look for it in your work and see if it’s merely a shortcut to a tighter plot.

On Cue. Okay, I’ll admit that this one’s just a pet peeve. Please, please, please do not let your characters do anything “as if on cue” or a variation on those words. You are the magician playing sleight of hand with your audience. You never want your reader thinking (or worse: reading the words), “Well she did that as if on cue.” You want the machinery and devices of your novel to be hidden so that all readers see is the elegant action that your complex characters engage in. If your readers see the wizard behind the curtain (you), it’s known as “authorial intrusion” and it breaks the spell you’ve tried to cast.

Agony. The two most common kinds of agony I see rendered utterly implausible in fiction are childbirth and homicide. Do your research, people! While there are five women on the planet who have had a relatively painless birth, I promise you that childbirth involves a lot more than a little breaking water and screaming obscenities at their husbands. Also steer clear of TV renditions of the act. Rent some real videos or attend a birth—it’s a powerful, animal, otherworldly event that often goes on for days. Similarly, when a person is murdered in my clients’ work I see lots of dramatic clutching of the heart, staggering about in pain, and shaking of fists at the heavens as one’s lifeblood runs out onto the floor. I’m fortunate to have never seen a person shot or stabbed—but my brothers-in-law are Sheriff’s deputies—and they vouch that a great deal of deaths are pretty simple. Bang, pow, person falls over dead. Stab, stab, scream, dead. If you want a dramatic death, research what means cause one to writhe and clutch at one’s chest, or slowly asphyxiate to death. Redux: don’t take your deaths from TV or movies!

About Faces. I’ll leave you with another pet peeve of mine: when a character makes a sudden, dramatic, and unjustified change of heart. Your character hates the terrible nun who beat her as a child and then, whammo, has great sex one night and wakes up the next day totally forgiving. Character changes must be earned, slow, and justified. There must be actions that precede these changes, and logical reasons for why your character changes. Changes work best when they happen toward the end of the novel, unless a change in the middle is only one of several changes your character will undergo.

Class is in Session

The first week of Fiction’s Magic Ingredient is underway. I don’t know yet how my students are feeling, but I’m enjoying reading their work, and eavesdropping on their discussion via the class message board. I always get energized by talk of craft; it’s why I really should be a perpetual student. I can never get enough learning. Even in the act of teaching I learn. Maybe more so, in fact.

Here are some discussion topic questions we’ve been mulling over:

What are your stumbling blocks as a writer?

What skills do you covet (that you don’t feel you possess?)

Session II, which is full, begins August 30th. I’m contemplating a session III since I’ve had so much interest. If you think you’re interested, email me at:

jordansmuse(at)gmail(dot)com.

Exorcise Your Themes

You can’t let go.  You have not taken control. Just admit it. There is at least one, but likely several themes you simply have not exorcised from your writing that trip you up. If not a theme, I’ll bet it’s a character, an image or a setting that you can’t shake. Though I’m a fiction writer, I am sure this applies to non-fiction writers and poets too.  

“Every artist is undoubtedly pursuing his truth. If he is a great artist, each work brings him nearer to it, or at least, swings still closer toward this center, this buried sun where everything must one day burn.”

 While I’m in agreement with Albert Camus’ point above, I’m pretty sure that mediocre and just plain good artists are also swinging closer to this center of truth in themselves in their thematic repetitions. In editing clients who’ve been patient enough to work with me repeatedly, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in the work of favorite authors–bestsellers (Jodi Picoult) and underground favorites (G.K. Chesterton ) alike. And, of course, it turns up in my own work.

WhenI worked with the intrepid Alice Mattison my final semester at Bennington, I was shocked by my own denial regarding my recurring themes.

My writing was theme-heavy, emphasizing stories of frustrated parents and their angry children who seemed to be waiting for cues on how to behave differently, which I continually failed to provide.

In a letter Alice wrote to me:

 “There’s nothing wrong with writing about one subject, and after I read two or three [of your stories] I thought, “Well, she can give the book the title “Bad Mothers”…Most of these mothers are unrelieved: they aren’t complex, they are just awful. I don’t mind that sort of horrible character in general—I don’t think every single character needs to be complex—but so many bad characters…with no good traits…of the same category makes the work add up to a scream of rage about mothers…”

Believe it or not, my first reaction to this was not to fall apart in tears. I laughed. Hard and long. She was so right! And she was kind enough not to point out all the Absent Fathers who quietly slipped out of scenes, giving the Bad Mothers center stage.

 She went on to write,

 “What you need is for your reader to be able to take each story on its own terms instead of being so struck by the pervasiveness of the bad mothers that they become a theme instead of just being part of the subject matter.”

In order for the writer to get to the place where she can construct stories that stand on their own terms, a lot of close scrutiny at our work is necessary, to discover what repeats. There’s is powerful energy in that which keeps trying to get through, but that energy can either trip us or transform our work. 

These mothers and fathers of mine have been unfairly under-used. It turns out that they have feelings too, and quirks and longings and unfulfilled desires worthy of exploration. Now they’re just road signs pointing, “Go deeper here. Don’t give up there.”

What themes keep coming back to you? How do they help your work? How do they trip you up?  If you’re an artist of another kind besides writer, I pose the same question to you!

Give yourself an assignment to attempt to change some of your themes!

Time to Play

Don’t you get a little tired of the drudgery part of seeking publication? All that sifting, sorting, posting, mailing and then the waiting…

Want to have a little fun in the process of seeking publication? Then join me and Rebecca Lawton, authors of the book Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life for our monthly self-paced “Playshops.”

Playshop One’s theme is “Playing toward Publication.”

The playshops take place each month. Next one begins April 6, 2009.

For 20 days of the month you receive inspiring quotes and words, write free prompts, craft exercises and a weekly message to juice your creative energy up and engage in new publishing strategies. 

Sign up at: www.writefree.us/bookstore.html .

Exercise Your Pen

Today I offer a writing exercise:

In my book Make A Scene I offer the following “ingredients” that most good scenes require:

-Characters (who are complex and layered)
-A consistent Point of View (the “lens” through which information is filtered)
-Action (significant and plot worthy)
-New Plot information (that advances your story forward and fills in clues)
-Conflict and drama that tests your characters
-A rich, physical setting
-Spare amount of narrative summary

So, here’s a challenge for you. Grab a scene out of anything you’ve written. It should be at least a couple pages in length. Now, using the ingredients list, go through and label the parts of your scene. See if anything is missing and if it might not enrich your scene to add it in. See if you’ve got too much of something that’s bogging down your scene.

For extra credit (or just a feeling of pride), see if you can’t identify:
-Dramatic tension (the feeling that conflict or action or excitement is on the horizon if not nigh)

-Elements of subtext–images, innuendo, parallel but background actions, and more that run below the top layer of your scene and add depth.

-Scene Intentions. Just by looking at your scene, without reading prior or later scenes, do you know what your character’s intention is for the scene?

If you have any thoughts or insights to share, post them here in the comments.

The Perils and Purpose of the Intuitive Writer

I’ve edited hundreds of manuscripts by now, and the aggregate number of writers who come to me write just like I used to, by intuition–which is to say they have an internalized sense of what makes a story or novel  work and run from there. Ater the story has been birthed they seek feedback and THEN discover what craft elements they still have to beef up on or have missed altogether. I actually think this is a wonderful method of writing. These writers press on without the critic or the censor stopping their flow, doing what some of the most diligent writers never do: get a first draft down in a reasonable amount of time.

However, the problem with this method, if you can call it a problem, is that many of them feel discouraged, overwhelmed, and put out when they receive the first heavy load of editorial feedback. I’m straightforward with people, though never mean, but I’ve learned to put a huge caveat at the beginning of my editorial summaries that walks them through the stages I’ve seen most new clients go through. (Overwhelm, discouragement, anger, despair…and eventually, with enough time, renewed commitment to the project).

So I’ll say the following again and again (and not just as a way to get you to buy my book). If you can learn to master scene writing, and write scenes from the very beginning, even in your most colossally bad drafts, you will be way ahead of the game when it comes to revision.

Stay tuned for tips on scene writing basics.