A Real Eye Opener

I find it so intresting that in King's life he had many English classes and such but his real lesson he says came when he was working under John Gould for a newspaper his teachers technically forced him to be the sports reporter for. He brought John his first to peices- the first he changed two or three things and printed. The second; he took a black marker to and start going though things. King was serprised- because all of his teachers before that had never changed much in his papers, and yet here was John, changing all of the 'un-needed detail' and making it better. He says John gave him some of the best advice he's ever been given, and that's these words:

"When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story, when you rewrite, your main job is taking out all that are NOT the story." he later went to say that you "write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right--as right as you can, anyway--it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it."

It's something to think about, I think and I have diffenetly taken it to heart.

"On Writing

Stephen King goes on farther in his book to talk about the importance of description. He truly believes that this description is what makes the reader of the book a sensory participant in the story. I definitely have to agree with him on that because when you are able to feel like you are actually present in the story, nothing will be able to distract you from reading the book. He once more also acknowledges that in order to be a successful wrighter you have to read a lot as well as write a lot too. In doing this, this will help you decide how to and how much of a description to write. You must be good with visualization so that the reader with be able to recognize what's going on and not leaving the reader feeling bewildered and nearsighted. What I liked about what he said was that there is no need for overdescription, because you should only give the reader enough to be able to paint a picture of their own. King feels that many writers give too many outstanding descriptions of the characters that they leave the reader with nothing to imagine and that is just them being lazy. The main job of the writer is the right the story. A classic example he gave of a brief description which will give the reader enough to formulate a picture on their own was, "If I tell you that CArrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I think you can do the rest!" I know that for myself I can paint a real good picture of this Carrie, because i have a basic idea of outcasts back from my high school days lol....So bottom line is a writer should not kill their story by giving too much of a physical description because they get lazy!

Keeping on Track

When Janet Evanovich was asked how she kept track of the elements of her novels, she says that she has a whiteboard that she uses as a storyboard. She has what opens the story, what ends the story and what the crime and who the villian will be. This sounds a lot like keeping a date book to me. She goes as far as to label what events happen to the character on a daily basis: (Wed) Lula in a band - Ranger tells Steph . . .

This sounds a lot like what I do but more detailed. This has helped me with the book I've had stuck in my head for years. I've started this type of 'Date Book' for my characters. It really helps.

A lesson in teaching writing

I'm agnostic about the benefits of creative-writing classes, but would-be fictioneers could do worse than emulate the greats. If your narrative kicks off with the same efficiency as DH Lawrence's Women in Love, you can't go far wrong.

Can you teach writing? Americans think you can, broadly speaking. They are happy to attempt a definition of good writing. In the UK, we are a bit more sceptical. At a pinch, we'll concede that there's good and bad usage (for instance, all serious newspapers have a style book), but we wouldn't go much beyond the horror of the split infinitive or the dangling participle. We have Henry Fowler, who is not really quotable – very conservative and rather old maidish. They have Strunk and White, whose "omit needless words" and "prefer the standard to the offbeat" have reverberated through American prose for half a century.

Strunk and White's The Elements of Style was published in 1918, has gone through countless editions and has never been seriously challenged (or should that be "seriously been challenged"?). Last month in the US, the influential critic Stanley Fish published a contemporary variation on an old theme with How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One.

All his career, Fish has grappled with one question: how do forms of writing produce forms of thought? His new book is really a long, and very interesting, footnote to that endeavour. I hope it gets published in the UK. It certainly deserves a UK audience – but I'm not going to attempt a review of it here, now. Today, I'm more interested in the idea of instructing people how to write.

I'm agnostic on the teaching-of-writing question. I have no doubt that there are some great creative-writing professors, just as there are also plenty of charlatans and timewasters. I certainly do believe that you can show would-be writers examples of good prose, as an inspiration. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that one way to limber up for one's own writing is to read, at random, from other books. Not so you fall under an influence, but just enough to be reminded about the magic potential of original prose.

If I was teaching a writing class, which mercifully I don't have to do, here are some passages I'd refer to by way of illustrating some technical lessons.

1. The introduction of a fictional landscape: How to bring up the curtain on a narrative setting. Two classic passages:
- The first chapter of Hardy's The Return of the Native
- The opening of EM Forster's A Passage To India

2. Narrative economy: How to get a story going and introduce your protagonists with maximum speed and efficiency, while developing the plot and establishing character and motivation:
- The opening chapter of Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon
- The opening pages of DH Lawrence's Women in Love
- The first two pages of Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

3. The joy of dialogue: How to convey character and situation in fictional speech:
- Almost any passage from Beckett's Waiting for Godot
- Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

4. The magic of tone: How to make your voice heard on the page, to mesmerise the reader:
- Lorrie Moore's story "Vissi D'arte" (actually, almost anything by Lorrie Moore illustrates this)
- JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
- Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

5. Pace: How to get started, at top speed:
- Act I of Macbeth
- Virginia Woolf's Orlando
- Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island

6. Impact: How to grab the reader's attention and hold it by the scruff of the neck:
- Graham Greene's "The Destructors"
- Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song
- Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses

7. The only rule is that there are no rules: How to defy gravity in prose and still come out a winner:
- Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy
- Melville's Moby Dick
- Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.

Robert McCrum on Books, a blog from the English newspaper, The Guardian, 2/21/2013

Dramatizing

Bocca says, "The art of dramatizing begins with characterization. Bring all your characters to life." To me characterization begins with the naming of the characters. Just as Michele said on Friday, name are very important. They must be given some thought. Another thing that Bocca talks about is the structure of the sentence and paragraph. I believe that whatever you right, it must be easily understood. The book discuses why use a long word when a shorter word will do. That makes complete. Simple words give way to better flow. Sometimes short words will not do. However, there are times when a short word will accomplish the same thing. Sometimes we may have to use a thesaurus to get better words to use. Bocca, gives credit to George Orwell for these principles. He says, "If it is possible to cut a word, cut it out." Going back to what Michele said about names, Bocca says, "Avoid names ending in s." He believes this is important when you are maing those names to show possesion.

Crowns

If any of you can see it, please go. It is a wonderful experience. It is vibrant with color and talent. It left me mentally saying encore. I may have to go again!

Reading Janet Evanovich makes me feel at ease about my writing and how I build a story. She stated that everyone is different. She thinks of plot as the engine that pulls her character and story from one place to the next. She said that some writers structure their stories by building 50-page outlines and some start on page one and build.

Janet is somewhere in between. She does short character sketches and then chooses a location and then what crime will be used. Then she makes a time line about 5 pages long. This gives her some plot points and direction. She said the details come to her as she writes. She said that she sticks to the original outline, but with flexibility as needed.

My style is somewhat different, but I do write an outline. This has helped me to trim my writing style making it easier to write a story line.

Stephen King's....On Writing

In gaining more depth in reading this book, as I've said in earlier blogs, King is full of humor. In this book he makes reference to a Muse. This muse, in reality is the creative side of one's self. But to him he describes it as this little man who comes out when you are in the right writing environment, and have a strict routine to right. Then well he come out chomping his cigar and spilling his magic all over your paper. I just thought that was so funny so I had to share it. Also in my reading he tells so more tips of what it takes to be a writer. One thing he stated was the importance of both reading a lot, and writing a lot. To him reading is important because in all the books you read, they all tend to have a lesson, and that truly adds on to your learning process. What i considered very valuable was about good writing. He used the example of how many start writing with the intention to sweep their readers off their feet with their story. King says that a true writer cannot accomplish such a thing until they have been swept off their feet by another writer. I understand that really because when you read something great, and it blows your mind it is then when you know what it takes to add that effect to your own writing. He also speaks of writing regularly as well.

"Constant reading will pull you into a place where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness."

"The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor."

Steven King is definitely great!

Annie Dillard on "Movie Scripted writing"

What I have found most interesting about Annie Dillard just recently after diving into her writing further is her perception on authors who try to target readers specifically looking for dialogue that will inevitably turned into a manuscript for a movie. Annie says that people who truly like to read are not interested in that kind of writing, and in fact, says that "novels written with film contracts in mind hav a faint but unmistakable and ruinous odor." This just makes me wonder what her opinion of writers such as Danielle Steele and even Steven King is. And,I also found it comforting that Annie implies that most people who decide to write an important piece of work can take a very long time to do so, unlike Faulkner's "As I Lay Dyeing" which was supposedly written in six weeks. Anyone having knowledge of this fact should not imagine that this is a norm by any means.

Moving towards drama

I've been absent from the blog for some weeks and have picked up my George V. Higgins' "On Writing" again as we move from 'Creative Non-fiction' into 'Drama'. It's appropriate.
I said that Higgins is famous - and often criticized – for his novels being at least 95% dialogue. Higgins is a great fan of John O’Hara, probably best known for “From the Terrace” (not least because it was made into a successful movie starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward), but whose best novel is probably “Appointment in Samarra”. But O’Hara is most famous as a writer of short story fiction and, of course, his mastery of dialogue. I have not been interested in short stories (until now, perhaps), but Higgins reprints one of O’Hara’s completely in “On Writing”. The story is entitled “Appearances” and you can read a 1960 review of it and other O’Hara short stories at: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/3/21/how-important-is-ohara-pjohn-ohara/?print=1 According to Higgins it’s a little over 3,300 words and I would guess it’s probably 98% dialogue.
Higgins then proceeds to analyze how O’Hara tells the story so economically through dialogue in what he – Higgins - calls “the density of his material”. Having just read the story, Higgins’ analysis shows me how much of a picture of the characters and their surroundings and circumstances I have created from the dialogue alone. Higgins points out that “Reading is not a spectator sport, not when the writing is done by a John O’Hara; it is a participatory event”.
With regard to the ‘technique’ of writing dialogue, Higgins tells a true story of O’Hara. After submitting a short story, O’Hara was called in by his editor and questioned about his quote of a young well-educated society girl: “Robert didn’t come with she and I.” The editor, too, was college educated and insisted the college-educated character would have said “… with her and me.” O’Hara claimed that fashionable schools at that time so labored the grammatical rule in such phrases as “Josephine is prettier than I.” to the extent of developing an aversion to the objective pronouns, “her” and “me”; O’Hara got his way and the editor contacted him weeks later to confess that all the girls of that age and class she had met delivered the phrase exactly as O’Hara had written it. Though the simple error seems like a small point, O’Hara claimed, “… that it revealed more about the girl than a hundred words of descriptive matter.”
I guess my labored point is that the step between prose and drama can be almost non-existent.

Stephen King on Writing

I know I haven't been able to write for a while, but I have been able to read. Stephen King, for the first good portion of his book, seems to be telling more about his life and how he became a writer than actually on writing. (Something I actually like) One of the most intresting stories I read so far was about one of his first attempts at publication.

It was in the 1950s and he'd only just started watching T.V. he was very fond of a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland who was edited by someone named Forrest J. Ackerman who later wrote his own Magazine called Spacemen he sent his story (That of which he forgot the title) to this magazine and was rejected, but Forry kept it all those years, and twenty years later when King was signing autographs in a bookstore Forry came up with the single-spaced story and asked him to sign it for him.

The first story he actually did have published was in a horror Fanzine that was made by Mike Garret, he gave it the title of In a Half-World of Terrors but King still likes his original title I was a Teen-Age Grave-Robber

Instructors have always tried to sell me the old clap trap, "Write what you know." I've never believe this preposterous opine. And Janet Evanovich has redeemed my theory. She says, "If I wrote about what I knew best, my books would be about someone sitting in a room with a parrot squawking in the corner - typing away for hours on a computer. Boring!"

She says, however, that you have to research. To portray Stephanie Plum, her main character correctly, she studied bondsman and their agencies. She got to know cops, rode with them, even carried a loaded gun in her waistband to see how that would feel. Then she tailored the facts she learned to her characters.

I'm looking forward to character development - though instead of a real, cold steely gun, I will use a water pistol with cool water.

Annie Dillard

My blog is about Anne Dillard and first and foremost, I would like to give you a little background about this author. Anne was born of affluent parents in Connecticut who encouraged her choice in writing profesionally. She was a rebel in high school and was influenced at that point by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. She went to college near Roanoke, Virginia called Hollins College and married her writing teacher. She graduated with a Master's degree in English and wrote a forty page thesis on Thoreau's "Waldon", and so Anne's writing reflected her love for nature. This love combined with her admiration for Thoreau's style of writing is reflected greatly in her own work as well.

On writing, Anne says "you make the path boldly, and follow it fearfully", and also quotes Jack London by saying, "every writer needs a technique, experience, and philosophical position." In describing some of the pitfalls one can encounter when writing anything of substance, what I am getting from her reading the most is that everyone has to have a focal point and that we all have things that sidetrack us from our goal, but most importantly, rewriting and changing the direction of your theme can and will happen numerous times before completion of any serious body of work and that it is part of the process.

Janet Evanovich on character development

On character development, Evanovich says, ". . .there has to be honesty." So consistency in character is a must to make the character believable. Three points Evanovich follows are: 1) The main character must want something. 2) Someone or something (nature, money, distance) must stand in the way of his getting what he wants and 3) The choices that a character makes in his efforts to overcome obstacles and ultimately get what he wants define a character.

I have found these four points to be so true to make interesting and consistent characters. I love the fact that she say 'there has to be honesty.' This to me means consistency. Would your character act or react this or that way. Will the reader believe what the character is say, feeling and/or doing in a situation. I also love that she points out there has to be a dilemma to make, not just the character interesting, but the story line interesting.

"On Writing"

In my continued reading of Stephen King's, "On Writing," there is still more discussion of his life before his fame and success. He talked of how his success was a long time coming and then finally getting the big break he was looking for. That big break was when the paperback rights to his story, "Carrie," were brought for $400,000. But with this success as in many cases there also is a downfall. Stephen spoke of his alcohol problem and how it got a hold on him and he lost his love for the craft. That was a shock to me because I didn't think this would happen to him but it did. Along with the alcohol came the drug use. With the help and support of family and friends he managed to shake off the drug and alcohol problem and began getting his feel back for writing.

I finally made it to the part of the book where he started talking about writing. King told of the powers that come with writing and what is needed. He feels the best environment required for writing is a isolated place, away from noise and enough room for you to gather your thoughts and proceed to write. What I also gathered was that there is the need to try and see objects in a different light of what they really are, which is being imaginative. Another key point he made was it's okay to be scared, nervous, or overly anxious to write but the bottom line is that you must love what you do. The statement that really stuck with me was, "If you can't or won't take writing seriously, it's time for you to close the book and do something else!" Next he began to talk about the necessary toolbox that you need to carry when writing. This toolbox he spoke of consisted of four levels or maybe six. Some of these levels were grammer, vocabulary, and paragraph organization. There were many examples of sentences that to him, are not a good way to go in writing. I see this as very informative and funny at the same time.

characters

Anne says in "Bird By Bird" that her mind spends much of the time having conversations with people who aren't there. She also says when developing a character, you really need to get to know each individual. Find out how they stand, what they carry in their pockets, what happens to their face and their posture when they're thinking, or sad, or angry. Why should we care about them anyway, what would be the first thing they stopped doing if they found out they had six months to live? She says you are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you and you are going to hate some of you characters for the same reason, but no matter what you are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters that you love or you won't have much of a story. Bad things happen to characters because they are human and do not behave perfectly all the time, and there are consiquence to all of our actions. What she says about developing a character is improtant. I never thought of looking at every character that deeply, but i know now that once you develop the charaters your story will come.