One mistake I often used to make was over-precision in writing about the physical location of objects in a scene.
Robert put his keys on the end of the countertop. He dropped his pen. It fell to the floor and rolled three feet from his shoe.
The living room contained a love seat, two chairs, a shelf with books, and a side table with a lamp. The two chairs were placed to either side of the side table. The door was at the far end of the room and opened outward.
The first time a reader comes across something like this he may read it carefully in the expectation that for some reason it will prove important in a page or two. When it doesn't he will skip any similar over-description the next time it occurs.
Far better to use vague terms for location and put in only a few important details. Precise physical relationships are unnecessary. The reader's imagination will fill in the rest.
The punch landed right in Edward's gut. The gun flew out of his hand and landed on the ground, just out of reach.
Jane's bedroom was almost completely pink: curtains, carpet, even furniture. Stuffed animals covered every surface. On the pink bedspread was a single book: How to Commit a Murder.
For some reason the telephone tends to attract too much attention from writers. Everybody knows how a telephone works, there's no need to attach elaborate description.
Don't do this: The phone rang. John crossed the room and picked it up on the third ring. "Hello," he said, cradling the receiver between his head and shoulder.
Better: The phone rang. "Hello?" John said.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
What I'm Reading: Superparenting for ADD
No, not a comic series, although maybe Superparent would be a good character! Rather, Drs. Edward Hallowell and Peter Jensen have written a book encouraging parents to focus on the strengths of an ADD (that is, a hyperactive) child. For those looking for a general guide to ADD and its treatment, this is not the book for you. This is a more specialized book specifically on turning what are generally regarded as the negative traits of ADD into positive forces in your child's life.
Hallowell and Jensen make a good point, that though ADD is often thought to be a deficiency in the brain, it's really more of a personality type. And really, it is sort of ridiculous to think that a trait that affects so many children (8.4% of all kids) is a disease. It's just another way that people are. In times past, it's easy to imagine that hyperactive kids would've had an advantage over others--centuries ago, when much of life was spent outdoors, the energy and diffused attention of the hyperactive personality would have been a real benefit. It's only in today's world, where we expect kids to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher for seven hours a day, that it becomes a negative.
The authors provide some good advice on how to help your kids do their homework, get along in school, and make the most of their childhoods. I don't want to give away all the secrets in this review, but a lot of their recommendations have to do with letting the kids move while they do their work, or have multiple sources of stimuli (ADD kids are natural multi-taskers).
They also present a system for measuring learning/working styles I've never seen before, one developed by a Dr. Kathy Kolbe. It reminds me of the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory, but is a little different. The Kolbe Index has four scales: Fact Finder, Follow-Through, Quick Start, and Implementor; and on each of these scales, an individual can score as resistant, accomodating, or insistent. Again, read the book to find out exactly what these mean, but suffice it to say the Kolbe index is a useful lens for considering how people operate.
And it's with the Kolbe Index that the authors show how ADD can be a strength for your child. ADD kids tend to be high (or insistent) in Quick Start and sometimes in Implementor, and low (or resistant) in Follow-Through and sometimes Fact Finder. This is almost the opposite of the typical teacher, who are Fact-Finding and Follow-Through fiends. It's easy to see where conflict can arise in school! But that doesn't mean your child is destined for a horrible life--high Quick Start and Implementor scores correspond with success in a number of careers. And once you know about your child's strengths, you can start to make changes in his approach to school that may lead to an easier time.
I would definitely recommend this book for any parent with an ADD child. I sometimes wished while reading for a greater density of factual material and a little less rah-rah for how great the ADD child can be. But then I've been known to read biology text books for fun. I expect most readers will appreciate the lighter touch, and find a lot of useful information. For myself, I think the book has made me more admiring of my own child and appreciative of his qualities, for which I owe the authors my thanks.
Hallowell and Jensen make a good point, that though ADD is often thought to be a deficiency in the brain, it's really more of a personality type. And really, it is sort of ridiculous to think that a trait that affects so many children (8.4% of all kids) is a disease. It's just another way that people are. In times past, it's easy to imagine that hyperactive kids would've had an advantage over others--centuries ago, when much of life was spent outdoors, the energy and diffused attention of the hyperactive personality would have been a real benefit. It's only in today's world, where we expect kids to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher for seven hours a day, that it becomes a negative.
The authors provide some good advice on how to help your kids do their homework, get along in school, and make the most of their childhoods. I don't want to give away all the secrets in this review, but a lot of their recommendations have to do with letting the kids move while they do their work, or have multiple sources of stimuli (ADD kids are natural multi-taskers).
They also present a system for measuring learning/working styles I've never seen before, one developed by a Dr. Kathy Kolbe. It reminds me of the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory, but is a little different. The Kolbe Index has four scales: Fact Finder, Follow-Through, Quick Start, and Implementor; and on each of these scales, an individual can score as resistant, accomodating, or insistent. Again, read the book to find out exactly what these mean, but suffice it to say the Kolbe index is a useful lens for considering how people operate.
And it's with the Kolbe Index that the authors show how ADD can be a strength for your child. ADD kids tend to be high (or insistent) in Quick Start and sometimes in Implementor, and low (or resistant) in Follow-Through and sometimes Fact Finder. This is almost the opposite of the typical teacher, who are Fact-Finding and Follow-Through fiends. It's easy to see where conflict can arise in school! But that doesn't mean your child is destined for a horrible life--high Quick Start and Implementor scores correspond with success in a number of careers. And once you know about your child's strengths, you can start to make changes in his approach to school that may lead to an easier time.
I would definitely recommend this book for any parent with an ADD child. I sometimes wished while reading for a greater density of factual material and a little less rah-rah for how great the ADD child can be. But then I've been known to read biology text books for fun. I expect most readers will appreciate the lighter touch, and find a lot of useful information. For myself, I think the book has made me more admiring of my own child and appreciative of his qualities, for which I owe the authors my thanks.
Monday, January 7, 2013
How does writing a novel improve your writing?
Well, obviously, if you commit to write a novel, you write nearly every day for weeks or months on end. That much practice can't hurt! As Malcolm Gladwell writes in Outliers, it takes 10,000-hours of practice to gain mastery of a skill.* Writing a novel certainly burns through those hours.
It also keeps your creative pot in a constant ferment. The creative side of your mind is always working to come up with solutions to problems in your novel: ways to deepen characters, close plot holes, intensify action. And when you need to apply creativity to other endeavors, especially other writing projects, you're already spewing ideas. I think this may be what rock musicians refer to as "road chops," the idea that the best time to record an album is when you come back from a tour.
Finally, I think writing a novel forces you to write scenes and situations you wouldn't normally. When you write a short story, the scope is so limited you can really choose the scenes you feel most interested in or comfortable writing. But in a novel, you're always coming to places where you have to write beyond your comfort zone, simply because the plot is so involved and the characters so numerous. That, even more than the first two points, is what really stretches your writing skills.
* This may not be a rule Gladwell actually came up with him himself; apologies to whomever he cribbed it from if that's the case.
It also keeps your creative pot in a constant ferment. The creative side of your mind is always working to come up with solutions to problems in your novel: ways to deepen characters, close plot holes, intensify action. And when you need to apply creativity to other endeavors, especially other writing projects, you're already spewing ideas. I think this may be what rock musicians refer to as "road chops," the idea that the best time to record an album is when you come back from a tour.
Finally, I think writing a novel forces you to write scenes and situations you wouldn't normally. When you write a short story, the scope is so limited you can really choose the scenes you feel most interested in or comfortable writing. But in a novel, you're always coming to places where you have to write beyond your comfort zone, simply because the plot is so involved and the characters so numerous. That, even more than the first two points, is what really stretches your writing skills.
* This may not be a rule Gladwell actually came up with him himself; apologies to whomever he cribbed it from if that's the case.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
What I'm Reading: Writing the Breakout Novel
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass may be just what I needed at this point in my writing development. Strunk and White's book was immensely useful long ago, but I'm long past the basic grammar and style advice they provide. Stephen King's On Writing and Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird were both good books, but were more morale-building than craft-oriented. Walter Dean Myers's writing book had a lot of good information, but I think his description of his writing methods are too particular to his own preferred way of working to be generally applicable.
Maass, who runs a pretty successful agency in New York (I think it's successful--I've certainly heard of many of the authors he represents), presents his views of the difference between novels that never make it out of manuscript, or are published but don't sell well, and the novel that earns its author higher sales, critical accolades, and a career boost. In his opinion it's not a matter of some authors getting a bigger advertising push from the publisher, or adhering to a certain formula, or even sheer luck. Maass believes the difference between a run-of-the-mill novel and a "breakout novel" is largely a matter of scale.
He makes a fairly convincing presentation, and while I don't want to give it all away, there are a couple of his points I'd like to mention. One is about character--the characters in a breakout novel are self-aware, and larger-than-life. They are self-aware in that they review their own moods, motivations, etc., in their mind, wondering if they're making the right choices. In other words, they're complicated. Nevertheless, they are also larger-than-life in that they do things a regular person wouldn't. They say things out loud most real people would keep inside, they make tough moral choices most wouldn't have the guts to, they plunge headlong into danger. Strangely, it's these qualities that make readers identify with them, for they crystallize attributes we all have, if not to the same degree.
He also talks about stakes, and how breakout novels have high stakes. That doesn't necessarily mean that the world is always about to be destroyed--it means that whatever has personal value to the characters is threatened. For instance, if a character might lose his job--so what? People lose their jobs all the time. But a character who might lose the business empire he's built up from nothing--those are high stakes.
Maass describes unpublished manuscripts and early-career novels as "feeling small." Parts of his book tells an author how to complicate things with sub-plots, deepen setting, heighten conflict, etc. But I think his larger message is not just that things should be complicated not for their own sake, but because it better illuminates the themes of the book.
I'm not sure Writing the Breakout Novel would be as useful to a first-time novelist, although it certainly couldn't hurt! But any writer who has one or more novel manuscripts under the belt already would find this book to be thought-provoking, even eye-opening. I'm definitely going to recommend this at the next meeting of my writers' group.
Maass, who runs a pretty successful agency in New York (I think it's successful--I've certainly heard of many of the authors he represents), presents his views of the difference between novels that never make it out of manuscript, or are published but don't sell well, and the novel that earns its author higher sales, critical accolades, and a career boost. In his opinion it's not a matter of some authors getting a bigger advertising push from the publisher, or adhering to a certain formula, or even sheer luck. Maass believes the difference between a run-of-the-mill novel and a "breakout novel" is largely a matter of scale.
He makes a fairly convincing presentation, and while I don't want to give it all away, there are a couple of his points I'd like to mention. One is about character--the characters in a breakout novel are self-aware, and larger-than-life. They are self-aware in that they review their own moods, motivations, etc., in their mind, wondering if they're making the right choices. In other words, they're complicated. Nevertheless, they are also larger-than-life in that they do things a regular person wouldn't. They say things out loud most real people would keep inside, they make tough moral choices most wouldn't have the guts to, they plunge headlong into danger. Strangely, it's these qualities that make readers identify with them, for they crystallize attributes we all have, if not to the same degree.
He also talks about stakes, and how breakout novels have high stakes. That doesn't necessarily mean that the world is always about to be destroyed--it means that whatever has personal value to the characters is threatened. For instance, if a character might lose his job--so what? People lose their jobs all the time. But a character who might lose the business empire he's built up from nothing--those are high stakes.
Maass describes unpublished manuscripts and early-career novels as "feeling small." Parts of his book tells an author how to complicate things with sub-plots, deepen setting, heighten conflict, etc. But I think his larger message is not just that things should be complicated not for their own sake, but because it better illuminates the themes of the book.
I'm not sure Writing the Breakout Novel would be as useful to a first-time novelist, although it certainly couldn't hurt! But any writer who has one or more novel manuscripts under the belt already would find this book to be thought-provoking, even eye-opening. I'm definitely going to recommend this at the next meeting of my writers' group.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
New Book Out: Nana...and Other Grandmothers
The Writers of Chantilly have their (nearly) annual collection out: Nana...and Other Grandmothers. The various writers in the WoC have contributed stories based on the theme of Grandmothers. One of those writers is me!
My contribution is titled "The Price of Gas." Here's the tag line:
My contribution is titled "The Price of Gas." Here's the tag line:
When Grandma Schmeckpepper drives her eight-cylinder 1970s
gas guzzler, the decades fall away. It
takes a grandson’s request to make her consider the possibility of aging a
little more gracefully.
If you are a parent or grandparent of mine, don't bother ordering, you will be getting one of these in the mail sooner or later. Maybe for Mother's Day? Others may go to this Link and order the book for the low, low price of $10.95!
As further incentive, here's the first paragraph of "The Price of Gas":
It
was a dew-glistening spring morning, gentle and balmy, the kind of morning made
for leaving your jacket in the closet. A tan young woman jogged down the
sidewalk in quiet contemplation. A man in a business suit stood reading his
quarter-folded newspaper at the bus stop. An elderly man sat on his front porch
observing the scene. And Mrs. Schmeckpepper took the corner at sixty miles an
hour, stepped on the accelerator, and punched her 1977 Buick Skylark down the
block with a rumble that shook the pavement.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Work in Progress update
Last night at my writers' group I read chapter four of my WiP, which I have given the working title of "Piece." I was worried the writing wasn't as smooth as what I normally read, and maybe it wasn't. Nevertheless, it got quite a reaction. The chapter ends a cliff-hanger and members were asking if I'd brought Chapter Five with me. A good sign, I think!
Oddly, the writing is coming easily in my WiP though I still don't have certain basic parameters down, like who exactly should narrate certain chapters. Still, it's coming together, and my writing group is a big encouragement.
Oddly, the writing is coming easily in my WiP though I still don't have certain basic parameters down, like who exactly should narrate certain chapters. Still, it's coming together, and my writing group is a big encouragement.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
What I'm Reading: Conan
The current Conan the Barbarian comic series, put out by Dark Horse, is truly excellent. Bryan Wood, who was known to me previously for his thoroughly researched Northlanders series about Vikings, is the writer. For art, Dark Horse has put together a rotation of top-flight artists, most notably Becky Cloonan.
The series follows Conan early in his life, perhaps at twenty or so, during his time on board the ship of Belit, the pirate queen. Although they meet as enemies, Conan so impresses her with his battle prowess that she invites him to join her crew. He accepts and is soon sharing her bed as well. Conan is presented here as already battle-hardened, but otherwise still somewhat naive in the ways of the world. A scene in one issue shows him desparing in prison, believing himself betrayed by Belit after a raid gone awry, howling and near-suicidial over his broken heart. Certainly an older Conan would not let himself be so affected by a love affair!
The depictions of the sea and the medieval coastal towns and cities are rendered as impressively as anything I've ever seen in comics. The choice to show Conan as youthfully lean feels bold for a character typically presented as heavily-muscled. And Belit, with her pale skin (often spattered in crimson blood) and lithe body, is up there with Vampirella and Catwoman as top sexy comic bad girls.
Actually, the series has so enthused me for Conan I've gone back and gotten out my old paperbacks reprinting the original Robert E. Howard stories. I read Tower of the Elephant just for fun, and found it as entertaining as I did as a teen-ager. Yes, the prose is purple, and you don't read these for their nuanced characters. But they certainly keep the pages turning. I had forgotten the ending of TotE, and found it more Lovecraftian than is usual for Conan. The Elephant was not a foe he could simply dispatch with his sword!
But as fun as the original stories are, I believe the current series actually surpasses them. Bryan Wood's is the first Conan I've ever encountered that rises above his pulp origins and becomes a truly sympathetic character.
The series follows Conan early in his life, perhaps at twenty or so, during his time on board the ship of Belit, the pirate queen. Although they meet as enemies, Conan so impresses her with his battle prowess that she invites him to join her crew. He accepts and is soon sharing her bed as well. Conan is presented here as already battle-hardened, but otherwise still somewhat naive in the ways of the world. A scene in one issue shows him desparing in prison, believing himself betrayed by Belit after a raid gone awry, howling and near-suicidial over his broken heart. Certainly an older Conan would not let himself be so affected by a love affair!
The depictions of the sea and the medieval coastal towns and cities are rendered as impressively as anything I've ever seen in comics. The choice to show Conan as youthfully lean feels bold for a character typically presented as heavily-muscled. And Belit, with her pale skin (often spattered in crimson blood) and lithe body, is up there with Vampirella and Catwoman as top sexy comic bad girls.
Actually, the series has so enthused me for Conan I've gone back and gotten out my old paperbacks reprinting the original Robert E. Howard stories. I read Tower of the Elephant just for fun, and found it as entertaining as I did as a teen-ager. Yes, the prose is purple, and you don't read these for their nuanced characters. But they certainly keep the pages turning. I had forgotten the ending of TotE, and found it more Lovecraftian than is usual for Conan. The Elephant was not a foe he could simply dispatch with his sword!
But as fun as the original stories are, I believe the current series actually surpasses them. Bryan Wood's is the first Conan I've ever encountered that rises above his pulp origins and becomes a truly sympathetic character.
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