I am writing my novel chronologically, but I've got it all up in my head, so I get antsy sometimes. I am in love with every step of the process, from writing the first draft (which I know I will miss when I'm through it) to rewriting and revising, and then finally editing. My usual complaint to K Bookman is that I wish I could do everything at once, but I have to do it in order, and I have to deal with real life obstacles -- at least when real life becomes too hairy to ignore!
Keep track of your snippets.
So when I get the itch to write a scene that is five chapters ahead of where I am in my first draft, or something that doesn't even fit in the book, I write exactly what it is that comes to me in a snippets file for that chapter (or a misc file in the latter case). When I finally do get to these chapters, having these snippets is a great way to re-immerse myself in the voice that has been percolating in my subconscious.
Example: I was driving home one day over the summer and I realized something irksome. I wrote it down.
In those days, "For Sale" signs only made you sad for the people inside, and they were more and more.
Write true things.
That brings me to the idea of true things, which I guess can be traced back to Hemingway, but I don't know much about that, really, and I'm sure someone else said it before him one way or another, so let's ditch that train of thought. That sentence, I'd consider a "true thing." It's a simple observation, but, especially in context, it can have a coherent "moreness" to it. Sometimes the moreness of a true thing gets put into pedantic English Class terminology, chewed up and spit out into the right way to interpret a piece of artwork. None of the "meanings" people come up with to explain the moreness of true things in literature are entirely satisfactory, or else the author would have just said that. So it should be noted that those interpretations of a work are just someone else's description of the experience of having read it.
Future topics inspired by this post: Writing to the end; Time management; Metaphor and Lit-Crit Stuff.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Writer's Block: Prompts and Picking Your Battles
I want to keep this blog as concrete as possible, posting solutions to problems I have had in writing, rather than posting abstract advice that is little more than common sense.
Writer's block is an age-old copout. Sorry, but professional writers know there is no such thing. See how long you keep your magazine job if you tell your editor you won't be handing in your four-hundred words on fly fishing because you got writer's block. Somehow professional writers on deadlines meet deadlines. The obvious thing is to give yourself a deadline and stick to it -- but who is going to hold your feet to the fire when you miss it?
Give yourself prompts.
I couldn't give myself false incentives like that, so what I did to get over my writer's block was have a list of writing prompts -- remember high school? -- and whenever I couldn't write my own story, I would pick one of the prompts and make myself write a picture's worth of words (1,000). I was allowed to stop writing the prompt only if I went back to writing what I was supposed to be working on. If I didn't get re-inspired to keep working on my main project, I would end up with a neat little flash fiction story. Giving myself prompts, I realized I could write about anything, on the spot.
Example Prompts:
Write a story that has a dog, a train, and death.
Write a story about accidentally doing good while trying to do evil.
Write a story that takes place in a single moment without any passage of time.
Write a story about a misunderstanding leading to violence.
Pick your battles.
Sometimes it's just better for me to do homework, read a book, take out the trash, or go to the gym, than to try writing.
I just finished four pivotal chapters in my book, and reached a very conclusive point. The next chapter I have to write involves introducing a main character who has been off-stage for the entire novel in a chapter that unlike any that comes before or after. Rather than try to dive right in and frustrate myself, I took a day off. The next day I did nothing but re-immerse myself in the story by reading everything I had written thus far. Today, I have just been thinking about the important bits of the chapter in question. Tomorrow, I get back to writing.
I find that I can avoid a lot of frustration this way, and my process has been much less of a strain than my friend K Bookman who is also writing his first novel. He writes at a certain time every day, rain or shine, and tears his hair out when it isn't flowing for him.
Know yourself.
The most important thing is to know yourself, and what works for you. Sometimes I force myself to write and write garbage. Other times I force myself to write, and I surprise myself with the results. Writing, perhaps especially sustained writing of a long piece, is about recognizing and refining your process.
PS: Read.
K Bookman and I have opposite takes on this as well. But when I can't write, usually I haven't been reading enough and have to read a few chapters of my favorite novels. K Bookman disagrees, and he says he can't read anything before he writes or it interferes with his process.
Writer's block is an age-old copout. Sorry, but professional writers know there is no such thing. See how long you keep your magazine job if you tell your editor you won't be handing in your four-hundred words on fly fishing because you got writer's block. Somehow professional writers on deadlines meet deadlines. The obvious thing is to give yourself a deadline and stick to it -- but who is going to hold your feet to the fire when you miss it?
Give yourself prompts.
I couldn't give myself false incentives like that, so what I did to get over my writer's block was have a list of writing prompts -- remember high school? -- and whenever I couldn't write my own story, I would pick one of the prompts and make myself write a picture's worth of words (1,000). I was allowed to stop writing the prompt only if I went back to writing what I was supposed to be working on. If I didn't get re-inspired to keep working on my main project, I would end up with a neat little flash fiction story. Giving myself prompts, I realized I could write about anything, on the spot.
Example Prompts:
Write a story that has a dog, a train, and death.
Write a story about accidentally doing good while trying to do evil.
Write a story that takes place in a single moment without any passage of time.
Write a story about a misunderstanding leading to violence.
Pick your battles.
Sometimes it's just better for me to do homework, read a book, take out the trash, or go to the gym, than to try writing.
I just finished four pivotal chapters in my book, and reached a very conclusive point. The next chapter I have to write involves introducing a main character who has been off-stage for the entire novel in a chapter that unlike any that comes before or after. Rather than try to dive right in and frustrate myself, I took a day off. The next day I did nothing but re-immerse myself in the story by reading everything I had written thus far. Today, I have just been thinking about the important bits of the chapter in question. Tomorrow, I get back to writing.
I find that I can avoid a lot of frustration this way, and my process has been much less of a strain than my friend K Bookman who is also writing his first novel. He writes at a certain time every day, rain or shine, and tears his hair out when it isn't flowing for him.
Know yourself.
The most important thing is to know yourself, and what works for you. Sometimes I force myself to write and write garbage. Other times I force myself to write, and I surprise myself with the results. Writing, perhaps especially sustained writing of a long piece, is about recognizing and refining your process.
PS: Read.
K Bookman and I have opposite takes on this as well. But when I can't write, usually I haven't been reading enough and have to read a few chapters of my favorite novels. K Bookman disagrees, and he says he can't read anything before he writes or it interferes with his process.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Barstool Writing
When I'm having a hard time getting the keys moving, I remind myself to do what I call "barstool writing." That entails conversationally and writing quickly.
I write conversationally and I don't look things up while writing a first draft. I know a bunch of things, and my characters and narrators usually know less than I do. Writing round-about descriptions of things I know nothing about, like women's clothing, has resulted in writing that I find satisfactory. If I looked up the right words for everything, the characters would know things that would not be reasonable for them to know.
I write quickly without thinking too much of what to say, for almost exactly the same reason that I don't look up words. I can sit for an hour trying to think of the perfect word before I go on, convinced it makes a difference. If I did that while telling a story in a bar, the bartender would cut me off. Even though I don't have time to think of all the right words, I still, miraculously, get the point across. I may have to be repetitive, and even say things like "you know" or "it was kind of like," but I get the point across, and end up with more genuine, unexpected descriptions.
(Note that "conversationally" refers to the style of writing, and "quickly" refers to the rate with which I write. These are both important considerations when analyzing craft in order to improve.)
Example:
I didn't know what kind of dress it was that I knew I wanted to describe, but I had an image of it in my head. I started looking it up and then decided, there is no way my narrator would know that, and wrote:
"She had on an off-white dress with tiny, pale blue flowers and a pucker under the bust line, which she did not fill out."
I find that much more interesting than any fashion-catalog description of the dress, and it illustrates what the narrator thinks is important.
I write conversationally and I don't look things up while writing a first draft. I know a bunch of things, and my characters and narrators usually know less than I do. Writing round-about descriptions of things I know nothing about, like women's clothing, has resulted in writing that I find satisfactory. If I looked up the right words for everything, the characters would know things that would not be reasonable for them to know.
I write quickly without thinking too much of what to say, for almost exactly the same reason that I don't look up words. I can sit for an hour trying to think of the perfect word before I go on, convinced it makes a difference. If I did that while telling a story in a bar, the bartender would cut me off. Even though I don't have time to think of all the right words, I still, miraculously, get the point across. I may have to be repetitive, and even say things like "you know" or "it was kind of like," but I get the point across, and end up with more genuine, unexpected descriptions.
(Note that "conversationally" refers to the style of writing, and "quickly" refers to the rate with which I write. These are both important considerations when analyzing craft in order to improve.)
Example:
I didn't know what kind of dress it was that I knew I wanted to describe, but I had an image of it in my head. I started looking it up and then decided, there is no way my narrator would know that, and wrote:
"She had on an off-white dress with tiny, pale blue flowers and a pucker under the bust line, which she did not fill out."
I find that much more interesting than any fashion-catalog description of the dress, and it illustrates what the narrator thinks is important.
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