Writtenwyrdd

"I don't give a sh*t"

"[A]bove all, in an ending, the reader/audience has to CARE. A good ending has an emotional payoff, and it has to be proportionate to what the character AND the reader/audience has experienced."  Alexandra Sokoloff

I highly recommend reading the linked post.  Ms. Sokoloff discusses why readers will accept your ending (if you do it right) and what you need in a climax/ending for them to be happy with your story and how you end it.  Basically, you have to give them an emotional payoff that takes into account things like who dies, who doesn't die, who suffers and transforms, do the characters suffer enough to make the catharsis of the ending/climax emotionally satisfying, etc.  (Not that she spells out all these things, but you can infer them readily enough from the text.)

And a reminder to please read and vote on the entries for the Chthulu-inspired Halloween Horror Contest.  Entries here.  Voting needs to be in by end of day, Monday, November 9th.  And please feel free to repost this information and/or mention the need for voters.  There are some great entries, and your horror-loving friends will thank you!

Great links for writers

A list of links that might provide you with some good resources, including online articles, classes and other relevant information.

Excellent info on story plot elements

Check out these articles on Beyond The Ruins of Elechan.  Lengthy, but excellent stuff.

A lucid explanation of what writing "rules" are for

"[E]very rule of writing is actually a tool for teaching yourself how to not fall into common, but ineffective, writing habits. For example, new writers always overuse adjectives and adverbs. However, once you've figured out how to write without those crutches--by using strong nouns and verbs instead--then you can go back to including adjectives and adverbs because you'll know enough to do it judiciously.

Every rule works like that; by learning to obey it, you gain enough knowledge to break it with skill.

One of the characters in Terry Pratchett's book The Thief of Time sums my opinion on the matter up even better. He says, "Rules are there to make you think before you break them."  JJ Debenedictus

Last week, I posted about the writing Rules, and why they shouldn't be elevated to gospel status, which many writers tend to do--especially very new writers, who are learning the basics.  Such need to absorb The Rules leads to dogmatism.  (This is rather like new religious converts, who tend to be either zealots or proselytizers, something I find rather obnoxious, even if well meaning.  What I really think is they get this way so that, by converting others to their points of view, they prove to themselves they are correct in their judgments.  But I digress.)

The point is, jjdebenedictus gave an extremely comprehensive and lucid description of my feelings on the Rules of Writing.  Original post with comment is here, and the blog where she originally said the quote is here.

And let me just add a codicil:  If you understand, for example, why you should default to 'said' in a dialog tag most of the time, there is nothing wrong with using something else, even something as odd to readers of today as 'ejaculated.'   The difference between making blind use of things 'against the rules' and  deliberately using what would normally be considered an odd choice like 'ejaculated' for 'said' is that you need to have a conscious decision process, a specific reason for making that choice.  Perhaps you are writing humor; perhaps you are deliberately trying to write like Wodehouse or some 19th century novelist.  The point is, you the artist/creator/writer/mechanic behind the keyboard need to have a rationale for your choices, even if it's as simple as your gut told you this would work.  If you have absorbed the basics, it'll work for you.  Usually.  Hopefully.  (And if not you can always edit later.)

Writing for teenagers

I see a teenage novel as a story with a teenage character(s) at the centre, written from a teenage viewpoint, which explores a situation which teenage readers often fear, aspire to, dream about or experience, and which provides an emotional connection to themselves as teenagers now. It has no visible boundaries or safety-nets and may be frightening, cutting-edge, brutally honest, shocking or sad, (but doesn't have to be) but in fact there are boundaries of acceptability and hope: 
"it takes them to the edge but will not throw them over."  Nicola Morgan

Nicola Morgan at Help! I Need A Publisher! blog has an excellent article on writing for teen (with links at the bottom to other great articles.  The quote above is from one of them.)  If you have ever considered a YA project, step on over and see what she has to say.  Great stuff!

What you need to be successful???

From the Men With Pens blog, Some good points about what a writer needs to be successful in Larry Brook's article "Six elements you must master to write a publishable novel."  Basically:

1. Concept
2. Character
3. Theme
4. Story architecture
5. Scene execution
6. Writing voice

Great points.  There's nothing wrong with the seat-of-the-pants writing method, though.  Some of us do not do our best work by writing out characters and outlining.  I for one do not.  Can't get the characters, the world or the story without sitting down to write for a bit.  Sorry, that's the way my creative brain works.  But the article points out some valid things about writing processes, and this process may work for you as well.

Besides, he's so right about the skills you need to have.   

Additionally, Men With Pens has a page with all their posts on writing.  Check it out, there's some great stuff there!

Finding the right word

Of course you all know about the thesaurus and the dictionary for finding the definition of words.  Highly useful and everybody should have one (or at least a link to an online version, such as FreeDictionary.)  However, what if you have an idea for a word, for a certain exact meaning, and yet you cannot think of any synonyms or antonyms from which to springboard a search? 

Well, here you go:  A reverse dictionary like One Look's reverse dictionary.  These are handy things. 

Stop butting in

"Having a strong and unique voice is considered a good quality in an author. It is one of those intangibles that keeps readers coming back for more. But novice authors often have a rookie habit of "butting in" to the story to interject their own thoughts and/or information. It can be a jarring disruption to the story line."  Marvin D. Wilson, posting on Blood Red Pencil blog

Blood Red Pencil has some great articles on writing advice, particularly in the realm of editing your Great American Novels.  This one is particularly insightful to me, as it really is difficult to know when you've put in too much sometimes.  I mean, we aren't just talking "too many adjectives" but a perceptual issue here which we writers must learn to see when we edit.

And a truly insightful post on dialog is over at Victora Mixon's blog.  Two thoughts from it:  Make your punctuation and sentence forms match the mental state of the character; and have them talk at cross-purposes.  Yup yup yup.

Visual writing thoughts & Links!

"Visual writing is one of those big ticket items I look for when reading manuscripts.  To me, it's part of the author's voice - it's what distinguishes their writing.  Tactile references are one of the many elements that pulls me into someone's story because it allows me to live the story three dimensionally."  Behler blog post. 

The above is a nice article on visual writing.  Check it out!

And, FYI, Jane Smith at How Publishing Really Works has a bunch of good links.

Jungian Archetypes & Characterization

This is a repost from January of 2008.  That article gets so many hits that I figured it's one worth recycling, which I do periodically for those posts which I like.  Some of the links may be outdated.  I haven't rechecked...because I'm lazy and am willing to admit that in the interest of full disclosure. ;)

Any archetype can do anything – the question will always be why. Tami Cowden

Probably most of you have, at minimum, heard the term 'archetype' as developed and used by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, as well as the term 'collective unconsciousness'. I'm not going to define them myself, as I'd be really bad at it; but you should probably familiarize yourself with the concept in order to increase your skills as a creator of characters. Or, failing that, just read a hell of a lot of mythology, Joseph Campbell, epic poetry. Or you could listen to Jewel ad nauseum on your iPod...

What are Archetypes?
Per wiki: "Archetypes are innate universal pre-conscious psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. Being universal and innate, their influence can be detected in the form of myths, symbols and psychic aptitudes of human beings the world over. The archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, direct and inform human thought and behaviour."

The Sixteen Jungian Archetypes.
Jung outlined four main archetypes (Self, Shadow, Anima, Animus) but there are also symbols with layered meanings, and which for the purpose of creating characters are much the same thing (IMO). For these, Jung coined the term, primordial images. "Primordial images originate from the initial stages of humanity and have been part of the collective unconscious ever since. It is through primordial images that universal archetypes are experienced, and more importantly, that the unconscious is revealed."

Ripped from Wikipedia, these are:
The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation
The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities that the ego does not identify with but possess nonetheless
The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche
The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche
The Syzygy, a pairing of contrasexual opposites, which symbolized the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds. The conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.
The Child, is portrayed in literature in various ways. Often takes the form of a child who displays adult-like qualities giving, for example, wise advice to their friends or viceversa. (Linus van Pelt)
The Hero/Heroine, character that in the face of danger and adversity, from a position of weakness displays courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good. (Gilgamesh)
The Great Mother, either good or terrible, is closely related to Mother Goddess figures in many mythologies. Represents fecundity, pregnancy, ripeness.
The Wise old man, or Senex, often appears as a wizard, foreigner, hermit, absent-minded professor type, or alien (e.g. Yoda), typically represented as a kind and wise, older father-type figure who uses personal knowledge of people and the world to offer guidance, thereby acting as a mentor.
The Trickster or Ape. The trickster is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense. (Loki, Prometheus, Coyote, Reynaud the Fox)
The Puer Aeternus (Latin for "eternal boy) Some of the signs of the expression of the puer archetype in a person's life can include immaturity,narcissism, and a desire to escape into fantasy or idealism in preference to remaining with the reality of a situation. (Peter Pan, Bart Simpson)
The Cosmic Man is generally described as helpful or positive, and is also frequently the physical basis of the world, such that after death parts of his body became physical parts of the universe. He also represents the oneness of human existence, or the universe. (Adam, Horus)

Why are archetypes important?
In the development of a character, the recognition of the particular archetype which the character typifies is a useful tool in the writerly toolbox. You can see how the character falls short of your needs or doesn't fit based on aspects of archetype, for example.

I'm afraid that this is such a fascinating topic for me (and the language in which the sources are rendered is so high falutin') that I'm not able to do it proper justice. So let me quote the most accessible descriptions of archetype and characters in writing that I've found.

Tami Cowden says, "Archetypes are not stereotypes; they are not cookie cutters. They can be considered a framework, or even better, a lump of clay of a particular color and consistency. Use the archetype as raw material to create a full bodied character." Wish I'd said that!

She lists her take on the Hero archetypes, Heroine archetypes, and the Villian archetypes on her web page (and in her book), and I found these to be very accessible as a writer.

Translating this to your writing style.
Just because your character is a Gilgamesh-style Hero doesn't mean he is exactly like Gilgamesh. In fact, he may not seem anything like Gilgamesh. The question, as Ms. Cowden says, is to determine the rationale behind the character's actions. WHY? Why, why, why?

This is a valid point and why I led this rant with that particular quote. All heroes are not alike; and the reason for their actions is the reason they are different. So, when you define the archetype based on the character's motivations, you have another tool to help you frame a story that fits the character, or a character to the story. You can also gauge problems if you analyze your major characters this way. For example, if the villian of the piece is more the hero than the hero, you might find your reception is off.

So, now you can go out and drive yourself crazy overanalyzing your work! One more way to avoid actually writing...

Links:
Carl Jung, by Dr. C. George Boeree
Archetypes list, by Philip Wedgewood
Archetypical Literary Criticism, wikipedia article
Jungian Archetypes, wikipedia article

Reading:
Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious, by C.G. Jung
Man & His Symbols, by C.G. Jung
Awakening the Heroes Within, by Carol Peterson
Heros & Heroines, by Tami Cowden
The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers & Joseph Campbell
The Golden Bough, by James G. Frazer
The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
The White Goddess, by Robert Graves

Probably most of you have, at minimum, heard the term 'archetype' as developed and used by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, as well as the term 'collective unconsciousness'. I'm not going to define them myself, as I'd be really bad at it; but you should probably familiarize yourself with the concept in order to increase your skills as a creator of characters. Or, failing that, just read a hell of a lot of mythology, Joseph Campbell, epic poetry. Or you could listen to Jewel ad nauseum on your iPod...

What are Archetypes?
Per wiki: "Archetypes are innate universal pre-conscious psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. Being universal and innate, their influence can be detected in the form of myths, symbols and psychic aptitudes of human beings the world over. The archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, direct and inform human thought and behaviour."

The Sixteen Jungian Archetypes.
Jung outlined four main archetypes (Self, Shadow, Anima, Animus) but there are also symbols with layered meanings, and which for the purpose of creating characters are much the same thing (IMO). For these, Jung coined the term, primordial images. "Primordial images originate from the initial stages of humanity and have been part of the collective unconscious ever since. It is through primordial images that universal archetypes are experienced, and more importantly, that the unconscious is revealed."

Ripped from Wikipedia, these are:
The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation
The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities that the ego does not identify with but possess nonetheless
The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche
The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche
The Syzygy, a pairing of contrasexual opposites, which symbolized the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds. The conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity.
The Child, is portrayed in literature in various ways. Often takes the form of a child who displays adult-like qualities giving, for example, wise advice to their friends or viceversa. (Linus van Pelt)
The Hero/Heroine, character that in the face of danger and adversity, from a position of weakness displays courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good. (Gilgamesh)
The Great Mother, either good or terrible, is closely related to Mother Goddess figures in many mythologies. Represents fecundity, pregnancy, ripeness.
The Wise old man, or Senex, often appears as a wizard, foreigner, hermit, absent-minded professor type, or alien (e.g. Yoda), typically represented as a kind and wise, older father-type figure who uses personal knowledge of people and the world to offer guidance, thereby acting as a mentor.
The Trickster or Ape. The trickster is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense. (Loki, Prometheus, Coyote, Reynaud the Fox)
The Puer Aeternus (Latin for "eternal boy) Some of the signs of the expression of the puer archetype in a person's life can include immaturity,narcissism, and a desire to escape into fantasy or idealism in preference to remaining with the reality of a situation. (Peter Pan, Bart Simpson)
The Cosmic Man is generally described as helpful or positive, and is also frequently the physical basis of the world, such that after death parts of his body became physical parts of the universe. He also represents the oneness of human existence, or the universe. (Adam, Horus)

Why are archetypes important?
In the development of a character, the recognition of the particular archetype which the character typifies is a useful tool in the writerly toolbox. You can see how the character falls short of your needs or doesn't fit based on aspects of archetype, for example.

I'm afraid that this is such a fascinating topic for me (and the language in which the sources are rendered is so high falutin') that I'm not able to do it proper justice. So let me quote the most accessible descriptions of archetype and characters in writing that I've found.

Tami Cowden says, "Archetypes are not stereotypes; they are not cookie cutters. They can be considered a framework, or even better, a lump of clay of a particular color and consistency. Use the archetype as raw material to create a full bodied character." Wish I'd said that!

She lists her take on the Hero archetypes, Heroine archetypes, and the Villian archetypes on her web page (and in her book), and I found these to be very accessible as a writer.

Translating this to your writing style.
Just because your character is a Gilgamesh-style Hero doesn't mean he is exactly like Gilgamesh. In fact, he may not seem anything like Gilgamesh. The question, as Ms. Cowden says, is to determine the rationale behind the character's actions. WHY? Why, why, why?

This is a valid point and why I led this rant with that particular quote. All heroes are not alike; and the reason for their actions is the reason they are different. So, when you define the archetype based on the character's motivations, you have another tool to help you frame a story that fits the character, or a character to the story. You can also gauge problems if you analyze your major characters this way. For example, if the villian of the piece is more the hero than the hero, you might find your reception is off.

So, now you can go out and drive yourself crazy overanalyzing your work! One more way to avoid actually writing...

Links:
Carl Jung, by Dr. C. George Boeree
Archetypes list, by Philip Wedgewood
Archetypical Literary Criticism, wikipedia article
Jungian Archetypes, wikipedia article

Reading:
Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious, by C.G. Jung
Man & His Symbols, by C.G. Jung
Awakening the Heroes Within, by Carol Peterson
Heros & Heroines, by Tami Cowden
The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers & Joseph Campbell
The Golden Bough, by James G. Frazer
The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
The White Goddess, by Robert Graves

Underpainting

Underpainting - a new term I found on Julie Weather's blog the other day helps to describe the stage business and other elements which are so important to convey subtext and mood, as well as to help pull the reader futher into the fictional world. Carefully chosen, the details that comprise underpainting can make a good scene outstanding.  A worthy refresher and reminder on stage business. 

 

I rather like the term underpainting, but I'm afraid that my own experience painting literally colors the term in a less-than-useful way for me.  Probably something to do with my scrape and repaint habits, lol.

 

Story structure

Alexandra Sokoloff* has a blog post on story structure that's fascinating in how she ties story structure and screenwriting. The twain do meet, because a screenplay is a story at its leanest, generally speaking, as a screenplay is so short when compared to a novel. It's like writing a short story but with novel length ideals. Sort of.

 

Anyhow, interesting read, and she has a whole post on her writing-related posts for your perusal, here.

 

*Via a link from Steve Malley's blog. 

No magical consequences?

"Who hasn't wished to have some sort of superpower at least once in their life? But we don't like heroes whose superpowers come with no cost. Superman is perpetually an alien, Batman is incapable of carrying on a reasonable relationship with anyone other than the Joker or Catwoman, even the Kwisatz Haderach has to pay over and over again for his gifts. Frodo ended up saving the Shire, but couldn't go back to his old life within it. There must always be a cost/consequence, because Real Life is full of consequences." Lilith Saintcrow from a Witchychicks blog post.

 

Lilith Saintcrow guest blogged last week on the witchychicks blog on writing paranormals. Ms. Saintcrow mentions the need to have consequences and costs for magical or super powers--something I've mentioned a time or two myself, as have others such as Lawrence Watt-Evans.

 

I've said before (but am too lazy to look up the post and link it)the only logical consequence of magic users with no metaphysical brakes is despotism. Absolute power corrupting absolutely is practically a given when magical ability is as easy and inconsequential to the wielder as breathing*; and to give your magicians such massive power without any means of it being checked is to ensure they logically would become the evil overlords that your protagonist has to overcome. And while evil god/evil overlord stories have their place, if you want a magic wielding protagonist, you should consider how his magical abilities are limited and the rules by which they are 1) used, 2) distinguished (so your take on magic isn't the same as every other author's), and (most importantly) 3) the cost and consequences to the wielder.

 

Idea.

However, supposing you have a character who's observed to have all these super magical powers and yet there appears to be no consequence. This might be an interesting set up for a story. (It actually is an idea that I've had percolating for a while which I thought might make an interesting screenplay a la the Thirteenth Floor.) So say you have this character, and your protagonist gets to wondering how they can defy the laws of physics, etc. and how they can have godlike powers that cost them nothing. He wonders if these people have a secret source, or if they are a danger to society as in they want to take over the world with their super powers. It would be sort of inhuman for them to be all Justice League dutiful and not be at least strongly tempted.

 

Which brings me to the what if part. What If...the super powers are something more sinister, something being taken from another world, or from the people of the story's world?

 

And my conflict goes off from there as the secret is accidentally discovered and the protagonist has to save himself--either by revealing the secret or using the same dire means of gaining the powers himself. Talk about a moral dilemma! (I love moral dilemmas.)

 
And, as a final note, let me refer you to Lawrence Watt-Evan's Laws of Fantasy:

1. Watt-Evans' First Law of Fantasy: Stories are about people.

2. Watt-Evans' Second Law of Fantasy: People are never wholly good or wholly evil, and therefore characters should never be wholly good or wholly evil.

3. Watt-Evans' Third Law of Fantasy: The basic human motivations are universal.

4. Watt-Evans' Fourth Law of Fantasy: Everything other than the basic human motivations will vary, depending on the cultural setting.

5. Watt-Evans' Fifth Law of Fantasy: Magic, like everything else, has rules.

6. Watt-Evans' Sixth Law of Fantasy: If a story can be written without a fantasy element, then don't bother with the fantasy element.

And, just for kicks, read up on the Turkey City Lexicon's speculative fiction gripes and groaners (provided by a vast array of sff writers over the years.)  Some of these are used in other genres; many are spec fic specific, like the "squid on the mantlepiece" or the "smeerp."

*Thus Harry Potter is solidly in the kid lit camp for that reason alone, although they are excellent reads. 

Revisions...and foil helmets

 Seems revision thoughts are being telepathically beamed into our brains lately.  Not only did Nathan Bransford have a great post with a great checklist for revisions yesterday, but Blood Red Pencil's guest blogger, Alexandra Sokoloff, has a few relevant thoughts on that subject as well.  I particularly like the list of the various Acts and their components.  Might be useful for structuring a novel, hint hint...except when it isn't.

However, don't just go rushing off to edit, kids.  Don thy foil helmets* and pause to consider your own process instead of following some mythical Pied Piper off into the mythical land of million dollar advances and New York Times best seller lists.

And by that I mean, consider your own writing style and what you have learned about the craft of writing-- and keep weaving your own process in with these editing rules.  You have a style and voice (or are developing one) and you presumably have internalized much of the basics about writing.  So you are at the point where you are bending rules, or maybe experimenting a bit with structure.  If you follow the list Ms. Sokoloff provides for structuring your story, it might not work to tell the story you envision.  Not that I'm saying chuck these rules/suggestions out the window.  Not all of us can be a James Joyce who writes idiosyncratic books like Ulysses without punctuation for massive sections (and all the other wackiness that frankly makes me find the book unreadable) and still be called a brilliant writer; and not many of us would want to write that sort of book.  But we can all be ourselves while we communicate our stories to others. 

So amidst all the lists of things to think about, and Rules that Must Be Obeyed (unless they aren't), don't forget to be yourself.  It's what will sell your novel in the end, you know.

 

*See, this guy is a free thinker. And a fashion plate. (Picture from Wikipedia)

The double edged device

Pure research for its own sake is probably the best way we have of discovering random things that eventually lead to dramatic breakthroughs that save lives, promote health and all good things.

But research can also be a double-edged and dangerous things.  Because we humans have a tendency to take neutral stuff, even stuff that can save lives, and twist it to ugly things.  This study disturbs me for that reason.  Imagine if the military had that sort of stuff and used it as an interrogation method.  Get someone seriously jonesing for a drug he's never taken.  While they might be tough-minded enough not to crack, add that withdrawal trauma to waterboarding or whatever other official "non torture" method of interrogation is in use at the time, and the victim might crack faster.

I can see using this in a novel.  I do hope no one uses it in real life, however.

But this dichotomy brings to mind a useful trait of devices that can be used for good or ill.  We need radioactive materials developed as sources for medical instrumentation and scanning devices, or for scanners at border ports, or to source the power of space probes.  We dread it because of nuclear bombs, North Korea becoming worryingly shrill and waving the "I'll nuke you!" flag just yesterday (re conflicts in the DMZ) being the latest example of why.

But this edge of danger to an item, a technology, a device can be really fruitful when used in a story.  You have a technology that has major benefits for life, the universe and everything...but it can also end life as we know it.  Whether that technology is your MacGuffin and your characters are chasing after it or trying to remove it from the hands of terrorists (24 anyone?) or it's just an ancillary item that suddenly is used in a surprizing way (I rather like this approach) after an innocuous introduction, tech like that can be very useful to your plot development.

It can also increase tension when something "bombproof" goes awry.  An example of this is in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series.  She has a drug called "penta" which when used causes people to spill their guts.  The drug has vast implications because torture is not needed.  And we the readers chug along not worrying for Miles our protagonist until he's captured by an enemy and is injected with the drug.  Then we learn that a very few, including her protagonist Miles Vorkosigan, have an idiosyncratic reaction.  Penta doesn't work on him!  It works somewhat in that he can keep babbling to the point he says nothing really, because if he can segue into reciting something like Shakespeare he can't stop until he gets to the end.  I thought that was a clever device, because it both was funny, and it served to give the reader the sudden worry that Miles might be tortured instead of just questioned.  This added lots of tension!

Besides all that, itsn't it always intriguing and pleasing when something seemingly mundane suddenly arises as a great big nasty bugaboo?  As a reader I like having something 'normal' become part of a clever plot twist.  I suppose the danger is in being too clever, or trying this too often.  Like Goldilocks, that little housebreaker, you need to find what works juuuust right.

Make me Purrrrr...

"I've heard this about voice which I loved - it's how you sound when you're talking amongst your very good friends vs. how you talk in a group of strangers.  The real you."  PJ Hoover (in post comments)

From RL LaFever's blog, a couple of excellent posts on voice. I found it by Author PJ Hoover's post on these articles. Both authors' blogs are well worth following.

RL LaFevers: http://rllafevers.blogspot.com/
PJ Hoover: http://pjhoover.blogspot.com/
http://rllafevers.blogspot.com/2009/04/going-on-voice-hunt.html
http://rllafevers.blogspot.com/2009/04/story-voice.html

 

On Writing Horror...well, a book about it

I found a rather nice link list at an LJ blog tonight.  It appears there is a huge Livejournal group of writers, which I've been slowly discovering after the RaceFail 09 thing got me over there to check out numerous links. 

Well, now I present you with the blog Minor Bun Engine Made Benny Lava, which line you might recognize from the Buffalax overdubbed Bollywood video from last year?  Anyhow, with a blog name like that, I like this guy already.  Whatever his name is.  Vee-ekcs?  Sounds like  Klingon sexual innuendo.  [Real name appears to actually be Robert N. Lee, although he lists himself as Trebor N. Eel on LJ.  And having a brother named Robert who went by Trebor when he felt like being obnoxious, I get the humor.]  He's a horror short story writer who comes up in one anthology that I found. 

He mentions an upcoming book he's submitting an article for, to whit:

Writers Workshop of Horror

Writers Workshop of Horror is a collection of articles on the craft of writing horror. Each article -- written by some very big names -- tackles a specific element of the writing craft as it relates to the horror and dark fiction genres. Release date and other information will be forthcoming.

Authors Include:

-- Stephen King
-- Clive Barker
-- Joe R. Lansdale
-- F. Paul Wilson
-- Ramsey Campbell
-- Thomas F. Monteleone
-- Deborah LeBlanc
-- Gary A. Braunbeck
-- Brian Keene
-- Elizabeth Massie
-- Tom Piccirilli
-- Jonathan Maberry
-- Tim Waggoner
-- Mort Castle
-- G. Cameron Fuller
-- Rick Hautala
-- Scott Nicholson
-- Michael A. Arnzen
-- J.F. Gonzalez
-- Michael Laimo
-- Lucy A. Snyder
-- Jeff Strand
-- Lisa Morton
-- Jack Haringa
-- Gary Frank
-- Jason Sizemore
-- Robert N. Lee
-- Michael Knost

Social glue

"Having a dialogue with someone is really like a social glue, and it gets us thinking in a different manner."  Carrie Keating, Colgate University psychology professor

Reading an article on ABC news' "What Would You Do?" I ran across an experiment where the crew decided to test and see if strangers would react if someone's things were stolen.  Would they help?

The fascinating thing is that 1 out of 5 would intervene if a woman at the beach walked away from her stuff to go swimming and a thief stole her iPod.  However, if the woman asked someone to watch her things, most of those asked to watch would react.  Ambiguity was a big factor in the non-reaction, and a tendency for bystanders to convince themselves the thief must be a friend or boyfriend.  But there was no ambiguity if the woman asks for them to watch her things.

Where it gets really interesting for me is this:  When the woman merely exchanged a pleasantry or two and then walked away from her stuff, the people reacted as if she'd asked them to watch her stuff.

The explanation is that the interaction must form 'a sort of social glue' that  at least changes the bystanders perception of her.  Perhaps it merely lifts her from the buzzing white noise of the crowded background; perhaps, by talking with her, the bystanders have allowed that woman into their world and thus feel a social investment or responsibility.  The thing is, though, the tendency is there and can be utilized as another wrench in our writerly toolbox.

I found this fascinating, and an exploitable trait we can use as writers.  I mean, can you imagine the sort of character who would calculatingly use this trait to, say, cause the bystanders to help her out by delaying a tail, for example? 

Ideas. 

• Your character is being followed, and she thus stops and chats with someone at the bus stop as if she's going to catch that bus.  What she is reallydoing is initiating contact with a stranger.  And when she pretends to see her follower for the first time, she might say something like, "Oh my god, it's him," and run off, the other person then delaying the guy who by inference is intent on harm. 
• Or your character has to make a drop because he (or a client) is being blackmailed.  But they don't want to give up the money, they want to stop this guy.  But because of various good reasons no one can involve the cops.  So our hero decides to use the very public daylight drop to his advantage.  He engages someone on the park bench in conversation, and casually leaves his briefcase in order to, say, throw something into a nearby trash barrel.  And the subsequent switch of the briefcase causes the bystander to call attention to the supposed theft. 

These options are a bit too glib and reliant on luck; but I am sure you can think of smaller ways to use this, ways which aren't cynical and deliberate ploys to use a friendly stranger.

*rubs hands together gleefully*  I have got to use this someplace...

I don't think I heard that right...

"Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." Albert Einstein

The above quote cracked me up.  I wish I could be full of gentle humor, brilliance and true wisdom like Einstein.  I'd have liked to have met him.

I've actually had that thought about myself from time to time.  It has to do with the way the human mind likes to make assumptions, a form of mental shorthand, I suppose.  We interpret data based on past performance and experience and while it may be wrong we still fall for it and are surprised to discover we erred. 

And it occurs to me you might use this tendency in your plot structuring.  As in you set up your readers the same way you set up your characters.  They see a tendency to do one thing several times over in a particular secondary character, and when the secondary character does something just slightly different, you have the main character either not notice or misinterpret the behavior or words in a manner that aids in the plot development.

I'm sure I've seen this done before a zillion times, but have I ever really considered that the writer was exploiting our human nature in this way?  I had not. 

Now that I point it out, however, I hope to use it scientifically.  And I hope you do, too. 

Happy writing!

Voice

The Blood-Red Pencil has a nice post on character voice you should check out for a wonderful example on why you shouldn't mangle the English language in order to present your character's voice.  The example used is dropping g's in a Southerner's speech, but it applies to any form of language modification.  Don't drop into written pidgin with phonetic misspellings for effect, in other words, because it is lazy writing.  (I've done the same thing occasionally, and I can see that it was a stupid and lazy conceit.  I won't do it again!)

There are two sorts of dialog that this lesson applies to, as well:  Your characters' spoken dialog, and their respective internal monologues.  Each character's individuality and roundedness as characters depends on their speech forms and patterns.

So, with that lesson in mind, happy writing!

Critiquing skills

A recent submission at Evil Editor's got me to thinking about the difficulty some writers have discovering how to read with a critical eye.  It's not that simple, because if you want to write well, you have a multiplicity of factors to weigh when you revise, because, contrary to most beginning writers' beliefs, your first draft is crap.  Always.  These factors include

• Current trends in writing.  What's hot, acceptable, passe.  This can include types of opening, pov choice, length, narrative style, use of footnotes--a zillion issues.  
• Adjectives, adverbs, modifiers in general.
• Length of sentences.  Sentence rhythm.
• Grammar and punctuation.
• Dialog and dialog tags.
• Intermixing of description, dialog and exposition--achieving the proper balance for the particular scene.
• Plot movement.
• Scene functionality.  Does every scene have at least two functions?
• Pacing.  Do you expand a scene to add in tension?  Should it be cropped?
• Tying up subplots and dangling bits of plot.
• Foreshadowing and misleading the reader.  Did you do enough of these? Too much?
• Theme.  Too much? Too little? 
• And men-ny moooooore!

This is a lot of stuff to juggle.  Most of it in my experience is done more or less by feel, by seat of the pants.  It's a lot of stuff I manage intuivitely for the most part. 

How to improve your critiquing skills.
Workshops.  Being in on workshops can be invaluable, because--especially when critiquing poetry--you learn to assess the weight, rhythmic influence and value of every single word.  I will always bless my choice to drop biology as a major and switch to English instead where I focused on creative writing, because writing lots of poetry really helped me to become a better prose writer.

In my experience, live workshops where you are sitting there with a teacher/professor who knows what she is doing and with a group of people who are assigned topics for their writing (e.g. exercises) is the best place to learn critiquing.  In a class.  Butt in chair.  Your words talked about with a moderator who can teach the other participants as well as you how to critique, how to read and interpret what others have said, and most importantly how to determine, at least in part, to correct the problem.  These courses provide a basis for understanding critiquing.  They aren't absolutely necessary, but they are great and wonderful starting points.

Online critique groups.  There are a ton of these.  Criggers.org is one site among many, and is specific to the SFF community.  There are many others.  If you can't take a community college workshopping writing course, this is the option for you.  There are also online writing groups that are private.  I happen to belong to one, and the quality of the writers is pretty high in it.  One is a former winner of the Writers of the Future, most of the others are either agented or published.  One recent member is a best-selling paranormal fantasy author.  And the caliber of their advice and their prose is quite high, as you can imagine. 

Reading critiques.  This will provide insight on how to think about writing.  Read critiques of longer pieces than Evil Editor's blog provides.  Read books on editing.  Read editor blogs like Electric Spec ezine's editor blog, where they give some great tips on how to edit short stories.  The more you read and think about critiquing, the more you can learn to think about writing critically.

Critical analysis.  Analyzing writing (critical analysis) is not the same thing as the revision process.  There is some overlap, because if you can analyze your work as, say, a college student writing a paper on it would, you can think about some of the larger structural and thematic issues of your writing more clearly.  Overall meaning and theme, though, are NOT your revision.  The revision is making sure the underlaying structure, e.g. the things that communicate the interconnected layers of meaning and imagery and theme and all the story's parts, is working at it's best.  See the list above.  You learn these oh-so-boring skills having to write about literature in high school English or in college.  If you can recall those term papers on Julius Caesar, you can probably do this type of analysis!

Coping strategies.  It can be hard to convince yourself that your writing, while it doesn't suck, may still need work.  First drafts, even fifth or tenth drafts unless you're really lucky or really good, always do.  I think the most useful thing I figured out about writing is this:  Kill your darlings.  You look at your writing and dread changing it.  Maybe it will be worse if I do.  I spent so much time coming up with this scene.  It's my precious self on that page.  I didn't make up that advice; but I believe every writer has to discover the meaning for themselves.  Don't resist the cut.  If you have a hard time with it, then open a new file, copy the scene you are going to change, label it with date and time and section info, and keep it forever safe in your Precious Purple Prose file.  I do that, and I never go back except to find a phrase or two to use elsewhere. 

Etiquette.  Be kind when you critique.  This applies to yourself as well as to others.  And, as a useful link for you, the Critters Workshop has a page on critiquing.  It's nice to have a place that will help you think about how to write a useful, cruelty free critique.

Philosophical conundrums and your plot

Not sure why, but it never occurred to me (until this afternoon) to consider philosophical nuts for story ideas.  Conflict is generally considered to be when what the character desires is limited or obstructed by circumstances or problems; but if the conflict involves a decision which has no desirable outcome, we are approaching philosophy.

Such is the problem I am facing in a short story I am trying to finish.  This would be The Redemption, which I posted an excerpt of a few months ago.  I've been letting it hang fire since Spring because I realized I didn't have a clue what the conflict was, even though I knew what the events were.  (Isn't that an odd thing?) I've been sitting her all afternoon, trying to take what I feel is a great start and make it to the end.  And I'm stuck. Stuckety stuck stuck, damn it.

So of course I start wasting time reading science articles on New Scientist, National Geo, Science Daily and all my favorite writing and time-wasting blogs. 

And I hit PAYDIRT!!! (Sqeeing sound as voice rises in pitch.)

I found an article on how the brain works at How Stuff Works, and started reading about The Trolley Problem.  Essentially, the set up is you have a runaway trolley and a person who has two possible options to stop the trolley and save the five passengers.  First, she might pull a lever and send the trolley onto a side track where it will safely stop--except there's a guy standing there and to act will get him killed because there is no time to alert him.  Second, she might push a big guy in front of the trolley becaue he's big enough to jam up the wheels and stop the trolley, which would, of course, kill him in the process.  Which is morally acceptible?  (Most are more likely to say the first option is moral, the second is not, the distinction being the first choice allows a person to die while the second one is actual deliberate murder.)

But I contend a third option is possible:  The watcher sacrifices herself.  She sees both options as bad, but manipulates the situation so that her moral compass is not wavering from her moral sense. 

And this solved the conundrum for my character, who cannot resolve disparate demands on her sense of obligation and honor.  She chooses a form of sacrifice.

Which brings to mind a thought:  Philosophical problems probably can be translated to spec fic stories fairly readily.  Where mankind meets moral choices, we have conflict that is rooted in the guts and which should tap into that strong reaction we like our stories to receive.  Or I hope so.

As I haven't studied philosophy at all with the exception of Humanities in high school and college, I admit I come to this discussion unarmed, lol; but I think there's a lot to be said for this.  Because philosophy isn't all that far removed from mythology, which addresses a lot of the conflicts and issues that mankind finds in daily living.

Thoughts?  Reading material you want to share?  I'm all ears!

Reference:  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

How Not To Write Like An Idiot

The title of this post is what I would love to see for a how-to-write book title.  Seriously.  And the reason is hubris, or the keeping down of. 

In lieu of that non-existant book, however, I do have "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers," by Renni Browne & Dave King.  I like to pick it up and browse through occasionally.  There's always something pithy and appropriate that catches my eye.

Today's example follows.  It is some advice on what to look for in the set up of your novel.  Having just read my trunk novel, I am glad to say that I was reading with most of this list in the back of my mind.  I like to delude myself into thinking it shows I am developing a decent sense of plot, and the setting up thereof.

• Take a look at your descriptions.  Are the details you give the ones your viewpoint character would notice?
• Reread your first fifty pages, paying attention to what you spend your time on.  Are the characters you develop most fully important to the ending?  Do you use the locations you develop in detail later in the story?  Do any of the characters play a surprising role in the ending?  Could readers guess this from the amount of time you spend on them?
• Do you have tangents--little subplots or descriptions that don't advance the plot?  If so, are all of them effective?  If you don't have any, should you add some?
• Are you writing about your favorite topics or hobbies?  If so, give careful consideration to how much time you spend on them.

That was from page 80 of the book.  Sound advice.

And now, for my next trick, I shall go write something.  You should too.  Happy writing!

Causality makes the bones; emotion pumps the heart.

We're all familiar with the concept of stimulus and response, right? Action and reaction? It's often said that these components form the building blocks of prose, but that only tells two-thirds of the story. Because sandwiched between every stimulus and response is a third layer which we'll call, for want of a better term, emotion.  Theresa, Edit Torrent

Edit Torrent has a lot of great stuff which I am reading on a daily basis.  All of it seems to be useful, applicable, self-editing gold.  But the quoted post on causality has given me some particular food for thought. 

I've been rereading the trunk novel and also recently beta read a large chunk of a friend's work in progress.  There was a lot of good stuff in both of these, but neither are 'there' yet.  Neither has all of its problems solved.  And one of the problems is errors in presentation.  Not errors in logic (although both have a few of those, being early drafts); but in how we illustrate the characters' actions.  And getting that portrayal of unfolding events (or emotions) right is vital. 

So I've been thinking about the issue of structuring information flow, whether in dialog, description or of action.  Thinking about what and how the reader needs to be brought into the story, and thinking about what doesn't work and what trips up readers.

Theresa has broken down the process of addressing a paragraph of action that, to me, read just fine at the beginning, if not perfect.  She took exception to it, and explains, in great detail, how to pull the readers along with the action by adding the emotional filling in it so it just doesn't read better; it reads brilliant.

So go read the post (link at top) and think about these principles when looking at your own work, or any paragraph someone else wrote that seems somehow, inexplicably, flat.  It's pretty enlightening.

What's your Daily Dragon?

"If you think you have "writer's block" (a fraudulent term if there ever was one), then do what poet William Stafford suggests: Lower your standards.  Very often beginning writers (and sometimes experienced writers) find themselves stymied by a need to write with nothing less than journeyman brilliance....This is an unreasonable expectation.  It can stop the [writer] cold."  Rick DeMarinis, "The Art & Craft of the Short Story"

Guilty!  Been doing that just this morning, an avoidance of writing tactic I frequently must slay.  We all have our issues that attempt to keep us from sitting down to write.  Some of us have our Fear of Success baggage; some have ADD; some have the Evil Internal Editor whinging at us about how crappy we write, how unskilled we are, how we simply just SUCK.  We must slay these dragons and apply the ol' Butt In Chair method. 

What's your Daily Dragon?

Also, a great post on writing short stories at the Writer's of the Future blog.  Thanks to Nicole Kelly for the link.

Framing

Here's a new term I hadn't heard before:  Story framing.  Basically, you surround one element with two parts of another element so that narrative or backstory or internal monologue dont cause a disconnect for your reader.

I found a great article on it here, at Edit Torrent.  Quote below.

By framing that short IM bit with present story-time action, you can effectively lower the reader into the IM, and then draw them back into the story line with the same idea. The action itself doesn’t matter much, as long as it makes sense within the overall context. So let’s have Kate saddle her horse while thinking about Jake.

• start saddling horse in present story time
• think about Jake’s shoulders
• think about Jake’s hair
• think about Jake’s lips
• finish saddling the horse

Then continue the story.

This blog is another very cool site.  Thanks for Phoenix for the heads up.

Software for writers

Okay, not talking about lingere after that last post's headline.

On a forum to which I belong, someone asked the question , Do any of you use any writing software programs, other than Word and its ilk?

I have used a couple of different programs, and I found that it is, by far and large, much simpler to stick with a word processing program.  There are always flaws unless you can also hack a program and have the time/inclination to do so.  I am not a geek.  Most writers would rather write than geek; so following is my response and opinions.  I hope they are of help to you all out there puzzling over what pain to inflict upon yourself with the learning curve for unfamiliar software.

Power Writer.  I purchased this program (about $100) several years ago.  I like a lot about it.  When my hard drive crashed, they were easy to work with and restored my available license so I could reinstall.  I found the outline capabilities fantastic; but I couldn't print the outline or export it, and in creating the outline notes, the program inserted all sorts of crap into my prose.  Plus, changing formatting is nearly impossible when you cut and paste from different programs or files.  What you drop in is what you get without a ton of hassles.  Tab stops were a pain in the butt to get in, or you would have sections with magically appearing tabs (which I can't stand.)  So, in short, don't waste your money if you already have a decent word processing program unless you really need all sorts of note capabilities which you have to actively open to read.  (Much better, in my opinion, to insert comments as in Word.)

Word Perfect.  Used this a long time ago.  I am comfortable with Word, so I haven't gone back.  Probably as good to use as Word.  Your mileage may vary.

Literary Machine, a relational database.  I found a relational database to be very useful, although not the answer for actually writing because of the cumbersome nature of organizing the information into a cohesive whole.  But Literary Machine 2000 is freeware and has a yahoo group with tutorials you can view.   It's primary usefulness is to amass the background data for really big world building projects.  I can also create an outline or find data I can't bring to mind, such as a particular character's history, or obscure plants-- that sort of thing that's vital to keep straight over the course of a long story. You can even use Literary Machine to write entire books. The drawback to this is that the coding and cross-coding make the search functions truly nightmarish until you get some real experience behind the belt. And by then, you have changed your mind about how you wanted to code stuff in the first place! Also, it keeps all your projects in the same database, which might be a problem unless you use separate databases, which involves backing up and restoring (and worse, deleting the existing data which always freaks me out.)  Oh, and if you organize the notecards in a certain order, they do not come back in that order when you reboot the program...not unless you save them in a text file.  so, really good points, but not a really good answer for a fiction writer.

Open Office.  This is a fantastic freeware program rather like MS Office, only more bombproof and free.  It is also not so god-awfully and needlessly complex like the new Microsoft Office, which is also expensive at $130 or more. Most of the gang in my crit group have used it in technical writing and in other office-related functions for years and like it, particularly one who has to get stuff to print a lot. so that's my recommendation. Plus, you cannot beat free! This one gets my vote if you want to get a new program to use.

What I use.  I stick with Word 2003 for writing in general because I've used Word for over ten years and am used to it.   I like the comment functions in particular for note taking.  It's not perfect, but it's familiar.  But when that is no longer supported (shudder) I WILL NOT go to the newest Office/Word 2007.  I tried it and uninstalled it immediately.  How can a company think it is alright to take up a fucking full THIRD of your  screen with the 'ribbon' menu?  I really wanted my  ducets back on that purchase!

The Squidginess Factor: Pillage & Murder

A wonderful site I haven't touted lately is How Stuff Works.  When you haven't had your fill of random facts, this is the place to go.  Or, if you need some inspiration, this is the place to go.  As in today, where I learned that Ghenghis Khan did not actually kill 1,748,000 men, women and children in the ancient city of Nishapur.  But die they did, the whole city of them, all because Ghengis' son-in-law got waxed by a stray arrow.  And their heads stacked in pyramids for the daughter's perusal.

Now, as a modern sort of gal, I tend to keep a rein on my characters' bloodymindedness; however, I can see that I should be pulling this stuff out to read more often.  That, and reread that book I have on real accounts of piracy in the Carribbean.  Those guys were pretty ruthless, too.

Anyhow, the point is that in fantasy works that are not near-real-world (or even those that are) you might consider where your personal ethics and squidginess tolerance lie, and then press those boundaries while you write.  Ignore the squeamishness and press into the forbidden zone. 

It might just infuse your writing with something valuable, new, and give you a depth that you previously lacked in the bad guy character department.  Even your so-called good guys have a dark side, quite often; so be aware of it.

***************

And, I came across this line regarding Ghenghis Khan:

Thanks to his far-flung travels and his appetite for women, a 2003 study found that as many as 16 million people alive today -- or about 0.5 percent of the global population -- are descendants of Khan [source: Zerjal, et al.].

Strategy, Tactics & Your Military Story

"Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics."  Omar Bradley

I ran across this old and possibly apocryphal saying and it got me to thinking about war in speculative fiction.  I haven't considered writing military sf or epic fantasy with epic battles between good and evil; but that's because I don't feel qualified.  However, it's occurred to me that I probably would benefit from a wider knowledge, a deeper understanding of the subject.  I mean, when my only real knowledge is from reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series and having been a garrison-only MP dog handler in the Army twenty five years ago, you don't have a lot of real tactical knowledge.

First off, it would probably be useful to fully understand what that quote from General Bradley means.  What's the difference between strategy and logistics?  I always understood logistics to be about things like your supplies and keeping the troops fed and sheltered and with enough ammo to keep fighting.

A very informative article on the subject of strategy and logistics is here, where they describe the various aspects of this topic.  I quote:

• Grand strategy is political. It sets the long term and short term goals both in and out of war. It decides who to attack when and what the goals of a war are to be.
• Operational strategy or just strategy is the planning and the execution that leads to the fulfilment of the goals set in grand strategy. If the goal of a war is to capture an island with three cities on it then the strategy decides which order to take the cities in and what sort of force will be required.
• Tactics is deployment of troops to execute the strategy. Tactics often includes small set pieces of troop movements and deployments that are known to be effective.
• Logistics is all about making sure that the troops are where they’re meant to be before the fighting starts and that they have all the support (normally supplies, but can include other things) that are required.

Just the breakdown of the whole war thing into categories of thought is helpful.  Not that it wouldn't cause a horrendous amount of research and dry, dull reading should I wish to embark on a military sf story; but it's a starting point.  However, if you take away the basics that tactics are the movements in the field and logistics are all about preplanning so everything you need is where you need it when you need it, you've got the gist of the Bradley quote.

Also, this 'art of war' information can be useful for business and political situations.  Probably for relationships as well.  I mean, how often have you considered that the relations between the sexes is more about war than love?  They even call make up war paint!  Anyhow, it never hurts to broaden one's knowledge.  Whatever you learn tends to find its way, somehow, into your writing as one more useful tool in the writerly toolbox.

If you are considering writing a military story, you can also read a few books on the topic:
Sun-Tzu's Art of War
Musashi's Book of Five Rings
Machiavelli's The Prince & Discourses
Von Caluswitz' On War
Che Guevera's Guerrilla Warfare

And I leave you with this final thought, via Machiavelli:
"A corrupt and disorderly multitude can be spoken to by some worthy person and can easily be brought around to the right way, but a bad prince cannot be spoken to by anyone, and the only remedy for his case is COLD STEEL."

Speech

As writers, we continually struggle with getting our characters to speak as if they were alive.  This doesn't mean they speak like we speak: if they did, literally, speak like us, it would be boring and likely unintelligible due to lack of body language, vocal nuances and the continual crossing-paths of two or more distinct conversations as everyone speaking drops their agenda bombs into the mix.

So we necessarily use tricks like tags to identify the speakers, and punctuation to show yelling or dragging or interruptions.  We use stage business to show the readers emotion, reaction, etc.  And we use italics to show points of stress in the speech.

An interesting show of how italics can change interpretation is here, on a site discussing Yiddish and its effect upon English. 

The article gave me some interesting food for thought about the nature of vocal stress and how it is a powerful factor in characterization.

Happy writing!

Perspective & Writers as Mechanics

I'm home with a bug today, so after sleeping about twelve hours, I got up, got coffee and started my usual blog hopping.  On Moonrat's blog, she talks today about how living in NYC can make you hard.  Got me to thinking about my own experience of the same thing from living in the big city and past employment in law enforcement, which, along with all the recent discussions on perspective, gave me a few thoughts on that term.

I got to thinking about how perspective is flexible based on situation and mood and personality, but how it can be mapped in our fiction-- if we pay attention.  Perspective changes in many ways, but it's really about how our own minds function to filter and alter perspective, and these perspectives can change, do change, must change.  (Getting a bit philosophical here.)

The definition. 
By definition, perspective is "the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed;" also "POINT OF VIEW: the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance." (Merriam-Webster's)

Perspective in fiction.
In writing fiction, we typically consider perspective as the point of view we choose for the story, the eyes through which we observe events as they take place.  But perspective is more than that.  It's a tool that can be used as effectively as symbolism, pace, language, or theme.  A tool that is complicated as you want to make it in your worldbuilding.

One way to think of perspective as a writer is like lens techniques.  You can soften things up with a gel lens, or use a star filter, or a blue or red filter to change how things appear.  Likewise, in our writing, we can use our perspective as a tool to alter how things are displayed.  It can create perceptual dissonance for the reader or your characters; it can lull the reader or your characters; or it can support the expectations of the reader or characters.  You can do so much with it!

Techniques of perspective.
Rather like the photographic distortions I mention, the intentional distortion of perspective is unfortunately not so mechanically simple.  This makes it amorphous in practice and difficult to describe.  But, in general, the perspective in your novel lies in how you describe things and how you have the characters interact as well as how your pov character(s) think and react/act with the elements of their world.

Perspective, however, is a bit more of a shell game effect, I think, than the other components forming the underlayment of your writing, such as theme and symbolism.  Perspective is very subtle, and perhaps you may disagree with my take on it, but perspective in writing is more about leading the reader to where you want them to go than it is useful for informing your characters with life.  I cannot help but come back to it as a mechanical tool in your writerly toolbox, unlike theme and symbolism.

See, here's the main thought I had:  We forget that as writer's we aren't just artists, we are mechanics, too.  And, like the original meaning of perspective, the one involving art and lines converging at the vanishing point, in writing is is just like that:  A mechanic's wrench.  Use of perspective isn't just about who is talking, but about how their vision of 'reality' is flawed.  You as the author get to determine which layers of delusion or realism are employed; you get to nudge readers to see the flaws in your characters' perceptions or to be taken in with them.  Red herrings and clues work with this; but, fundamentally, it is perspective that you employ in this process.

This site talks about writing for many interest levels.  It's from a technical writing perspective, but I think it has some good insights that translate to fiction writing and perspective.  By considering your writing as a communication tool-- a rather dispassionate method, I admit-- I think you might have a better handle on how the elements of the work, to include perspective, are functioning.  And it's never a bad idea to hone your ability to write for your particular audience. 

It's okay to be a mechanic.  Writing is still arty, even if we are part-time grease monkeys during construction.  (How's that for a mixed metaphor?)

Photo:  Church of the Magdeleine, Paris.

Writing for your readers

I enjoy discovering symbols and meaning when it is subtle and serves completely the needs of the story. Charles Gramlich

Above I quoted Charles' wonderfully evocative post on resonance versus symbolism.  I recommend reading the comments as much as his post, too. 

The basic point, that he prefers "works that lack overt symbolism but still create a sense of resonance in the reader," is a good one.   I, for one, cannot stand to be battered about the head and shoulders by theme, concepts, or symbols that are too blatant.

Layers upon layers.
I've stated my opinion about themes on several occasions, but Charles' post reminds me that symbolism also can be too blatant in the exact same way as themes can.  Symbols are not story, they are underpinnings, the layer of enrichment that can be found in really good writing.  They are a part of the world building, and they are also a part of the elements that can enrich a tale with meaning that grips the reader.  But done too blatantly, they are just as off-putting as reading a novel that continually gives a moral or social message with the subtlety of a battering ram.

Writing is like poetry in that the good stuff usually has layers of meaning.  Symbolism, the choice of words, their sound, arrangement and flow, all form a layer that reaches the reader in a more subconscious fashion than the overt tale you are trying to convey.

Unless you overdo it.  Then you have called attention to it and disrupted the flow of the story and made your reader aware of the mechanics involved. 

If a symbol or theme is blatant, it is best left out of the story.
I believe this because I believe an author's favorite pulpit material and favorite symbols, while potentially useful, can also be overused to the point of being offputting to readers if they call attention to themselves by being too blatant or ham-handed.  They must add to the story you are trying to tell or they should be recognized as crutches we writers use and cut.  Might as well treat these bits like algebera and insert some Greek letter in lieu of the symbol, because overdone, it has about that much meaning and value.

Of course (she says tongue in cheek) if we got rid of some of the classic yet overused symbols-- like the Scarlet Letter A-- what would we have to toss as a bone to our high school English teachers?  Ack!  The mind boggles.!

New tricks, old tricks

This is a really bad photo, but here's a drawing I did during my freshman year of high school.  Gave it to my big brother a few years back when I moved to Maine.  The only reason he has any art on his wall is kid pictures and art I gave him, like the California Poppies painting I use as my icon.

Changing over the blog.
Wow, what a pain, shifting all the links over.  I do like the grey-on-grey of this blog better than the blogspot look.  And I like having my California poppies painting up there, too. 

The only thing that is bothersome is that it turns out I have to approve all comments.  Surely there is a way to have them post automatically; but I have yet to discover it.  Oh joy, and here I thought I could get on with the day's home-improvement project, which is sanding, caulking and prepping some built-in shelves I made for paint.  :(  Also, I can't figure out how to have more than one category for a post.  Now, I think it an egregious failing if I can't figure out how to get more than one category to sort by.  :(

News and non-news.
On the writing front, I haven't been.  Made the big ol' mistake of buying two new expansion packs for Sims2 and doubling my DDR2 RAM for the laptop.  Ooops!  Heh, I'll get sick of it once I figure out all the things you can do with the game.  Torturing Sims is hilarious fun, but I confess to being addicted to the cheats so they can just Get On With The Suffering!

Meantime, I keep dreaming up ideas, literally.  I have several dreams a week where I wake up thinking, this is a great story.  Or during the dream I am thinking, No it can't work that way; the story would work better if...

How weird is that?  Anyone else do that?

I tell you what, though:  Always keep a dark felt pen and a blank book by the bed.  The felt pen needs to be fat and dark so you can see without glasses by alarm clock amber glow when you write big fat scribbles while half awake!