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Posts Tagged ‘writing tips’

The View from Here: Like a What, Now?

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 25 Jan 2013| 1 Comment »

Stack of BooksPeople have told me that I’m too tough in my critiques. Privately, I’ve been told that these “The View from Here” posts are too harsh, too critical. “New writers will make mistakes,” I’m told. “That’s what editors are for.” Poppycock.

A number of years ago, I used to read slush for a magazine. It was unpaid intern-type-stuff, but it taught me a great deal (as all good unpaid intern-type-stuff should). It taught me about deadlines and time-management. It taught me a lot about publishing, as I was able to see a lot of it from behind the scenes. It taught me the truth of the adage: The only way to make a small fortune in publishing is to start with a large fortune.

But most of all, it taught me to think like an editor.

An editor is like an alcoholic in a 12-step program–Let’s skip right over the joke about how most of them actually are alcoholics in 12-step programs and move right to what I mean by that.–i.e., editors read MSS one page at a time. Screw up on Page One, they’ll never read Page Two. After all, why go farther? Why read any more if page one just sucks? They won’t. Screw up on Page One–hell, screw up in Paragraph One–and you’re done.

So yes, I’m tough. And now, onto the next item I see a lot in some of the fiction posted out there: Bad metaphors and stupid similes.

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The View from Here: As You Know, Bob

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 18 Jan 2013| 1 Comment »

Stack of BooksIt’s virtually unavoidable, this one. Seriously, virtually unavoidable, just like the old show/tell chestnut. It takes a mountain of diligence, discipline, and work for me to avoid it. And in the end, if I am successful in removing its stain from my story, the result might not be any better. So, as with that old “Show, don’t tell” adage, this one is largely a matter of degree. Too much, and my prose is comical. Too little, and…what’s that? You don’t know what I’m talking about? You mean I didn’t explain something to you?

And there’s the rub. If you haven’t from the title or the above gleaned my drift, let me spell it out for you. I’m talking about the dreaded expository block. Yes, that clunk-fest where the author steps right into the story, takes you (poor Reader) in hand, and gently explains to you what’s really going on. It’s that section which, when put into the mouth of a character, usually starts with a phrase like, “As you know, Bob…” It’s when Steven Spielberg paints a little girl’s coat red in an otherwise black-and-white film, just to make sure that you and he are on the same page.

But exposition is often necessary. My readers aren’t psychic, and just as I can’t “show” every last detail and nuance, neither should I take my story back to the beginning of, well, Everything, in order to expose my reader to all the backstory and context that imbues my heartbreaking work of utter genius. So, it’s another balancing act, another vague artist’s equation wherein phrases like a lot and too much prominently figure.

Some examples after the jump:

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Devil on my Shoulder

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , on 16 Jan 2013| 2 Comments »

Part of me always feels guilty.

The writer in me is always watching, always observing, always taking notes. One year, a friend presented me with a t-shirt that said: Careful or You’ll End Up in My Novel. She thought it was funny. I know that it’s true.

There is a vast supply of information out there, presented to us everyday, free of charge–on the bus, in the grocery, on the freeway, in the workplace–and all we writerly-types have to do is watch, observe, note.

So, part of me always feels guilty. Especially at times when my inner amanuensis probably wouldn’t be welcome.

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The View from Here: Marching Into the Detention Center

Posted in Movies, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on 09 Jan 2013| 5 Comments »

Stack of BooksI was young, with a penchant for obsession. I studied musical performance and conducting, and ran with a cadre of like-minded scholars. I was a science-fiction/fantasy geek, and so were they. It was fated, then, that when the first Star Wars movie came out, we would band together for trips to The City. Week after week we would ride down Geary, invade The Coronet theater, outmaneuver all comers, and claim the eight seats at first-row-center. There, practically vibrating with anticipation, we would wait, hands poised, ready for the downbeat. Together, we would conduct the entire score (long ago committed to memory), cueing the chords of the Death Star leitmotif, pulling in horns and strings as we swept up to light-speed. It was grand. It was intoxicating.

Until Harrison Ford tried to get his mouth around the line, “Marching into the Detention Center is not my idea of fun.”

A lighthearted line, to be sure, but one that brought sniggers George Lucas did not expect. I mean, Harrison practically had to spit out his teeth to deliver that line. How did it ever make it through the table-read? What was that writer thinking?

Now, having cut my own writing chops, I know exactly what that writer was thinking.  He wasn’t.

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The View from Here: Show and Tell

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on 03 Jan 2013| 11 Comments »

Stack of BooksI hear you already. “Not that old chestnut!” Sorry. Sad, but true: “Show, Don’t Tell” is one of the most common of errors I’ve seen in the past couple of weeks prowling the new-writer-blogosphere, and sometimes the errors are simply egregious.

First off, let me say that I believe it is damned near impossible to “show” everything in a story. I mean, come on; you have to take a short-cut through a description now and again. I also think it’s unnecessary to “show” everything. And, to round out the argument against, there really aren’t any “rules” in fiction…or at least there aren’t any rules you can’t break now and again. As always, know when you break a rule, and do it for a reason.

As promised, I’m going to pick examples of these errors from my own stories, posted here on this site. Some of these stories are my very first efforts, so finding errors in them usually isn’t hard, but “Show, Don’t Tell” is a mantra that was drilled into me early on in workshops and from editors, so I had to root about a bit to find these offenders. Every story has spots where I need to move things along and not gum up the momentum with a fully descriptive flashback. A memory here, a wondering thought there, these might be difficult to “show” thoroughly. So, even if you find this sort of thing in your own work, the errors may not be big enough to warrant a rewrite; fixing them might alter the flow of the tale.

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Up Your Aspirations

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , on 30 Dec 2012| Leave a Comment »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiOne day my mother came home with a slogan from her workplace. “Lower Your Expectations,” it read. Not really the gung-ho mentality of today but hey, it was the ’70s. Anyway, my father saw it, found it somewhat ludicrous, and came back with the flip side: “Up Your Aspirations!” He even had it printed up on a t-shirt.

This probably tells you more about my father than it does my mother.

The point of this (and I have one) is that, as writers, we must manage both our expectations and our aspirations. This came home to because my wife has recently begun to ply her hand at writing, and tonight we had a discussion about what aspirations she might have, as a writer. Sensibly (I thought) she said that, at this point, she doesn’t have aspirations of writing for a living or even for profit. Right now she just wants to play with it and to learn how to be a better writer. I know I’ve harped on this before, but I believe it’s important; writing is a lonely business, and publishing is a cutthroat business. Writing for profit ain’t for the faint.

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The View from Here

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 14 Dec 2012| 6 Comments »

Stack of BooksI’ve been trolling the blogs, the last few days, reading fiction from new/unpublished writers. I see the same thing, over and over, the same mistakes, repeated.

I don’t know why writers continue to make these mistakes. Read any article or book on modern writing and you’ll see these problems called out. Perhaps it’s that some new writers don’t read books about writing, don’t analyze their own work. I don’t know.

What I do know, is that there are some new writers who read this blog (we’re up to 80+ followers, now, with slow but steady growth), so I thought I’d go over these basic problem areas in a series of posts. I hope it starts a conversation with some of the apprentice writers out there. (more…)

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