Tag Archives: Fiction

Busting 10 Myths About Writing Fiction

You’ve thought about writing fiction. However, the moment you did, your inner critic bashed the notion and rolled out ten reasons you shouldn’t. Your inner critic was wrong. Today, I’ll bust those myths about writing fiction.

10. I don’t have time to write.

In one sense, your inner critic was right about that. You don’t have time to write. Neither do I. No writer does. We all make time for it. We deliberately carve out time out of our day for writing, no matter how brief it may be.

9. I could never write as well as [insert your favorite author’s name].

Since you’ve never tried, how would you know? Even if it’s true, who cares? You’re aiming at the wrong target. Adjust your aim to write as well as you can.

8. I’ve led a dull life. If I write what I know, it’ll be a dull book.

If you had suffered a troubled past, that would give you much to write (with authority) about. But you’ll have to admit—your past wasn’t all dull. You experienced fear, pain, triumph, loss, and love. Remember those emotions and write about them. More important than writing what you know is writing what you feel.

7. I don’t know all the English rules well enough.

This ain’t English class. Editors and publishers won’t quiz you on the difference between a reflexive pronoun and a ditransitive verb. They’d trade a hundred grammar experts and another hundred spelling bee champions for one great storyteller. You can learn the rules of English faster and easier than you can learn the craft of weaving a compelling tale.

6. I’ve heard you need a muse. I don’t have one.

Forget the muse. It’s a metaphor for creativity. I’ll give you two ways to increase your creativity, and each beats waiting around for an ancient Greek goddess to whisper in your ear. (1) Practice 20-solution brainstorming, where you write down 20 solutions to a problem without regard to workability or practicality. Don’t stop until you reach 20. (2) Channel your 5-year-old former self. You were creative then.

5. I don’t know the ‘author tricks.’

Of course you don’t. That’s because all the highest-paid authors belong to a secret society, and you haven’t been initiated. Wait, no. There’s no such secret society and no author tricks. What worked for others won’t work for you, and vice versa. You’ll have to figure out your own tricks, like everyone else. Many authors have written how-to-write books, but there’s no sure-fire formula in this biz.

4. Writers are introverts and I’m an extrovert.

You may be extroverted, but writers come in all personality types. If the thought of writing alone bothers you, collaborate with another writer. Or attend a party after each writing session, to get back in your comfort zone.

3. I’ll get stuck and suffer from writer’s block.

Maybe. Probably. It never lasts long. Whatever inner force compels you to write will insist you resume at some point. If you listen to that voice inside, it will help you get unstuck.

2. All the best stories have already been written.

Maybe that’s true. So what? More stories get published now than ever before, so that excuse doesn’t seem to be stopping other writers. One thing’s for sure—your best story hasn’t been written, and you’re the only one who can do it.

And the number one myth about writing is—

1. I won’t make any money from writing.

    Hmm. What a coincidence. All the highest paid authors in history likely had that same thought at some point. It might end up being true in your case, but you can’t know that yet. Most writers keep their day job until their writing income grows to a point that they feel comfortable quitting that job. Maybe you’ll end up loving writing so much that you won’t care so much about the money.

    There. I’ve busted the top ten myths about writing fiction. What’s your next excuse? Whatever it is will soon get demolished by the sledge hammer belonging to—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    August 25, 2024Permalink Leave a comment

    Who Really is Poseidon’s Scribe?

    You’ve read my blogposts, but how well do you really know me? Though I’m not the boasting type and prefer to keep my personal life private, I’ll give you a brief summary.

    According to my mom, I was born with the stub of a Number 2 pencil in my mouth, and enjoyed scribbling on the rails of my crib. She said I wrote before I could talk. At my request, my baffled parents got me a typewriter for my first birthday.

    When schoolteachers asked for a sentence, I gave them 500-word stories, and wrote my first novel at age six. For my best chums, I wrote adventure tales starring them as the heroes. When bullies tormented me, they became (in my stories) ugly villains who met well-deserved deaths. Girls adored my love poems, framed them, and hung them on their bedroom walls.

    In the mid-70s, I built a computer and created word-processing software. Sure wish I’d patented them. As a teen, I decided I needed to experience more of life so I could capture it better in my stories. Call it literary research.

    So I left home and stowed away aboard a submarine.

    Turns out, that’s a crime. I got caught and was sent to an underwater prison, from which I escaped.

    No more stowing away. I built my own submarine from junkyard parts (it’s harder than it sounds) and sailed to Greece, then China, and from there to the Brazilian Amazon where I killed a deadly, shape-shifting vampirefish.

    Back in 2012, I prevented the end-of-the-world cataclysms predicted by the Mayan calendar. You’re welcome.

    I discovered the location of Atlantis, but see no need to reveal it, yet. I built a steam-powered elephant and rumbled through Africa, and constructed a clockwork lion which I rode in France. Fun times, mostly.

    While sailing a trireme I made, I visited the sites of all seven wonders of the ancient world. The Great Pyramid was still there, but the others weren’t, so I rebuilt them.

    Due to a tragic accident in Wyoming, I lost both legs and one arm. I made very real-looking prosthetic limbs powered by steam, but use my super-strength and hyper-speed only for good.

    If you construct a metal coil spring large enough, you can launch yourself to the Moon. I did that once, barely made it back, and won’t go again.

    You may not have heard about the comet that nearly caused an extinction level event a few years back. They kept it out of the news. I deflected the comet, with the help of a pack of chewing gum. You’re welcome, again.

    After coming across the Ring of Gyges—the invisibility ring mentioned by Plato—I lost the darned thing. If you find it, please give it back. There’s a reward.

    I’ve piloted a Martian war tripod through Germany, battled mutant cats in a space station, and flown on self-made wings from the roof of an English abbey. After encountering aliens in New Mexico, I conjured ancestral spirits in Arizona, using a flute. Don’t try any of those yourself.

    I’ve raced around the world, been trapped in a haunted submarine, and faced a murderous robot.

    After those adventures and a hundred more, I figured I’d gathered enough experience and done enough literary research.

    It seemed a good time to settle down and write fiction. And that’s the life story of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    August 27, 2023Permalink

    How to Write for Anthologies

    If you write short stories, consider writing for anthologies. I know a great how-to book to get you started.

    Perhaps you’d like to write fiction, but don’t know where to start or what to write about. Or maybe you’ve been writing what you want and can’t sell it, and now you’re wondering what you could write and sell.

    Anthologies might be your answer. That market puts out numerous and constant calls for submissions. Anthology editors beg for your short stories and give you a prompt—a subject to write about. No wonder so many authors get their start writing for anthologies. It worked for me.

    But the antho market offers no guarantees. After writing and getting rejected, you might become discouraged.

    That’s where this book comes in. How to Write for Anthologies And Make More Money With Your Writing by Kelly A. Harmon and Vonnie Winslow Crist (of Pole to Pole Publishing) offers practical and actionable advice about this sort of writing.

    Kelly and Vonnie take you through all the steps including finding anthology markets, coming up with story ideas, submitting your story, dealing with rejections, understanding contracts, dealing with editors, and more. They also include appendices with helpful sample query letters and cover letters.

    You may undergo an interesting transformation as you read the book. Bit by bit, you’ll find yourself thinking less like a part-time scribbler or writing hobbyist, and more like a professional author. That attitude shift will serve you well.

    Even if you’re more experienced, with several stories already published in anthologies, this book will help you, too. It provides guidance on how to gather all your stories and publish them as collections. In addition, you’ll learn about opportunities to move beyond writing into editing the works of others.

    I’m honored to have contributed the foreword for this book. It’s a valuable resource written by experts in every facet of anthologies. As I mentioned in the foreword, ‘This book does about everything except write and submit your story for you.’ But you’ll find those two tasks much easier after you’ve read How to Write for Anthologies.

    If only the book had existed early in the story-writing career of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    July 16, 2023Permalink

    Quit and Start Over?

    Songwriter Robert Lopez once wrote, “The temptation to quit and start over infects every creative process I’ve ever been in. Frustration and boredom always fuel this self-doubt.” Let’s analyze this as it applies to writing fiction.

    First of all, I think we can agree Mr. Lopez speaks with some authority about the creative process. He’s won multiple Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards, the only person to have done so.  

    I suspect nearly every fiction writer knows the experience he alludes to. You get partway into a story, then pause and reflect on what you’ve done so far. Your story looks terrible now. You think it would be better to abandon that draft and start fresh. You’re torn between the fear that no amount of editing will improve the current version and the fear that a new draft won’t be any better.

    It’s appropriate that Mr. Lopez used the verb “infects,” invoking the metaphor of viruses and sickness. The temptation to start over does seem like that—spreading inside you, overwhelming your immune system, and making you miserable.

    We’ll get to the frustration, boredom, and self-doubt soon. First, let’s examine what happens initially in the process of creating a short story or novel. You come up with the idea, then add to it in your mind. Enthusiasm takes over as the mental picture of the finished work crystallizes. It’s going to be great.

    You begin to write, but you find out enthusiasm is a tough emotion to sustain, certainly for a novel, but sometimes even for a short story. The words you’re writing don’t match the gloriously perfect story in your mind. Compared to that ideal vision, the real version stinks. That gap in quality between real and ideal causes the frustration.

    As your enthusiasm continues to fade, you lose interest in the story and become bored with it. Your muse moves on to shinier objects and even the thought of continuing the story becomes too much to bear. You’ll do anything to avoid working on it, including the most hated household chores. In this way, boredom has fueled your self-doubt.

    Now that Mr. Lopez has put his finger on a very real and universally experienced problem with the creative process, is there a solution? When these negative feelings overcome you, should you edit the draft you started with, or abandon it and start over?

    I suspect it’s a very rare occasion when the right answer is to quit and start over. The real problem is, you are no longer in the right frame of mind to write well. What the situation calls for is a break. You should stop editing that story and do something else. Look at the story the next day with fresh eyes and a sunnier mood. You’ll see some things wrong with it, but just maybe the original enthusiasm will return, that zeal you felt when the story was just an idea.

    Maybe you’ll decide the problem isn’t a gap between the ideal vision and the faulty reality. Perhaps the vision wasn’t so ideal after all. Don’t be afraid to alter it and work to capture the new vision. This isn’t starting over; this is making a change in light of a new realization.  

    Even though writers aren’t immune to the problem Robert Lopez identified, and self-doubt is bound to infect you at some point, you can pull yourself out of it. Most likely, you can salvage the draft you’re working on and won’t have to abandon it to start over.

    That’s been my experience with the creative process of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    November 13, 2019Permalink

    Fiction Writing: Not Your Normal Day Job

    If you work at a typical desk job and want to write fiction at night, be prepared. The two occupations are not at all alike. But what if your day job suddenly got altered to be more like fiction writing? Let’s find out what that would be like.

    You wake up at whatever time you like; you’re now setting your own hours. There’s no commute. You telework every day. No one sees you working, or checks on your progress. There are no meetings, no boring chats by the coffee machine, and no lunches with clients. Knock off early every day if you want; nobody cares how long you work.

    Sounds like a dream job, right? There’s a down side.

    Sitting at your computer, you produce your first work product of the day. (What’s the product? I don’t know; we’re talking about your current day job.) You e-mail it to your boss and wait. A few hours later, your boss e-mails you back to say the product didn’t suit her needs. She says she can’t accept it.

    You’re stunned. She’s rejected your work. How can she do that? You know this job well and have worked at it for years. You e-mail her back asking what sort of product she needs, and asking what’s specifically wrong with the one you sent. She answers that she’s looking for really compelling products the customer will like. Moreover, she receives too many product submissions to list the deficiencies with each one; she only has time to accept or reject.

    Her e-mail concludes on a positive and unexpected note, wishing you well with the product, adding that you can submit to any other department head in the company. That’s weird, you think. It’s as if, all of a sudden, you have more than one boss.

    With some trepidation, you submit the work product to another department head. An hour later, he responds, thanking you but also saying it doesn’t suit his needs. You’re disappointed, but not shocked. By now, you’re catching on to the new company procedure and you simply submit your product to a different department head.

    During the next two weeks, you submit it to every department head and all of them reject your product. Some take less than an hour to respond, but others take days. While waiting on them, you’ve been able to do other stuff around the house, watch some movies, and hit the bar scene on a few nights. The rejections distress you, though; things never used to be that way.

    Ah, well, at least it’s payday, finally. Checking your bank account, you’re stunned to discover there’s been no money deposited to your account. You call the Pay Department, and the representative explains you had no products accepted during the pay period, so there’s no pay. The company is no longer on a salary system; they pay you only for accepted products, and calculate the amount based on customer purchases.

    Hanging up the phone, you have a “We’re not in Kansas anymore” moment. In this new system, you realize you’ll have to churn out products fast, keep circulating them, and hope a few get accepted and that customers like them.

    E-mailing a few friendly co-workers, you discover most are in the same boat, with zero pay. Word has it that one employee tripled her monthly income, but was told that was no guarantee of future earnings.

    Welcome, fellow worker, to the fiction writing biz, where success is rare, and determined in part by how well you learn your craft and whether a fickle public likes your stories. You can complain the system’s unfair or rigged, but whining probably won’t make you feel better, and sure won’t change anything.

    Fortunately, day jobs aren’t set up like the writing business. Still, writing makes a highly enjoyable hobby for most authors. Among them is—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    February 4, 2018Permalink

    The Trick Is…

    Remember the TV show ‘Cosmos?’ No, not the new one starring Neil deGrasse Tyson (though I enjoyed that too). I mean the original Cosmos, starring Carl Sagan. There’s a brief part of one episode that’s stuck in my mind for all the decades since that show first aired.

    CosmosTCYou can see the episode here and the part I recalled is from time 41:45 to 42:30.

    In the clip, Carl Sagan is standing in a library. He says, if you read one book a week, over a normal human lifespan you can read only a few thousand books. (50 books per year times 70 years would be 3500 books.) He then paces off a distance across some library shelves to indicate that many books.

    After remarking on how that’s only a tenth of a percent of the content of a library, he then says, “The trick is to know which books to read.”

    That’s it. No follow-up. He goes on to discuss other things.220px-Sagan_planetary_orbits2

    Thanks, Dr. Sagan, for clearing up that mystery of the universe.

    How about telling us which books? Is there a list somewhere? Don’t just leave us with “the trick is…” without solving it for us!

    Okay, okay. I do really like Carl Sagan, and loved the show. And I get what he was saying. His main message is that our lives are too short to permit soaking up all of human knowledge. As you choose books to read, go in with the understanding that you ain’t gonna read ‘em all.

    Moreover, there can’t be one right answer to the question of which books to read. There are billions and billions of answers. (Yes, I had to say that.)

    But allow me to take up Dr. Sagan’s challenge, and to set up some criteria for selecting books to read, given that you can’t read ‘em all. Here’s my answer to “which books to read:”

    1. Read books you think you’ll enjoy. This is the most important criteria, since if you don’t like reading, you’ll stop. You’ll never come close to reading a book a week for life.
    1. Read some classics, on occasion. They represent the greatest wisdom of the ages, and they have persisted because their value and relevance is timeless.
    1. Read way outside your interest area, on occasion. This helps broaden your knowledge, and you never know when one such book might spark a new passion for you. Try to eventually cover the whole Dewey Decimal System, and all fiction genres.
    1. Read both fiction and non-fiction. You can choose the percentage of each according to your preferences, but I think there’s value in both.
    1. Read books by authors you enjoy, and also give different authors a chance. There’s a strong temptation to keep reading books by the same author. After all, you liked the previous one; chances are you’ll like the next one. That’s fine, but it’s okay to read books by authors who are new to you, every once in a while.
    1. Give each book you select a chance, but don’t be afraid to abandon it. Read past page one; often the value of a book won’t become apparent until later. However, if you’re well into the book and getting nothing out of it, stop and get another. Your lifespan is too limited and there are too many better books for you to slog through reading a bad one.

    That’s it, my attempt to respond to Dr. Sagan’s challenge to all of us, to figure out which books to read.   They may not be the best criteria in the cosmos, but they’re good enough for—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    November 9, 2014Permalink

    Are You Fictional or Real?

    Fictional characters differ from real people in interesting and important ways. Thinking you’re one when you’re really the other could have significant and disturbing consequences. Therefore, it’s vital to know which one you are. That’s why, as a public service, I offer the following easy quiz you can take to determine the answer.

    Fictional or RealIf you think you’re fictional, but your answers to some of these questions tend to show you’re real, or vice versa, don’t despair. Fictional characters and real people share many characteristics. There’s a large amount of overlap because authors try to depict realistic characters, to some extent. I’ll show you how to score your answers at the end.

    And now, the quiz:

    1. True or False:  You never say “hello” or “goodbye” when talking on the phone.

    2. T or F:  You’ve never said “um” or “er” in conversation.

    3. T or F:  You drive either a flashy sports car or an old jalopy.

    4. T or F:  You may have been inside bathrooms, but you’ve never actually, shall we say, done a Number 1 or Number 2.

    5. T or F:  For you, things seem to go from bad to worse, then suddenly everything turns out okay.

    6. T or F:  You have a friend who’s constantly with you and to whom you must explain everything. Either that, or you are a sidekick for someone else.

    7. T or F:  Your full name is melodic and memorable, and ether your first name or last name is unusual.

    8. T or F:  You are either purely good, or purely evil.

    9. T or F:  Your dull, uneventful hours rush by in a blur, but your busy, intense hours pass slowly and meaningfully.

    10. T or F:  You’ve long felt a sense of being watched all the time. You’ve had that sense so long you no longer think much about it.

    If you answered True to less than six questions, you are a real person. Sorry about that. Real people tend to lead more boring lives than fictional characters. If you thought you were fictional and are just now discovering you are real, I suggest you accept it, get over your disappointment, and learn to fit in.

    If you answered True to six or seven questions, this quiz can’t tell you the answer. Observe the people around you and see which behaviors they exhibit. Whichever they are—fictional characters or real people—you are too. The two types don’t seem to mix much.

    If you answered True to eight or more questions, you’re a fictional character. If you thought all along you were real and are just now discovering you’re fictional, I’ll offer my congratulations. Your life will rarely be boring. Thousands and maybe millions of real people will thrill to your escapades. Even if your life ends up being short, you’ll be reborn innumerable times and may live forever.

    It’s my hope this quiz has been informative and hasn’t caused you any life-changing distress. If it did alter your understanding of reality, I still think it’s better to know than to keep living in ignorance. And, really, where else on the web are you going to get this kind of service? Who else offers this sort of helpful quiz? No one else, but—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    June 22, 2014Permalink