Tag Archives: writing

The Iron-Clad Discipline of Writing

Many years ago, I attended one of our nation’s service academies.  When, during a meal, one of the upperclassmen heard some unnecessary talking at the table by an underclassman, he would ask, “Mr. —–, how’s the discipline at that end of the table?”  The only correct answer was to bang your fist on the table and shout, “Iron-clad, sir!”  Discipline is a vital attribute of military service; is it also important in writing?

This excellent blog post by Jocelyn K. Glei explores the whole idea of discipline, including a fascinating psychological test for it, the Marshmallow Test.  Researchers took four-year-old kids and showed them a marshmallow and said they could eat it now, or wait fifteen minutes and they’d be given two.  All the kids wanted to wait, but not all could.   Years later when they were in high school, the children who’d waited for two marshmallows at age four still demonstrated more disciplined behavior.

The website also provides a simple twelve-question quiz you can take to measure your own discipline.  The article calls the quality ‘grit,’ but they mean that same tenacity and perseverance I’m talking about.  It produces results ranging from 1.0 (undisciplined) to 5.0 (very disciplined).

Obviously a certain amount of discipline is necessary to be a writer.  Something has to keep you in that chair, churning out words for hours on end.  There will come times when you’d prefer to be doing something else.  Authors joke about it often, that realization that a library book needs returning, or the floor under the bed needs cleaning, or the lawn needs mowing.  Anything other than writing.

I believe a lack of discipline may be the thing that discourages people from writing, more so than any other reason.  People will say things such as, “I could never write a novel.  I don’t know where writers get their ideas.”  But just about everyone has a story to tell.  Ideas aren’t the problem, in my view.  It’s the thought of devoting long hours alone to the task of generating the words, the paragraphs, the scenes.  The duration of the effort seems daunting.

That’s why, as the saying goes, writing a novel is a one-day event.  As in, “one day, I’m going to write a novel.”

So I do think a certain amount of doggedness is necessary, if only to get you through those tough times when the words won’t flow.  There must be some recognition of the value of delayed gratification; otherwise it would be too easy to just stop writing.

When I set out to blog about this topic, I assumed a writer couldn’t get too much discipline, that it was an attribute a writer needed in full measure.  Then I got to thinking about people with extreme discipline–people who never, ever give up.  They will pursue a project to completion with single-minded devotion, not letting anything get in their way.  Again, the way I’ve described it still may sound like a desirable trait, but consider there may be a certain lack of adaptability in extremely disciplined people.  They might not be so willing to abandon a course of action even if the situation changes.

For you as a writer, a story might not be working at all.  Try as you might, it’s not coming together.  Or perhaps the story you were writing would have been based on some real-life situation remaining unchanged, but it changed.  For example, your story might have been based on the continued existence of some famous person who then died while you were writing the story.

In such cases, a certain degree of flexibility might be more important than a 5.0 rating of discipline.  I’m not saying disciplined people always lack adaptability; the words aren’t antonyms.  I’m just saying both attributes are important to writers.

You might disagree with me.  That’s what the ‘leave a comment’ thing below is for.  For those of you dying of curiosity, my grit rating on the quiz was 3.92.  You might also be asking, “Mr. Poseidon’s Scribe, how’s discipline at that end of the internet?”  Bang!  Iron-clad, sir!”  At least, that’s the response from–

                                                                        Poseidon’s Scribe

March 11, 2012Permalink

Hook ‘em, So You Can Reel ‘em In

How will you begin your next story?  The beginning, called the ‘hook,’ is important.  These days readers don’t have much time.  Other things like TV, video games, and the Internet compete with your story for their attention.  If your first sentence or paragraph doesn’t grab them, they’re on to doing something else.

Here are some examples of great hooks used in novels as chosen by the editors of American Book Review:

  • Call me Ishmael.  Moby-Dick, Herman Melville 
  • Marley was dead, to begin with.  A Christmas Carol,  Charles Dickens
  • It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  1984, George Orwell
  • You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
  • Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.  The Trial, Franz Kafka
  • Mother died today.  The Stranger, Albert Camus
  • There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
  • He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.  The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
  • It was a pleasure to burn.  Fahrenheit 451,  Ray Bradbury
  • The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane

These beginnings work well for several reasons.  They give us an early idea what the story will be about.  They establish the tone of the story, and something about the attitude of the narrator’s voice.

But most of all they seize our attention and compel us to want to read more.  What gives them this quality?  It’s hard to find a common attribute just by looking at them.  They seem to appeal for different reasons.

Writer Darcy Pattison has grouped the different beginnings into categories.  This is helpful since one category might work better for the start of your story than another.  Knowing the category can give you a starting point for developing your hook.

Many of the beginnings in the list start with a sense of the ordinary, and then give the reader something that clashes or is jarring somehow.  We’re left with a puzzle, an oddity, a question that can only be resolved by reading further.  So read on we must.

Those without that twist added to the ordinary seem to possess a different quality.  They settle us in, set a mood, fluff up our pillow, put on some appropriate music.  We’re now comfortably in the story, transported to the author’s world right from the start, and now that we’re there we might as well read on to see what the place is like.

Each of these beginnings without exception is easy to read.  None have rare or difficult words to stumble over.  All have rhythm, and almost poetic brevity.  Not a word is wasted.

How do you write an opening like these?  Heck if I know; these are some of the best ever written.  Ask one of the world’s greatest authors.

With that task added to your to-do list, perhaps we could set our sights a bit lower for now.  How do you write an effective story beginning?  For one thing, it takes time and many trials.  The beginning is the hardest part to write, usually takes the longest, and usually involves the most revisions.  You might decide to skip the hook and come back to it later as the story evolves.  You might like to write a first version of the hook knowing you’ll revisit it over and over.  In any case, be prepared to spend the time and thought to craft it right.

To learn much more about how to write story hooks, read Hooked by Les Edgerton.  What an invaluable resource!

With regard to beginnings, we’ve reached the end.  Remember to check back at this site next week for further ramblings about writing by–

                                                                 Poseidon’s Scribe

March 4, 2012Permalink

The Stories behind the Stories, Part I

In these blog entries I’ve usually refrained from shameless promotion of my own stories, but today will be different.  However, since my purpose in these blogs is to offer help to beginning writers, I’ll couch my blatant self-advertising as instructive, educational matter.

Hundreds of cards and letters and e-mails have been pouring in asking me one question.  Well, maybe dozens.  Okay, maybe it’s just a question I’ve been hoping others would ask me:  “Where do your ideas come from?”  I explored the topic last year, but today I’ll trace the origin of the ideas for each of my published short stories.  Perhaps in reading through these, you’ll see how ideas can occur any time and for any reason; good story ideas will come to you, too!

“Target Practice.” I wrote this story in 1999, and I honestly don’t remember what the inspiration was.  Back then I was in the midst of writing a novel, and I took time out to write this story and submit it for publication to a wonderful anthology, Lower than the Angels.  I think I just wanted to see if I could create a truly hopeless situation and figure a way for my protagonist to resolve the problem.

“The Steam Elephant.”  Seven years later, as I mentioned here, I was inspired by the book The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley and Eric Brown.  It contained short stories written by modern authors as tributes to Verne.  As a Verne enthusiast, I was thrilled by the book, but disappointed to find no stories echoing Verne’s two-part novel The Steam House.  I decided to write my own, and it was published in Steampunk Tales #5.

“The Wind-Sphere Ship.”  I’m not sure why, but at some point I must have been pondering why steamships weren’t invented much earlier.  After all, the power of steam was known to the ancients.  The Greek inventor Heron (or Hero) developed a steam toy in the first century A.D.  This suggested an alternate history story.  Gypsy Shadow Publishing put this story out in e-book form.

“Alexander’s Odyssey.”  I’ve long been fascinated by the history of submarine development.  One tale held that Alexander the Great descended under water in a glass-windowed barrel.  I  wondered how the sea god, Poseidon, would have reacted, and the story wrote itself.   It was first published in the anthology Magic & Mechanica and then later (in a longer version) by itself in e-book form.

“The Sea-Wagon of Yantai.”  I continued my quest to fictionalize, in short-story form, the development of the submarine.  I found tantalizing references to the Chinese having developed a submarine around the year 200 B.C.  However, I couldn’t find any details.  I figured that left me free to write the story as I wished.  My story was also loosely inspired by Ray Bradbury’s marvelous story, “The Flying Machine,” which I’d read in high school.  Eternal Press published my story.

“Seasteadia.”  Knowing of my interest in the sea, a fellow writer in my critique group sent me an article about the concept of seasteading.  I decided to write a series of stories about seasteading’s possible future.  “Seasteadia” is the first, and so far the only published one, and it appeared in the anthology Aurora of the Sun.

There are more, but I’ll save those for next week’s blog entry.  The point is, a writer’s story ideas come from many sources.  Who knows where your next story idea will originate?  After all, your creative mind works differently from that of–

                                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

February 19, 2012Permalink

Diagnosis: Writer’s Block

Have you experienced writer’s block?  That condition where you feel the desire or pressure to write but you can’t actually come up with any words?  It’s a real thing, an occupational “hazard” first diagnosed in 1947.

I think there are two forms of it–Major Writer’s Block and minor writer’s block.  I define MajWB as the state of being unable to start writing a new work, and of long duration.  On the other hand, minWB is a short-term state of being stuck while in the midst of a work.  MajWB can last for years or even be a career-ender.  But minWB is almost always temporary, lasting a few hours or days.  I have yet to experience MajWB, but get the minor version often.

In either case, the symptoms are pretty much the same.  Words won’t come out, try as you might, and after a while you don’t feel much like trying.  I pay attention to the blogs of writer Andrew Gudgel (full disclosure:  Andy and I are friends), and he wrote a great blog entry on writer’s block on May 3, 2011.  In it, he states that the condition of not writing is only a symptom, not the problem itself.  He makes the case that only when you know the problem can you begin to solve it, and that the problem itself points to the solution.

He divides the spectrum of possible problems into craft-related problems, and problems with other aspects of the writer’s life.  I’ll divide writing block problems a different way, as follows:

  • Story-related problems:
    • plotting problems–the story isn’t going in the right direction
    • character problems–a character isn’t fully fleshed out, or is taking over the story, or is otherwise not proving suitable
    • setting problems
    • other problems with the story itself
  • Craft-related problems that are writing-related, but not about the story:
    • overwhelmed by task
    • inferiority complex, thoughts that your writing won’t measure up
    • lost interest
    • pressured by deadline
    • paralyzed by own success
    • pressure of audience too close (more below)
  • Personal, but non-writing, problems:
    • illness
    • depression
    • relationship problems
    • financial difficulties

Again, identifying which real problem is present can point toward the solution.  The stress caused by any of the problems above can really inhibit the normal creative process.  What’s thought to happen in the short term to the human brain under stress is a shift of activity from the cerebral cortex to the limbic areas.  In other words, the focus shifts from the areas devoted to attention, consciousness, language, memory, and thought to the basic, instinctual fight-or-flight area we inherited from the dinosaurs.  Extended periods of stress damages brain cells, weakens memory, and causes depression.  All of that is bad news for writers.

Most of the items on the list of problems above are self-explanatory, but I thought I’d discuss the pressure of the audience in more detail.  Writing expert Dr. Peter Elbow wrote a much-discussed essay called “Closing My Eyes As I Speak.”  He claims writers feel the presence of an audience as they write.  Unlike performance artists such as singers or stand-up comedians, writers do not have their audience physically present, but they often imagine how readers will react to their work.  Dr. Elbow considers the pressure of this unseen audience can disrupt the flow of words, and suggests writers disregard the audience as they write their first drafts.  The writing will be more natural and genuine.

As a non-writing example, look at this picture of world-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma in performance.  He often plays with eyes closed, as if he’s deliberately distancing himself from his audience and playing only for himself in his own private world.  Metaphorically, we should all write that way, too, at least in our first drafts.

I’ve discussed the condition of writer’s block and potential causes, but never got around yet to how to overcome it.  Getting unblocked will have to be the subject of a future blog post by–

                                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

February 12, 2012Permalink

The Classics, Pro and Con

Are you a reader of the classics, those works of literature that have stood the test of time?  Do you think reading the classics would improve your writing?

Most people have a negative view of classical literature.  They associate those books with difficult high school class assignments, slogging through indecipherable prose, writing mandatory reports, as well as answering impossible questions in class and getting the answers wrong.  Little wonder the classics are not more widely read!

You may have your own reasons for not reading the classics.  Here’s a list I came up with:

  • They’re difficult to read.  Often the language used doesn’t make sense to modern readers.  If it does make sense, it’s often overly descriptive, or it dwells on single topics to the point of boredom.
  • They seem irrelevant.  A modern reader can’t relate to the characters in the stories, who face problems today’s readers don’t understand.  As a result, the characters seem unrealistic.
  • They’re not in my genre.  There are several modern literary genres–science fiction, westerns, and mysteries, in particular–for which there are few examples among the classics.  Those who enjoy reading from, or writing in, these genres will not feel any inclination to delve into the classics.
  • Their style is archaic.  One could never write that way for a modern audience and hope to get published.  Therefore it seems unlikely a writer of today would learn much of value.
  • I could never write that well.  For those classics that can be read today with little trouble, an opposite problem occurs.  A would-be writer might well compare his or her own prose to that of a literary master and become discouraged enough to give up.
  • They won’t help me write for today’s readers.  This is an extension of some of the reasons above.  All the works we consider classics today were written for the audiences of eras now long past, not today’s reading public.  Wouldn’t a writer’s time be better spent reading modern works?

Those are persuasive reasons, and perhaps they strike a chord with you.  However, let’s consider my list of reasons for reading the classics:

  • They’re about the human condition.  Though individual situations and technologies in the classics seem historically quaint today, these works deal with timeless aspects of what it means to be human.  In that sense, they will never become irrelevant.
  • They help us understand history.  The present we see around us is only a snapshot, a result of the great chain of causes and effects that is human history.  Our present was forged by events in the past, events described in classical literature.  In that respect, too, they remain relevant.
  • They’re about philosophy.  The classics often explore the deep thoughts, the perplexing ideas worthy of intense study.  Questions about aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics bedevil us still.  They seem to have no right answers and yet we must choose some path to live our lives.  If Socrates is correct that the unexamined life is not worth living, then you want the fiction you write to be about philosophy, too.
  • In context, they make sense.  Whenever I hear the finale of the “William Tell Overture,” by Gioachino Rossini, I imagine what it must have been like for the audiences in 1829 to hear it for the first time.  They did not know a world where it was the Lone Ranger theme, endlessly repeated.  Often a classic literary work represented a break with the past, a novel new way of writing which was fresh at the time.  Though now commonplace or even passé, such works can suggest ways to make your own work fresh and different.
  • They can improve your vocabulary.  In classical literature you encounter such interesting words.  Often they’re outdated and inappropriate today, but you might come across the perfect word for your story.  In any case, you’ll increase your knowledge of English and the derivations and evolution of word meanings through time.
  • They’re often referenced.  As a writer, you’ll occasionally correspond with other writers or appear on panels at conferences or get asked questions at book signings.  Someone will bring up a comparison to a classic work.  If you haven’t read it, you’ll feel a little stupid.  Best to avoid that.
  • Stealing from them is legal.  Modern writers often base their works on the classics.  Hey, if it worked once for Shakespeare…  It’s not uncommon to create a complete retelling of a classic work set in modern times with modern characters, and the similarities can be blatant or subtle.
  • They’re examples of great writing.  The classics have lasted because they are well written.  Their authors were masters of putting words together.  Maybe you and I could learn from their example.  Even if we don’t attain their heights of grandeur, perhaps we can approach a little closer by studying them.

In conclusion, there are good reasons for and against.  You’ll have to choose what’s right for you.  As for me, I read about four or five classic books each year, roughly ten percent of my reading. Not yet a writer whose works are destined to be classics, I’m–

                                                                       Poseidon’s Scribe

 

February 5, 2012Permalink

Heinlein’s Rules

In his 1947 essay “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction,” science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein stated five rules for writing fiction.  Here they are:

1. You must write.

2. You must finish what you write.

3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.

4. You must put the work on the market.

5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

He went on to say that he didn’t much fear the new competition he’d face from putting these rules out in the open, since he figured half of those who claim they want to write won’t complete step 1, and half of the remainder wouldn’t finish step 2, and so on.  Those of you working out the math should forget it–all those halves are just approximate.

Heinlein’s rules are repeated all over the web and there has been much criticism of them.  Some have said they sound too harsh, like Drill Sergeant Heinlein is shouting all those “MUSTs.”  To those folks I’d ask–If your aim is to get your work published, which of those steps do you think you could skip, or kinda half-do?  Really.  Look back over them and tell me which rule could be softened in its wording.

The main criticisms target rule 3, “You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.”  Some assume Heinlein is telling writers to send their first draft out on the market.  I doubt Mr. Heinlein meant that.  I think rewriting the first draft until it’s acceptable is implicit in rule 2: “You must finish what you write.”  It’s not likely to be really finished after a very rough, rapidly-scribbled first draft, even though you’ve reached “The End.”  Heinlein means that you must declare the work finished and then refrain from the temptation to waste time endlessly trying to perfect the work, unless an editor has asked for revisions and you agree to them.  As Heinlein also said elsewhere, “They didn’t want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.”

My own quibble with the rules concerns their order.  As written, they are single steps to be executed in sequential order.  The only loop in the process is within the final two steps, which basically say to send the manuscript out, and when you get a rejection, send the work–unchanged–to another market that same day.  So if all the other steps are in sequential order, Rule 3 makes no sense as written. You haven’t sent the work out yet, so how could you have received a request from an editor for a rewrite?  I say Rules 3 and 4 should be swapped.

The great writer Robert J. Sawyer has suggested adding a 6th rule, “Start Working on Something Else.”  This is likely aimed at those who think their first story will make them famous and so wait breathlessly for word from the editor about acceptance or rejection.  If you’re truly a writer, you can hardly wait to tackle the next project, so that’s when you start it.  Unfortunately, Rule 6 would then be the only one focused on some other, next work while the rest of the rules concern a single story.  Still, I concur with the intent, though I might have phrased it as, “Think of another story to write and go to step 1.”

I like Heinlein’s Rules.  I think their commanding tone is a stentorian call summoning you to action and perhaps to greatness.  Don’t think of them as overly harsh commandments that doom you to misery for the slightest deviation.  They’re an invitation; get out there; don’t talk about it–do it!  And they’re also a promise; follow these rules and you will get published.  It’s hard to think of more inspiring words for a beginning writer.

Please let me know what you think.  Also, remember that Heinlein wrote his rules about 65 years ago.  Perhaps 65 years from now people will still be debating words written by–

                                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe

 

January 29, 2012Permalink

2 Indispensable Sites for All Short Story Writers

Well, I’ve found these two sites to be a great help to me over the years.  It would have been a great deal more difficult to find markets for my first short stories without them.  I’m talking about Duotrope and Ralan.

Duotrope is a dynamic, online database of fiction and poetry markets.  You’ve written a story and need to find out who might be looking for stories of your type.  Go to Duotrope, enter search terms such as genre, subgenre, number of words, payscale (pro, semi-pro, token, or non-paying) and your choice of a few others to narrow your search, then click Search.  You’ll see a list of potential markets for your story.  Clicking on any of the markets takes you to a Duotrope page with details about the market, with links to the market’s website, any restrictions on submissions, and statistics such as response time and acceptance rate.  Those statistics come from regular writers submitting their experiences to Duotrope, not from the markets themselves.

Before Duotrope, writers would go to the library to look at a reference book called Writer’s Market, published annually.  I do recommend the book, but Duotrope is online and free.  If you find Duotrope helps you connect with a market, you should contribute some money to them to help sustain their operation.

Using Duotrope, you can come up with a prioritized list of where you’ll send your story.  That list is tailored to your story so you’re not wasting your time, or some editor’s, with sending a story not suited to that market.

One more thing.  Duotrope is not just for short story writers, like me.  It’s also for novelists and poets too.

The other site I recommend is Ralan.  It’s operated by an author writing under the name Ralan Conley.  The full name of the site is Ralan’s SpecFic and Humor Webstravaganza.  SpecFic is Speculative Fiction.

There are several interesting features of this website to explore, but the part I used most is Antho.  That section can keep you up to date on what short story anthologies are looking for submissions.  You’ll see each open anthology listed, a general description, any limitations on submissions, pay scale, and a link to the market’s website about the anthology.

I’ve blogged about writing for anthologies before, and now you know where to find the information to get you started.  It’s fun, every now and then, to check the Antho list at Ralan to see what the anthology markets are looking for.  Every so often, this exercise will spark an idea for a story.  So in that sense this site can help at both ends of the writing process, both before and after the story is written.

Duotrope and Ralan are crucial resources for a beginning writer in providing guidance about where to market your stories, and even getting a sense of market trends.  Have you used them and have an experience to share, or are there other sites you’ve found helpful?  Send comments to–

                                                                         Poseidon’s Scribe

 

January 22, 2012Permalink

What Happens Next?

Back in May, I promised to discuss suspense, and I’ve kept you in it long enough.  First, in defining the term, we learn that it means (1) the state of being suspended, (2) a mental uncertainty or anxiety, and (3) the state of being undecided or doubtful.

Definitions (2) and (3) may seem to have the most significance for us here, but I like the image of definition (1).  Imagine a character who is physically suspended over the ground at some great height.  There is a danger he may fall and get hurt or killed.  Neither the reader nor the character knows if the fall will happen or not.  However, at the moment there exists both the danger that he will fall and the hope that he will either not fall or that the fall will somehow not harm him.

The danger leads to the character feeling fear.  If the character has been previously introduced to the reader as a sympathetic one and the reader has come to care about him, then the reader will share both the uncertainty and the character’s fear of the fall.

The danger need not involve falling from a height, of course, but can be any real danger to the character, including emotional danger.  The feeling of suspense arises from not knowing whether the outcome will be good or bad and the feeling is more intense if the reader sympathizes with or pities the character.

In his book Poetics, Aristotle explained suspense the same way we have, with the concepts of a looming danger, a ray of hope, an uncertainty of outcome, and the audience’s (reader’s) caring about the character.  We’re not exactly plowing new ground here; suspense is a timeless idea.

We can bring in definition (3) of the word “suspense” by giving our character a choice of actions to take.  He does not know which choice will make the danger greater or which will cause a hoped-for positive outcome.  Since he does not know, he is uncertain and doubtful about which choice to make.

Most fiction involves suspense to some degree, but so-called suspense novels are chock full of that emotion.  What techniques does a writer of such novels use to ratchet up suspense?

  • Create in the reader’s mind an intense sympathy for the character.  Establish the character as real, human, and vulnerable.
  • Introduce a danger with high stakes.  It must be plausible and full of dire consequences for the character should the danger be realized.
  • Set up the situation so the negative outcome is far more likely than the positive one.  Make the odds nearly (but not) impossible.  Ensure Aristotle’s “ray of hope” is laser-thin.
  • Give the character a set of choices that all seem bad.
  • Provide the reader with knowledge of some fact the character doesn’t know, perhaps some fact about one or more of the choices being faced.  You might think this would lessen uncertainty and doubt, and thus reduce suspense.  But note that it doesn’t lessen the character’s uncertainty and it actually increases the reader’s sympathy for the character; it makes the reader want to shout, “No!  Don’t do that!”
  • Introduce a time limit, a race against the clock.  This forces the character to make one of the choices without enough time to fully analyze chances and consequences.
  • Conclude each chapter (or short story break) with some enticement to keep reading.
  • Bring in unexpected complications that worsen the danger, tighten the timeline, or narrow the ray of hope still further.
  • Keep the tension high for as long as possible.  In other words, delay the events that will resolve the suspenseful situation as long as you can, but stop short of the point where the reader gets bored and stops caring.

Do you think you can write in a suspenseful way?  What difficulties do you see in doing so?  I welcome comments on the topic. And for those of you wondering who wrote this blog entry, you may call me…I’m known as…(suspense building)…wait for it…

                                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe

January 15, 2012Permalink

Coming to Your Senses (in Your Writing)

If Poseidon’s Scribe suggests you incorporate an appeal to all five senses in your writing, that’s not exactly original advice.  But why are writers told to do this?  And how do you go about it?

The reason for using all the senses is to make your scenes more vivid, distinct, and real for the reader.  You’re trying to take your reader away from her world where she is sitting and reading a book, just sweep her away to your made-up world.  We speak of “painting a picture” in writing, but it should be more than that.  It should be a multi-sensory experience.  It’s like a Star Trek transporter machine that can move a person in an instant to a different location for a full immersion experience.

Artists, too, often bring the senses into their work.  This is “Still-life with Chessboard (the Five Senses)” by the 17th Century painter Lubin Baugin.

Each of the senses has certain properties.  Although they are obvious from lifelong experience, let’s think about each one from a writer’s point of view.

 

  • Our primary sense is sight, and that’s usually the first way a character perceives his surroundings.  Human sight is most especially tuned to moving objects, so characters notice them first of all. Depriving a character of sight using darkness or interfering objects can heighten tension.
  • Hearing is our secondary sense, and also has a long range.  Characters can hear things around corners and thus detect them before seeing them at times.
  • Smell has a strong link to mood and memory, and thus can provide a great opportunity for the reader to understand the point-of-view character’s temperament and background.
  • Taste is coupled to the sense of smell.  Letting a character experience food and drink in a scene can enhance the overall impression for the reader.  Remember that characters can learn things by tasting even non-food items, such as deciding whether a liquid is water or oil, for example, when gathering evidence.
  • The sense of touch is probably the most intimate.  It’s the only sense without a specific organ, and the only one we can’t block out except through numbness.

If you open up your writing to appeal to all the senses, you’ll find a wealth of new adjectives at your disposal.  There are many great descriptive words that apply to the non-sight senses.  These sensory descriptions should be used with purposeful ends in mind, though.  You’re trying to advance your plot, reveal character attitudes, or set a scene, not to demonstrate your knowledge of the senses.

Through practice you can improve the perceptiveness and sharpness of your senses as well as your ability to write better sensory descriptions.  It’s just like improving any other skill.  I’ll have more to say about that in a future blog entry.

I should caution you not to overdo it, though.  Modern readers dislike, and often skip, long paragraphs of description.  It’s best to sprinkle your sense-based descriptions in small chunks between and among character thoughts and dialogue throughout the scene.  This avoids overloading and boring the reader, and also gives the reader occasional reminders about where the characters are and the state of their surroundings.

As always, I welcome your comments on this topic.  From what I’ve seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt, this concludes another blog entry by–

                                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe

January 8, 2012Permalink

Just Thinking to Myself

The title of this blog entry is a little joke to remind me not to ever do that in my fiction–state that a character is “thinking to himself.”  How else would he be thinking?

But the broader question facing us today regards how a writer should convey a character’s thoughts.  To get your fiction published these days, it’s important to be able to let your readers know the thoughts of your point-of-view character.  Fiction, as I’ve said before, is about the human condition, and a large part of the human experience requires thinking.  In fiction, we expect to find a protagonist dealing with one or more conflicts, and a large part of understanding her struggle is to know her thoughts.

Thoughts reveal a lot about a character.  Often thoughts are more extreme and emotion-packed than spoken words.  In the cases where a character’s thoughts are just as restrained as his speech, that tells the reader this character has a great degree of self-control.  A character that “speaks his mind” likely does not have much tact in social situations.

It’s rather strange that English has quotation marks to indicate spoken dialogue, but no analogous, standard symbol for a character’s thoughts.  Without such a standard, practices vary:

  • “I sure could go for a hamburger,” Steve thought.
  • I sure could go for a hamburger.
  • Steve thought about how much he wanted a hamburger.

The first example with the quotation marks seems to have fallen out of favor.  It’s potentially confusing, since a reader could assume the character is speaking out loud, until the tag–Steve thought–appears.  Some say the second example with italics has run its course and is not recommended.  It may also lead to potential confusing ambiguity, since italics are also used for emphasis, or sometimes to indicate foreign words.

As for me, I prefer italics.  I like how italicized words leap out and distinguish themselves as different.  When used to indicate thought, they really help the reader separate “dialogue” from thought and narration.  I suppose the knock against italics is they can interrupt flow.

Although the last example reads just like narration, the tag “Steve thought” clues the reader in that the character is thinking.  The use of standard text makes for a smoother read.

In my view, there are three guidelines you should follow:  (1) stick with the publisher’s guidelines, if known; (2) avoid confusing the reader; and (3) be somewhat consistent through your story in the technique you use.

There are some other helpful blog post articles on this topic here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.  As you’ll see from reading through them, there is general agreement, but some differences.  What are your thoughts on representing a character’s thoughts?  I welcome comments.

That’s another fine blog post I’ve written, thought–

                                                                               Poseidon’s Scribe

 

January 1, 2012Permalink