Showing Up

When I got up to write this morning I really wanted to go back to bed. The house felt cold, the floor felt hard and cold beneath my bare feet, and outside as I stood waiting for Zeus to have his morning pee the night felt dark and damp and like any sensible person would be tucked up warm in bed.

Inside the house my husband sat in the big green over-stuffed chair in the kitchen, having his morning cup of coffee. He looked grumpy; he tweaked his back playing golf a few days ago, and hasn’t felt well since. After giving him a hug I made my cup of tea, measuring sugar and milk, then sat down at my computer.

My first feeling was that I was too tired to sit here and write…wouldn’t it be much nicer—not to mention easier—to just give in to the feeling and go back to bed? Did I really need to be up at this hour? I could always write later. (Not true, later there would be clients to deal with, emails and text messages, phone calls, and the muse silencing intrusion of bright sunlight.)

I opened the piece of Sword that I am currently working on and read through yesterday’s rewrites. It all bored me. The writing is fine, it’s just that I have read through this piece umpteen times and I’m sick of these rewrites. As I downed my first cup of tea these thoughts ran like a low murmur in the background. It took energy to ignore them, let me tell you.

Tired of working on the same piece of writing I have been for days, I opened a piece I had earlier in the week culled from the novel and saved into my rewrites folder. I had had some idea of deepening one of the main character’s flaws, of actually giving him a previous alcohol problem. (Bear in mind this is during Medieval times, so there wasn’t a lot of knowledge about this sort of thing back then, and certainly no A.A.) But I couldn’t think of how to work this in to the story line, and yet still have the reader feel sympathetic toward him, and believe in (or even understand) the transformation that occurs in him.

An hour passed. I poked around and played with this little segment of writing, mulling. Soon I was absorbed in the work.

As I sat there, my second cup of caffeine before me (this time coffee), I had one of those startling, sparkling moments of clarity, the kind we writers live for. I could see the thing in its entirety, its perfectness, and the little pieces I’d been mentally worrying, sorting and juggling for days fell into place like the colored pieces in a kaleidoscope.

It horrifies me to contemplate that I might have gone back to bed and missed this moment. That I might have stood up my muse and not shown up for our date. Really, it would have been so easy to be self-indulgent. And if I had, I would have missed this 6am epiphany. And who knows if it would have come to me another time? These moments are so transient, so ethereal. We run after them like children with butterfly nets, and if we are lucky enough to capture them they must be pinned down or they flutter off, and are forgotten.

Drafting vs. Outlining

The debate can get quite heated on this topic. We’ve all read the various posts, articles and books touting one method above the other.  Some folks say they must have everything down on cards or a ‘beat sheet’ before starting their novels. Others just seem to write their first draft without doing any of that.

I recently got to thinking about these two, seemingly opposing views, because a writer in my workshop was having trouble with her first novel. This woman is a talented writer, and a quick study. So I wondered what was going on when she missed a few meetings. An email exchange revealed the problem:

A “writing teacher” had told her she couldn’t write anything further until she had a complete outline to work from. That she had to have her plot twists and characters—all figured out ahead of time. And she shouldn’t write another word forward until then.

This proclamation had gotten the writer all jammed up and critical of herself—because she couldn’t ‘think’ of an outline, and had therefore deemed herself a failure. She despaired she could ever write anything to completion, and was now experiencing a mental block to her own creativity.

I have to say here…my first reaction, once my hair laid back down on my scalp, was extreme annoyance with said “writing teacher”. I had an almost irresistible urge to paddle the teacher and send her down to the principle. So the first thing I did was wait for that to pass. (Nothing good ever comes from violence!)

Then I wrote to the writer, and this is what I told her:

What some people call outlines are what other people call first drafts.

It’s as simple as that. You can write your first draft on cards, or in notebooks, or on your computer in files labeled as chapters. Whatever you choose to label it, if it’s words, written in a sequence, using the letters of the alphabet, naming characters and what they are doing, it’s a first draft. And you can’t get to it without sitting down and filling white space with words.

What we choose to call it is just semantics.

The method we choose is just preference.

It really all boils down to how different people create, well…differently. Some are sprawling, like me. I write big, loose, wild first drafts without any outline. I have some scenes, some of the characters, and I kinda know what the story is about—a premise. The entire first draft is where I find out exactly what the novel or short story is about, who all the characters are, what they sound like, and what parts they will all play. I cannot create any other way. I sit and write. Wildly. Fast. 1500 or more words in two or three hours, every morning. During the rest of the day, when I am doing my day job, or washing my hair, or the dishes, or reading…that’s when I am thinking about what I wrote that morning, and what it means, and what I might write next. (I keep notebooks handy and jot down ideas and cryptic words, sentences and images to help guide me the next day.)

A more ‘traditional’ outline simply doesn’t work for me. I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and I think I know why. It’s because writing that type of outline requires the use of my left brain. And all the really good stuff, the creative stuff, comes from my right brain. That’s where my muse lives, and she doesn’t come out to play when I am being too analytical.

The rational side of me likes the idea of file cards and beat sheets. It seems so deliciously orderly. It’s like folding laundry or plotting the fastest route for a road trip. So very organized and rational. Unfortunately it’s also completely stifling, creatively…for me. Everything I’ve ever written from this kind of left brain activity was utterly boring. If I resisted the urge to deviate from the outline as I wrote, (to pop out of my left brain and into my right) what I ended up with had none of the power, inventiveness or surprise of the work written ‘by the seat of my pants’.

Do you remember ever doing a paint by number painting when you were little? They’re fun. You get to fill in numbered spaces with numbered colors, until gradually a picture emerges. Unfortunately it’s not a picture you want to look at for very long. You definitely don’t want to frame it and hang it on your wall. They usually end up in the trash…which is where they belong. That’s what ‘writing from an outline’ does for me. I end up with a finished story, that I don’t want to read.

If you listen to folks who study the brain and how it works, you quickly pick up that all the most creative stuff we do: inventions and works of art—even Einstein’s flights of mathematical insight—comes from the right brain. So it stands to reason that however we choose to create anything must be the way which stimulates this side of the brain for the individual. If postlets or file cards do it for you, so be it. Call yourself an outliner and go for it, my friend.

But please don’t insist this is the only legitimate way to do it. That it is superior in any way (it’s not). This is just one way. It’s the thing that stimulates you creatively. And we are all wired different.

An outline is a first draft is an outline.

 Oh, and the writer from the workshop? She’s back to doing some writing. She’s still dealing with her inner critic…which grew bloated and strong on what she’d been ‘taught’. She is working on getting over the idea that the published novels she reads were somehow shat out by people, complete and polished. But knowing she doesn’t have to show her work to anybody else has helped, and I know if she sticks with it…if she just fills white space with uncensored thought, she will get there.

“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.   

E.L. Doctorow

 “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness and life force.”  

 Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird

Patricia Highsmith is one of my favorite authors. She wrote her tightly plotted suspense novels using notebooks and a typewriter, and writing many drafts. I suspect she fell somewhere between a plotter and an organic writer.

Writers, how do you create best? Are you an ‘organic’ type of writer? Or are you a ‘plotter’? Do you fall somewhere in between?

Slaying the Green-Backed Dragon

I was visiting with a friend last week who, like me, and many of you, is a writer with a day job. The topic of wishing we could write fulltime is one that has come up before, and it came up again. We both bemoan our need to earn money, and joke about wishing we could retire or win the lottery, or some such, which would enable us to write—unencumbered by odious day jobs that have nothing to do with our Real Work. She and I have a writer friend who has that leisure. And we both envy him those long days of uninterrupted writing. He is cranking out some wonderful stuff.

I grouse about this issue to someone at least once a week, especially if it’s a bad week for the day job. Or a really good week for the writing—in which case, anything that takes me away from what I really should be doing is viewed as evil. There are days when I am sure my day job has robbed the world of the enjoyment of my genius. When I am certain that, had I been left alone to write, I would have created something remarkable. I write this in jest, but even as I write it, a small part of me thinks it might not be B.S. Such is the hopeful ego of a writer.

But here’s the thing. Another part of me secretly suspects that if I didn’t have this pressure to make the most of my writing time—I wouldn’t write nearly as much, or nearly so well.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my craving for writing time makes me hot to sit down and write. It’s the impetus that springs me out of bed at 5 am, to stumble downstairs, grab a cup of tea, and eagerly crouch over my computer keyboard for the next three hours—sometimes with my heart racing. I don’t know if I would feel the same ardor for it, if I had all the hours in the day. Maybe I would, but I’m not sure.

And here’s another thing. I meet all kinds of characters, overhear every kind of crazy, sad, poignant, weird, greedy, profane, sublime conversation in the course of my work day. The folks I meet come from all walks of life: clean-cut villains and tattooed angels; type-A workaholics and winsome widows; lonely, paint-splattered men who try to tell me dirty jokes, and funny, chain-smoking gurus. My workday is a cornucopia of characters. And they fill me up with stories!

Would I meet so many vivid characters if I didn’t have to venture forth and slay the green-backed dragon? I think not.

Still…I would be willing to try it.

I could always get another day job if things weren’t working out.

Writers: Do you have a day job? How does it affect your writing time? If you don’t have a day job, do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Oh and, FYI, caring for young children is having a day job. So don’t feel left out of the conversation, if parenting is what you do!

Dialogue: 4 Easy Ways to Improve Yours

There are a variety of mistakes to be made with dialogue. Thankfully, none of them are life-threatening. If you make them your neighbors won’t find you unconscious on the floor of your study and have to call 911.

These mistakes should still be avoided, however. They show up in most of the stuff I read by new writers. And they sometimes (cringe) show up in my own first drafts. But that’s before I have gone in after them, Bowie knife clenched between my teeth. (It’s a red pen, really, but I like to pretend.)

The first one of these boring little tension ruiners is dialogue that is too direct, as in the case of these two characters who meet in the break room where one of them is using the copier:

“Hi, Sandy. How are you?” Crystal put her papers in the copier and pressed start.

“I’m fine, Crystal. How are you?” Sandy walked over to the copier.

“I’m okay. I’m busy today.”

“Oh, you’re busy today? Me too.”

Blah, blah, blah…you get the idea. Who gives a hoot about these two chicks, right? This exchange doesn’t tell us anything about what’s going on inside these characters’ heads. It’s all surface. They sound like robots. And there’s no tension in their exchange. Tension comes from conflict. Conflict in dialogue is attained by showing that one character wants something that causes the other character to resist. Like this:

Man: “I think we should move in together.”

Woman: “I think you should put your shoes back on. Your socks stink.”

Okay, admittedly I am writing this late at night and am possibly a little punchy from lack of sleep. But you can see what’s going on here, right? He wants to talk about moving in together, and she doesn’t. They are in opposition.

To write interesting dialogue you must first know your characters, and you must understand what their motivations and desires are.  And then you must thwart them, as soundly as possible. And, while you’re at it, if you can amuse your reader or arouse some other unexpected emotion in them, so much the better.

So…dialogue should have conflict, and be interesting or amusing.

Another dialogue mistake I often see is the dreaded information dump:

“Hello. My name is Sam Brown and I have been sent by xyz detective agency, where I am the top P.I. to investigate the murder of the beautiful stripper who was killed here late last night when nobody was around to hear her screams.”

Ugh, right? Wouldn’t Sam be more interesting if he was portrayed as a cool cat with an air of mystery about him? And some of this could certainly be given to the reader as exposition or description. Like this:

A man in a black suit stepped into the back room of the strip club. Taking care to avoid the congealing pool of blood on the floor around the body, he withdrew an ID from his breast pocket and flipped it open for me.

“Sam Brown, xyz agency.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the girl on the floor. “Beautiful girl.” He flipped his ID closed and it disappeared back into his pocket. “Family’s hired me to find out who ruined her day.”

Leaving your reader wanting to know more is rarely a bad  thing. It’s what keeps them turning pages. We don’t have to front load every detail into a scene. Just give them enough to keep them reading, and to avoid confusion. More than that is too much.

So…have conflict and interest, but don’t spill the beans.

The third dialogue mistake I see in manuscripts is all dialogue, and no description or exposition or internalization. This can work for a while, but when it goes on for pages and pages, it’s boring. Not even Hemingway could pull this off. So, unless you are better at dialogue than the Grand Poobah of dialogue himself, best to steer away from endless dialogue. Give the reader some info about who’s speaking, what’s going on, and why the reader should care.

Lastly we come to the use of tags.

Some writers feel these should never be anything other than he said, she said. That we should never say she yelled, or he whispered, he whimpered or she cried. I don’t agree. I do think these should be kept to a minimum, however. And well written dialogue can make these sorts of tags unnecessary. But sometimes they are okay to use, and as long as they are not excessive I think most readers are fine with them.

No tag at all is the best option, as long as we don’t lose or confuse the reader. One of the best ways to accomplish not using a tag is to use an action to identify who is speaking:

“I think you should put your shoes back on. Your socks stink.” Jezebel held Fred’s shoes out to him.

“Won’t you at least consider moving in together?” Fred reached for his wingtips.

For the next few lines of dialogue you could get away without identifying the speaker. We are following their conversation and the opposing sides are enough to tell us who is speaking. But after several lines it is a good idea to add another action to verify for the reader who is speaking. If the reader has to stop and try to figure it out, that’s bad. We’ve lost her, and the flow is interrupted.

You could even add something to this scene by giving the reader a peek inside one character’s head. Like this:

“I think you should put your shoes back on. Your socks stink.” Jezebel held Fred’s shoes out to him.

“Won’t you at least consider moving in together?” Fred reached for his wingtips. He knew he should have done a more thorough search for the Camembert he’d dropped down the couch last week.

Puts a whole different spin on what’s happening, doesn’t it? Poor Fred. His feet don’t really stink. He’s just a shoddy housekeeper.

Still…I don’t think Jezebel should move in with him. Maybe it’s the wingtips.

So, to recap: dialogue should have conflict and should never be mundane or boring. It should not be used to give too much information. It should not go on and on for pages without any description or action to break it up. And should not distract us with the overuse of tags.

Dialogue should also move the plot along and give the reader insight into the characters. But if you master the four techniques I’ve suggested, then the rest will follow.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
                                                                                                                                                                                          Ernest Hemingway

 

Writers: What things bother you when you’re reading dialogue? Is there anything you find distracting?  What dialogue situations cause you problems in your own writing? Do you prefer writing dialogue or descriptive passages? How do you know when you have the balance right? How do you feel about the use of tags?

Going Deeper

Pat Conroy

Since the moment I cracked open my first Pat Conroy novel many years ago I have been a fan. The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides: these are great classics. Long delicious reads filled with lyricism and passionate description.

So when my friend, writer Char Bishop, loaned me her copy of Writer’s Digest  (she always shares them with me – so generous – but that’s Char) and I discovered it had an interview with Pat Conroy inside, I raced home and devoured it.  (It’s the May/June 2011 issue, if you’re interested. The interviewer is Lynn Seldon.)

Much of the interview is about Pat Conroy’s marriage to writer Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife. It’s a peek into the home life of two writers cohabitating. Interesting stuff. But one question was asked that produced an answer from Mr. Conroy that sent my little writer brain into paroxysms of ponderation. The question was a simple one: If you could each give one piece of writing advice, what would it be?

Mr. Conroy’s reply? Go deeper.

Now, sometimes when I read a famous writer’s advice I scratch my head, mumble something profound like, hmmm, and then move on. But this response made me have to put the magazine down and take the dog for a walk – one of the activities I engage in when I have to do some heavy thinking.

Because I knew exactly what Mr. Conroy meant. It was a light bulb moment for me. I knew following this advice would make Sword of Mordrey better. And I wanted to go over the novel in my head and find the places where ‘going deeper’ would achieve that.

Were there places in my novel where I could go deeper into what my characters were thinking and feeling, and why? Could I bring this out, not just in their interior monologues, but in their behavior and reactions, as well?

And not just my characters, but the medieval world I’ve created too. Are there places where I can show more? Maybe in just a few brief words that suddenly make the atmosphere gritty and visceral and get right up in the reader’s emotions? I knew I had to seek those places out too.

By the time I got back to the house I realized I would have to do yet another full rewrite. Not a fun prospect on the surface. I’ve already done so many. But as I sat at my desk the following morning those two words still strobed in my head like a lighthouse beacon. And the mists were beginning to clear.

Writers, what does ‘going deeper’ mean to you? Are there places in your WIP where you could go deeper? How do you identify them? What do you feel the overall effect would be on your novel? And more importantly, on your novel’s readers?