Tag: Reading (process)

What’s so great about Hemmingway?

Published on by JayeLeave a comment
Ed Greenwood
Ed Greenwood (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not just Hemmingway, but Jane Austin, Steinbeck, Stephen King …

I’m not saying they’re awful, though I can’t stand three sentences in a row by a single one of them. I simply ask why are they sainted in the annals of recent fiction and literature? Certainly why do so many blogs and forums dispensing cheap writing advice swear by them as such deities of the written word?

Why is not the advice to first ask who the person likes to read the best and say, “Read that carefully and think about the things the author does that you do and don’t like. After, try to borrow and unashamedly steal those techniques you love and consider how you might do differently those which you loathed.”

How boring would the world be if all writers were determined to be the next of only a small pool of very similar writers?! (Rather dry ones, in my opinion) Would the world read even less than already it tends to do?

I do believe some works do deserve their deification. The Discworld series by Pratchett is undeniably brilliant and holds the attentions and imaginations of scholars and huddled masses alike; The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz too are inarguably timeless classics, along with the adventures of our good bear who “lives under the name ‘Sanders’.”

Still I would not presume to tell anyone they ought to write more like Tolkien, Milne, or Carroll. For one they’re ill suited to a suspense-horror.

I suppose it’s the idea that King is a famous best selling author so must know something … please note, so is Seanan McGuire, J K Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer. Rowling, outsold and outsells the others in that list combined, yet you’re supposed to not write like her … so I’ve no idea how King is a god.

The others are all classified Literary Fiction, which is somehow superior to all other sorts (Literature majors who try to write the stuff say so, and they’re experts and should know, right?) despite being that dry boring stuff we’re made to read in Literature classes which probably turned rather a lot of people off reading altogether.

To each her own personal gods of the pen, be it Mercedes Lackey or Lawrence Block, Ed Greenwood or Danielle Steel, Dean Koontz or Louisa Mae Alcott … when you write study the master who you so loved you wanted to write, carry on that writer’s legacy. The acclaimed saints of writing need no undue worship unless you happen to favour their styles.

P.S. Is it me, or is the list of people you’re supposed to strive to write like nearly always Americans, primarily from around the Depression?  Never minding the rather selective era, but … why are we excluding other English speaking authors … or non-English (they don’t say English or American lit, just lit — I’m fair certain a Frenchman would have something to say about the superiority of, say, Voltaire to any six Americans you care to pick.

Related articles

Book 3 is going well!

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

At the very acute risk of jinxing myself I really have to say that Book 3 is proving loads of fun to write and is going smoothly and, relatively, quickly.  

I’m not far enough in to have a title yet; I’m not 100% sure what it’s about just yet, I’ll probably have that worked out around what will prove to be the half-way mark.

Still, if it manages to retain its smoothness and ease of writing I could actually see my way to putting it out late this year, then again I may just use the extra time for more editing passes and to get a head start on Now & Forever (what I’m currently thinking the final book’s title will be).

As with all so far this one is proving highly emotional and full of ups and downs for our lovely protagonists — and I’m only into chapter 3!  

A curiosity with this one is that, so far, the chapters have been quite shortish.  I don’t think a one will be more than 15 or 20 pages typed up; the longest is something like 11 pages written.  

In any event, keep an eye on your favourite way to keep track of me.  With anything like luck I won’t be posting any nervous breakdowns and emotional distress over the book in another couple of weeks and in a month’s time or so I’ll probably have a title and cover.

I know, I know, supposedly there’s meant to be a big deal with the whole “cover reveal” concept and making a big deal of it.  Don’t really know when/where/how that got started and don’t care.  It doesn’t interest me as a reader and doesn’t seem like a big deal as an author.  I’ll just post the cover once I’ve made it and let you all marvel at my lack of artistic skill.

Related articles

 

“True art is angsty & inaccessible”

Published on by Jaye1 Comment

I desperately wish I could fathom just where this idea originates.

It is a remarkably pervasive idea, and to such an extent that things that were popular and contain no angst will frequently receive interpreted doses of the latter to make literary scholars feel better about enjoying them.  And obscurity is, somehow, a hallmark of awesomeness and brilliance; though this one I think they feel no need to bother over much with — odds are even that those literary scholars have read more about Gilgamesh than of it.  They remind me of Star Wars fandom … enough I oft wonder if there’s significant overlap.

Why, though, must art be tragedy and sorrow?  Drama, angst, etc.?  Why can art not, too, be sunshine and kittens, laughter and love, romance and spiritual awakening?

Why cannot literary brilliance be measured, in part, by lasting popularity?  Why must The Hobbit and Harry Potter be “guilty pleasures”?

Why is the only fiction, supposedly, worth reading ‘literary fiction’ (a pretentious name for any genre or work, I feel)?  Why does a story need to answer any question more than ‘what happens next?!’ or ‘will they live happily ever after?’ and so on?  It’s not ‘will the hero survive?’ it’s ‘how will the hero get out of this mess?’  Why does this lack literary merit as opposed to twenty pages of someone’s thoughts who is standing in line at a post office (not making it up, don’t remember the title)?

I propose a new definition of art and brilliance.  Angst and obscurity be damned!

Any fool with crayons, a pack of construction paper, and enough spare time can write a truly depressing work read by all of twenty-five people — twenty-two of whom share a skull with the author and at least one of whom is a plush horse or a rubber plant.

I hold that art should be, first and foremost, something that you put something of yourself into — I’m not sure if this works for painting and sculpture or not, so we’ll refine that to literary art, just to be safe.  That ought to be art; so by that, our madman’s crayoned insanity is still art, but the novelist version of Sven Bianchi from Questionable Content does not make art and probably doesn’t claim to.  Second, the brilliance should be measured by if it speaks to people and degree of brilliance should be:  Does it do so over and over?  If it instils a passion once, it its brilliant — Twilight or Interview With a Vampire, are both art and, to some extent must be brilliant to have sparked such reactions and readerships from people.  The Hobbit and Little Women do it, though, through hundreds of repeat readings for uncounted readers.  People come back to Mr Baggins rushing out the door without hat nor handkerchief, and relive the (mis)adventures of Jo and her sisters.  They are masterpieces.

There is, and ever has been, too much literature to say popularity alone speaks of brilliance.  Always some really amazing work lurks, largely, undiscovered.  Game of Thrones is a fair example.  It languished in veritable obscurity for nearly a decade.  Black Trillium is, I feel, another fine example.  With a, sadly, increasing tendency, the strange dreams of young Alice is not read — but for those who take the notion, they come ever back again to Wonderland.  Still, popularity and its perpetuity is a fine test.  No one disputes that old Bill Shakespeare is a literary legend … well, not anyone who wasn’t alive when his plays were new.  The poems of Lady Sappho must have been phenomenal — they are all of them lost yet, still, she is not forgotten.

Why must we make things so blasted cerebral to feel good about them?  Fun and beautiful should not be so shameful.  Perhaps ‘the masses’ know better what is good and will stand the test of time better than the literary elitist.

Few are liable to agree with me who are ‘serious writers’, but such is life.  I’ll read my Princess of Mars, they’ll read Pride and Prejudice; I’ll read Wizard of Oz and they can read The Yellow Wallpaper … to each her own.  After all, there’s no accounting for taste.

Related articles

Vulgarity, sex, and other offensive things

Published on by JayeLeave a comment

As always, my opinion regarding asking “should I …” when writing your story should always be answered with “yes, absolutely, if you want to”.  But as always there can be room to discuss the impact, and nuances of that answer.

Graphics violence, explicit sex, vulgar language, lewd behaviour … should these be in our fiction?

The answer to that isn’t so clear cut, honestly.  Then again, perhaps it is.  Tough decision.  On one hand, they’re a part of our reality, so of course they should be there for realism — and even fantasy shouldn’t shy away from them unless it’s trying to paint a rosier setting.  On the other … how detailed a picture do we wish to paint for the youths?

Frankly, in most regards, I see it like this:  language should be accurate.  If swearing isn’t common in your fantasy world, then don’t use any.  If you’re writing teenagers in modern America, then odds are some or many of them will swear (probably, rather a lot).  We were all teenagers once, or possibly still are, and we probably hear teenagers talking to one another at the mall — profanity is a way of life.  The key is to learn the forbidden words of the day.  30 or more years ago the scary word that you just didn’t use if you could help it, in conversation, in dialogue, anywhere, was fuck.  Now?  Fucking fucked the fucker; that’s a sentence someone might say in a crowded street at the top of their lungs.  You’ll shock few with it.  Nigger, however … that will get people’s attention in a hurry.  That’s not to say it shouldn’t be used in the interest of accurate dialogue, but you should — for the sake of social acceptability of your work — weigh your options on using it at all, and be sure your dialogue uses it accurately or you’ll simply piss a lot of people off either for using it, or using it wrong, or … simply put, it’s the new fuck.

Also, what age are you writing for?  If for children, that’s a tough one.  I mean, as I understand it, in French any age says zut, merde, pute, et al because there is no dang/darn, shoot, and fudge.  It makes me wonder if, just probably, you find those words in French childrens’ books, therefore (I can’t read French, and don’t much enjoy the language, so I’m speculating from what I know of it from people who do).  In English, however, we tend to frown upon using profanity in front of children, so it’s probably seen as best to keep such language out of your childrens’ books.  Just remember, legal age of majority is not the same as adulthood versus childhood.  Many people are not so much children any longer in their language, experience, attitudes, etc. once they’re somewhere between 10 and 14, certainly by the time they’re 15.  Still, it’s your story, if you want little Brother Bear saying “Fuck this shit” to Momma Bear in your kids’ story, it’s your kids’ story, just don’t be surprised when every protect the children organisation in the country is calling for your head on a spike.  Personally, I prefer to be true to the characters.  Some people swear like the only vocabulary they have is entirely vulgarities, others blush if they say ‘heck’.  As such there are swear words in my stories, but it’s dialogue and by people who speak that way, it’s not meant for impact (well, at one point, but that’s after you’ve got to know Lauren well enough to realise that, while nothing too shocking about ‘fuck’ or its presence in the story, its presence in her mouth is shocking), it’s just meant to characterise.

Violence.  Fun one that.  Certainly let’s leave that out of the little kids’ works.  I mean, come one, do you really want to give little Timmy nightmares?  Then again … ever read the old fairy tales as the brothers Grimm published them?  How about the older versions they worked from?  Maybe, if we don’t shelter little Suzy, she won’t be so bothered by a bit of visceral depiction and graphic violence.  After that … stand outside a cinema for 20 minutes some Friday night.  Believe me, by the time Jimmy is 10, Jimmy will watch Terminator and laugh at the cheesy special effects (ah, the expectations of the advanced CGI generation), you won’t shock him with some blood and gore.  After that it’s just a question of how disgustingly visceral you should be.  Do we give a highly detailed and graphic account of someone committing hari kari?  Do we do it in first person POV?  Mmmm … plenty of full grown adults, even a few who’ve been in war, might be squeamish to read that.  Doesn’t mean don’t do it, just remember — a reader who throws up, is a reader who may not read your next book — so you might ask yourself, do I need to be so graphic?  I base it entirely on tone of the story.  Now & Forever will never go into graphic detail of any violence that might be occurring; Færie Patrol, on the other hand, might a bit — though we won’t be seeing anything as graphic as Kill Bill.  

Sex.  Funny thing, sex … what’s so wrong with it?  Sex is great, it makes kids, it doesn’t hurt anyone (certain very frightening fetishes aside — RP is one thing, doing that stuff for real!?  ~shudder~).  Still, it’s dirty, and something you should shield the children from.  Again, if you want to keep the PTA off your back, then leave it out of your Amelia Bedelia inspired fiction.  Stuff for the middle school/junior high crowd?  High school?  Frankly — if they’ve hit puberty, then odds are pretty good they know what sex is.  Unless I went to a very unusual school … they’ve got a fair notion by the time they’re a year or two away, I believe I was starting to get the clue around 3rd grade, myself.  So now the question is, fade to black or get explicit?  Explicit will almost certainly get people on your back if you write for a crowd under 25, but depending on details you probably won’t get much flak if you keep the target 16+.  So, again, is the exact detail of exactly who put what where and in what order so vital as to risk alienating readers?  It might be.  Certainly I could see a very clear argument for explicit sex scenes in a teen fiction work, I really can.  Point of note, even for the more puritanical crowd:  even the ones who graduate high school as virgins, because of those little “not until married pledges” … not personally, but some people I know quite well … they tend to be very technical on the whole virginity thing; put bluntly, an amazing number of ‘virgins’ are quite versed in oral and anal activities.  By being explicit you’re not providing these ‘kids’ with anything they haven’t already seen, done, or fantasised about unless you’re digging into the twisted depths of fetishist sites, then you might be providing a colourful piece of education.  Personally, I fade to black.  I always feel silly getting specific; but if it doesn’t violate the tone of the story then go for it, but if it would … well … for example, the sex scene in Ready or Not (uhm, spoiler alert?) is not so much fade to black as fade to the emotions rather than the bodies because the mechanical aspects of the event would have been discordant with the tone of the moment.

As always, you’ll write very little that’s safe enough not to offend someone.  I mean, have you ever mentioned that Jesus drank wine to a Temperance League member?  As with violating the rules of physics or the laws of grammar, do it with eyes wide open.  Remember, while in the end you’re writing for yourself, if you plan to publish then you are also writing for the public.  The public might be 7billion souls upon this globe alone, so there’ll always be someone who agrees with you, you ought to ask yourself “how many people are going to like reading about a toddler prostitute assassin” then ask “how many parents are likely to buy this storybook about said toddler for their sweet little toddler’s bedtime storybook” … no one says you can’t write and draw it and put it out there, just please don’t be surprised when you raise eyebrows and when your sales are low.

Taboos, those glorious taboos.  Society has expectations.  It’s our jobs to question, probe, exploit, reinforce, shatter, violate, uphold, and ignore those expectations, those mores, those taboos … but if you do it with eyes open you do it in a meaningful way.  When you are aware that most parents won’t like a storybook for little Timmy to be about a toddler assassin prostitute, then you will approach the narrative, the themes, the plot, etc. rather differently, one would assume, than if you take it for granted that no parent would ever take issue with a storybook about an assassin prostitute aged three.

Related articles

How serious should I be?

Published on by Jaye6 Comments

Perusing NaNoWriMo’s forums I keep coming across variations of an interesting, and generally unanswerable question for all artists – but one I swear seems to come up more and be more vehemently … argued? among authors (writing advice books, other writing forums, etc.):  how seriously to take the writing?  What priority should it hold in your life?  And other similar veins of thought.

Now, really, as with all things – no one can tell you what works for you; they can only say what works for themselves and you may take it or leave it.  So I offer my advice, my ‘what works for me.’

Take the story seriously.  Not as in ‘the story should be serious’, just that you should care about staying true to your setting and characters.  A criticism I saw once of Twilight is that the personality and behaviour of the characters is what it must be to satisfy the whim of the moment – to visit the realm of hyperbole, for the sake of make a point, if you have someone a professional dancer in chapter 3, they ought not be unable to dance when asked in chapter 33, or in chapter 3 of the next book.

The work itself?  Writing is a labour of love.  Writing pays worse than waiting tables.  I’ve seen it argued that slavery is a higher paying job.  Unless one is the proper mix of prolific and lucky (mostly lucky) wealth will not be yours; you will want to keep that day job.  As such, treat it, maybe not so much as a hobby, but rather as … a joy.  Take pleasure in it.

Family, and life should take precedent.  If you truly love telling the story you have to tell, then you will tell it eventually.  Keep your promises, certainly.  If you have promised your fans a book a year, put out a book a year – or else apologise and give them a good reason for tardiness.  If you have made no such promise, then write as you may.  I tend to find myself in a point between these to places; I have made no specific promises to my readers regarding the frequency of Now & Forever’s releases, but I have made a promise to myself – that can be just as important.  So far I’m keeping that promise, but I fear sometimes I shan’t continue to do so.  We’ll see.

Even if you are so fortunate as to live on your writing – if you force yourself to write in such a manner as to impact your quality, what favour have you done your readers?  What favour have you done yourself in the name of word count, to sacrifice happiness, health, and time with those you love to stress over a chapter simply because you’ve decided that writing should be a 9-5 job the same as any other?  Or, as I’ve seen it suggested on a few of this year’s pep talks, a 365-day a year project – weekends, holidays, sickness and health; being married to your work, be it writing or banking, is not healthy.  Writers of that sort are infamous for dying young in suicide or drowning in a bottle of whiskey.

I am motivated by my own curiosity of what happens next.  I am motivated by my characters’ clamour that I tell their story.  I am motivated by a personal sense of perfectionism that hates to leave things unfinished unless it is absolutely indisputable that they cannot be finished.  Not everyone is.

I know a woman for whom NaNoWriMo is the biggest boon to her word count.  She writes throughout the year, but does far better during NaNo events.  This has to do with her own personality and the presence of the NaNoWriMo.com progress graphs – she has OCD, graphs make her very happy apparently.  Still, 50k words in a month – 1667 per day – is not really so much, an hour’s work or so when feeling inspired, a few hours if you sit down and put your mind to it … if your issue isn’t writer’s block so much as a need for an excuse to put aside the browser and stop wiki-surfing.

We’re all different.  A writer I adore rents an office, one she goes to for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, in order to write.  Why?  Because if she doesn’t, she forgets to write; she finds an hundred other things to do besides write.  She wants to tell her story, and she likely would tell it eventually, but it may take her decades to write a single novel – and she was writing for contract, this was not an option, nor was it personally one given that she had more stories afterward that she wished to tell.  Some writers have an office at home, a place to shut out distraction and find a little peace to work – understandable, it can be very difficult to produce quality work if you can’t keep a coherent thought for 30 seconds running.  Still, office, or a hammock in the backyard with pets and children running and screaming – write as you will, and as you may, but don’t forget to live; one who forgets to experience life, is one who will have a harder time expressing and illustrating life in her work.

There are those who will argue with me:  “But Ray Bradbury siad you must write every day” and such like.  Yes, he did.  He also said to read things, any random thing that strikes your fancy, pick up books on anything that interests you, and to live.  He may have been speaking hyperbolically.  Also, maybe that worked for him – he seemed to recognise that, sometimes, you spend a few hours staring at the page trying to write and getting nowhere, but at least you tried, and other times you write 200 words in 12 hours of endless struggle, and then the next day erase it all to replace it with 3000 words of the most fantastic prose you ever saw.  No one, no one, no one, can tell you how to write, when to write, how much to write, what to write … well, I suppose if you write for hire, then the person who drew up the contract can, but then there’s the argument that you can refuse to sign said contract … never mind that, though, only you can tell yourself that.  Just as it’s your story, it’s your life that you’ll be writing it around; what is important to you?  If the story is more important than your children, or your spouse, your health, or the state of your home – then, so be it, just be sure you are aware that such an attitude will have consequences.  Be sure that your novel, or poetry, or screenplay, or whatever, is worth it to you.

Related articles

Keys to characterisation

Published on by Jaye2 Comments

I’ve discussed charactisation before, but only in reference while discussing other thing — I think.  Honestly, by now, I’ve got enough posts it’d take me days of reading to be sure what all I’ve discussed already.  Not really sure what that says … hopefully something good, though.

Still, characters are important to a story.  Characters can give you a plot, they can give you conflict — if you have your characters and know them well, you absolutely have a story, because your characters will wander hither and yon to various adventures you never once dreamt you might find yourself writing.

How, then, do we get these characters?  These beings which live and breathe and carry the story for you such that you need only hang on to your pen for dear life whilst trying to keep up?

Believe in them.  Well, that’s step two or three actually.

Stan Lee‘s advice on this subject is good:  Start with a name.  I don’t always do this.  Sometimes I start with an idea.  This isn’t quite a description.  I might start with ‘video game playing nymph’ or ‘teen half-vampire’ or ‘high school aged ballerina’.  Then I … I suppose one might say I hold auditions.

Meet your characters.  Really.  Don’t force anything.  Don’t tell them, ‘your hair is green.’  Don’t tell them, ‘you hate chocolate.’  Never do this.  Let them tell you, ‘I dye my hair green.’  Let them say to you, ‘ugh!  Chocolate is disgusting!’

Why?  Maybe they’re allergic to chocolate!  Maybe their favourite colour is green.  Maybe they’re into punk rock.  Maybe they like to dye their hair green, then frost it, spike it, then put on a flannel & jeans to go out two-stepping to the latest by Tim McGraw, or jam to some reggae.

Of course you know what kind of story you want to write.  So you’ll guide them along, but more to the point — let them guide you along.  They’ll take a simple plot concept and give it depth and complexity, if you let them.  They’ll give you little touches, you’ll find yourself adding a scene of a game of poker, or a conversation about the merits of Astroglide versus K-Y.  You’ll learn that strawberries are ambrosia.

In short:  don’t build your characters, let them build themselves.  Tell their stories and describe them as you go along.  You might learn things abou them that don’t belong in the story — jot this down in a notebook for later — you’ll learn things about them that the reader will learn with you.  Somethings you’ll learn and will become more relevant later — you knew it before the reader did, it happens.

Does this sound crazy?  Possibly a little nonsensical?  Maybe it is.

Thing is, most things will go into long, long disserations on characterisation and how to build a good character, how to build them to be believable.  They’ll do things like say ‘you must give them three flaws’, or ask stupid questions about what’s in their pockets or refridgerator.  What’s in their rubbish bin, and other stupid nonsense.

Honestly, that gets you nowhere and gets detrimental.  If you have a complete dossier on your character before you ever put pen to paper (beyond that which was necessary to record said dossier, of course), you run a major risk — you could be inclined to try to use all of that data.  You could info-dump this dossier into your book.  Bad move.  I’m not saying you can’t, if you’ve the kind of mind that likes to gather all the data and such before you start — planning just isn’t my cuppa — but you must be cautious to a) remember to dole the info out only as it becomes important, relevant, or interesting — don’t offload it in chunks needlessly and b) don’t build it from a template, gather the dossier the same way an FBI or CIA agent might, by spying and observing.

If, in your mind, this person is a person.  Too complex to sum up.  If they live and breathe, if they have hopes, dreams, loves and hates, if they like to curl up with a bowl of cheesy popcorn and watch corny old westerns on Saturday nights …

Just don’t force it.  Don’t sit down with character questionaires.  Maybe sit down with them once you know the character, and see what they’d say if they were asked these questions (most of the time they’ll be much more flippant — Q: ‘what’s in your bin?’  A: ‘trash’).

People will disagree — to some, it’s important to build the character, that she grow according to a prescribed formula and that she be three dimensional according to very specific key rules.  C’est la vie, if there was any single right or wrong way to write all stories would be the same and one day a computer, fed a few data variables, would churn out novels in some production line fashion.

Related articles