down the writer's path

Where have all the well-read writers gone?

Once upon a time reading was the fertile bed for emerging writers. The two were inexorably linked and their natural habitats were public libraries and bookstores. Many came from homes where reading was a priority. Others had teachers or librarians who knew how books could release the imagination. Life is different now. So are the folks who want to write. Unfortunately, today it's all too common to hear writers admit they don't read. Frankly, I find this wrong on so many levels.

The idea of a writer not being a reader is such a contradiction. It goes to the heart of why someone would want to become a writer. At its most basic, a person who writes wants to capture their thoughts, feelings, expressions, and ideas. Journal writing fulfills that need. After that most writing ultimately requires a reader in order to achieve its fullness of expression. At their core, writers have a need and/or desire to communicate and these storytellers require an audience to complete the circle. If a writer doesn't read, doesn't like to read, why on earth would he or she want to work in a medium that requires readers? Why would they expect anyone else to read what they write? And how do they support their industry if they don't read and if they don't buy books?  

Today the visual reigns supreme in movies, videos, games, etc. Illiteracy rates continue to climb and the culture seems less and less intent on prizing the skill of knowing how to read. The classics have fallen away or have been dumbed down to the point where the few young readers who make the effort fail to gain their full import. Learning how to read has been reduced to recognizing a group of letters without gaining an understanding of the more advanced reading skills dealing with comprehension, context, subtext, and other subtleties.

Writers who don't read come to the table empty-handed. They have no idea of the conversations that exist between writers and their readers and amongst writers from one generation to the next. That loss can lead writers to make mistakes and wrong assumptions in their pursuit of the craft. How can they weigh their ideas for originality when they're clueless as to what's gone on before? How can they identify clichés? How can they participate in the ongoing conversation when they aren't privy to it? 

Writers who do read come with embedded knowledge gained from years of reading. They've been engaged with authors who sought to communicate ideas and create worlds built on words, sentences, and paragraphs. They understand the dance of white space. They take in the natural rhythms and inhabit a variety of worlds, hear different voices. They've soaked in craft without realizing it. They have an innate understanding of what a reader wants because they've been one. When they take up their walking stick, they start much further down the writing path toward their goal.

Movies are high value in the culture today. I understand that even though I seldom watch them. If I see any, they're at least 2-3 years old and on cable. It's been eight years since I've gone to see a movie. While I have enjoyed the experience, it's not one I tend to want to repeat. I am a book person. I love being surrounded by books, revel in experiencing them and having my imagination fully engaged in the way only books can do. I willingly return to books to repeat the experience. That said, I spent two years studying screenplays and analyzing films, and I continue to keep up with the form. We are, after all, a visual culture and my readership has been imprinted with those storytelling techniques. So why are writers neglecting the very foundation of their craft?

Most writers are not as skilled in reading as they were when I was young and, unfortunately, either they don't understand the need or don't have the desire to develop their reading skills. They don't know or don't care that their lack of reading has an impact on their development as a writer and on the stories they create. If you fall into one of those categories, perhaps you'd like to give this reading thing a try. There are books that can guide you and offer suggestions on where to start. Why not create a New Year's resolution to take up reading but do it with a defined purpose: Read to learn your craft. 

For writers: Just Do It (remembered)

Marketing gurus such as Seth Godin and Bob Poole spend a lot of time reminding us that there is no rule, no trick, no magic bullet more important than Nike’s famous dictum: Just do it. For writers activities like thinking, analyzing, reading, talking, and stalking make up a large part of their process. The problem is when that part of the pie supersedes the part that is comprised of the actual writing process that involves putting the pencil to paper or fingers to keyboard. It’s important to develop and nourish and keep that tactile connection to the work so that the link to the imagined realm is maintained. If you’ve been lost in thought, captured in someone else’s words, or caught talking your story out, stop. Take some time today to reconnect: Write.  

Links: Bob Poole, Seth Godin

The Writer's Toolbox: Critiques, love 'em or hate 'em, they're valuable

Most critiques are the plague of writers and create a lot of internal and external tension. I don't know that anyone is completely unbiased whether they’re giving or receiving a critique. What you want is for someone to be able to acknowledge their biases and look past them. For most the word “critique” is loaded and channels an immediate negative response. A critique comes with criticism but it doesn’t have to be viewed as negative. A good critique should show you where you’re doing things right and where you need to do more work. A good critiquer has experience delivering the good with the bad and lessens the sting whenever possible.   

Like most, I have my own biases. The trick is to acknowledge them and put them aside so I can focus on the work at hand. If I’m reading, say, a contemporary glitz book I let the writer know those are not my favorite stories to read. That doesn’t mean I can’t examine a work and question story elements that seem improbable, characters whose motivations appear out of sync, and writing that is confused, illogical and clearly needs work. Storytelling is storytelling no matter the genre. Yes, there are peculiarities to each genre but good writing and great storytelling transcend all.   

A good critique or edit requires a lot out of the person on the receiving end but the creative drain that is occurring in the one who is peering under the surface of a work in progress can be time-consuming and difficult, too. Some writers have great sentence skills and craft wonderful pages that can be deceptive to both the reader and the writer. If you can’t get past the shine on the page, you might miss the weak, even decayed structure underneath that barely holds the story together. Often these writers have a hard time taking critiques because they are so gifted or so learned in their craft but their storytelling skills need work. Less experienced critiquers might give them a pass and just respond to the surface. Maybe they have an inkling of something being wrong but they just can’t pin point the problem. An experienced writer will look for those signals and begin the excavation of their work on their own. They will double-check everything to be sure their idea is fully expressed on the page.

Critiques come at a writer from two angles: storytelling and writing. The early stages demand a look at the storytelling. A good line edit isn’t going to hold you long if your story is flabby, weak, ineffective, disorganized, confused, or unbelievable. Line edits are like polishing the apple once it’s been ripened and picked. By then the structure has been built and its strength tested and gone over and over to make sure it will withstand future tests. Both are needed and both have their particular time when they take precedence in the timeline of a work’s creation. Many writers polish a structure that is on the verge of collapse. Then, because of all their effort spiffying up the surface, they become resistant to critiques that imply major structural changes. Who wants to throw out complete chapters or beautifully wrought sentences that have taken up so much of the writer’s precious time and energy? It takes a courageous writer to be willing to thrash a project’s structure and rebuild after they’ve invested so much in achieving perfection.

Most writers eagerly seek out criticism. New writers, in particular, have a tendency to want too much, too fast. And truth tell, what they really want to hear is that their story is stellar, their writing wonderful, and they’re far on the road to perfection; but in fact their work is far from it. Writers form an attachment to their stories early on.  Getting a critique during the first blush of a relationship can be damaging to both the writer and the work. Most new writers, and even some more experienced ones, are too quick to write and polish. In their rush to get everything down they leap to the assumption that they’ve gathered everything there is to find. In fact they’ve usually only excavated the top layer; they have not gone deep.

Learning how to receive critiques is as much a skill as giving them. It takes time and practice for both. It takes listening to a lot of critiques and monitoring your reactions to hear the bell within that tells you the critique has made a hit. You have to be able to ignore the rush of emotions and the sudden urge to defend that rises when a negative is raised. Learn to focus on the principle that is being discussed. The reader doesn’t like your main protagonist: they’re weird, they’re stupid, and they’re not believable. It’s not that your main protagonist isn’t everything you envision, it’s that you have not brought that person living in your head to life on the page. That can result in a line by line look at every sentence tied to your character to see where you have slipped up. You have not provided what is needed in order for that person to capture the true essence of the character.

 Your job is to craft each and every word in a way that makes whatever is in your head bloom in the reader’s mind. That is not easy and it takes more than the rush to capture the story in lines of words. Writers allow themselves—myself included—to become so wedded to their words that the smallest criticism can ignite a passionate defense. The criticism may include a suggestion to fix the problem. Often the writer is really caught up in reacting to the proposed solution and forgets that the identified problem really does exist. Forget the offered solution. Focus on discovering what works to fix the problem. A critique is a response to the words on the page and not to your vision. Problems indicate that you have simply not done your job.

Over the years I’ve learned what works best for me. I don't get input from others until I've completed a first draft. Until then I'm not 100% sure of my vision so it makes it difficult to judge any critiques of my work whether they're positive or negative. I've also learned that when I’m in that sweet state of discovery any kind of input but especially the negative kind can throw me into a tailspin and stall me out. So I wait.

Where do you find good critiquers? If possible, seek out experienced writers or teachers who understand story and know the writing craft. I took a creative writing class at the local college and the teacher offered my first dose of criticism. There are good and bad ways to offer critiques. Story critiques, brainstorming, and line edits are all different. It takes practice to give them and it takes practice to receive them. A lot depends on where you are and what you want. If your structure is weak, a line edit won't give you the most value. You may need to rewrite and even re-vision your story. A content critique is best from people who have a sense of story whether it's been developed through reading or through classes. A line edit requires someone who knows and understands the craft of writing.

What you want is someone with a fresh eye who can read your work and give you their impressions. You want to know where they're engaged, where they're bored, where they're confused. What you do NOT want is your family or friends hopping on the bandwagon and offering you praise, damning or otherwise. It seems to strike more deeply, I think, and most don't know how to offer criticism that really helps. And trust me, they will not be as excited as you about your project.

My first critique group arose out of the second class in creative writing that I attended at the local college. Three of us met weekly for six years and we learned the craft together. Each had different strengths so it worked. Find someone in a class or at a writer’s group who shares your enthusiasm for a particular genre. Ideally if two or more of you are working in the same genre, that can be a great way to have a support group with the same goals and intentions and would be an inexpensive way to start.

If you’re in the first throes of an idea, I wouldn’t get in too much of a hurry to have someone read and line edit your work. Many writers love to brainstorm with others at this stage. That’s different. If, after having completed many, many revisions, you resist the idea of having any input, you might want to revisit that notion. Having fresh eyes earlier in the process saves most writers a lot of time and all writers find time to be a precious commodity. Respect your vision and your process. Be willing to be in for the long haul--and realize that writing is a craft that takes practice and commitment.    

--Many thanks to Amy who inspired today’s post. To see Amy’s question, go to DWP’s Facebook page and check out the Box tab for the discussion thread: What do you want to read, know, or have me share? While you're there, why not become a friend (fan) of the blog....

Even top writers make mistakes

Lee Goldberg continues his excellent commentary on A Writer's Life and tackles all too familiar problems many writers face whether they're at the top of their game or just starting out. Any writer can fall prey to slow beginnings, weak writing, and the conflicting desires of the writer versus the demands of the audience. Apparently Josh Friedman fell into the trap of wanting to explore psychological dimensions of his character Sarah Connor (TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES) too soon. He hadn't done enough work to not only engage the viewers but lock them into the show before guiding them into a slower, deeper vein of character exploration. Today's viewers and readers are increasingly demanding of writers. Their expectations are high and it doesn't matter who you are. If you don't get them hooked, don't expect them to hang around while you indulge yourself. Don't get me wrong. You can write whatever you want. Just be aware of the cost. And if you go forward, know that your writing had better be at the top of its game.

Goldberg's blog posts offer more than tidbits and critiques. You'll find insights into craft and lessons to be learned in his posts and in the discussion threads.

"He wanted to show the aftermath of terrible things happening, and he was in love with the idea of a whole town that's struck by tragedy. Unfortunately, the execution wasn't as great as it could have been.

"Don't feel bad about not liking 'The Desert Cantos,'" Friedman told me.

Friedman said the writers wrote down all 22 of the season's episodes on a white board, and then went through and erased the weakest episode, and then the next weakest, until they were left with the best, by common consent. "The Desert Cantos" was the first episode to get erased, said Friedman."

Even top writers can become enthralled with their writing and their ideas. What I like about the above is the implied exercise for all of us and one that resembles what I've learned from attending workshops given by literary agent Donald Maass. Push past your devotion to the beloved ideas and the darlings you've created and focus on what is best for the story and what is most important for the reader/viewer to experience. Trim the fat. Exercise and build up the muscular parts of the story. Go for the drama and make sure your reader inhabits your story. Be sure you've established that immediate emotional connection that is so important to today's audience.

Reader Guyot offers this in the comment section and I'll end with his advice:

"When I was writing a pilot with our friend Stephen J. Cannell, he said something so simple, yet so profound about how to make a show a success.

As we broke the pilot story, we were discussing how much stuff to put into the pilot, how far to go, and he said you always put everything in - the whole kitchen sink.

I asked, then what do you do with episodes 2 and 3? Cannell said, as only he can, 'You get new kitchen sinks and do it again.' So true."

--Links: Lee Goldberg's A Writer's Life; Paul Guyot

Hurricane Ike: When life and research collide

Write what you know. That's the well-worn dictum writers hear over and over and over. The meaning may vary as you make your way through the craft and business. For many new to writing that results in semi-autobiographical novels and coming of age books. Others take the knowledge they've obtained through work and life experience and bring it to bear upon the novel in ways that impact settings, characters, ideas and themes.

The flip side is when a writer must balance what they know against what they don't know. Then they must heed the call of the writer's mighty cry: Research! For fiction and nonfiction writers research often has a magical connotation. Like Aladdin's famous cry of "Abracadabra," the words "it's for research" opens doors. People you don't even know will open up and spill their lifelong secrets and share their most private and intimate adventures. And the writers, in turn, become sponges. They soak up the life experiences of others; they eavesdrop and crib dialogue shaping it to their own needs. They prowl libraries, newspaper morgues, and city streets in search of that one tidbit that will make their fictional and nonfictional worlds achieve the blessed state of verisimilitude. Creating a world on paper that is real in the reader's mind is their one overarching goal.

What that means for the writer is that everything, and I mean everything, becomes fodder. So it's been for me with Hurricane Ike. As so often happens in a writer's life, synchronicity came into play. For the past several years I've been working on a crime novel. One of the novel's major elements is a hurricane, of course. (I do live in Houston and the city is the setting.) As I watched Ike make his northern tick toward Houston, I had a growing realization that Ike was traveling the path of my fictional hurricane. (It's not the first time real life has mirrored my writing but it always feels a tad bit freaky when it happens.) As the winds whipped outside my home last Friday, I grabbed one of my favorite tools, the Flip Video, and videoed the storm blustering past and the news media's real-time tracking reports. For the next 36 hours I sat in front of the TV and videoed the storm and its impact on the city and surrounding area. When the hurricane had passed and the newspapers landed on driveways again, I gathered all the intel on Ike. (Hey, I love the media doing my research!) It continues today. I've videoed the mayor's news conferences, images of boats thrust through homes, flattened coastal areas, community sharing, individual anecdotes--even the Marines in all their glory landing on Galveston. All fodder for my novel.

My own reactions are captured in emails to friends and forums I frequent. Subject lines are tagged for easy search. Will all this appear in my novel as it really happened? No. What I'm looking for is the sense of it all, the timelines, the emotions, and those incremental sensory items so necessary to recreating reality in fiction. For writers, real-time research becomes second nature. It's definitely that way for me. Am I glad the storm came through? No. It's a devastation no community should have to endure. But it happened. And I guess after having been a writer for so many years, I automatically heed the call of research the minute its siren voice is heard. How about you? Have you reached that point where daily life assumes the mantle of research and you find yourself chronicling events, dialogue, and emotions as they occur all in the name of research?

Internet Tools for Writers: Brainstorm a new word

Next time you want to challenge a writer friend, see if they can spell and define the word "susurrus." That's today's offering in the Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day. I signed up for Thinkmap's daily offering not only for the definitions, spelling, and word fun, but also because this tool offers a mindmapping representation of the day's word. But don't stop there. Make use of the "Look up a Word" feature. I'm a big fan and heavy user of mindmapping. Have been ever since Tony Buzan's book came out in the late 70s. I find mindmapping helpful in every aspect of writing and have been known to mindmap an entire novel's structure or a full day's workshop on writing. For example, when I'm working on some aspect of a character I'll look up the word description and see how other things relate. This simple process stimulates further creative thinking and often reveals hidden and wonderfully layered aspects to the work you're doing. Stop all that cyber susurrus and give it a try.

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More info: USING FURL; USING OUTLOOK, USING GOOGLE ALERTS, USING GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH,USING THE BLOG READING LEVEL TOOL

Internet Tools for Writers: What's your blog's reading level?

Ever wonder what the reading level is for your blog? Sooner or later someone out in cyberspace comes up with a way to answer all your questions. I ran this Down the Writer's Path's URL through The Blog Readability Test. Not only did I get an answer, I received the code for a rating badge. -- UPDATE 04.09.08: This post made MySpaceNEWS. Please vote. -- -- More info: USING FURL; USING OUTLOOK, USING GOOGLE ALERTS, USING GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH

Writing Tools & Strategies: Five minutes to story

Start off the week with a quick batch of 5-minute timed writings. To make it easy, I've found a handy tool called TimeLeft. In minutes I had the program downloaded and installed. Ten minutes later I had a clock, a stopwatch, a 5-minute timer, a countdown clock, and a sign on my screen. There are any number of uses for the program but for writers the timers, countdowns, and stop watches can actually become part of a strategy to make sure time is spent writing. So what is TimeLeft?

TimeLeft is a versatile desktop utility, which may be used as a countdown clock, reminder, clock, alarm clock, tray clock, stopwatch, timer, sticker, auction watch and time synchronization utility.

Since I'm such a fan of timed writing exercises, I created the 5-minute timer first. I suffer from major muscle spasms and often need a timer or stopwatch. I have to make myself get up from the computer every hour to give my neck, upper back, and shoulder a break, so I write for 45 minutes and then walk away for 15. So a 45 minute tool is on my to-do list.

When it comes to writing, I pretty much have two words that make up my discipline: "breathe" and "write." Using the signage utility I created a stamp that displays those words so they constantly inform my subconscious during my time at the computer. All these items that TimeLeft creates stay on the computer screen and are visible no matter what program you are using. I have mine in the lower righthand corner. Finally I have a countdown clock that lets me know how many months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until the new year. With NaNoWriMo around the bend, I'm sure I'll set one up for the month of November. The countdown can be used for writing or contract deadlines, contest deadline reminders, and those personal phantom deadlines. Because I'll be going back to the Donald Maass Intensive workshop in Portland in March of 2008 and want to have a completed first draft of my novel, I will also need a countdown clock for that, too.

Over the last 20+ years I've discovered many different strategies that have enabled me to stay engaged with my work, actively creating stories, and remaining full of energy and the desire to write. If one doesn't work, I go quickly to another. All have been tested by me and by my fellow writers and artists; they work. But when it comes down to it, the best way to remain productive is to breathe deeply, relax, and write.

To download TimeLeft, go here.
More information:
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to create 55-word stories.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises and a computer-generated story starter to create stories.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to write a novel.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to write a memoir.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to overcome writer's block.
Use 5-minute timed writing exercises to free yourself from the dreaded internal editor.

In search of a fictional world and those who live in it-Part 1

What makes a fictional character alive? How is it that a string of words read by someone other than the writer recreates that author's experience of a character? How does a writer use words to till the reader's imagination to the point where characters sprout and spring to life? Is there one way? One secret? One sacred process that only a few divinely-touched authors possess? For the last twenty years I've been in search of that alchemical process that allows a character in my mind become words on a page and then morph itself again and be recreated in the mind of another, all through the simple process of reading. Truth tell, I've really been trying to figure out how the creation of a fictional world, complete with charcters and settings, is seeded into the imagination of another and encouraged to bloom. How do you ensure that the reader experiences the full impact of the world and its characters? That has been the subject of a lot of my reading, even more pondering, and eventually became the subject of my thesis.

What set me off on this quest? Early on I learned that it wasn't enough to have an idea or a sense of a person in mind and hope for the best. I learned it the hard way. When I first began writing, I took several creative writing college classes and three of us formed a critique group. My efforts had been focused on writing short stories, developing stories and writing proposals. My critique members challenged me to finish a novel from beginning to end. So I set up a process to write a first draft, one of those white-heat drafts where you go from the first sentence to the last and never look back, and I wrote my first complete novel. That's "complete" in the sense that it had a beginning, a middle, and an end--not that it was finished. I also did it in 21 days.

Twenty-one days, you say? Yep. This was back in my early bowling days. The local bowling alley had a nice cafe and a couple of my non-writer friends worked behind the counter. Every night I showed up and claimed the same bar stool. I pulled out my cheap, school-type notebook and pen. Ordered the non-stop coffee. Bent my head and wrote for the next four hours. From six in the evening until ten I wrote page after page. My main goal was to create a chapter an evening. My friends poured the coffee and left me alone. I did this every night. (It's a great way to increase your powers of concentration.) Three weeks later I had finished.

If you haven't finished the first draft of a novel, it's true. There is a rush that accompanies the final sentence. But how, you ask, does this have anything to do with developing characters?

I promptly took my handwritten notes and transferred them to the computer, a process I have long since abandoned. It felt too much like repetitive work, so I taught myself to compose on the keyboard. I then handed the novel off to my critique members. Who, naturally, were appropriately impressed. We met a couple of weeks later, and after they had read all 60,000 words, and discussed the book. Apparently they loved the concept, enjoyed the story, appreciated the dialogue, but there was one teensy tiny problem. They didn't have any visual construct of a main character. All they knew was that he smoked and had green eyes. That's it.

It didn't take long for me to realize that, although 80-85% of writers claim vision to be their primary sense, I am among those who hear and feel before I see. Actually, vision is one of the last senses that kicks in. That discovery had a major impact on how I approached learning the craft of writing.

(stay tuned....)

DWP Weekend Question on developing characters

Woke up this morning already steeped in my novel and in the characters. I immediately began working in my project diary. This led to more work on one of my main characters which then led me, somehow, to thinking about how my character developent process has evolved. Which then led to my idea for a blog post and an idea for a continuing Friday feature: The DWP Weekend Question. I'll pose a question about writing and ask for your input. The question will then be the basis for some of next week's posts.

Since I'm immersed in character development here's my first question:

How do you develop your fictional characters?

Tell me about your process. Mull over the question this weekend and return next week. We’ll discuss character building and character discovery.