I’m a member of several online writing communities and just volunteered to help set up an “east side” subgroup of one organization. The main group likes a synopsis posted for each meeting. Too bad my sense of humor was acting up that night. Here is the synopsis I posted.
The St. Paul TC SF Writer Network meeting got off to a great start right after the fist fight between Janice and Jess ended. It turns out it was a good thing one of the restaurant patrons called 911. The EMT people answered some of our questions about medical procedures. Douglas and Ferone missed some of it, but Doug demonstrated the Heimlich maneuver, much to Ferone’s relief.Leanne came late so she didn’t need to have her stomach pumped like most of us. Matthew didn’t either because he had only swallowed one bite of the stuff. Mike stuck his fingers down Matt’s throat to take care of that. We thought Mike S. was being a bit of a drama king. His five stitches were nothing compared to what Zach had to endure.
Things had just about settled down and Amy give a vampire demonstration using her hubby for a “visual.” I don’t know what the restaurant staff was so worried about. It wasn’t anything a little soap and water couldn’t clean up. Besides, when the sprinkler system went off, it washed any of the splatter we had missed.
We did get some reviews in and decided to hold the next meeting at the same place, but maybe in a different room. Janice volunteered to bring her first aid kit. I promised that as soon as I got to the emergency room to have my ribs checked, I’d ask all the doctors if any of them were writers and invite them to the next meeting just in case.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Dreaming a Story
I have heard other writers say that it’s as if they are just writing down something dictated to them. I never could fathom the idea until it began happening to me. I don’t know that I can still fathom it.
There is an interesting discussion taking place at a web writing group I belong to. It’s about getting ideas and working out the next scene of a story. The group seems split into two extremes. One group outlines the major plot elements, designs characters and works out much of their story in advance of writing. The other group creates as they go.
There have been interesting comments from both groups. I find it fascinating that many of the “work it out first” group writers use Tarot cards or something similar to work out the characters, how they will relate to other characters, if they are good or evil, etc. That’s something for another day.
The “as you go” group had a surprising number of writers who dream their way to the next scene which is what I do. I never know what is going to happen next. I do have a vague idea of the direction of the story, but it can be very fluid, changing as new events come to me or as other events change in unexpected ways.
Nearly all the “dreamers” work out a scene in that hazy time of falling asleep. I wonder if they are visual thinkers like I am. My experiences go a bit farther and I will actually have deeper sleep dreams about my works in progress. For many years I’ve been able to remember dreams. I can come close to having a lucid dream, which is one where you can control the dream to some extent.
When I begin to dream the next scene, the process or “event” usually follows a familiar pattern. I go to bed and think about where the story was on pause. I visualize the scene and situations an, as if I released the “pause” button on a movie player, things start happening. I can’t really say that I control or have thoughts about what should happen next. I can’t really say that I’m not having some influence. I can say that I am almost always amazed and pleased with what the characters start doing.
The scene keeps repeating as I fall deeper asleep. Each time it repeats, more details fill in. Dialogues take place with me just listening. Eventually I fall asleep. The next evening, the scene repeats itself. Sometimes more details fill in. Other times the scene repeats like an endless loop, not really changing much. It will haunt me each night until I finally write it down. If I don’t write it down, I can’t go on to what might happen next. So far I’ve written all my books this way.
I think it’s also interesting that this is how my very first book began. I didn’t sit down one day and decide to be a writer. I started having a recurring dream that nearly drove me crazy until I wrote it down. It’s more like some spirit world story teller picked me. She or he filled my dream with a chapter and kept pushing it at me until I finally wrote it down.
There is an interesting discussion taking place at a web writing group I belong to. It’s about getting ideas and working out the next scene of a story. The group seems split into two extremes. One group outlines the major plot elements, designs characters and works out much of their story in advance of writing. The other group creates as they go.
There have been interesting comments from both groups. I find it fascinating that many of the “work it out first” group writers use Tarot cards or something similar to work out the characters, how they will relate to other characters, if they are good or evil, etc. That’s something for another day.
The “as you go” group had a surprising number of writers who dream their way to the next scene which is what I do. I never know what is going to happen next. I do have a vague idea of the direction of the story, but it can be very fluid, changing as new events come to me or as other events change in unexpected ways.
Nearly all the “dreamers” work out a scene in that hazy time of falling asleep. I wonder if they are visual thinkers like I am. My experiences go a bit farther and I will actually have deeper sleep dreams about my works in progress. For many years I’ve been able to remember dreams. I can come close to having a lucid dream, which is one where you can control the dream to some extent.
When I begin to dream the next scene, the process or “event” usually follows a familiar pattern. I go to bed and think about where the story was on pause. I visualize the scene and situations an, as if I released the “pause” button on a movie player, things start happening. I can’t really say that I control or have thoughts about what should happen next. I can’t really say that I’m not having some influence. I can say that I am almost always amazed and pleased with what the characters start doing.
The scene keeps repeating as I fall deeper asleep. Each time it repeats, more details fill in. Dialogues take place with me just listening. Eventually I fall asleep. The next evening, the scene repeats itself. Sometimes more details fill in. Other times the scene repeats like an endless loop, not really changing much. It will haunt me each night until I finally write it down. If I don’t write it down, I can’t go on to what might happen next. So far I’ve written all my books this way.
I think it’s also interesting that this is how my very first book began. I didn’t sit down one day and decide to be a writer. I started having a recurring dream that nearly drove me crazy until I wrote it down. It’s more like some spirit world story teller picked me. She or he filled my dream with a chapter and kept pushing it at me until I finally wrote it down.
When things are Right in the World
I had an amazing and very gratifying experience the other day. I was honored to speak before over 900 middle school students.
It began as an opportunity to talk with a couple classes about writing, being an author and my book. It quickly grew into a five session talk with a total of 32 classrooms signing up.
After each session, these young students came up to me holding two inch bits of paper torn from larger pages. They held them out with a pen and asked for my autograph. My heart was touched. When I could, I grabbed something larger and more lasting to sign for them. They asked fantastic questions and were truly interested about writing.
When I was young, no one encouraged me to write. No one told me that there were carriers in writing. Everyone lumped writers with philosophers and others who were interested in things that would not lead to a job to support a family on. I wish someone had given me encouragement.
Because of that and many other things in my life, I want to reach out to anyone, young or old that has a dream to do something. I want to provide whatever encouragement and assistance I can. At times, though, I don’t feel like I have much to offer.
At the end of the day I received my Christmas gift for the year. A young girl sought me out after the presentations were done. She asked for my help. She wanted to be a writer. Bless her heart. I hope that the little I can offer will someday play at least a small part in her dream coming true. For me, that’s what it is all about.
It began as an opportunity to talk with a couple classes about writing, being an author and my book. It quickly grew into a five session talk with a total of 32 classrooms signing up.
After each session, these young students came up to me holding two inch bits of paper torn from larger pages. They held them out with a pen and asked for my autograph. My heart was touched. When I could, I grabbed something larger and more lasting to sign for them. They asked fantastic questions and were truly interested about writing.
When I was young, no one encouraged me to write. No one told me that there were carriers in writing. Everyone lumped writers with philosophers and others who were interested in things that would not lead to a job to support a family on. I wish someone had given me encouragement.
Because of that and many other things in my life, I want to reach out to anyone, young or old that has a dream to do something. I want to provide whatever encouragement and assistance I can. At times, though, I don’t feel like I have much to offer.
At the end of the day I received my Christmas gift for the year. A young girl sought me out after the presentations were done. She asked for my help. She wanted to be a writer. Bless her heart. I hope that the little I can offer will someday play at least a small part in her dream coming true. For me, that’s what it is all about.
More on The Craft of Writing
I’m doing some thinking about the second part of my two part workshop, and being a writer, decided I may as well think and type at the same time. Now that I consider it, I do some of my best detailed thinking about a story as I type it.
Back to class. The second part deals with making a story interesting. That’s a tough one. Actually making it interesting is more than just plot or story line. Consider an oral story teller or an instructor. A great oral story teller can take a mundane story and tell it with such style and skill that it becomes interesting. A good instructor can take mediocre class content and present it in a way that makes it interesting. I think the point is that writing in an interesting way is more than having a good or average story. Much is in the presentation. I don’t think you can have one without the other. You must have a story that has something to it, but you must do your best in the presentation or writing.
Doing that maybe isn’t a simple thing. It’s a combination of characters, setting, active and passive writing, and managing mood and drama, among many other things. It’s how well we do with these and presenting them with narrative and dialogue as a team that makes a story interesting.
Let’s take a look at characters or characterization. It’s easy to make them flat, and hard to bring them to life. For me, the key is making them alive and real in my head. If I can do that, then it’s not so bad a job to put them on paper. I’m not one who uses character sheets or profiles. I discover and learn about my characters as they grow, develop and reveal themselves to me in my writing. They naturally have a physical look to them. I sometimes forget they could have good days and bad days, be surly or phony or tired or fed up or depressed. They might tend to follow my moods, but I don’t think so. Sometimes I must stop and think how one of my characters might feel or react in a given situations. I’m at that point right now with Windslow, Hillary and Trish in book three, The Book of Twisted Truths. I stopped writing a scene I was in the middle of because I wasn’t sure how they each would react. Being a visual thinker, they have played out the scene in my head. I learned that Windslow was hurt and stuck out with some anger. Hillary was embarrassed and felt some self worth slipping. She covered up with lies that are pushing her into depression. Trish was the hardest of the three. She is becoming protective and a bit pushy. Now I can get back to the scene.
Back to class, again, I can’t just use what I wrote above. I have to finish the scene and give thought to whose point of view would work the best. I began the scene with Windslow. Intuitively, Hillary’s situation is a bit more intriguing and Trish is just playing “mom.” I began the scene from Windslow’s point of view and now will stick in a scene break and finish out the episode from Hillary’s view.
Now a bit about passive and active writing. At first, what I read about passive writing and passive sentences confused me. Actually, I started this sentence like this: “At first I was confused…” Right away the word “was” grabbed me. I have learned to watch for it. It’s usually a sign of passive writing and can also be passive sentence structure. To sort them out, I learned that, “The medal was given to the winner,” Is a passive sentence. We don’t know who did the giving. Who gave the medal to the winner? We don’t know. By changing it to, “The judge gave the medal to the winner,” the sentence is no longer passive in structure. The other form of passive writing is just that—passive writing. Think of it as presenting something after the fact rather than happening in the here and now.
My wife, a second grade teacher, gave me some interesting insight. Second grade students rarely use passive writing. To them, everything is unfolding before them. Hmm… For passive or in the past writing, the word “was” is usually a flag again. “There was a table in the middle of the room.” You could ask, “The table was in the middle of the room. Is it still there now?” It puts the story as something that happened in the past and you are recounting what took place. Making your writing active puts it in a mode of happening right now. It helps draw the reader in. Edit out the “was.” A large table dominated the room.” That keeps it from being passive, puts some attention on the table (which should be important to the story) and makes the writing active.
A quick bit about mood and drama. Mood is something an oral story teller can insert with inflection, speed of talking and more. Think about a movie or play for a moment. In a movie, the background music can help with the mood. You don’t have music in a novel, but don’t forget simple things like a storm brewing or dark clouds, candles flickering out or flames sputtering. Many things can work to covey a mood in lieu of background music.
I would have liked to spend more time on mood and drama, but my fingers are getting tired, and I’ve used about as much time at work as I dare in typing this. Back to work for me. Back to writing for you.
Back to class. The second part deals with making a story interesting. That’s a tough one. Actually making it interesting is more than just plot or story line. Consider an oral story teller or an instructor. A great oral story teller can take a mundane story and tell it with such style and skill that it becomes interesting. A good instructor can take mediocre class content and present it in a way that makes it interesting. I think the point is that writing in an interesting way is more than having a good or average story. Much is in the presentation. I don’t think you can have one without the other. You must have a story that has something to it, but you must do your best in the presentation or writing.
Doing that maybe isn’t a simple thing. It’s a combination of characters, setting, active and passive writing, and managing mood and drama, among many other things. It’s how well we do with these and presenting them with narrative and dialogue as a team that makes a story interesting.
Let’s take a look at characters or characterization. It’s easy to make them flat, and hard to bring them to life. For me, the key is making them alive and real in my head. If I can do that, then it’s not so bad a job to put them on paper. I’m not one who uses character sheets or profiles. I discover and learn about my characters as they grow, develop and reveal themselves to me in my writing. They naturally have a physical look to them. I sometimes forget they could have good days and bad days, be surly or phony or tired or fed up or depressed. They might tend to follow my moods, but I don’t think so. Sometimes I must stop and think how one of my characters might feel or react in a given situations. I’m at that point right now with Windslow, Hillary and Trish in book three, The Book of Twisted Truths. I stopped writing a scene I was in the middle of because I wasn’t sure how they each would react. Being a visual thinker, they have played out the scene in my head. I learned that Windslow was hurt and stuck out with some anger. Hillary was embarrassed and felt some self worth slipping. She covered up with lies that are pushing her into depression. Trish was the hardest of the three. She is becoming protective and a bit pushy. Now I can get back to the scene.
Back to class, again, I can’t just use what I wrote above. I have to finish the scene and give thought to whose point of view would work the best. I began the scene with Windslow. Intuitively, Hillary’s situation is a bit more intriguing and Trish is just playing “mom.” I began the scene from Windslow’s point of view and now will stick in a scene break and finish out the episode from Hillary’s view.
Now a bit about passive and active writing. At first, what I read about passive writing and passive sentences confused me. Actually, I started this sentence like this: “At first I was confused…” Right away the word “was” grabbed me. I have learned to watch for it. It’s usually a sign of passive writing and can also be passive sentence structure. To sort them out, I learned that, “The medal was given to the winner,” Is a passive sentence. We don’t know who did the giving. Who gave the medal to the winner? We don’t know. By changing it to, “The judge gave the medal to the winner,” the sentence is no longer passive in structure. The other form of passive writing is just that—passive writing. Think of it as presenting something after the fact rather than happening in the here and now.
My wife, a second grade teacher, gave me some interesting insight. Second grade students rarely use passive writing. To them, everything is unfolding before them. Hmm… For passive or in the past writing, the word “was” is usually a flag again. “There was a table in the middle of the room.” You could ask, “The table was in the middle of the room. Is it still there now?” It puts the story as something that happened in the past and you are recounting what took place. Making your writing active puts it in a mode of happening right now. It helps draw the reader in. Edit out the “was.” A large table dominated the room.” That keeps it from being passive, puts some attention on the table (which should be important to the story) and makes the writing active.
A quick bit about mood and drama. Mood is something an oral story teller can insert with inflection, speed of talking and more. Think about a movie or play for a moment. In a movie, the background music can help with the mood. You don’t have music in a novel, but don’t forget simple things like a storm brewing or dark clouds, candles flickering out or flames sputtering. Many things can work to covey a mood in lieu of background music.
I would have liked to spend more time on mood and drama, but my fingers are getting tired, and I’ve used about as much time at work as I dare in typing this. Back to work for me. Back to writing for you.
Expectations
Expectations are interesting. Although I am a published writer, most people have their first encounter with me as a car salesperson. Yes, I’m a starving writer and have a day job. I have a list of honesty and ethical ratings pinned up on the bulletin board in my car selling office. It ranks professions from perceived honesty and ethics from top to bottom. At the top are nurses. At the bottom are car salespeople.
During the process of helping customers with a vehicle purchase, I try to slip in that I’m an author. When I do, the reaction from the customers radically changes. I move from the bottom to the top of the list in an eye blink. Although writers aren’t on the list, I’ve had customers who wouldn’t even give me their last name, pull out a business card and hand it to me when they discovered I was a writer.
It amazes me how quickly and radically their opinion, attitude, willingness to provide personal information, and much more changes. They ask about my writing. They ask about the process of becoming published. They tell me about that book they always thought of writing.
When we move the conversation back to vehicles, they trust what I say, drop any defensiveness and remove that wall they held between us until then. It truly amazes me.
Do I take advantage of the change? No, for many reasons. I didn’t change. I began the interaction trying my best to provide information in a factual, cordial, honest and helpful way. That would never change.
During the process of helping customers with a vehicle purchase, I try to slip in that I’m an author. When I do, the reaction from the customers radically changes. I move from the bottom to the top of the list in an eye blink. Although writers aren’t on the list, I’ve had customers who wouldn’t even give me their last name, pull out a business card and hand it to me when they discovered I was a writer.
It amazes me how quickly and radically their opinion, attitude, willingness to provide personal information, and much more changes. They ask about my writing. They ask about the process of becoming published. They tell me about that book they always thought of writing.
When we move the conversation back to vehicles, they trust what I say, drop any defensiveness and remove that wall they held between us until then. It truly amazes me.
Do I take advantage of the change? No, for many reasons. I didn’t change. I began the interaction trying my best to provide information in a factual, cordial, honest and helpful way. That would never change.
Keeping the Fun in Writing
My approach to writing comes from looking back when writing wasn’t something I thought about. It was something I did. It was fun and satisfying. Many years later (about 6 years ago) I decided to write again and started on that first novel. At first the writing was fun, like it had been when I was a kid. Then I started to learn about setting and hooks and voice and all the fun went out. I was too focused on writing well.
The self help books got me even more confused. Not really confused, but overwhelmed. I went back to just sitting down and cranking out story, that’s were the fun was. Too many times I had sat trying to get that first paragraph out with a killer hook. I found that when I put the fun back in, the hook came naturally, just not in the first paragraph. It became fairly easy to find that hook, start the story there and either discard or weave back in everything in front of it.
That’s when I decided that for me, it worked to follow a routine of write, learn, review, edit and write. Eventually the practice of reviewing and editing made the things I learned sink in. New skills became second nature after practice and new skills were always on the horizon.
Finally I got to the point where I stopped reading how-to books. The hook doesn’t hold off until page 12, but still hides until the middle of page one. Setting, dialogue, all the parts come out reasonably well the first time. Editing doesn’t make me laugh as much because most of the really stupid mistakes are long gone. I still write about three chapters before I go back and edit. The fist edit now catches almost everything but the typos.
The self help books got me even more confused. Not really confused, but overwhelmed. I went back to just sitting down and cranking out story, that’s were the fun was. Too many times I had sat trying to get that first paragraph out with a killer hook. I found that when I put the fun back in, the hook came naturally, just not in the first paragraph. It became fairly easy to find that hook, start the story there and either discard or weave back in everything in front of it.
That’s when I decided that for me, it worked to follow a routine of write, learn, review, edit and write. Eventually the practice of reviewing and editing made the things I learned sink in. New skills became second nature after practice and new skills were always on the horizon.
Finally I got to the point where I stopped reading how-to books. The hook doesn’t hold off until page 12, but still hides until the middle of page one. Setting, dialogue, all the parts come out reasonably well the first time. Editing doesn’t make me laugh as much because most of the really stupid mistakes are long gone. I still write about three chapters before I go back and edit. The fist edit now catches almost everything but the typos.
Author Visits Kindergarten
Some comments I made on a writing forum that I thought were worth saving. The topic was about authors making presentations at schools. For the kindergarten kids, I turned my presentation into a game. I would ask for a volunteer. The kids already knew they got a trading card if they participated so lots of hands went up. I’d ask their name and then make up a “silly” story using them as a character and something the kids would pick out of the room as a challenge. Example: Sue & Pencil sharpener. “Sue walked to the pencil sharpener. She could hear it calling to her. She put her ear close to the …..” Improvising as I went. Something unexpected would happen, then I’d stop and ask for another volunteer and have the class pick another item.
After enough of that, we talked “briefly” about beginnings middles and ends. We talked about how exciting writing could be. The idea- You can make up fantastic adventures in your imagination and tell them to a couple friends. When you can write them down, you can share with thousands of people. We’d talk about the same concept with reading –being able to share stories.
Each small piece was short, interactive and we used silly hats, as props. I did talk about my book, but focused on a creature I have in the story, a hippograff (not a hippogriff.) A hippograff is a pigmy hippo with dragonfly wings. They have seven stomachs and eat broccoli. The broccoli ferments in their stomach and makes gas to give them lift so you can fly on them. Landings are stinky because they need to get rid of the gas. The kids love that. Sometimes we make up some creatures of our own, again a way to get them involved.
From a marketing perspective, the talks can be fun and entertaining. They can fit wit some of what the teachers are teaching, but the kindergarten kids are a little young for my book. It is a good story for parents who read to their kids, but better for a first or second grade listener.
A final thought for you teachers out there. I always visit with the teachers to learn what they are teaching about reading and writing and what they would like me to try to reinforce in my presentation. My first standing ovation was from the middle school grammar teachers. [grin].
After enough of that, we talked “briefly” about beginnings middles and ends. We talked about how exciting writing could be. The idea- You can make up fantastic adventures in your imagination and tell them to a couple friends. When you can write them down, you can share with thousands of people. We’d talk about the same concept with reading –being able to share stories.
Each small piece was short, interactive and we used silly hats, as props. I did talk about my book, but focused on a creature I have in the story, a hippograff (not a hippogriff.) A hippograff is a pigmy hippo with dragonfly wings. They have seven stomachs and eat broccoli. The broccoli ferments in their stomach and makes gas to give them lift so you can fly on them. Landings are stinky because they need to get rid of the gas. The kids love that. Sometimes we make up some creatures of our own, again a way to get them involved.
From a marketing perspective, the talks can be fun and entertaining. They can fit wit some of what the teachers are teaching, but the kindergarten kids are a little young for my book. It is a good story for parents who read to their kids, but better for a first or second grade listener.
A final thought for you teachers out there. I always visit with the teachers to learn what they are teaching about reading and writing and what they would like me to try to reinforce in my presentation. My first standing ovation was from the middle school grammar teachers. [grin].
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