Writer’s Ramble: Finding Your Muse

I’m stuck.  I’m re-doing the ending for my novel, and it’s been slow going for the last two months.  This is my third major draft.  There have been a lot of changes, and now the ending is completely different.  I have no idea how to finish it.

I’m sure I’ll figure something out, but getting there is like pulling teeth.

So I figure it’s a good time to blog about overcoming writer’s block, and finding your muse.

There is no single magic trick to filling up the blank page, but I have a handful of tools in my bag that get me past my rough patches:

1. Apply butt to chair, and write.
2. Work in 5 to 10 minute bursts.
3. Brainstorm.
4. Seek inspiration from others.

Apply Butt to Chair
So I think the first one is rather obvious, but I’m surprised at how many times I find myself doing something else and avoiding the blank page.  I want to watch a movie, I want to play video games, I want to browse Facebook, I want to go read something.  It’s especially hard for me because I have Attention Deficit Hey Look a Squirrel.  Writing is work, so the first thing my AD-HLAS brain wants to do is PLAY!

It takes discipline.  It takes ironclad determination.  I ran across a song a while back by AC/DC called, It’s a Long Way to the Top.  You can watch it here:


I especially like the part with bagpipes.  How many heavy metal bands have a friggin’ bagpipe solo? Awesome!

There's a lot of truth in this song.  Writing is a lot of work.  I love watching artists who are passionate about their work, and look like they’re having fun while they're at it.  They always inspire me, and get me going again.

Work in 5 to 10 minute bursts

I’ve learned to pace myself.  When I was working my way through college, my parents got me a bunch of motivational tapes called, Where There’s a Will There’s an A.  It had a bunch of study habits that would help you study smarter.  One of the best pieces of advice that I got was to study in five or ten minute bursts.

It works really well when I’m writing, too.  If I’m at a really tough spot, I’ll sit there and focus for five to ten minutes on a problem.  At the end of the time period, then I’ll play a game of cards (I like Spades, Hearts, or plain old Solitaire).  I’ll play a few hands to give my brain a rest, then I’ll come back to it again.

Every now and then I get a spurt of inspiration, and I can go for 40 minutes or longer.  But then when I get stuck again, it’s back to a simple game so I can let my brain cool off.  If you want to try this, you might want to get one of those cheap wind-up timers, to help force yourself to shift back and forth.

Time-boxing things is really helpful.  I do this at my job, too.  Work for a short stretch, then read email, then go back to work for another short stretch.

It’s important to keep in mind consistency, and pacing.  Think tortoise and the hair.  Slow and steady wins the race.

Brainstorm
I work best with numbered, indented lists.  I keep a rough outline of my thoughts.  Whenever I get to a point where I’m stuck, I’ll make a new bullet-point and ask a question.  Then I indent a level and start brainstorming ideas.  Here’s an example:

1. Hero is walking along
2. Question: What is he going to do next?
1. Go see the witch and ask for advice
2. Round up his friends and go bash the antagonist!
1. This never works.  Taking the bad guy head-on is too easy.
3. He still hasn’t tried to find out about X.  Have him focus on that.
3. Later on that night
1. Arrives at the castle gate.

This is sort of a contrived example, but you can kind of see how it’s just a bunch of ideas thrown into a numbered list.  When I want to flesh out an idea I indent a level and start typing some more.

I have a friend that uses mind-mapping software.  He swears by it.  It’s pretty much the same thing as making a bulleted list.  You have your core ideas at the center, then you flesh out the ideas by making deeper and deeper branches.  I don’t like it because I prefer the linear feel of indented lists.

Whatever you do, the trick is to ask yourself a question, then start writing down answers.  There really isn’t much more to it than that.  In fact, when it comes right down to it, there really is no other way to get around writer’s block besides brainstorming.

Never pick your first idea.  That one always sucks, and I guarantee you that no one will ever find it original.  I feel good once I’ve come up with about 8 to 10 good ideas.  In fact, once I’m ready to move on I’ll end up taking about half of the good ideas and throwing them all together.

Brainstorming.

Seek inspiration from other works
Sometimes, my tank is on empty, and I need to find something that is completely fresh and original.  When I’m not writing, I spend a lot of time watching movies or reading.  I’m always looking for a new idea to try.

If I run across something that’s a real zinger, my next step is to ask myself, if you were to adapt this idea to your story, what elements would you need to have in place in order for it to work?

Try this sometime.  Take an idea or a plot element from your favorite book or movie, and try and adapt it for the setting in your novel.  Sometimes you’ll find that you have to change things around quite a bit.  Sometimes you’ll find that the ideas morph into something a lot more original than you’d have thought.

Writer’s Ramble: Using Voice to Enhance Point of View

You can find a lot of blog entries about point of view (POV), so I’m not going to spend time going through all that.  What I’m going to talk about here is how to use narrative voice to enhance the POV of your story.

Voice in First Person

Voice is easiest to see in first person stories.  Most good first person stories will capture a little bit of the POV character’s attitude, and convey it to the reader as they tell the story.  You get all kinds of things, like their philosophy on life, their opinions of people, what they think of politics, God—you name it.  That’s the whole point.  You want to make your character feel alive, and authentic.  Bring it down to the reader’s level, and make them feel like the point of view character is their best friend.

My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. I'm a wizard. I work out of an office in midtown Chicago. As far as I know, I'm the only openly practicing professional wizard in the country. You can find me in the yellow pages, under 'Wizards'. Believe it or not, I'm the only one there…

You'd be surprised how many people call just to ask me if I'm serious. But then, if you'd seen the things I'd seen, if you knew half of what I knew, you'd wonder how anyone could not think I was serious.

Storm Front

Jim Butcher

The first-person stories that really stand out for me are the ones where I can hear the main character tell the story inside my head.  When I’m done, I feel like I’ve sat and listened to him tell me the story.

So, here’s a short exercise for you.  Pick a paragraph or a page from the novel you’re working on.  Re-write the section in first person, then spice it up with what the POV character is thinking.  Make sure you capture the emotional reactions that they feel, bring out their inner dialogue so the reader knows what their thought processes are, then punctuate the character’s responses with attitude and a bit of emotion.

Voice in Third Person

There are two ways you can treat voice when writing third person.  The first way is do exactly what I described above in first person, but shift every instance of I, me, or we to he, she, or they.  And there you have it.  Here is a really good example from a book I thoroughly enjoyed:

“Okies.” The Portuguese farmer spat on the ground, giving the evil eye to the passing automobiles weighed down with baskets, bushels, and crates.  The cars just kept coming up the dusty San Joaquin Valley road like some kind of Okie wagon train.  He left to make sure all  his valuables were locked up and his Sears & Roebuck single-shot 12 gauge was loaded.

The tool shed was locked and the shotgun was in his hands when the short little farmer returned to watch.

One of the Fort Model Ts rattled to a stop in front of the farmer’s fence.  The old farmer leaned on his shotgun and waited.  His son would talk to the visitors.  The boy spoke English.  So did he, but not as well, just good enough to take the Dodge truck into Merced to buy supplies, and it wasn’t like the mangled inbred garbage dialect the Okies spoke was English anyway.

Hard Magic

Larry Correia

Spunky little Portuguese farmer living in California during the dust bowl.  He’s got a 12 gauge shotgun and a 12-gaugage attitude.  He doesn’t like Oakies.

See how all that just kind of brings out the story more?  The author didn’t waste time telling how dry it was, or painting a picture of the San Joaquin Valley, or any of that.  The focus stayed on the short farmer with the shotgun, who was making sure the drifters moved on and didn’t trespass on his land.

Lots of attitude.  I may like the little guy or I may end up hating him.  One way or another, I feel like I am really getting to know him.

Narrator Voice

Now let’s talk about the other way to put Voice into third person.  Pretend that you’re sitting and listening a storyteller, who is not one of the characters in the story, but is perhaps someone who was a first-hand witness to everything that you’re about to hear.  In this technique, the narrator becomes another character within the story.  The emphasis is not so much character attitudes and inner dialogue (though you can definitely put that in there), but to give the reader a stronger feeling of time and place:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

The Fellowship of the Ring

J. R. R. Tolkien

Rowling is really good at this.  You feel comfortable right away, and slip easily into the story.

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard.

Harry Potter, and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. K. Rowling

The narrator can be omniscient and know everything that all the characters are thinking, or he can have no insight whatsoever and just comment on what the camera sees.  However, you have to be careful that the narrator doesn’t call too much attention to himself, or the reader will get pulled out of the story.

Summary

So essentially you have two techniques.  In the first technique, you focus on attitudes, personality, and inner thought processes. Your focus is to give your readers a strong overall impression of what your characters are like, with the ultimate goal of giving your reader a feeling that they know your characters.

The second technique emphasizes the narrator as an additional character.  The goal is to evoke the mood and the setting within your story, while your reader sits and watches the action.

Let me know what you think.  I’d love to examples from stories that you’ve run across.

Writer's Ramble: Hints and Tips for Winning Writers of the Future

This year at LTUE I attended a panel on the Writers of the Future contest. Speaking on the panel was David Farland / Wolverton, the coordinating judge for the contest. Also on the panel were former contest winners, Brad R. Torgersen and Eric James Stone. David Farland opened up the contest to questions after a short introduction, and we had about 45 minutes to thoroughly pick his brain.

It was probably the most revealing panel I attended, all three days.

The contest was created by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction author who wrote Battlefield Earth (yes, this is the same guy who started the Church of Scientology—whoever said writers weren’t known for having huge egos). If you won, the contest would grant you three things:

1. You win enough money to make an impact in your writing career. Not a substantial amount, but perhaps enough to buy a new computer or take some really good courses.
2. You get training. You get to go to a workshop and you get to be trained by respected bestselling authors.
3. Recognition. You get to put Writers of the Future on your resume, and it carries a good deal of weight. Publishers are lining up to hand out writing contracts.

Sound interesting?

Here is what are the judges looking for:

1. Your story must be a work of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, etc. Any kind of romance, biography, non-fiction essay, historical fiction, etc., that does not have an element of sci-fi or fantasy will be disqualified.
2. Come up with an original story idea that hasn’t been done before, or take an older story idea and give it an original twist.
3. Describe things. Describe your characters. If a scene is outside, describe things in the distance. If a scene is inside, paint a picture. Use as many senses as you can. Give your reader a sense of presence.
4. The judges would like to see more really good humor. Don’t end your story with a punch line. Don’t start out funny and end serious.
5. The judges don’t see enough good medieval fantasy. New ideas are rare. Most fantasy stories read like Dungeons and Dragons. The monsters are the same, and the magic systems are never original.
6. Do not submit stories where the targeted audience is children. You can have a child protagonist, if the theme is adult or if the protagonist behaves in a mature way.
7. Develop a theme in your story. Having a theme makes a bigger impression on the judges.
8. As far as word count, your story should be “as long as the story needs to be, and not one syllable more.” That’s a Dave Wolverton quote. That said, longer stories tend to do better because you have more time to demonstrate your talent and you can work up to a more emotional ending. The contest has a limit of 17,000 words.

What are some of the pet peeves that will get your story thrown out?

1. The POV character wakes up and doesn’t know who they are. The narrator then proceeds to describe the surroundings, then find a mirror and describe the main character.
2. Trying to gross out the judge.
3. Stories that start off with gratuitously violent imagery.
4. Stories written about main characters who are stupid.
5. Stories that are sexist or racist.
6. Stories that have a lot of swearing. If you drop an f-bomb on page one, you’re likely rejected.
7. No porn, no sex.

The best way to get a feel for what the judges like to see is to buy one of the anthologies and read it cover to cover. The judges try to pick an even mix of stories: one near-future sci-fi, one off-planet sci-fi, one medieval fantasy, one horror, etc. There is no preference toward male or female protagonists, although sometimes the list of finalists comes out skewed one way or the other.

Honorable Mention
Well over 1000 stories get submitted each quarter. Fewer stories get submitted during the Christmas season, so the odds are a little more in your favor. Everything that gets submitted to the contest goes before a single coordinating judge (currently Dave Wolverton). Stories that don’t make semi-finalist are either rejected, or are awarded honorable mention. Roughly 10% of all submissions make honorable mention.
Here is what honorable mention means:

“Stories that received Honorable Mention status were good enough to merit acknowledgement for being well written. The selected stories for this category did not make the semi-finalist or finalist category. Out of the thousands of stories that get submitted to the contest, a very small percentage make it this far.” – K.D. Wentworth

So getting an HM is a solid indicator that you’re doing well with your writing.

If your story is rejected or if you get an honorable mention, you are welcome to work on your story some more and re-submit it.

Semi-Finalist.
All the stories that made this cut go before the full panel of judges. Stories in this category are publishable. Getting semi-finalist is something worth putting on your writer’s resume. These stories receive a special critique from the coordinating judge.

To get past this point, your story has to really stand out from the others.

Finalist
These stories go before a panel of four finalist judges, who then pick the first, second, and third place winners for the quarter. As a finalist, you also have the option to include your story in the Writers of the Future Anthology.

Resources:
www.writersofthefuture.com
Counting Crows, a medieval paranormal fantasy that I wrote, which took Honorable Mention in
Life, the Universe, & Everything

Writer's Ramble: Seven Things to Get the Most From Your Writer's Group

Writing is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to learn.  I’ve gone through a lot of different talents.  Some of them I was good at, and others kind of fizzled out, but they all had one thing in common.  I could take a step back, I could look over my work, and I could tell right away if what I’d done was any good.

Writing is like trying to paint a mural while looking at your canvass through a cardboard paper towel tube.  You have to keep the entire picture in your head, and at any given time you can only see a small part of the scene.

I realized that if I wanted to get good, I needed people to read my work and tell me honestly what they thought.  Right away I ran into two problems.  The first was that unlike my other talents, writing requires people to spend time with my work.  It’s not like art or music, where I can make them take a look or sit and listen for a minute.  Reading can take hours.  So, asking my friends to read my story is a huge favor.  The second problem was that people get uncomfortable when they have to tell a friend that their writing stinks.

And everyone stinks when they’re starting out.

I needed people to spot for me.  I needed people who understand the craft, who can see my mistakes from a neutral perspective, and who know how to give advice.  I needed a writer’s group.

So here are a few things that I’ve learned, which help me get the most out of my writer’s group:

1: Submit your best work.  It’s easier to critique something that is polished and close to ready.  If you don’t proofread your work, people won’t know what to focus on.  Some members will go hog-wild with the edits, which can be grueling and discouraging.  Others won’t know where to begin, so they’ll give just a little feedback, which can lead to a false sense of confidence.

2: Let people know where you’re at.  When you submit, let your group know if this is an early draft or if you’ve gone over it several times.  Let them know if you’re struggling and need advice on something.  If this is something you just typed up, you won’t want them to focus on line edits and grammar errors.  You’ll want them to focus on the big picture, instead.  If this is a later draft, you can ask for them to proofread and look for spelling errors and punctuation mistakes.

3: Be specific about what you want.  Do you want your readers to focus on grammar?  Do you want detailed line-edits?  Or do you want them to focus on big-picture items?

4: Keep silent when people are critiquing you.  People are funny about giving advice.  It’s uncomfortable, and if they sense that you want to argue, they’ll clam up.  You don’t have to listen to everything they say, but you’ll get the most honest advice if you resist the urge to debate or explain your work.  If you do feel the need to argue, see if you can phrase it as a question.  Just remember, if your reader doesn’t get it, it’s not their fault.  Something is missing from your writing.  Ask questions and find out why.

5: Give a synopsis of previous chapters.  Unless you’re submitting your first chapter, people will not remember what you wrote in your previous chapters.  People skip meetings and they’ll miss one or two chapters at a time.  A synopsis is a good way to bring them up to speed again.  Something else that helps is a list of your main characters.  I can never remember character names from one chapter to the next.

6: Do group activities together.  In order to be able to give advice in the proper spirit, you need to build trust in one and other.  The best way to do this is to spend time together doing things besides just tearing each other apart.

· Go out together.  Have a dinner night, where you meet at a restaurant.  Make sure you pick a place where you can talk.

· Meet up at conferences together and hang out.

· If you normally meet online, have an in-person meeting face to face.

· Have a book-night.  Pick a book as a group and read it.  Then instead of having a regular meeting, go out that night to a restaurant (one with a quiet atmosphere where you can talk), and critique the book.  Our group does this once every 3 or 4 months.  This is a really good way to get a feel for everyone’s tastes.

· Have a movie night.  Go and see a movie together, then have a group discussion afterwards and talk about the plot.

· Go on field trips.  One of the members of my last writer’s group had a horse.  One month, instead of doing our usual meeting, she offered to meet us at the stables where her horse was kept.  She told us all about horses.  We got to go riding around the yard.  This event was so popular that we had people show up who hadn’t attended in almost a year.

7 Start a group blog.  The members in my group were having a hard time blogging, so I suggested that we start a group blog.  We brainstormed names, and decided on "The Writers Ramble".  You can visit it at http://www.writers-ramble.com.  Every month we pick a topic, and the last day of the week we get together and blog about it.  We put together a post on the main page, that has links to everyone's individual blog.  Each link has a blurb designed to catch your attention.  This week we're doing our first post.  The subject is, why I belong to a writer's group, and why should you, too.

In conclusion, a writer's group can carry you a lot farther in your career than you could get alone.  You need people who understand the profession, and have the skills to analyze and properly critique your work.  You can't do this on your own.

Medieval Gems for Writers: Did Medieval People Take Baths?

I recently submitted a chapter to my critique group, where the hero returned from a long quest to the hall of a lord.  Before feasting with the lord’s men, the hero asked for a bath.  The hero had been crawling through mud, slaying goblins, and getting filthy.

Going on a quest is dirty work.

I didn’t think anything of it, but the reaction from my writer’s group made me stop and take a second look.  The claim was that people in the middle ages thought baths were unhealthy, and that they only took a bath only once a year.  It was then that I remembered in the novel Shogun (which took place in the 1600s), that the main character didn’t take a bath because he thought he would get sick from it.

A medieval bath-house, where you could bet a square meal and a hot bath.

Fact or myth: people in the middle ages stank everywhere they went?

One of the oldest primary references to the use of soap comes from Pliny the Elder (who lived between 23 AD and 79 AD)—many hundreds of years BEFORE the middle ages.  He wrote about the Gauls (who were a Celtic people that lived in France), and about the Germanic tribes (who came down from Scandanavia).  The Gauls and Germans are the ancestors of nearly all northern European peoples.

Here is what he said:

Soap is the invention of the Gauls and this is used to redden the hair. It is made from fat and ashes -- the best is beech wood ash and goat fat, the two combined, thick and clear. Many among the Germans use it, the men more than the women.

—Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis

So we know that they used soap to bleach their hair, but did they use it to wash themselves as well?  Many sources tell us that the Vikings bathed at least once a week; indeed, they had a special bath-day set aside.  The most direct reference comes from an abbot named John of Wallingford, who chronicled the events in England from 449 to 1036 (which spans virtually the entire Anglo Saxon period).  Of the Vikings he says:

The Danes, thanks to their habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday and regularly changing their clothes, were able to undermine the virtue of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles to be their mistresses.

—John of Wallingford, Chronica Joannis Wallingford

John of Wallingford can’t be counted as a primary source, but he’s definitely a period source.  In modern Scanavian languages, the word for Saturday (i.e., laugardagur / laurdag / lørdag / lördag) means “washing day.”  The Vikings get a bad rap in modern times for being filthy, bloodthirsty heathens, but excavations of gravesites regularly uncover combs, tweezers, razors for shaving, and ear spoons (for cleaning out their ears).  We also know from an Arab Historian named Ibn Fadlan that the Vikings washed their faces and heads every day.

So the Vikings were quite fastidious, what about the rest of Europe?

Well, the sauna was invented by the Finns.  It dates back to the beginning of their history (well before the middle ages):

The first examples of saunas were simple pits dug in the earth, with heated stones to generate the dry, hot atmosphere. Hot stones remain the hallmark of the sauna, radiating warmth into a small surrounding room, which today is typically built of wood. Dousing the stones with water creates a vapor called loyly by the Finns. Body brushes, called vihta or vahta, and birch branches, are used to stimulate the skin and a healthy sweat.

—Von Furstenberg, Diane. The Bath, p. 93 (New York, Random House, 1993)

We also know that public bath-houses were very common throughout all of Europe.  Every large town had one.  Some were segregated by gender and some were not.  They were hugely popular.  In fact, in addition to getting a bath, you could also get a meal.  Here is a list of regulations in Paris, governing the Guild of Bathhouse Keepers (dated 1270):

1. Whoever wishes to be a bathhouse-keeper in the city of Paris may freely do so, provided he works according to the usage and customs of the trade, made by agreement of the commune, as follow.

2. Be it known that no man or woman may cry or have cried their baths until it is day, because of the dangers which can threaten those who rise at the cry to go to the baths.

3. No man or woman of the aforesaid trade may maintain in their houses or baths either prostitutes of the day or night, or lepers, or vagabonds, or other infamous people of the night.

4. No man or woman may heat up their baths on Sunday, or on a feast day which the commune of the city keeps.

5. And every person should pay, for a steam-bath, two deniers; and if he bathes, he should pay four deniers.

6. And because at some times wood and coal are more expensive than at others, if anyone suffers, a suitable price shall be set by the provost of Paris, through the discussion of the good people of the aforesaid trade, according to the situation of the times.

7. The male and female bathhouse-keepers have sworn and promised before us to uphold these things firmly and consistently, and not to go against them.

8. Anyone who infringes any of the above regulations of the aforesaid trade must make amends with ten Parisian sous, of which six go to the king, and the other four go to the masters who oversee the trade, for their pains.

9. The aforesaid trade shall have three good men of the trade, elected by us unanimously or by a majority, who shall swear before the provost of Paris or his representative that they will oversee the trade well and truly, and that they will make known to the provost of Paris or his representative all the infringements that they know of or discover, and the provost shall remove and change them as often as he wishes.

—Etienne de Boileu, Livre des métiers, translated. Women's Lives in Medieval Europe, A Source Book.

What about the Anglo Saxons?  

There are few direct accounts that provide a contemporary point of view during the Anglo-Saxon period.  However, an analysis of Old English, itself, reveals that the Saxons had a wealth of words to describe personal cleanliness.  (for reference, the letter æ is a short-a as in “hat”.  The letter þ is the th sound in “thick”, and the letter ð is the th sound in “this”):

bæþ = bath

stánbæþ = “stone bath”, a vapor bath made by water poured onto heated stones. (i.e., a sauna).

Stofa = a bath-room, for a warm bath.

stofbæþ = vapor-bath, or hot-air bath (another word for a sauna).

þwéal = washing bath laver soap that is used in washing ointment

bæþsealf = “bath salve”, a salve to be used when taking a bath.

sápe = soap (this is the direct ancestor of the modern English word)

léaðor/leáþor = “lather”, an ingredient added to soap to make it bubbly.

héafodbæþ = “head-bath”, washing just your head.

swilung = swilling, or to wash the mouth by gargling

áfeormian = to cleanse clean thoroughly purge purify wash away

I should also mention the city of Bath, in Somerset, which was originally built by the Romans on a hot spring.  They called it Aquae Sulis, but when the Saxons invaded, they re-named it Bath (no one ever said the Saxons had a brilliant imagination).  The place was widely known as a resort where people went any time of the year.  Nennius, a ninth-century historian, describes it thus:

It is surrounded by a wall, made of brick and stone, and men may go there to bathe at any time, and every man can have the kind of bath he likes. If he wants, it will be a cold bath; and if he wants a hot bath, it will be hot.

And finally, excavations of Anglo-Saxon grave-sites reveal combs, ear-spoons, tweezers, etc., all of which are very similar to those found in Viking grave-sites   I think we can infer that the Saxons has similar habits of cleanliness.  Why?  Because before Christianity came along, the Saxons, Danes, Norse, and Swedes were all different tribes of the very same people.  They had the same religion, they spoke similar languages, they dressed the same, they made their living the same, they lived in the same kinds of buildings, etc. 

So what do we get from all this?

I find it hard to believe that if the ancestors of medieval Europeans knew what soap was good for, that the descendants would have lost that custom.  This doesn't make sense to me.  As I've studied history, time and time again I've been impressed how the basic features of human nature never change.  People laugh, love, work, and play.  Small children put everything in their mouth.  Lovers quarrel.  Teenagers go through a rebellious phase.  Husbands and wives sometimes get along, and sometimes they go after after each other like cats and dogs.  

And people don't like hanging around other people who stink.

There is ample evidence that medieval people were at least familiar with cleanliness.  The notion that they let themselves stink 364 days out of the year is absurd.  As for how often they actually did bathe, I think it varied from one region to the next, and from one time period to the next.  I could probably dig deeper, but that would require another blog.

Want to know more?  Go to your search engine of choice, and type in “medieval bathing”.  Enjoy!

Moving Beyond "Show Don't Tell"

I’m on a quest.  I’ve been reading Stephen King lately.  I’m working my way through Skeleton Crew, one of his many short story anthologies.  It’s a mixed bag of sorts, but most of it is splendid stuff. 

After each story, I’ll talk to my wife about it.  The conversation goes something like this:

“So there’s this tale where these four college kids go down to a lake, and on the lake there’s this oil-slick.  It traps them on a raft in the middle of the lake, and it starts sucking them under the water and EATING them!”

“Wait, the oil slick traps them?”

“Mm-hmm.”

(laughing) “That sounds really stupid.”

“Yeah…uh...well, it’s a lot better the way HE tells it.”

Why is it that when Stephen King gets an idea I’m hooked, but when I look at my own writing it sounds flat and—well, for lack of a better word—made up?

So I’ve been taking a really close look at his short stories.  In just a few pages I can get an opening hook, a short plot, some characters, and a zinger of an ending.  In contrast, I’ve also been trolling through Amazon.com looking for cheap self-published schlock.  I’m hoping that in the process I can begin to tell what King (and other authors) does right, and what I (and the other self-published authors who aren’t Stephen King) do wrong.

No small challenge, there.

One thing that stands out to me are his descriptions.  They go way beyond the showing-not-telling kinds of depictions that we learn in workshops and writing classes.  King’s descriptions come alive.  Check this one out:

In the year 1927 we were playing jazz in a speak-easy just south of Morgan, Illinois, a town seventy miles from Chicago.  It was real hick country, not another big town for twenty miles in any direction.  But there were a lot of farmboys with a hankering for something stronger than Moxie after a hot day in the field, and a lot of would-be jazz-babies out stepping with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.  There were also some married men (you always know them, friend, they might as well be wearing signs) coming far out of their way to be where no one would recognize them while they cut a rug with their not-quite-legit lassies.

—The Wedding Gig

The thing that stands out the most for me is vibe.  Just listen to it.  The year is 1927, at a speak-easy seventy miles from Chicago, real hick country.  Would-be jazz-babies out stepping with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.  Married men coming out to cut a rug with their not-quite-legit lassies.

Can you feel it?

The other thing that grabs me is the personality that King attributes to the people that he’s describing.  Instead of describing individuals, he describes in caricatures.  He gives you a feel for what the people are like, and then the reader’s brain just fills in the rest.  

Listen once more: farmboys with a hankering for something stronger than Moxie after a hot day.  Jazz-babies with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.

This goes way beyond showing-not-telling.  This is more than merely cutting out stray adverbs, shunning passive voice, and pouring on the cleverly-placed action verbs.

This is vibe. It's a focus on mood, and atmosphere, and what's going on, and who's working the scene.

I’ve read enough of King's stuff to see him do this over and over.  Whenever he does a description, he doesn’t show the reader, so much as he describes what the thing is like.  He sketches its character, its personality…and your brain just fills in the rest.  This is brilliant stuff.

Here's another example (paraphrased a bit, for brevity):

The girls had come over to the apartment at midafternoon...there was a case of beer in the fridge and a new night Ranger album on Randy's battered stereo. The four of them set about getting pleasantly oiled.  Afer a while the talk had turned to the end of the long Indian summer they had been enjoying. The radio was predicting flurries for Wednesday.  LaVerne had advanced the opinion that weathermen predicting snow flurries in October should be shot.  No one had disagreed.

—The Raft

I like this scene.  Two college guys, having their girlfriends over.  I can hear Night Ranger blaring Sister Christian.  They're relaxing after a day of classes and studies.  I can hear the talk.

So I decided to hunt for a nice boring description in my own story and see if I couldn’t liven it up a little.  I picked this gem:

We stopped at the head table.  Lord Braxton sat in his great chair, a drinking horn in one hand and a thin wedge of cheese in the other.  Lady Aderyn leaned on his side.  Their children sat around them eating and playing with their food.  A trio of musicians played off to one side.

Yawn.  Let’s see if I can’t do better.  Instead of pouring on more description, see if I can’t toss in some vibe.

We stopped at the head table.  Lord Braxton sprawled in his great chair, a drinking horn in one hand and a spoon in the other.  He shoveled stew into his mouth like he was feeding an ox.  Lady Aderyn leaned on his side where she could whisper in his ear if she wanted, yet keep within arm’s reach of a wandering child.  Their children buzzed around them, too excited to eat or stay in their seats, playing with their food, reveling in the evening’s cheer.  A trio of musicians played off to one side.  I hadn’t seen them before.  They looked like the travelling kind that made their living from hall to hall. 

Economy of Words

Overnarration happens when authors use too many words to express what they want to say.  Another term for this is “economy of words”.   A good narrative will use as few words as possible to describe what is happening.

Consider the following excerpt from a novel I found on Amazon (The names of the characters have been changed to protect the innocent):

Margret tremulously cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush, concealing herself behind the dark green leaves.  The ancient fountains stood cold and silent in the neglected garden.  Scarcely breathing, she watched as the dark stranger made his way through the garden.  Viciously searching any suspected hiding place, the stranger tore back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves.  Slowly Margret crept backwards.  Cautiously looking over her shoulder, she eased her way back toward an opening in the surrounding hedge.  Sliding one knee back after another, she felt the errant twig under her at the same time she heard it snap.  She froze.  The stranger whirled around and glared toward the hyacinth bush.  With long swift strides he crossed the crumbling courtyard and yanked the branches aside.

Use adverbs sparingly

Let’s talk about adverbs for a second.  I was a cook one summer in a long-term care facility.  The head chef told me to put celery seed in anything that had hamburger.  It was a wonderful suggestion, one that I use to this day—but he cautioned me: a little bit goes a long way.

Adverbs are like that.  Use sparingly.  In fact, most writers will tell you to avoid them like the plague.  However, if you pick up any novel published by any well-respected writer, you’ll see adverbs all over the place.  So what gives?

Here are three rules for whether you can keep an adverb or not:

1. Does it say something that has already been implied elsewhere?

2. When you take the adverb out, does the sentence feel broken?

3. Never EVER use an adverb in a dialog tag (i.e., “I hate you,” she said viciously).  Good dialog should imply what the adverb states (see rule #1).

So, let’s look over this paragraph and go on an adverb hunt.  We don’t need tremulously.  This adverb implies fear, and we already know that Margret is fearful because she is cowering.   Next we have scarcely.  I’d keep this one.  It’s short and it adds mood, and if you take it out the sentence doesn’t work.  After that we have viciously, which we can cut.  The rest of that same sentence describes the stranger tearing back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves, etc.  Then we have slowly, which we can give the ax.  Margret is creeping backwards.  It’s rather obvious that she is doing it slowly.  Finally, we have cautiously looking, which just begs to be replaced with something shorter.

Saying the same thing twice

Next, let’s talk about saying things twice.  Take the first sentence (offending adverbs removed):

Margret cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush, concealing herself behind the dark green leaves. 

If you give this a careful look, you’ll see that the author describes Margret hiding twice.  Do we need both?  Here’s another one:

Viciously searching any suspected hiding place, the stranger tore back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves.

The first part is telling instead of showing.  The next part is restating what we’ve been told, with some more showing thrown in for good measure.

You might think that the author is trying to add detail, or that she is trying to describe how the stranger is searching.  But this sentence still sounds like it was written by an amateur, and here's why.

Your reader’s mind is powerful.  A few carefully chosen words can evoke an entire scene, none of which you need to waste words describing.  Never underestimate the reader’s own ability to fill in unwritten details. 

Read that last sentence again.  I’ll wait.

A good author will pick up on this.  A few well-chosen words, and the reader will create the entire scene for you. 

Let your work sit for a couple days before proofreading it.  When you go over it again, listen to the flow.  Pay attention to the implied image that your narrative creates in your mind as you’re reading it. 

Revise and shorten

Now let’s look at this:

Cautiously looking over her shoulder, she eased her way back toward an opening in the surrounding hedge.  Sliding one knee back after another, she felt the errant twig under her at the same time she heard it snap. 

The two sentences kind of overlap in their purpose.  Margret is cautious in the first sentence, then she’s sliding backwards on her knees (which itself is a cautious action).  Then we have a rather wordy description of a snapping twig.  We could clean this up and shorten it.

Look for places where your narrative starts to feel wordy.  Pay extra attention to places where you describe a character’s actions.  Remember, your reader’s mind is very powerful, and a few well-chosen words will convey a much tighter meaning than ten poorly chosen ones.

Final example

Here is the revised paragraph.  I could probably tighten this up some more, but you get the picture. 

Margret cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush.  The ancient fountains stood cold and silent in the neglected garden.  Scarcely breathing, she watched as the dark stranger tore back branches, and threw aside shrubs and leaves.  Glancing over her shoulder, Margret spied an opening in the garden’s surrounding hedge and crept her way toward it, sliding on her knees.  She felt the errant twig under her at the same time it gave a loud snap.  She froze.  The stranger whirled to face the hyacinth bush.  With long swift strides he crossed the crumbling courtyard and yanked the branches aside.

Notice the difference? 

Summary

In summary, three tools for tightening up your prose:

1. Cut out as many adverbs as you can.

2.  Look for places where your narrative implies the same thing more than once.

3.  Look for other ways you can replace longer phrases with shorter ones.

Less is more

What a really good example of writing that uses good economy of words?  Go to http://brevitymag.com/.  This site has short creative non-fiction essays, 750 words or less.  It’s all brilliant writing, verbal ikebana, and candy for the mind!