Exercise: Directions

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 11:24:22 +0900

August always seems like a lazy time of year, with vacations and summer heat setting the tone.  But month eight also means two-thirds of the year have galloped past.  So it's a good time to trim the sails and lay out a goal, a process, and some games for the trip.

A goal.  This is, as always, a personal choice, but setting a quota seems to work for many.  Set one that's challenging but reachable, okay?  E.g., one piece (story, chapter, essay, poem) a month?  A week?  Or what tickles your fingers to write?

(Or, of course, you could try the challenge!  Just write one piece a week - write, revise, and mail out one piece every week - for a year.  According to legend, everyone who has tried this has been published.  It's a little like those shot glasses of beer every minute - it seems simple, but the cumulative effect is somewhat larger than the shot glasses appear.)

A process.  Here, too, your preferences may vary.  Some like to brainstorm, then outline.  Others free write, write, write.  Hack and slash - er, revise in one grand frenzy, or perhaps a little every day? 

Then finish.  And send it out, even if you still don't think the golden sunset sings quite right.

Then start another.

Or play a game?

1. Pick a phrase - quotation, overheard fragment, first or last line, whatever you may find - and write from it.  How many ways can you stretch that phrase, twist that metaphor, and make your words dance?
2. Ah!  Metaphor and simile.  What is and what is like our topic?  Your love is a green tomato, drowsing in the garden?  Or merely like a snail, slipsliding down the dewy rosebush?  Take a metaphor or simile (or two or three) and expand, twist, and play with it.  Turn those tired cliches on their side and see if there's still a new wrinkle or two left in them for you to show us.
3. Last, but never least, unravel a pop story and redo it as your very own. That movie, old children's story, or whatever you might have around can be the basis for practice.  What's the plot?  Now repopulate it with characters you prefer, change the scenery, and tell us your tale.  Or, if the poetic effect catches your eye, try to imitate it?  What is it about the rhythm, the wording, the imagery, and the moan that makes that line or stanza work?  (p.s.  I'm not sure what moan is doing in there, but it seems to fit, so I'll leave it there.  :-)

So, an antidote for the August doldrums.  Set your goal, refine that process, and play some games.  And see if the winds don't fill your sails, sending you skimming over wordy depths under the blue skies of the Muse.

"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry."  Mark Strand

EXERCISE: Ten Commandments?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 07:39:57 -0400

A bit of an exercise.  Short, and perhaps simple (albeit not necessarily humble).  Based on something from an old Writer's Digest (see below).

First, pick an area.  Your writing career, life on the list, how to make the best jam in ten counties, whatever.

Second, do a bit of brainstorming about guidelines, rules, what do you need to do to succeed at this.  What are the "brass tacks" that some one needs to know?

Third, of course, lay this out as a set of ten commandments.  If you like, you can use the "top ten count down" approach that has been popular recently (start with number 10, and then make a big deal out of number one).  Or you can simply use the old one, two, three approach.

You may want to provide a bit of homily with each one.  They may also build on each other, and you can point that out.  Helpful ways to remember the ten are also good.

What are the ten commandments you would lay down for your reader?

Go ahead, climb the mountain, listen, and bring back those tablets.  Then tell us the way to succeed.

Who knows, you may even find a set of rules for yourself!

Nancy Kress, in Writer's Digest, March 1996, p. 12, provides Ten Commandments for your writing career.  She admits that "some of these Commandments apply mostly after you've begun selling regularly, not before.  But learn them now.  That way, you'll be working toward and prepared for the best  a pretty good definition of ambition."

1: Put Thy Work First  Not the Market

"While you're dreaming, planning, feeling and writing your fiction, the fiction itself should be the goal, not its eventual sale…. Write from the heart  at least on the first draft.  Let your passion, not the manuscript's salability, dictate its shape.  Then worry about marketing it after it's written."

II: Thou Shall Not Take the Names of Thy Editor, Publisher or Agent In Vain

Or at least "keep your name-taking-in-vain reasonably private.  Publishing is not a large industry….It's also a mobile industry." "Does this mean you must like or pretend to like everyone in publishing?  Of course not.  But treat everyone professionally.  And save the bon mots for trusted intimates."

III: Keep Sacred Thy Work Schedule

Make it a priority, and do your best to stick to it most of the time.

IV: Honor They Readers

"Every work of fiction makes an implicit promise to its readers….Your choice of words, character presentation, tone, sentence structure  all promise a certain kind of story."

"The point here is not that one promise is superior to the other, but that you the writer are in fact making some kind of promise to your readers.  You are obligated to keep that promise, whatever it is, by not starting your story in one mode and finishing it in another.  If you promise us tough-guy action, then deliver tough-guy action.  Likewise for romance, thoughtful observation, verbal pyrotechnics or gritty realism."

V:  Thou Shalt Not Kill as an Unnecessary Plot Device

"Sometimes writers, when they think a plot is sagging, give in to the temptation to enliven it by blowing up something.  Or by killing off a character, preferably in pools of gore.  Or by killing off a bunch of characters at once, in a bus crash or an elevator explosion or, for the really desperate writer, a supernova…."

"The problem with using the device in fiction is that it seldom works.  Unless everything in the plot up to this point has prepared us for a lethal disaster, we won't really believe it. …"

"Use violence reasonably in your fiction.  It no longer carries the shock value it once did.  Unless it has purposes other than shock, find another and better way to jazz up a one-note plot."

VI:  Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery as an Unnecessary Plot Device

See above.  "Juicy sex won't save juiceless prose."

VII: Thou Shalt Not Steal Too Much

Don't copy already existing works, including your own!  "You grow as a writer by trying new things, extending your range."

VII:  Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Characters

"Your characters have  or should have  integrity.  By this I mean that each character has a set of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and emotional reactions all his own…. It's your job as writer to witness this person's integrity, understand it, and then not make him violate it."

IX:  Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Editor's Job

"…She's the editor, which means it's her job to point out inconsistencies in your work, identify weaknesses, suggest possible improvements.  Don't resent this, and don't assume that, in your case, any changes to the work are unnecessary.  Let the editor edit.  Consider her suggestions thoughtfully, and then discuss with her which ones you want to implement, why and how."

X:  Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fellow Writer's Goods

"Try to keep envy within reasonable boundaries (say, Delaware).  You are you, and your career is your own.  Others' successes don't detract from that  at least not if your goal genuinely is to create the best fiction you can."

So, there's Nancy's Ten Commandments for your writing life.  What about yours?