The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 7 Nov 2011

Over here, Jonathan Maberry talks about staying out of writing pigeonholes. Lots of good stuff, and I'll let you listen to the podcast for the details. But I thought I'd pull one of the last bits out of the transcript...
http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/11/06/writing-excuses-6-23-pigeon-holes/

[Jonathan] That's exactly how I work. I do a writing prompt every day. Even though I'm on deadline, I do a different thing every day. I make lists of things that I'm going to do. Like I might say, "All right, tomorrow I've got to write the first page of an insect Western." So that's what I'm going to write tomorrow. Or it might be a love story for 13-year-old kids. Well, that's what I've got to write tomorrow, the first page of it. Every day, I try something different, something outside of my comfort zone. I do it every single day. So that every day I'm stretching the limits of what I think I can write. It's a 15 minute exercise that somebody can do every day. Within a couple of weeks, you're pretty sure that you're able to write anything. Share those writings with other people. Put it on a blog, put it on Facebook, send it to your friends. It's only the first page of something. It doesn't have to be a flash fiction. Just write the first thing.

There you go! Start your day with a writing prompt, and keep a list of ideas as you run around so that you always have more coming. An insect Western. A love story for 13-year-olds. A steampunk version of Alice in Wonderland. Push those boundaries!

Original posting 21 July 2010

Over here http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/greed-is-good.html Jacqueline Lichtenberg talks about High Concept character motivation, using greed as an example. And along the way, she suggests these little exercises. She suggests that doing these is similar to a pianist practicing scales...

1. Create a POV character who hates greed (because he/she is riddled with it and rejects Self).
2. Create a POV character who lauds greed and proves that greed is the personality trait to foster if you want to get rich or stay rich.
3. Create a supporting role character who fights greed in human society. Generate a POV character from the supporting role (B story character), a POV character that the supporting character can redirect.
4. Create a villain or simple antagonist who either embraces greed or eschews it, but does so with way too much force. Explain why he/she's so obsessed.
5. Create a character whose hidden fear is that his inner greed will overtake him -- perhaps he starts out living the severe austerity of a street-begging monk with a bowl and a robe, no sandals, and suddenly has to command a galactic fortune that's shrinking alarmingly fast.
6. Create a greed-theme-based character with your own formula for a character. Then build a world to display that character's lessons in greed.

Greed -- wasn't that one of the cardinal sins? Sure, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. Heck, you could probably try modeling characters and stories around each and every one of those.

Just write!

Original posting 14 July 2010

I've been doing something for a little while now that I think is kind of an interesting way to practice writing.

See, there's a 15 minute show here in Japan, six days a week, that will run for six months. We're now in week 16. And because I was interested, I've been writing up the show every day. Mostly just translating on-the-fly and taking notes, then later in the day going back and writing up that day's episode.

Part of the fun for me is figuring out which parts need explanations, or where I should "stretch" what was done on the show to help English language folks follow along. I mean, I don't have the visuals, and I really can't expect English readers to have the Japanese background. So I kind of fill in around the corners sometimes. And of course I get to select which actions and dialogue I'm going to bother including.

You might want to take a television show or movie and write it up. Just as a way to exercise or practice writing. How do you convert that visual car chase or whatever into narrative? What do you include, what do you drop out? Feel free to do some transformation or rearrangement. After all, a Mickey Mouse cartoon could turn into a bar scene, or maybe an opera could become a visit to a Turkish harem? Or...

Scribble while you watch, do-de-do-do-do-do-do...

original posting 15 April 2009

You might remember that I was jabbering about 5, 10, and 20 minute writing practice recently? Well, I got to playing, and now there are three pages that provide you with a writing prompt and timers! Go over here and you'll see what I mean. You have to provide your own writing medium (editor, paper, whatever) but I think this is kind of fun!

http://www.aist-nara.ac.jp/~mbarker/writers/ExercisePages/

original posting: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 08:18:19 JST

(I split the subject because Tsirbas really isn't talking about my exercises, but about how to write - I think)

Tsirbas wrote

- Exercises cannot, however, replace the act of actually sitting down
- and writing a complete piece from start to finish with the goal of
- meeting the criteria of some outline or idea one has had.

Well, no, but... I have to admit, I've been in too many places where someone said "Just write" (talk, program, paint, ...) without providing some clues to the pieces. my ski instructor didn't take me to the top of the expert slope and say "Now Ski." There were some preliminaries. Why do chess players practice gambits, positions, closings, and so on?

Or maybe a better illustration is over in the artistic painting field - the instructor rarely sits you down, hands you brush, oils, etc. and says "Now Paint!" First you get to practice and study composition, perspective, colors, etc. In many schools, you'll spend quite a while simply copying "old masters" - imitate this. now do it again. okay, here's another one.

I will admit, some teachers may start by saying "do it" - then start giving out studies, exercises, and so forth based on what they see as your weak spots or abilities needing sharpening. That's testing by doing, and is pretty useful...

Let me suggest that writing suffers from this notion that we can do it "naturally." Admittedly, everyone studies some in school - but does the year of shop that I took in school make me a great cabinet maker? Or the several art classes I had - which came very close to convincing me that I hated the stuff and was totally unable to do it?

Let me suggest where I see the exercises fit. (not just mine, there are books and magazines and so forth stuffed with them)

It's just like painting or any other creative pursuit. There are parts of the process which can be separated out and studied - practiced - independently (these are exercises). While it may seem tedious, even boring or pointless, these provide the basic tools that then are used in the final act. If you want to paint, you may get perspective, color studies, endless copying of old masters, and a whole host of other exercises. Some teachers may start by saying "paint" - and then assign exercises based on what they see you missing. Others just start with a set of basics and move everyone through them.

So - yeah, the exercises don't replace the basic WRITE - FINISH - MARKET cycle. But just like any set of exercises, the skills you learn may very well help you when you try the real game...

Exercises, in most fields, are intended to construct, reinforce, and sharpen desirable habits, models, or patterns of thought, which then carry over into practice. In some cases, the exercise may be extended into something useful in itself, but the main point is to condition the process so that it happens "naturally."

I'm kind of intrigued with your description of Ray Bradbury's process - where did you learn this?

Personally, from his Zen in the Art of Writing and the frequently reprinted one with the silly long name ... usually shortened to "The Thing at the Head of the Stairs" ... I have the impression that he started with at least 10 years of imitating the "old masters." At least one thousand words a day, just imitating - that's exercise! Then he sold a story or two - and went back to imitating for another ten years or so. Then he started his list of words and phrases, and started "intuitive" writing.

I think I could almost depend on my "natural" writing after churning out some 8,000,000 words of imitation... that's roughly 50 to 80 novels he wrote in "exercises" to get to the point of writing short stories "naturally."

Further, the one week crank it and drop it in the mail idea is pretty common to the writers from the "Great Pulp" era. It's where Asimov got blamed for saying first drafts only (as he explains it, he "rewrote" heavily beforehand, but to save paper, only typed it once), Heinlein got a similar reputation, Jack Williamson, the list goes on. Mostly, I think it was economics - the big market was short stories, the pay stunk, you couldn't do much else.

Several mystery writers also had similar notions - and some of them were cranking out whole novels (short, perhaps, but penny dreadfuls...) I know I've seen one of them commenting on a period when s/he wrote one complete novel each week.

Even then - read carefully between the lines, and you see some of these writers spending time "behind the curtains" - lists of words, draft notes, brainstorming, and so forth. I think they did tend to focus on one story, and really work on that one "at the top" during the week - but the other stories were perking...

BTW - as I've related before, I've seen Harlan Ellison (I think) in a publicized stunt write a "brand-new" story during a convention. Tapped away at the typewriter, posted the pages as he finished them, and sold the story. BUT he also had a huge ratty lab notebook (engineer style) that he kept sneaking peeks at... I can believe the "final writing" was new at the convention, but I would dearly love to know what kind of "prewriting" was in that notebook.

[in the following, I grow a bit unrestrained in my wording. Please believe, Tsirbas, that I am not attacking you - I am simply reacting to a notion that I think has caused more trouble for me than I ever would have believed. You are getting the backblast from fighting this evil python for over 20 years... sorry!]

- Creative exercises are of no use to a writer unless he or she, upon
- sitting down to write, is able to let go of all restraint, of all
- preconceptions and all possible criticsms. If upon sitting down, and
- having a brilliant, twisted idea you think, "What will my mother's
- reaction be when she sees this in print?" then you have already set
- limitations on your creativity. No amount of exercises will make you a
- better writer unless you are true to your own personal genius.

time out! number one, while I agree that part of the process of creativity consists of lowering, challenging, and otherwise working around restraints, preconceptions, and fear of criticism, guess what - that's almost exactly the point of the exercises I'm posting! That process CAN be exercised and trained - that's a big part of what DeBono (anyone recognize the CoRT exercises?) has spent some 40 years or so showing people. It ain't just "you got it" or "you ain't" - there are clearly defined ways of helping you slip those bounds.

(in fact, if you're interested, there's a theoretical background that explains why these bounds are so tight, and how the lateral thinking techniques work around them - read The Mechanism of Mind.)

I've personally used these techniques in training people, and my experience is that they work. Try them, and judge for yourself.

number two - there's the "natural writer" notion again - somewhere buried under all that gunk, there is a creative genius waiting to be freed. Simply lay aside all the bonds that life has put upon you, and it will emerge and shatter the world. Drugs, drinking, god I gotta live in the village... maybe acid will free the true genius...

Bull! that's saying the little kid playing with paints against the wall is automatically better than the artist who has spent years learning to do the basics, to the point where the technique "vanishes" and the art appears.

Better yet - consider the old Zen adage, that when you know nothing, trees are trees, and mountains are mountains. When you begin to learn, trees are not trees, and mountains are not mountains. And when you reach the essence of Zen - trees are trees again, and mountains mountains.

Translate that into writing - when you know nothing, stories are stories. Then you start to learn, and nothing seems quite right. And when you really get it down - stories are stories again.

I think most of us are in the "nothing seems quite right" phase - and practicing the basics until they are habitual is one way of getting past that...

sorry - I don't buy the "natural genius" model. that's the approach that takes 100 programmers, sits them down, says "program" - then trashes 99 of them, since they aren't "naturals." guess what - I can take 100, and in 98 of them, make them not just humdrum, but magic gurus that companies are happy to steal. I've done it. And I refuse to play the game of saying if you can't do it natural, you can't do it.

(two go off and play with each other - every time! some things take precedence, I suppose...)

this is a critical point to me. please don't trashcan people - we don't have enough to go around, honest. and that's what the "natural" writer method does.

Every "natural" I've studied, met, spent time with (programmers, writers, potters, painters, and others) has spent quite a bit of blood and sweat, time and energy, learning the basics so well that they can do it "naturally." It's almost offensive to call them "natural" - they are so far from "natural" that mistaking their trained abilities for some kind of natural in-born talent belittles the efforts they have taken to get there. Saying it is "unconscious" now simply means they've worked at it a lot!

Okay? I happen to agree - practice, practice, practice. Some people do it copying old masters, some insist on beating their own way in the wilderness, some prefer nicely packaged little "technique" exercises, some want or need a grand theory to tie it all together, but everyone needs to keep working until they reach the point of "natural" writing... which is highly unnatural!

If you mean you have to practice until writing becomes habitual - I'll agree!

Did I misunderstand you completely? I really hate this idea, and I'm afraid I may have read it into what you wrote, in which case I owe you an apology for dumping this on you...

[again, sorry about the harsh words. I just really hate this notion of "natural genius" with all of its implications for those who "don't have it." No one has it!]

tink

Original posting: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:49:00 -0400

Here we go...

Writing is like sewing empty garments.

Go ahead, explore that relationship, expand that metaphor, ssssssssssssstretch those words!

Original Posting: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 23:05:16 -0500

(Some of you might remember this from holidays past...)

For those who may be enjoying holidays of various sorts, here's some little exercises to work on while you're enjoying the spicy steam rising from the turkey and hot cornbread stuffing, with the smell of thick gravy slathered over it, and the deep red stewed cranberries (supposedly a natural remedy for the fat and grease - I just think they taste good).  When you dig into the mashed potatoes, corn fritters, and green beans, think about these.  And when you take a big mouthful of warm pumpkin pie with whipped cream or icecream on top, or maybe a slice of pecan pie, sweet and crunchy with pastry flaking down home taste, or whatever flavor you like, let your mind drift over these. For that matter, when you find yourself groaning in front of the tube watching the parades and bowl games, trying to decide whether you really want a bite of a crisp, fresh apple, red with the sun and wind, small brown scars signs of the struggle it gave to be ripe for you - well, you could ponder some of these.

(I think I just gained 10 pounds writing that paragraph!:-)

1.  Some people may not have a home to go to, a family to share the holidays with.  Write a scenario for them - either the loner at the restaurant (BAH!  HUMBUG!) learning what holidays are all about OR the family opening their home celebration to the loner, and relearning the meaning of the time themselves in the process.

2.  Pick any of those goodies that are weighting the table down, and use it as a metaphor for the day, your feelings, etc.  Write a short "allegory" making the reader taste that food AND feel its hidden meaning(s).

3.  (SF)  R'gnarl, the Centaurian anthropologist, has decided to observe your family during this ritual.  What questions does it have?  How does your family answer them?  What, if anything, does R'gnarl conclude about the implications of this ritual?  (don't forget that R'gnarl's report will determine whether the exterminators are brought in to clear the planet for another attempt at a sapient race or not...)

4.  (SF) The colonists are down on planet Skylor.  The natives aren't sure whether they want to be friendly or not, but they are willing to talk and listen.  The colonists want to celebrate - with a mixture of old holiday memories, some new customs they developed during the trip, and perhaps some native customs.  Describe that festival - and how the colonists explain what it is.

5.  Kiddy times - we have probably all heard the standard holiday stories.  But suppose your (little sister/brother, cousin, next door neighbor - youngster) wants a story, and you want to tell one, set in the old stories BUT using your own special plot/characters/twists.  What is that story?

6.  Many people in other countries have never experienced the American holiday celebrations, of course, but often they have heard of them.  Imagine that you are asked to describe your favorite holiday for them.  Tell them about the food you had, how you spent the time, and what it means - why do you do this?

7.  Imagine you're a ghost of a person who never lived (member of the family?  friend?  Indian who would have lived here?) and you are watching the revelry.  What do you want to say to those who are there?  Can you, in the very ghostly whispers, tell the reader who you are?  Can you make them feel what you feel watching - the holiday you don't have... (hey, spooks deserve love too, you know!)

8.  (Always a good one)  Dialogue Watching!  You may be seeing people meeting for the first time after a separation, or just spending some time with people in a little different mood.  Watch and listen carefully.  What are they doing with their bodies and language?  When some phrase or joke is especially good, keep track of it.  Why is this so effective?  Listen to the dialogue, the rhythms and patterns, and figure out how you know someone without even looking at them.  (If you're like me, you may not want to take notes at the time, but go ahead and make some notes later.  Try to run back over the time and write down bits and pieces that stood out, plus some that are so completely ordinary that you might have trouble noticing them.)

9.  We've recently heard about "random acts of kindness". Keep your eyes open for situations that might allow such "good Samaritan" acts, and consider what might happen if people carried it out.  You may either write up the story or, where appropriate, try it!  (this is known as empirical writing - do something, watch, then report results...)

10.  Have fun!

Original posting: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 20:17:11 EDT

Okay. A bit different. Stand back, and I'm going to roll up my sleeves and tackle going from idea to story...

Mike (another one, not me) said


A while ago, I suggested (TECH: a pre-writing checklist) trying to answer the following questions before writing:


Okay? I keep a copy of this in my little notebook, and I really do use it (after I die on the first line or so, get wrapped in the beautiful words about the setting, or whatever...and find myself wondering "what happened?").

Try answering those questions. If you can, you probably have a story getting close to roll-out.

Unfortunately, I'm fresh out, and there's Mike's description, so...

Mike has described one character with a couple of traits. But we don't have any real conflict yet (well, she could have trouble with the dogs, or with an owner, but...) so let's push on that a bit...

What flaws does this character have? alcoholism. maybe the presentation stuff. now, can we come up with a situation that makes those flaws crack? (or at least creak a bit?)

[take one minute! list at least ten situations that cause alcoholism to be a problem, then ten that cause the presentation to be a problem. three seconds each...clocks ticking, don't stop, just write another down...]

take a deep breath!

now pick one situation out of those twenty!

trapped at home with a werewolf who was picked up on his night out...and is now changing back? and hubby is off somewhere?

(ooooh! weird..were...red!)

Or maybe you want to dredge her psyche?

why does she rescue these animals, with the time and effort it takes?

(poignant vignette--imagine some SPCA weenie asking her, and her very unselfconscious explanation that she was behind bars--from alcohol--but no one threatened to kill her, and that she thinks her friends should get the same protection that she had...?)

what about the mutt that no one will take? could be a very, very sentimental piece with her (and us) slowly falling in love with this absolutely grungy mutt (bad habits, etc.) and then the pain when an owner does turn up...

What does this woman want? Do a mad minute brainstorm on that? (set yourself a quota, then list ideas as fast as you can!)

Suppose we wanted to make her Cinderella? I mean, admittedly, she's got a marriage and her dogs, but... swapperoo? she's the prince, looking madly for the werewolf that took her out that one golden night?

ohoh--what happens to hubby when he realizes she's looking for that enchanted dog?

Could we use another character? What about a guy who decides to hit on her... and his slow realization (somehow) that she is a real person? Suppose the dogs rescue her from the peeper?

Or...

Presets--love triangles (maybe hubby is having a fling?)
Mystery--someone kills her? why? how?

Scan through Polti's list of plot elements--suppose she was
or something else from that list...

Okay...slow down and sort through the ideas. Try to make sure you've got a reasonably solid answer to each of the points in my pre-writing checklist, then start writing it up...

Oh. Outline? What's the start? What's the end? And then what are the major scenes moving from one to the next... I'm a keyword sketchy outliner, others are more detailed, do what works for you (and don't be surprised if it changes sometimes--a mystery may need more detailed planning for clues and so on than a mood piece...).

Make sure the protagonist or main character(s) loses or gets into more and better messes at the end of each scene, at least until the climax. Don't be nice to your characters--start with small irritations, escalate into major attacks, and build towards a real crisis...

hum. not a story yet, but perhaps some hints as to how I'd start moving from the initial idea towards a story.

Anyone else? Come on, come on, how do you get started?