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Study Hall

I stumbled across this great website today – Editor Unleashed. With almost daily posts from a variety of industry insiders, the breadth and depth of the information is awesome. If you’re an aspiring author looking for insight into how the publishing industry works, start here.

Here are just a few of the articles I’d recommend:

Growing Pains

Nobody’s perfect.

Even the modern day messiah, Barack Obama, has a character flaw – he smokes. So when you’re writing your breakout novel, screenplay or short story, make sure to give your character a few flaws that they can wrestle with and, hopefully, overcome through adversity.

Some of the best examples of this writing tactic tie subtle (or glaringly obvious) plot points to the character’s own psychological and emotional growth.

Here are a few examples:

Fracture:

  • Our protagonist begins the film as a rising star in the Los Angeles legal community. He’s about to leave the D.A.’s office for a high-paying job at one of the most prestigious firms in the country, when he’s dragged into a seemingly slam-dunk case. The problem is, he’s cocky, overly focused on making money, and doesn’t seem to have a soul.
  • After losing the case and seeing his client die at the hands of a sociopath, our hero eats a big plate full of humble pie, managing to find his soul in the process. He quits the high-powered firm, goes back to work at the D.A.’s office, and finds a way to solve the highly complex case and retry the villain on different charges.
  • The movie closes with the protagonist preparing to argue his case alone, a phalanx of high-powered attorneys prepared to argue against him. But we’re sure that this time, he’s going to win … because his heart and head are finally in the right place.

Little Miss Sunshine:

  • The motley group of folks in this film each have some major flaw: Grandpa is a heroin addict. Dad is a failed motivational speaker and life coach who is overly concerned with success and appearances. Mom is in a seemingly loveless marriage and is alone. Uncle Frank, the #2 Proust scholar in the country, has just tried to commit suicide. Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force academy, so that he can escape the drudgery of his home life. And then there’s Olive – an unathletic but cheery kid with horrible fashion sense who wants to be a beauty queen.
  • When Olive learns that she’s been accepted into the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, the whole fam–damily piles into a VW bus and takes a road trip to California. Along the way: Grandpa dies, Mom becomes more frustrated with her family, Dwayne learns that his poor vision will get him rejected from the Air Force Academy, Dad’s mentor turns out to be a con artist, Uncle Frank reveals that his lover left him for the #1 Proust scholar in the country, and Olive begins to doubt whether she has the talent to win the competition.
  • The movie ends with Olive’s horrible performance at the competition, a combination burlesque show and pilates act performed to the song “Superfreak“. We learn that Grandpa taught her the dance (humanizing the dead heroin addict) and watch as the whole family comes together to support Olive, who is hands down the most interesting little girl at the competition. Dad is no longer concerned what the audience thinks about him and his family, because finally … after a long road trip in a packed bus … the family is truly together.

So before you send in the manuscript to your agent or editor, ask yourself this … do you like these characters? If the answer is a resounding “YES!” – you might have some more work to do. Make the reader have to work to like the character, and make the character earn that respect.

Here’s a clip of Olive’s dance from the last few moments of “Little Miss Sunshine.” Perfect.

Never Judge A Book By Its … Karate Uniform

I volunteer at my kids’ school each week, helping teach karate classes in the after-school program. This usually involves me getting dressed up in a funny-looking pair of white pajamas and trying to get a roomful of toddlers (many with attention spans shorter than a fruit fly’s) to stop talking and pay attention to the real karate teacher long enough to soak up some important aspect of Kenpo karate.

We try to mix things up and make it fun for them and mostly the lessons seem to sink in for a majority of the children.

On the other days of the week I’m just a regular old dad, dropping off and picking up my girls, attending parent/teacher conferences, etc. Often, the karate kids are surprised to see me in street clothes, and have reactions ranging from “Karate teacher! Time for karate!” to “Karate teacher? What are you doing here?”

These kids think of me as “The Karate Teacher,” even though when I think or talk about myself this is the farthest thing from my mind. The uniform has ‘branded’ me in their minds, and it’s hard for me to grow beyond that first impression that it has created for them.

How does this apply to writing, you ask?

When you’re writing fiction, sometimes lengthy, detailed character descriptions can get in the way of the story. The reader wants to be caught up in your narrative – they’ll envision a character for themselves based upon his or her actions, dialogue, speech patterns, and thoughts. Don’t get it the way of that with overly descriptive paragraphs outlining each wrinkle on the character’s face.

Give your reader the freedom to “fill in the blanks” and only sketch out the basic details needed to bring the character to life.

Let’s Do The Time Warp Again

Yesterday we sprang forward, turning the little hand on the clock one full revolution ahead, and I felt like I was in a time warp. It was too dark when I got out of bed. The light wasn’t quite right when we ate lunch. The kids were confused when we put them to bed in the weak half light.

I didn’t feel, well … like myself.

This got me thinking about time, and routines in particular … and how inextricably our identities are linked to our conception of both. As anyone who follows “Lost” should know, messing around with the space-time continuum can have some pretty trippy results (SPOILER ALERT). Some party-pooping physicists are even trying to prove that time doesn’t exist – their theory is that it’s simply an aggregate sensation that helps us understand the world around us (much like heat is an aggregate sensation describing the amount and activity of molecules in a specific area).

Next time you’re in a writing rut, try this: break your routine and see what this does to either your brainstorming sessions or writing itself. Get up a few hours earlier and try to write then, or stay up a few hours later. Stay out late at a bar or bookstore and people watch. Walk the dog at an odd time of day, work out a few hours later. If you’re really dedicated, have your roommate change all the clocks while you’re sleeping (and if you do this, email me because I want to hear how it went).

As much as sticking to a routine will help us as authors produce at a relatively consistent level, it’s imperative that we keep sharpening our imaginations. What better way to do this than to never let them rest?

Write With Style

Several links today from articles on writing and publishing that I’ve stumbled upon over the past few weeks:

  • Damon Runyon, who wrote “Guys & Dolls”, would sit in New York City restaurants and absorb the speech rhythms of the local gangsters and hoods. This great article examines his dual-layered narrative, and his key insight that “American slang is double: first, that street speech tends to be more, not less, complicated grammatically than “standard” speech; but, second, that slang speakers, when they’re cornered to write, write not just fancy but stiff.”
  • An article on Ian McEwan’s life, process and style from the New Yorker:

    McEwan said that he never rushes from notebook to novel. “You’ve got to feel that it’s not just some conceit,” he said. “It’s got to be inside you. I’m very cautious about starting anything without letting time go, and feeling it’s got to come out. I’m quite good at not writing. Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. I’m a hesitater.”

  • The Book Cover Archive – where authors can review thumbnails and closeups of published book covers and research details on the artists, designers and publishers who created them.
  • A series of brief interviews with authors about the Sisyphean occupation of writing.

The Reader

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

~Samuel Johnson

What’s the number one tool in the writer’s toolbox? You guessed it … his library.

Read, read, read. Read published books. Read literary criticism. Read book flaps and synopses. Read things you don’t like (often – it will break you out of a rut). Look up words you don’t understand in the dictionary. Join a reading group in your area. Read the New York Times book reviews.

Deconstruct the things you’re reading. Analyze the point of view. Why did they choose first person? Who is this all-knowing narrator who keeps popping in to make those annoying omniscient comments foreshadowing things to come? Can I trust this narrator? Keep track of plot and pacing. Make unseen connections. Buy the Cliff’s notes and actually do the homework lessons.

There is a solitary, quiet concentration required to finish a novel that mirrors the writing process itself. Good writers are, first and foremost, good readers – they understand the rubric of their genre, when breaking a rule is acceptable … and when it’s a grammatical mistake. A good writer understands the elements of great literature (even if they’re writing in the most restrictive of genres) and uses them accordingly.

And after you’re done reading for the day, go sit down in another solitary corner and write.