What Writerly Tools Will You Use?
I’ll be away this Memorial weekend visiting family, so you can expect a slight lull in the posts. But that doesn’t mean you’re on vacation — and neither am I! I’m posing an important question to you in this post that will hopefully keep you on track over the next few days. The question is:
What Writerly Tools Will You Use?
We’ve discussed in previous posts the idea of a writer’s “tool box.” It is a metaphor I first saw in Stephen King’s excellent book, On Writing. The idea is that you have certain tools at your disposal. You’re more skilled with some tools than with others, so you need to learn to use those tools you have more creatively, and avoid the ones you’re shaky on. It’s also a reminder for what tools you really have — and usually, you have more tools than you think.
For example, you might be very good at capturing realistic dialogue. Maybe you have an ear for conversation. If so, why did you write a chapter with no dialogue in it? You’ve got to pull the old dialogue wrench out of your tool box and use it. You have the tool of plot and suspense — maybe you know how to create a nice gripping cliffhanger. If so, use it! That’s a tool that writers rely on heavily.
The question for you this weekend, therefore, is all about what tools you’ll try pulling out of the old box. What is being underused? What does the story need? What have you neglected? What’s a little shaky or rusty or poorly put together? It’s time to work on it with the tools you have. This exercise requires a little self-examination as well; you need to take the time to discover your own writing style, and figure out what tools you really know how to wield. If you’re busy with family or vacationing this weekend, just thinking about your own writing will do. Try to understand what you can do and what you can’t. Read something good and figure out what parts of the book you could do better. That will give you a better understanding of what tools are already in your box, and what tools you need to get in there.
Tuesday Tip: Name Your Chapters
Tuesday tips is a category of posts here at Writerly Life that promises to offer concrete tips for improving or kickstarting your writing. The tips that fall into this category are the sorts that you can do today or even right now.
This week’s tip:
Name Your Chapters
I have a separate file for each of the chapters of my novel. It’s just easier to manipulate a shorter document, and it helps remind me to give each chapter its own arc, climax, and sense of satisfaction. I’ve been returning to these chapters now, trying to edit the novel on a macro level, shuffling chapters around and trying to figure out the overall trajectory. It was getting confusing; I was losing focus, and I didn’t know where the novel should end up. I was even getting confused about which file was which, so I set myself the task of naming each chapter, with just a word or two that would capture the essence of that chapter. And something miraculous happened once I had done this — the overall plot, and many of the big story arcs I was struggling with, suddenly seemed clear. I could see how one chapter (childhood) was repeating the work of another (childhood II); I combined them. One chapter (“kids”) needed to go earlier. And one chapter, named for the protagonist’s brother, would be a triumphant kind of climax.
Whatever your naming scheme ends up being, I highly recommend taking the time today to name your novel’s chapters. These names might not make it to the final draft — instead, they are for you alone. They are your chance to get it straight, to understand what each chapter is fundamentally supposed to be about. Once I realized one chapter was named the protagonist’s brother, than I knew that chapter had to be all about him and his perspective on things. This simple process ended up solving a lot of my problems.
Are You a Slave to Fashion?
Do you worry about how “with it” your writing is? Have you chosen a plot twist or a character type purely because that character or plot is particularly hot right now? At some point we all become influenced by fashion and by trends in our particularly corner of fashion, the writing world. Whether we admit or not, the type of writing we do, and even the messages we choose to send, have been influenced by what is “of the moment” in contemporary writing. There are good things about being a slave to fashion, and there are bad things; and I’m writing today to separate out the good from the bad.
First, the good of following trends
There’s no such thing as a contemporary book that is utterly without style, or that is unaware of fashion. We all swim in the ocean of books, and we know what sells and what doesn’t. We also are creatures of context; it is dishonest, and ultimately reactionary, to write in a way that rejects our current cultural moment. To completely isolate ourselves from the literature we read is going to create a very stale and strange work.
So in one way, we must acknowledge the good of being aware of contemporary writing fashion. Hemingway, for example, created a new fashion in American writing when he began using his stark, staccato style. It was a style that would hugely influence American writing for decades — we can see his influence in Raymond Carver, for example, and in so many others.
But if we were to write exactly like Hemingway today, it would feel like we were trying to do style imitations that were now sixty years old. It wouldn’t feel original and unique; it would be a knock-off. It would be like trying to invent the miniskirt, after women had been wearing it for fifty years.
Tuesday Tip: Cut the Mixed Metaphors
Tuesday Tips is a new category of posts here at Writerly Life that will be appearing every Tuesday. It’s a series of concrete tips for improving or kickstarting your writing. The tips that fall into this category are the sorts that you can do today or even right now, and they’re chosen to immediately re-vitalize your writing in some small (but meaningful!) way.
This week’s tip is:
Cut it out with those mixed metaphors already
I just saw the little documentary “Bad Writing.” It’s a real hoot if you’re a writer — full of fresh, funny insights about what makes writing bad and why we can often be so blind to our own creative flaws. I’ll probably write about it in a separate post, but one thing I noticed in the bad writing the filmmaker presented was the rampant mixing of metaphors. In his (self-confessed) bad poetry, he often writes things that are needlessly abstract cliches, like the burning sun drinking flames or the ice of the booze tearing his throat. But there’s another sin going on in phrases like that — they are imprecise images.
Here’s what I mean: can the sun drink? And how do you drink flames, even if you can drink? Is the booze ice, or ice-like? And how does ice tear? The images he’s creating may seem vivid on a first pass — but they’re actually muddled and nonsensical — they don’t add to our understanding of the feelings, because they don’t actually mean anything.
We’re all guilty of mixed metaphors, so you’ll need to apply a skeptical eye to your metaphors and imagine if they’re actually possible or imaginable. Your heart is galloping in your chest. It works because the galloping rhythm could really be like the pounding of a heart. But angel wings of your lungs flutter? How can your lungs have wings? Are they inside the body? Try cutting that one out.
The Great Gear Change
Only one class remains to be graded in my very busy semester, and the classes have stopped meeting. At long last, I’ve stretched my muscles, stepped away from my chair, and taken a look out the window. For the first time in months, I have time to think about my writing again, and to think about the writing life. It’s always a treat for teachers as well as students when we hear the final call of “school’s out for summer!”
It means as well that I have renewed energy to throw myself back into things here at Writerly Life. You can expect new posts, and a resumed regular schedule of tips, techniques, and thoughts about keeping creativity alive in your life. I’m a firm believer in the idea that doing creative things enriches our lives; it keeps us from falling into lazy habits, and it gives meaning to the things we do every day. To create is to feel alive in my book. And my creations of choice are stories.
As the image for today attests, I’m feeling like the gears are at last shifting in a new direction, back toward writing fiction. I’ve finished a rough draft of my novel, but I’m also thinking about changing gears in other aspects of the writing life — in starting a new work, or in trying a new voice. When was the last time you made a conscious choice to change gears in some way in your creative life? What did you do? Did you try a new form, or stop using those same old word pairs that you’ve been using? Did you look at a different character?
This week’s guest post is from writer Cara Aley. She has recommendations for books to read that should prove inspiring.
Top 5 Prompt Books to Get the Words Flowing
Even the best of writers feel bereft of ideas at times, and we all know how frustrating that can be. A dry spell, writer’s block—whatever you feel you might be experiencing (or want to get ahead of experiencing and be prepared for), never fear. These five prompt books will help jostle those great ideas out of hiding in that noggin of yours.
Free yourself of the agitation of writer’s block and get yourself a prompt book or two.
Take Ten for Writers by Bonnie Neubauer
This book provides over 1,000 exercises to inspire your writing. The title indicates that each exercise only takes about ten minutes, but also that you can do the work ten different ways with unique outcomes.
Author Neubauer makes the great recommendation that you do an exercise like this once daily so that you don’t lose the momentum of idea generation and writing.
The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts: Easy Exercises to Get You Writing by Martha Alderson
This books is fabulously full of helpful prompts, whether you are just starting a project or in the middle of one. For those in the middle of a writing project, Alderson “helps…with…imaginative prompts, such as: Create an obstacle that interferes with the protagonist’s goal and describe how that scene unfolds moment-by-moment. Provide sensory details of the story world and what your main character is doing at this very moment. Scan earlier scenes for examples of the protagonist’s chief character flaw and develop it. He or she will need to overcome this flaw in order to achieve his or her ultimate goal.” These are the kinds of tips that will take your writing that is in process to the next level.
I’m in the final throes of the semester this week, grading a stack of final papers and starting to return to thoughts of creative writing. I’ll be very excited to get to that time just a handful of days from now when all that is left is the quest to polish my novel (and possibly even send some new work out). In the meantime, I’m thinking about those times of our year when we do breathe a breath of fresh air — and how easily these times of relative freedom seem to slip by. Are there times in your busy schedule when you realize that you suddenly have more free time — and do you find yourself ultimately wasting that time?
I know I’ve done this in the past. It seems that when I have more free time, I simply stretch out my work to fill in the new hours; I veg more and work less. There’s a time and a place for a break and re-boot, for a little reward, a little television, a little socializing, but I think we also have to remember how precious this new time is. When I reach the end of the semester I’m always full of brave new plans; I’m full of exciting ideas. And by the end of that free time, I’m left with the cliche question, “Where did the time go?”
This time, though, I’m resolved to make the most of my newly opening days. I’ll be setting concrete goals, making lists, and using my days in structured ways to meet my creative goals. I’m even planning to go on a writing residency for the first time, and I’m wildly excited about that experience; I’ll discuss that in a future post. For now, try being a little grateful for your opening time — and don’t waste it in treating yourself. Use the time for what it is — a blessed chance to do the work that you care about.
This week’s guest post is from blogger and freelance writer Allison. She’s continuing our discussion of personal publishing stories by adding her testimonial today.
What it Takes to be a Writer
You know, when I got the idea that I wanted to be a writer as a profession I did not really understand what that meant. I had some romantic notion that writing was an easy thing. Something you could do with no problem. I would sit down at my computer and type out a novel or two, get it published and I would be a real writer.
As I got older the dream dimmed. I had not written a novel. I had not time to devote to that sort of thing. I figured that it was almost impossible to make any money as a writer. I mean, you had to be successful like J.K. Rowling or something, right? And there were no real other writing jobs out there beyond a novelist or journalist or technical writer. Ug. I had zero desire to write the latest article on sports news or weather.
So I worked one dead end job after another, trying to find a calling that would pay. After making some okay money I found myself increasingly dissatisfied. I wanted to write. Not just as a hobby like baking or hiking, but as a day in day out job. But how could I get started? I did not have a degree in writing. I had not had anything major published outside of some school stuff. I had not even written anything really for three years. Who would hire me?
This week’s guest post is from web writer Nick Anderson. He writes about The 5 Steps You Need to Take in Order to Get Your Book Published.
Getting a book published is not simply a matter of having an idea. If you are an aspiring writer, or even an experienced one, and want to get your book published, here are the five important steps to follow.
1. Come up with an idea – the idea is of course the basis of the book. Your main concept or idea will determine whether your content is good enough to publish. If you have an original idea that has been floating around in your mind, discuss it with some trusted friends and colleagues who can give you an honest opinion about it. Having an original or inspired idea is always useful, because a calculated assessment of current trends can only help you a certain amount.
2. Do Your Homework – once you have an idea you can think about who the audience is meant to be for your book. Is it meant for children? If so, what age? Is it mainly intended for boys, or girls, or both?
Knowing your audience will help you when you begin writing your manuscript. Your target reader will determine how you develop characters and the style in which you write. Doing your homework also includes making a broad and loose outline for your story. This may help you by acting like a framework when you flesh out the book.
Tuesday Tip: Type Up What You’ve Got
Tuesday tips is a category of posts here at Writerly Life that promises to offer concrete tips for improving or kickstarting your writing. The tips that fall into this category are the sorts that you can do today or even right now.
This week’s tip:
Type Up What You’ve Got
John Steinbeck wrote all of his books by hand. In particular, he wrote The Grapes of Wrath in its entirety on yellow legal pads, scribbling in a nearly indecipherable and quite small scratch. It was his wife, Carol, who loyally typed up his first draft, and she is known to have done the work of cleaning and polishing as she went, improving the language and writing. It’s crucial to have that second layer of writing to improve our rough thoughts and scribblings, and while someone else might do it, you can easily do it yourself.
Many writers still write by hand. Jennifer Egan is one writer whom I’ve heard writes all her first drafts by hand on legal pads just like John Steinbeck. It’s an essential first step; and it automatically builds a second draft into the process of typing it up. Maybe you’ve written paragraphs and pages by hand, and now they’re scattered about your life, appearing in various notebooks. Today, spend some time pulling together the pieces that you have and typing them up into one document. As you type, you’ll find yourself improving the work, cutting down on words, not bothering to type paragraphs that are a waste of time, choosing better words where you got repetitive. You’ll be doing important work to make the writing coherent in your mind, and you’ll be taking the first step to improve it.
At the end of a typing session, you’ll often find yourself with a better vision for the work — and you’ll have an improved work on your computer too.
