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WRITE AID
#1 - 17
Actually:
Writer’s aid:
Tips, tools and encouragement.
Although creativity is valued by all humans.
Creativity is a difficult thing for any society to understand.
Being creative is even more difficult. It was the main driver for the creation of this web Site.
A. Hicks Hope.
The Hope was that more creative people could come together, albeit electronically, and help each other be creative and entertained.
So, I want other writers to feel free to add their tips and tools they use to encourage their creative process.
My Writing Teachers, by the way.
From Northeastern University
· Robert B. Parker
· Peter Sandberg, Ph.D.
From Cleveland, Ohio Poetry community (Didn’t know that it had one did you?)
· Charles A. Smith
Here is some more of mine:
1.) To learn to write WRITE!
· Write at least once a day. (Walter Mosley said this)
· Don’t hold back on the first draft. Put down everything that comes out. You will be coming back over it again and again.
· I write it out free-hand on lined paper. But do what you are comfortable with.
· You are attempting to crawl into the same area of the brain that dreams come from. It is hard. See the book on dreaming below
2.) NOW FORGET IT! Well, try to.
· Set your writing aside for a day or two. I do a week or a month.
· Then I type it into the computer. This transition helps me look at the writing more objectively. As if someone else wrote it.
· Things that don’t make sense show big time.
3.) REVISE – The story is more important
than your ego.
Some basic principles:
· If you can take without injuring your story DO IT!
· Cut & paste freely.
· Add as little as you can.
4.) Don’t fall in love with your words.
Love the story,
yes, but not the words. The story has its own
existence. Its own life. Value its individuality.
· Revise liberally.
· Revise again.
· Actually, a piece is never finished. You just abandon it at some point.
· Don’t be afraid. There will be other stories. There will be plenty of words coming into your head.
5.) I find a place in which the story will happen.
I have been using actual places if I can.
Places I have visited. If not, I get maps and
visit web sites showing those regions. I want to
form a solid image in my mind of that three
dimensional place. It gives me a physical
structure to hang the story on. The characters
can walk down real streets in my head. It
makes the story more real. Many times the
events of the story rise up out of the place.
6.) Give your story / characters a past and a present. Just like life, the people you meet existed before you met them and afterwards. Even if they are dead, something will happen to the body somewhere out there in the future. You don’t have to have a complex summary of the characters life within the story. Many times a few lines of dialog will demonstrate the character’s past, their main personality traits too, sometimes. You are building a world. It has to be believable even if it is some fantastic alternant reality. It still has to have a past and a future. Make the piece exist on its own. The piece should carry its own world around with it.
7.) Use as few words as possible. A short story is just like a poem; say the most with the least. With novels you have more room for back-stories and other background, mood building words and descriptors. With a short story it has to be efficient and precise. A.F.W.P. As few words as possible.
8.) Don’t fear failure. Write it down! Go ahead and stick your neck out. Otherwise, giving into fear will stop you dead in your tracks. And what is failure anyway? If the story is not ever written then it doesn’t exist. You can’t fix that. But if is does exist, even if it is weak, incomplete or just not right, you can fix that. You can do something with something. And remember revision is part of the creative process. Revise. Revise. Revise! You can go back and modify that world! See how great it is to be a writer. You can change the world on a whim.
9.) What is good?
Define a good piece of art in general
terms. “It moved me.” “It made me laugh.”
“It made me cry.” Art hits you somewhere in
the body or head. You can get hit with a log, a
feather, a needle, a hammer, a rock, not matter
what it is, there is an impact. Impact delivery
systems are legion. It is the impact that means
something. Thus an attempt to define in words
GOOD ART is totally arbitrary and thus useless.
Don’t worry about Good ART or Bad ART.
Make ART that kicks you in the head.
That’s a good definition:
· Good ART is a mad donkey.
· Art is an angry jackass.
I like that. Art is generally painful to both the creator and the consumer. Art is always ahead the clients it serves. It gets categorized later by scholars and critics. Once they paw over it and tell you what is good and bad about it and that it has been done before, the impact gets diluted and weakened. Scholars seem to need to do that for general consumption. Then somehow they can take credit for the Art? Usually this happens too late to matter for the author or painter. So just don’t worry about GOOD. Worry about getting the piece to speak out about what you want it to say. Make that dog bark. Get that Jackass to kick!
10.) Character. Characters? The characters carry the
story. Believable characters make the story, no
matter how fantastic, seem believable.
How do you get your characters to seem real?
I practice becoming the character. Many writers
will tell you that every character is actually
themselves. Well, who else would they be?
But even when you have a conversation with
your self, you use different voices or a change
in posture, a tip of the head, weak to dominant
expression on your face. Thus I extend that to
other people. Of course you need to listen
carefully to real other people as they talk and
make things up themselves. See this as your
constant research.
But to practice.
Since I’m a guy, I try writing as a girl.
See the story Punch and Judy in the fiction
section. I don’t try to write as a girl would
write, I mean write as if you were a girl, or a
guy, if you are a girl. Be the character. Become
the character. Don’t walk a mile in his shoes,
become his shoes. It’s almost acting for me. I
try to be someone else. Looking out at the
world with someone else’s eyes. I get personal
and intimate with the characters. I learn much
more about them then I’ll ever put on paper.
Reading too much detail is boring! but . . .
think about why you say something the way you
do. It comes out from all the events of your
past life. The present caution coming from past
rejection and injury. The laughter coming from
nervousness. The confidence or bravado
coming from the successes in your life. It all is
reflected in by the mirror of the circumstances.
The situation brings your past out of you. You
respond to similar situations in similar ways or
totally contrary manners. Those responses are
the character’s TELLS. They are the character’s
personality. So practice being other folks, even
minor characters. In stead of having
stereotypical, cardboard people in your stories,
they will be real people.
Annoying or likeable. Even in a fantasy the
characters have to respond consistently with the
world you have built for them. Thus I set up
different circumstances and write a character
story (portrait) around that circumstance.
Punch and Judy came from my listening to a
woman English professor talk about her husband.
He was a Prison Guard. He didn’t understand her or
what she did but she loved him so. Thus I wrote a
piece attempting to explain that love of hers. Of
course, physical love (sex) and confusion were very
involved. You will also see that I come from a
family of tough women. My sister liked this story
very much.
Click the Punch and Judy.
Warning! Rating of R for graphic reality!
11.) The middle of the action. Remember that phrase.
Drop your self and your reader directly into the
middle of some action, emotion, tragedy, failure,
success, laughter anything with jeopardy attached
to it. Anything to get the amygdala pumping. The
seat of emotions in the vertebrate lizard brain.
Excitement is the key.
Dump them into the river first and then explain
why there is no boat there! The modern reader
wants movement, action of some kind. Have the
dog bite them. Have the Jackass kick them. You
need to get their attention. The Sesame Street
generation needs fast scene changes. What else
are the readers reading for? They’re obviously
sitting still reading.
But they really want to move, deep down in that
primitive lizard brain, so move them. What is
entertainment but making people be somewhere
else than they are. And with fiction, putting the
reader somewhere else is the point, everything else
is subsidiary. As Tip #10 said for the writer,
“Practice being someone else.” Also practice
“Being somewhere else.” See Point # 5. The
writer is the guide. The reader the boy or girl
scout. You need to lead them carefully where you
want them to go.
12.) ENDINGS ARE HARD! “Endings are elusive,
middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all
is to begin, to begin, to begin.” From The Dolt by
Donald Barthelme. In this story,
“Edgar was preparing to take the National Writer's
Examination, a five-hour fifty-minute examination,
for his certificate.” There is no such test to be
clear. The story discusses the writing of a story. A
weird story, but a story all the same. The Dolt is
worth reading. It has some use for all writers.
You can read it at the URL -
http://www.jessamyn.com/barth/
Barthelme's stories were typically funny to the
absurd and extremely short, intentionally, avoiding
traditional plot structures and that old chestnut the
story Arc. Instead, his pieces relayed more on a
steady accumulation of seemingly-unrelated detail,
than plot.
In many ways they were just ENDINGS with no
middle or beginning. So you could read some of
his stories quickly to get the idea of ENDINGS.
ENDINGS are seemingly contradictory to the
whole point of a story. ENDINGS put an END to
your story by definition. See Point #6 in WRITE
AID. A story should have a past and a future.
The ENDING shouldn’t be a barrier. A good
ENDING, a working ENDING, has windows in it.
It allows the reader to look off into the future if
they wish. If you have readers saying, “You
should turn this story into a novel.”
First off, DON’T!
Second, you have succeeded! Quit while you are
ahead.
Your ENDING had enhanced the story, not boxed
it in. Don’t truncate your story. Don’t fence it in!
Don’t put it in a box. The ENDING should say
more than THE END. That’s what those two
words are for. ENDINGS are not necessarily the
goal of the story. The point of the story is not
necessarily the ENDING. Sometimes the ENDING
just pops up at you. The story reached its own
END. Of course, then there are the times in
which you just can’t stop writing. Likely because
you haven’t found the point of the story yet.
Then you need to focus on what you have done.
Look at the whole story (what you have written)
again and then again. The point may appear only
in the second or third drafts. That’s why
revisions is so important. (See #3) It helps you
get to where you are going, even if you don’t
know where that is.
I know. What the hell am I saying? “Endings are
elusive.” Remember.
How do other writers do it? There are some
famous ENDINGS that worked very well. They
have types.
So what are the common types of ENDINGS? The
old Chestnuts we all know?
EVERYONE DIES
A.) The Hamlet – the only reason this ending
works is that everyone was corrupted in
some fashion by the situation, even
Ophelia, and thus they deserve it. “Kill
them all and let God sort them out” was the
meaning of this ending. It works
sometimes. Hamlet was one of them. Dr.
Strangelove was another.
B.) It’s all a Dream! – is a version of Everyone
Dies, because you don’t have to explain
anything or get people out of extraordinary
circumstances. At some point in time,
usually right at the very end, the last
sentence or so, everything goes back to
normal, no sweat. But it is the sweat that
makes the story, dummy. It’s all a Dream is
annoying to everyone over nine years old.
The dream ending means there are no rules,
no jeopardy. No sweat. Then there is no
internal suspense.
C.) It’s all Magic! – An even more annoying
version of Everyone Dies. The only rule in a
Magic based story is that Magic can fix
everything. SHAZAM! All done. No sweat
at all. Just convince the Magician to snap
his fingers and everything is made RIGHT.
No sweat at all, just annoyance. Annoying
to everyone over nine years old and hardly
works for that audience. If the Magician
could have done the task, why did we have
to do all that reading and worry? Just
SHAZAM it and be done with it. I don’t
want to be involved.
GOOD THINGS FOR THE GOOD; BAD THINGS
FOR THE BAD! (or vice versa)
Most Adventure stories and Romances have
these ENDINGS. It maybe why these types of
stories are so popular? Sort of a morality play.
A.) Success obtaining the sought goal
Romeo and Juliet is a version of GOOD
THINGS / BAD THINGS - Success. No
really! Remember, the goal of the Kids
was to find their true love. (Isn’t it
everyone's?) They actually did, didn’t
they? The Kids are just silly. It’s the
expression of their silliness they get
punished for. Kids do stupid selfish
excessive things all of the time. They are
KIDS! That’s not bad really. It is the
Parents that really get punished. Parents
are there to keep the Kids safe. Protect
them from themselves. In Romeo & Juliet,
bad things happened to the good, innocent
but silly. But the really bad things
happened to the stupid self-centered
adults that should have known better. The
only things that really matters, their
children, die from the Parents stupid
squabbling. The punishment fits the
crime. That’s why this bummer ENDING
works so well.
B.) Failure – Try and fail. Trying is important.
To build a fire by Jack London is one of
these ENDINGS.
Despite the Man’s reasonable attempts to
triumph over the Yukon and its cold and to
eventually build a fire. He fails and then
the Man dies. A very bad thing. But from
the story’s middle part, it’s clear that the
Man didn’t know enough about the Yukon
to survive its worst. In a way, the Man
was too stupid to live. A tale as a warning
against hubris and over confidence.
Learn or die! That is the moral of this
story.
Caution Needed Here!
Be careful with moralistic agendas though. It
can make your story into a morality play, a
fable. And those are boring. NOT being
BORING is the whole point of fiction. Reality
is boring enough, you don’t have to add to the
world of BORING.
REALITY
The only sure thing about life is death. We all
die, that’s a certainty. The only open
questions about it are when, where and how? It’s the when, where and how that make
fiction. The problem with reality, the boring
part of reality, is that life is generally
predictable. We want life that way. We want
life reasonably predictable so we don’t have to
worry so much all of the time. But
predictability makes fiction dull, dull, dull and
boring. At least to me. If you know what is
going to happen, the story is just fast-food.
Fast-food fiction, you always know what it is
going to taste like. Genera fiction is what it
is. Satisfying as a distraction only, but you
wouldn’t want to try living on it.
Supersize me and die!
So having a REALISTIC ENDING that works is hard.
It is hard to make anything a surprise. Of course, it
all depends upon the story. If the story itself was
fanciful and fantastic, a good REALISTIC ENDING
works just fine.
NONE AT ALL
Just stop at some point, any point. Samuel
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Ends this way. And
it works considering the territory where the play
had just walked.
Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go
They do not move.
THE END
13.) No-Risk Reality – It’s what fiction is for.
Video game popularity supports this
statement. A violent death, but you
can always live again. No-death death.
Fiction is derived from the Latin word, fictio,
meaning a making, fashioning.
No-risk is thus a fictitious reality. Reality
hurts. Reality bleeds. But with fiction, the
reader can regulate the pain felt and there
is no blood. Hardwired for empathy,
feeling other people’s pain. The Mirror
neurons in every primate’s brain though
gives those primates empathy. Feeling
what others feel. The primate brain can
literally go through the motions and fire
the same neurons that they would use
when doing the body movement just by
seeing another primate do something.
They do the action in their head, so they
can predict what will happen next.
Simply, the primate brain mirrors the
action of other primates they observe.
Thus all primates can get into another
primates head from a distance. If you see
someone get surprised, you too, the
nerves in your head at least, fire as if you
were the one surprised. Remote feeling.
Mirror neurons are the reason movies and
the theatre are so popular. Actors may
only be phantoms of real people, but they
are real enough to fool your Mirror
Neurons.
With writing, you have another layer of
removal from the Real world, the written
word without pictures. But with the proper
words you can draw a reader in, make
them think they are seeing something
real. Convince them that your characters
are feeling. Convince them because they
want to be convinced, they want to be
seduced. They want to believe.
Fiction provides them a safe haven. A
bloodless reality. A portable, convenient
reality, that can be dipped into or out of at
the reader’s whim. Escapist? Absolutely!
All literature is escapist fiction. The reader
can easily escape from it as easily as they
can escape into it. Escape from the risk-
abundant real world reality. Just stop
reading and you are out. Good fiction is
exactly like an amusement park.
Controlled risk.
Safe risk.
No risk at all.
Remember, you can take the reader any
and every where, but you need to hook
those Mirror Neurons first. If you have
made a reflection of a desired reality there,
readers will follow you anywhere and like
it.
No cuts.
No bruises.
No motion- sickness.
See, reading is better than a roller
coaster.
14.) Avoid Punditry – It’s not what fiction is for.
Sermons are for punditry. Your Dad's
lectures about how you are screwing up
your life. That's punditry.
Clearly no one likes it. You didn't / don't.
Let your characters be the jerks in the story.
Crime & Punishment is a great example
of Punditry gone wild, but in a good fiction
way. Everyone of Dostoevsky's characters
say a bunch of philosophical junk. It's all
hogwash, but that's a main part of the story.
The Stupidity of the World.
Good Pundits do not exist.
Punditry is just silly crap.
Punditry screws up the world.
Pundits are good for dramatic effect.
Pundits are good for a laugh.
To show what pompous ass-ness looks like.
Let your characters take the blame though.
Avoid narrator Punditness I say.
Let your readers be the judge of actions.
"Read the story to the end."
That should be the only valid point you
should want to make.
You are not their Mom. Not their Dad. You
should be providing a moral compass that
goes around the complete 360o.
Show all the flaws of the world and let the
reader sort them out.
How's that for a bit of PUNDITRY?
Boring right? Just my point.
15.) Naming your characters – It too is hard to do!
There are a few different ways to do it.
It all depends upon your desired
affect, of course. Here are three:
A.) The Name is related to or revealing of the
personae of the character. This works
sometimes. Mostly, though, it is a single, use-
once, joke or pun. Upon repeating most puns just
get annoying. Still, that can be useful, depending
on the mood of the story.
B.) Totally Arbitrary - You just pluck a name out of a
phone listing. Or a newspaper article. Just some
name that sounded interesting, that stood out for
who knows why. For stories in the U.S.A., any old
name works just fine. People come from all over
the world to America, so an unusual name needs
no explaining. Obviously though, if the story is
set in Tokyo, a guy named Thom Jones, requires
a satisfying back story. I mean it can happen for
all kinds of reasons. The easiest explanation is
that he is a white guy. Still it needs saying
somewhere in the story. That might even be a
good idea for a story, a group of Japanese men
with English names. You could work on Cultural
norms and prejudices, Anglophobia and
Anglophilia. The English Name Gang. How’s
that for a titles?
C.) Totally made up names. - It too can work
depending upon the situation and circumstances.
I will sometimes make up names to direct the
readers feeling about the character, make the
name sound silly or nasty. A totally unknown
name gives the character mystery. A completely
empty back story that the reader will want filled
in. The character will be an open book, with no
assumptions about their past available. I’ll just
make up a name as I write the first draft of this.
Manquish Talva
Is that a man or a woman? Asian? Not likely.
Middle European? Maybe. African? Maybe.
Yes, well maybe, North African.
Rich? Poor? Artist?
Banker? See. It leaves it open.
To me the name reads:
· Turk.
· A male.
· Business type.
· Anti-totalitarian.
· Islamic, but not fundamentalist.
· Intelligence is much more important than faith.
As an exercise you could make up a cast of characters by name only and then work out the story. That sort of happens anyway. The story goes its own way because of how the characters direct it. Go on. Do this exercise and I’ll put it up. Come on. Do It!
16.) The play's the thing – Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 603–605
Hamlet:
I'll have grounds
More relative than this—the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
Replace Reader for King. That’s what fiction, story telling is all about; catching the consciousness of the reader.
Drama comes from a Greek word meaning, an action.
Tragedy comes from the Greek words meaning, the song of the goat. That goat being a satyr, a class of minor Greek deities that loved to cause trouble.
Comedy comes from the Greek words meaning, to reveal in song.
So no matter whether you are trying to get laughs or tears, you are Revealing the one thing that is on everyone’s mind.
“What the hell is going on?”
· In life.
· In the Universe.
· In my mind.
· In her mind.
· In everything else.
Fiction is not trivial. Fiction, good fiction, is serious business. No one has the answers, so all they can do is show you how other folks have done it and then you won’t feel so alone and confused. Or is that confused and alone?
Life makes no sense sometimes, but it nice to know that other people feel the same way.
17.) The Entitled Title -
The word title derives from the Latin, titulus, meaning inscription, label, sign. The definition in the dictionary is simple. "The name of . . . ". A title is just a name for the piece of creation? Just like the name of your car is just Edith. A title adds to the word. The title is part of the work and don't forget it. The title is a marketing piece. It is an enticement. It is your lead for the reader. A good title is the foot in the door. It is the reason most people read the piece. "It had a good title."
So how do you get a good title? Hell, if I know. Like any other type of creation, titles just happen.
I will sometimes come up with a title and then think of a story for it. "Kafka in a Jar" was one.
I have listed some titles I have in reserve posted here.
All I can do here is warn you about the importance of the title. Work on it as hard as you work on any other part of your story. Visual Artists tend to brush off titles as unimportant. I think that's not true either, but I can't paint.
Revise the title too. I have nothing much else to say.
If any of you out there have a better comment. Voice it. Please.
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Other useful books, web sites and tools.
Useful Reference Books on Writing:
Writing the Blockbuster Novel, Albert Zuckerman, Writer's Digest Books, 1994. - Writing
Writer’s Dreaming, Twenty-six Writers Talk about their Dreams and the Creative Process, Naomi Epel, Vintage Books, NY, 1994. – Writing & Psychology.
A Poetics for Screenwriters, Lance Lee, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. 2001. – Screenwriting & Film Studies.
The Tools of Screenwriting, David Howard & Edward Mabley, St. Martin’s Griffin, NY, 1993. – Screenwriting.
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Scott Card, Writer's Digest Books, 1990. - Writing
Character and Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card, Writer's Digest Books, 1988. - Writing
Useful Web Sites on Writing:
Writing Lessons by O. S. Card - http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/index.shtml
The Paris Review Interview Archive - http://www.theparisreview.com/literature.php
Since 1953, when the first issue of the magazine (Paris Review) appeared with an interview of E. M. Forster, our Q&A encounters with the great writers of our times have come to be recognized as a sort of literary genre unto themselves: the Paris Review interview.
Literary Agents:
How to be your own Literary Agent, Richard Curtis, Houghton Mifflin Company, NY, 1996.
Click on the title at the very bottom of the page or the buttons on the side to get to the individual items.
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"The whole secret of the ART of WAR l
is in making one self
master of the communication."
Napoleon
"See! It's all marketing!"
A. Hicks