What If You Could Not Fail

Are You Writing Mt. Rushmore, Or Michelangelo's David?

From a distance Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota looks amazing. Up close, though, it is a little rough around the edges. It is not designed for close scrutiny. It is meant to be gazed upon from afar. Michelangelo’s David, however,  is a work of amazing detail. That is because the great Italian sculptor knew that his work was going to be seen up close.

Hector Tobar makes the same point today in Jacket Copy in the Calendar section of today’s Los Angeles Times, holding up short story writer George Saunders as the modern-day literary equivalent to Michelangelo.

Saunders, whose day job is as a professor at Syracuse University, limits his literary expertise to short stories, essays and children’s books. The shorts have won him a wall full of awards. When some online brat suggested that it is time for Saunders to write a novel, insinuating that a novel was the true test of a writer, Tobar suggested, “Simply put, I think George Saunders hasn’t written a novel because he’s too much of a prose perfectionist. Because he’s unwilling to write a mediocre page. Because he likes the control the short-story form gives him.”

How true. My re-entry into fiction happened in late 2008. I jumped right off the deep end of the literary pool and dove into a novel. Four years and 100,000 words later, I was done. Since then I have written a few short stories, but I have fumbled with this story form. You don’t have the time to wind in subplots and build minor characters, and the reader does not have the attention span.  Like Mt. Rushmore, a 100,000 word novel can be a little rough around the edges and it works. In a short story, however, every word has to count.

One of my counterparts in my critique group also writes short stories. He comes from a poetry background, which is no doubt good training for a short story writer. He maintains that the secret to poetry is in editing, which takes him right into a short story.  Tobar also points out that with a short story the reader’s attention is much more focused. Also true for poetry.

Read Tobar’s article in the Times. He makes good sense.

See ya’ later.

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Photo by Jake DeGroot [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Who is Telling the Story?

I am reading Gone with the Wind. Not bad. Definitely worth the read, although if you have read Team of Rivals, or any other history of the Civil War, GWTW it is even better.

I do have an issue with Margaret Mitchell’s writing, however. She is guilty of occasional lapses in adhering to the point of view (POV in writer and editor parlance).

I am 65% of the way through the novel (that’s how you can tell that I am using an e-reader; it measures progress in percentage). The story is told in third-person close, exclusively through the eyes of Scarlett O’Hara, the belle of the South. Every once in a while, though, Mitchell lapses and starts telling the story from someone else’s POV. I’m seeing the action through Scarlett’s head, and then I’m whooshed into someone else’s head for a page, and then I’m back with Scarlett

At just a little after the halfway point, Mitchell tells an entire chapter through the eyes of another character. I have not read much farther, so I don’t know if this new POV is going to continue. Right now we have a single POV novel that now has a new POV from another character.

Moral of the story: Mind your POVs. If you are telling the story through a single set of eyes, don’t start wandering into another character’s head. There is nothing wrong with multiple POVs, but you still need to be careful that you don’t mix characters.

Of course the ultimate POV book is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. The novel tells the story through the eyes of fifteen different characters in fifty-nine chapters. Each chapter is the exclusive property of one character. One of the chapters is told from the POV of the dead mother in her coffin. It’s Faulkner, so it is not the easiest read, but parts of it are hilarious.

Okay, I’m back to Scarlett and Rhett.

See ya’ later.

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Be Specific as a Writer

See ya’ later.

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Calvin & Hobbes copyrighted by Bill Watterson

Great Commencement Addresses

These are great commencement addresses from some of our best minds, courtesy of Brain Pickings. I read the text of text of David Foster Wallace's address some years back in a newspaper. The others include Ellen DeGeneres, Aaron Sorkin, President Obama and Conan O'Brien. The bonus address is from Ray Bradbury. I have not watched all of them, but I plan to in the next few days. 

The best part, two of the six are writers, Aaron Sorkin could be considered a writer, and Obama is a decent screed himself. 

See ya’ later.

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Don't be Bashful: Get Out There and Shake Some Hands

I recently saw one of those messages on Facebook defining a writer, and I paraphrase here: Definition of a writer—some who tells a great story, but it too shy to look someone in the eye to tell it.

That’s sort of how it went.

For a long time, writers could get away with this approach. They would rather lock themselves away in their lonely writer’s garret, telling their stories, and if they were lucky enough they found a publisher who was willing to publish their stuff. They could be shy and bashful their entire lives and make a living writing.

It is not as easy to do that anymore. If you are self-publishing, you need to hustle your work. Most of it is going to be social media, but that works best when you have an outgoing personality.  They speak of an author platform for your work. That means social media, too, but it also means sitting on panels, public speaking engagements, readings, blah, blah, blah. All stuff not meant for the shy, bashful writer seeking the solitude of their garret.

Traditional publishing offers the same challenges. Publishers today are asking writers for a marketing plan. Even for a novel, it is going to work best if you have a platform. If there is something in your novel that can give you a public speaking engagement, all the better. You need to get out there and talk about it.

So last week when I saw South African writer Nadine Maritz’s piece on networking as a guest blog on The Story Merchant, it hit a soft spot in my heart. Writers need to network. Not just to sell books, but you need to network with other writers. This allows you to get answers to questions, write referrals, get referrals, write reviews and get reviews, and maybe get referred to someone’s agent. I can’t begin to tell you the benefits of networking.   

Case in point: An agent asked for the first 50 pages and a ten-page outline for my novel Rules for Giving. I was a little uneasy with the outline. How did it differ from a synopsis? I was able to network with a couple of writers more experienced than me and I got my answer. All because I networked.

Read Nadine’s article and then get out there and network. Don’t tell me you are too shy and painful. Just do it.

See ya’ later.

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Writers, Editors and the Wisdom of Critique Groups

This morning I posted a link to an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Word Craft column. It is by San Diego writer Janice Steinberg and discussed her relationship with Random House Editor Kendra Harpster while preparing Steinberg’s novel The Tin Horse, and how Kendra helped her flesh out the novel.

Read it, by all means. It is great insight into the editing process once a publisher has expressed interest in your novel.

The article has made me mindful of a few things:

• Agents and editors are way better than we give them credit for. It takes lots of experience to read a manuscript and see the possibilities, then guide a writer through massive revisions (and we have to be guided, not manipulated), with the ultimate goal of a great novel at the end.  
• Once the publisher has taken your novel on, you are far from being done. Steinberg’s first communique from Harpster was eighteen pages, single spaced, of comments and questions that were aimed at getting the author to consider some issues she had not previously addressed.
• Take ownership in your novel, but listen to others. The editors at a publishing house know of what they speak. They have done this many times. They know what works, where you are digging yourself a hole, and how you can make the whole thing better.
• Critique groups are even more valuable than I thought. I read police procedurals by Michael Connelly. He’s great. One of the things he mentioned in a recent novel is how partners in homicide sit at desks facing each other. This encourages give and take as they postulate theories. Critique groups are the same way. They keep you honest, pointing out opportunities in your story you might have missed, questioning motives, and making suggestions for backstory. If it was not for my critique group my novel would be a hopeless puddle of unnavigable mud. The do a lot of the work of an editor. 

The article mentions a piece published by the New Yorker in 2007, “Beginners,” Edited, taking a short story by Raymond Carver through the editing process. The editor was Gordon Lish at Alfred A. Knopf.  I have moved it to the top of my reading list. I’ve only glanced at it and it looks invaluable.

See ya’ later.

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Writer and Editors

This article on writers and editors appeared in yesterday's Word Craft column in the Wall Street Journal. I'm speechless at the awesomeness of it. I don't have anything to saw except, "Wow." 

See ya’ later.

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Pre-Publication Articles: Using a Few Essays to Sell a Few Books

When it comes time for your book or novel to be published, are there articles or essays you can write and publish in newpapers to help sell copies? 

Case in point:

 The Review section of today’s Wall Street Journal includes an article by author Chip Walter: Neanderthals: Why Us and Not Them? Walter’s soon-to-be-published book, Last Ape Standing:
The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived, provides some good answers on why homo sapiens prospered and Neanderthals died out.

What I loved about Walter’s article in the WSJ, however, was his clever use of the language. Some of his lines were so interesting that I am sorely tempted to go out by buy the book just for the writing.

Here are just a few lines from today’s article:

• We may indeed be able to rewire DNA to engineer a living Neanderthal in the not-so-distant future, but perhaps no one should start designing prehistoric onesies just yet.
• Hunts were particularly dangerous because Neanderthals never developed a spear they could throw. Instead, they seem to have wrestled large prey down by stabbing them with 15-foot spears in a kind of savage version of pin the tail on the bison. 
• When they met, the big and primal question—the mastodon in the room, so to speak—had to have been, "So who is going to make it? You or me?"
• …researchers delivered genetic proof that our forbears had, as one scientist put it, been "up to no good with Neanderthal women behind boulders on the tundra."

 

Somewhere there is a good publicist that recognized the brilliance of Walter’s writing and realized a few well-placed articles like this one will sell a few books.  

See ya’ later.

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Thirty-Five Covers--and Several Versions--of Pride and Prejudice

I will admit to my literary ignorance. I have never read Pride and Prejudice. Just have not been able to get around to it. One of my grandsons read it when he was twelve, but he's a friggin' genius.

This is the 200th birthday of Jane Austen's novel. The Atlantic Wire (the online version of the Atlantic Monthly, which, strangely enough, comes to me wirelessly) is featuring this literary classic through a look at it's various covers, including the Marvel Comics version (pictured) and the zombie version. Click here for a look. 

They say the cover is important, and in this case they are going to keep at it until they get it right. 

See ya’ later.

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A Werd About Typos

I was surfing through the blogosphere a few days ago and came across a post on a writing blog talking about typos. The author’s opinion was that as writers we owe it to our readers to give them the best manuscript, free from typos, lapses in verb tense, errors in punctuation and other mistakes.

The comments section for the most part upheld this opinion, but I was amazed at the number of comments that reflected the sentiment of, “Typos? Not that big a deal. We can live with them.”

Really?

Typos reflect on your writing on a much larger scale and in several ways.

If you can’t get the little things right, can we rely on you to get the big stuff right? Even in fiction, when we are dealing with things that never happened (supposedly), you need to get the reader to buy into your premise. Are they going to buy into it if you cannot spell correctly or take time to correct errors? This is even more important when dealing in fantasy or paranormal, when the reader really has to take a leap of faith, to say nothing of historical fiction.

Typos also bring to mind the words of Rich Luftig, a fellow critique group member, friend extraordinaire and a great poet and writer (who is far too modest). Rich has a philosophy: “I have never forgotten that I am a guest…in the reader’s house.” (Click here for Rich’s essay as part of his selection as the featured poet in Westward Quarterly.)

A mistake can often make a difference in how something reads. You have probably all heard about the difference between, “Let’s eat, Grandma,” and, “Let’s eat Grandma.” The latter insinuates that Grandma is the main course.

A clean manuscript is, finally, a matter of pride. We should take pains to always give readers our best work.

Typos and mistakes happen. I am responsible for more than my share of them, especially in this blog. We should all try to be more careful, though.

See ya’ later.

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