Monthly Archives: May 2011
FUTURE WRITERS OF AMERICA . . .
By: Kathleen Pickering
Today’s blog will make you laugh. So, you’ll forgive me for reposting an email I received from one of my California writing buddies. Since the content is writing-related, I believe the post is relevant. Besides, it’s so damned funny, I want you all to enjoy a laugh on this lovely Tuesday.
Listed below are actual analogies and metaphors written by high school students who had the great sense to entertain their teachers by submitting these fanciful descriptors in their essays. Enjoy!
The 2010 winners (and I dare say, future writers of America) wrote:
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
14. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
15. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
16. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
17. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
18. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
19. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
21. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
22. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
***
I know. Get their names. We have agents waiting! When you stop laughing, please feel free to add your own analogy or metaphor. Here’s mine:
He tickled her with hands like a gangster, making it hurt to laugh, so she punched him.
Feeling Bookish?
Bookish is not up and running as yet but it is being touted as a place where readers can buy books and recommend them to others. Hmmm…so what’s new about that? There are already a myriad on online sources for purchasing physical books and ebooks as well as social networking and book related sites that enable people to make recommendations and connect with like minded readers…so what will make Bookish any different? Is a website like this really the answer to publishers’ woes? Until the website is up it is difficult to know how it will be different to what is currently available, or whether it will be able to draw in the audience the publishers are obviously eager to embrace.
In the publicity materials for the upcoming site a lot is being promised including ‘real time conversations around content’, but will these promises be enough? If there is a strong emphasis on recommendations (which is what the press release suggested) how will the site differ from something like
Goodreads.com? How will the publishers ensure editorial independence in the face of potentially negative reviews for their authors? (and there have been enough flame wars to know that there are sensitivities on all sides when it comes to online reviews and their authenticity/validity.) Bookish also hopes to become the destination for purchasing physical and digital books…but why will people go there rather than Amazon? Will the publishers try to undercut Amazon’s prices? How else will they convince people to buy from Bookish rather than other sites?So what do you think? Will a website like Bookish really have any impact? More importantly, is it the kind of website publishers should be investing in?
Me, I suspect that publishers need to regain an upper hand here in terms of content and access. As a reader I am unlikely to bother going to Bookish unless there is a really compelling reason. For me that reason would be exclusive content I can’t get anywhere else (this could include author interviews, essays, short stories etc.) or that connects me with readers in a way other social networking sites cannot (if I could participate in a really cool book group session that combines video links with authors maybe). Until the website is launched it’s hard to know if all the hype surrounding it will live up to expectations, Unfortunately, I suspect Bookish won’t contain anything very novel or exciting and I doubt the Internet is hungry for yet another online bookseller.
What do you think?
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPadWinning
James Scott Bell
What makes a winner?
Last week was one HUGE bunch of days.
John Ramsey Miller
I didn’t watch any of the coverage of the Royal Wedding that I could avoid. Not that I don’t appreciate romance or tradition, because both are the glue that holds the world together, but because I thought the idea of being glued to TV to watch two rich kids getting married at the cost of millions of dollars in this day and time is absurd. I understand that the Royals are important to people in the UK and to some of their ex-colonies. Even though diluted English blood runs through my veins, I’ve only been to England once, and have no intention of returning. I thought the coverage of that Royal event was going to last for weeks, maybe months, and the 328 deaths from tornadoes became secondary to a wedding an ocean away. I expected coverage of their honeymoon, perhaps all the way through their first child’s birth. And then our Special Forces whacked bin Laden and the Royal couple was abandoned as though it never happened. How’s that for a plot twist.
So after ten years we stopped the monster with a round or two through his left eye. The most wanted and hated man in the history of America. In all honesty, he probably wasn’t even in the ranks of top twenty mass murderers in the past fifty years. When you put him up against Eichman, Himmler, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, or even Latvia Beria, he was something of a piker. Well, he was responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent men, women, children. And he’s cost the US 3 trillion dollars in ten years. Because of this one psychopathic, individual, we have been brutalized physically, economically and emotionally. We’ve engaged in two wars resulting in thousands upon thousands of deaths and injuries and immeasurable suffering and spending those trillions of dollars we might otherwise have used for extending our golden age. Glad he’s dead and don’t care to see a picture of him being all dead.
We write a lot about bad people. How many times do we give our killers super-human abilities. Osama bin Lauden proves once again that the worst killers are often the ones with the least amount of actual blood under their nails. It’s like getting rich. You don’t often get rich working a job, you get rich when lots of others do the work and you just direct.
Who is more evil, the killers in the trenches, or those who inspire, give them direction, define their purpose. Who do you think was worse, Hitler, or the groups of mass murderers who did the actual killing?
Writing believable villains is far more challenging than writing good guys. An effective villain has to be complex and self-deceived. A murdering brute can be frightening, but how many can hold a book together the way Hannibal Lector can?
Nothing unifies like fear. Now that the Boogy man is dead, how long do you imagine it will be before we get a new one to take his place?
The Terrors of Timeliness
By John Gilstrap
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that for at least a few writers, the news of Osama bin Laden’s demise was met with less than pure elation. These writers are no less patriotic than their neighbors, nor are they sympathetic to terrorist causes.
They are authors who were 50,000 words into a novel about the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. As the mass murderer’s brains were spattering the walls in Abbottabad, the potential value of those manuscripts dropped to just about zero. Months of work (years?) shot to hell—literally. Those writers learned what I consider to be a valid—though painful—lesson:
Reality in fiction ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
It takes a lot of work and countless hours to turn out the kind of books I write. For them to succeed among my fans, the stories need to feel timely and current, and with a contract to produce a book a year, I can’t afford waste. That’s why none of my timely, current stories are ever set in real places.
My series character, Jonathan Grave, lives in the Northern Neck of Virginia (a real place), in a town called Fisherman’s Cove (not a real place). In No Mercy, a lot of the action takes place in the fictional town of Samson in the very real State of Indiana. In Hostage Zero, one of the characters is spirited off to an unnamed village in Colombia. The bad guy who does the kidnapping is able to do so because of a series of diplomatic agreements between the United States and Colombia that never happened.
They call this stuff fiction because it’s all made up. If an author expends enough intellectual energy to construct his fictional world with a few dollops of reality and a pinch of bravado, the reader will follow him wherever he wants to go. I don’t see a reason in the world why the Fisherman’s Cove or Colombian jungle of my imagination have to be any more real than JK Rowling’s Hogwarts.
Jonathan Grave and his crew use some amazing technology in their missions. Some of it is real, but a lot of it is just plain made up. One bit of made up stuff actually prompted a Navy SEAL buddy of mine to ask how I knew about such a top secret project. I told him the truth: Having hung around with a lot of spooky people in my time, I’ve learned that there’s a development project for just about anything anyone can think of. I don’t even have to understand the technology; I just have to convince my readers that my characters understand the technology. I think of it as literary sleight of hand.
There are a lot of authors out there who disagree with me on this subject. These are the types for whom research is an obsession—a calling. For some—like historical fiction writers—the research by necessity never stops, but for the average suspense writer, I think that making stuff up is a way more efficient use of time. I know crime fiction writers whose books are equal parts story and travelogue. Los Angeles and New York seem to be the most frequently-traveled.
Fictional characters travel real streets and eat in real places. They do a lot of stuff that I frequently skip over. Think about it: Unless the specific intersection of Hollywood and Vine plays a role in the story, it might as well be the intersection of Maple and Elm, because, as a non-resident of L.A., I’m dependent exclusively on the author’s description, which means that the realness of the description is irrelevant.
Some research is just a little bit crazy. My friend Joseph Finder posted a piece a week or so ago in which he—a self-described claustrophobe—allowed himself to be sealed into a coffin so that he could adequately describe what it’s like to be buried alive. Really. Turns out it was quite unsettling. I gotta say, as a borderline claustrophobe myself, I think I could’ve just made up the darkness, stale air and panic and saved myself some long-term counseling.
(Love ya, Joe!)
The more specific a writer gets in the depiction of real things and real places, the riskier the writing becomes. The devil is deeply embedded in the details. I read a book not too long ago that involved the fire service. During a response to a call, a character flipped the switch on his Federal Q siren and got a whooping sound out of it. The scene would have worked just fine if the author had stopped short of showing off his research. A Federal Q siren doesn’t whoop. I suppose for most of his readers it wasn’t a big deal because they wouldn’t know the difference—which invites the question (happy, Jim?), why not just leave it at siren? Or, if that extra level of verisimilitude is important to the author, he could just call it a Predator Nine siren? (There is no such thing, to my knowledge, but it sounds like it could be real, and the rank and file reader would be none the wiser.)
When your character jacks a round into his Glock and thumbs the safety off, you alienate people who know that there’s typically no need to do one of those actions, and that the other isn’t possible. It’s a mistake that pushes some of the audience out of the scene. No one would raise an eyebrow, though, if the character jacked a round into his pistol and thumbed the safety off.
So, dear Killzoners, if any of you are among the fictional bin Laden hunters, I hope you’re able to retool for the hunt of a more generic terrorist. Take heart in the knowledge that you’re treading the trail followed by downtrodden Soviet threat writers.
The Defining Scene – Character Intros
I coined the term DEFINING SCENE to describe a method I have used to introduce a main character in my books. This type of method is a technique used in the film industry. Picture Johnny Depp when he comes on the big screen for the first time in Pirates of the Caribbean. He doesn’t merely walk on and deliver lines. He makes a SPLASH. In an instant, the moviegoer knows this character by how he makes his first appearance.
You only get one shot at a reader’s first impression of your main characters. How do you set the stage?
1.) Devise a scene that gives your character a specific stage for them to perform—a showcase for them.
2.) Give them something to do that will show the reader who they are.
3.) Encompass as much of your character in this scene—in one shot—so the reader knows exactly what makes them tick, their values, their likes and dislikes, and lays a foundation for the rest of the book.
4.) Focus on CHARACTER. This is not necessarily about PLOT, unless you can devise a way that showcases your character and jumpstarts your plot, too.
5.) Build on the energy you’ve created with this introduction scene. If you put thought into this Defining Scene, the reader makes an investment in your character from that point forward.
The Defining Scene—Example
I created a character in one of my first manuscripts that was my take on an anti-heroine who is a modern Scarlett O’Hara. At the first part of Gone with the Wind, Scarlett is self-centered and not very appealing as a classic heroine. But of course, we all know how her journey ended. To this day, she endeared the name of Scarlett to people around the world.
My character, Justine, starts out with a larceny on her mind while she’s dining with an older man in a fancy restaurant. Working as an acquisitions and mergers specialist for a major corporation, she is first seen blackmailing a man to steal his energy company out from under him. She’s ruthless and uses photos taken by a private investigator, shot while the man was with a young girl. To make matters worse, Justine has researched the man’s prenuptial agreement and knows that if he is proven unfaithful, he’d lose everything. Needless to say, Justine is not a traditional heroine, but I infuse other aspects into the scene to manipulate the reader into liking her—or maybe not hating her as much—by the end of her intro.
Below are key attributes I wrote into the scene to tip the scales in Justine’s favor with the reader.
A.) She is opposite a very shady man who is worse than she is. He cheats on his wife and has affairs with under-aged girls. He’s completely unscrupulous and even propositions Justine in the end. By comparison, she’s an angel.
B.) Within the body of the scene, the reader learns more about Justine. She has a past I hint at. She is sensitive to the plight of the underage girl she accuses him of having an affair with. I save her past for later, but a hint is all the reader needs. Not much back story is required. The hint teases the reader with a little mystery, too.
C.) Acting as a conspirator with Justine is a forthright young man, Graham, who is her assistant. The way I portray him is a really nice guy who cares for his boss, despite her bad behavior. This manipulates the reader into seeing Justine the way Graham does. If Graham comes across as credible and sweet, these qualities pass to Justine by association.
D.) And because Justine kept Graham in the dark on what she had planned, she’s seen as his protector. She may be able to live with her “any means to an end” choices, but she doesn’t force him to go along with her—for his sake.
E.) Justine comes off as vulnerable and sensitive, with an identifiable and self-deprecating humor readers can relate to. By the end of the scene, the things she values become more apparent. (I even considered having her take a doggie bag home for her pooch.)
F.) Justine may come across as a ruthless person at the start, but by the end, she is portrayed as a person who might champion a good cause, without a thought for money if it’s for a valid reason.
I could have simply brought my female character into the story as a ruthless acquisitions employee, getting her assignment from her boss and wanting to dazzle him. Her boss is a man who wants to steal an inheritance out from under a nephew he’s never met, who is living off the grid in Alaska. Her boss lies to Justine about why he wants her to locate this guy. She would have gone off to Alaska in search of the missing heir, an urban goddess out of her element in the wilderness. That would have worked too, but I wanted the reader to wonder about her scruples. I also wanted her vulnerability to show from the start. I needed the reader to keep an open mind about who she is. Plus what happens at the beginning also comes back to bite her in the end as a plot twist. Everything comes full circle for a reason.
It takes thought to plot this type of scene, but remember it’s the first scene for a major character. It’s as tough, or worse, than coming up with that ever important where to start the story detail. If you know your character, you will be able to construct a scene that will showcase their unique point of view.
Do you have special ways to introduce a main character as a writer? If you’re a reader, can you share favorite book characters where the author introduced them in a memorable way and why that stuck with you?
Blind Baby Raised by Worms
By Joe Moore
When I first started attempting to write fiction many years ago, I subscribed to and devoured all the writer’s magazines out there. Writers Digest, Writer, and many more. I read every article, sometimes multiple times, and I would use a yellow highlighter to mark those pearls of wisdom from the experienced authors on how to be a better writer. Over the years, I accumulated large piles of magazines containing many yellow highlights. When the day came to clean out my closet and give the copies away to some of my writer friends, I first sat down and went through every edition, copying those jewels of advice into one complete list. Today, I will share them all with you. Maybe you might not agree with them all, but there’s a wealth of advice from countless bestsellers that can help improve anyone’s efforts at being a better author.
And if you’re wondering why this blog post is called Blind Baby Raised by Worms, check writing tip number 35. It’s the only one I personally contributed. Enjoy.
1. Easy writing makes hard reading, but hard writing makes easy reading.
2. Surprise creates suspense.
3. Vulnerability humanizes a character.
4. Anything that does not advance the plot or build character should be deleted.
5. Their reaction to a situation shows a great deal about your characters.
6. What your characters say and do under stress reveals their true feelings.
7. Coincidence is used effectively when it sets up a plot complication instead of a resolution.
8. Use all the senses to build your setting.
9. You are not accountable for the absolute accuracy or completeness of your factual information as long as it’s plausible. Write so it sounds right.
10. You can build characterization by seeing your character from another’s viewpoint.
11. The reader doesn’t know how a story will resolve, but they should have no doubt what must be resolved.
12. As a story grows, so should the obstacles.
13. Any word that can be substituted by a simpler word should be.
14. Suspense is created by having something extraordinary happen in an ordinary situation.
15. The simile includes the quality that is being compared as well as the comparison. The metaphor’s comparative frame of reference is only alluded to in the image used.
16. There must always be conflict in some form to keep the story interesting.
17. Deleting “very” usually strengthens a sentence or phrase.
18. Your story must interest you. If it does, there’s a good chance it will interest someone else.
19. Credible prose is not self-indulgent; it exists to illuminate the story, not to show off how clever the writer can be.
20. If you cannot describe your story in one or two sentences, you’re in trouble.
21. Rather than describing your characters, come up with actions that show what they’re like.
22. One way to decide if sex in a scene is necessary is simply to delete it.
23. If it comes easy, it’s a cliché.
24. Don’t give your characters names that are similar, start with the same letter, or are hard to pronounce.
25. A cliché is a sign of a mind at rest.
26. Think of your settings as a character.
27. The reader must feel that your characters were alive before the story began and will live on after it ends.
28. Begin the story where the reader will anticipate what happens next but is compelled to guess wrong.
29. A commercial novel is one that a lot of people buy, finish reading and tell others to read it.
30. The average reader must be considered a genius with the attention span of a two-year-old.
31. To get an editor’s attention, you have about three paragraphs in a short story and three pages in a novel.
32. Conflict, the basis of all good writing, arises because something is not going as planned.
33. Villains never think of themselves as “bad guys”.
34. Always start with the character, not the plot. The needs of the character will drive the plot.
35. Always use a cheap tabloid-style blog title to grab attention.
**********
“Sholes and Moore have been writing stellar thrillers that use religious themes for some time, and their fifth effort, the first to feature Seneca Hunt, is their best yet.” – Booklist
THE PHOENIX APOSTLES, in stores June 8. Available online now at Amazon or B&N!
Are we becoming Cat People? Redux
A few years ago I felt like an alarmist when, over at Killer Hobbies, I asked whether a cat parasite might be capable of altering human behavior.
I’d just discovered that the Toxoplasma parasite changes the behavior of infected rats. Cats are the natural hosts for the Toxoplasma parasite, which gets very crafty in its attempts to reach a feline. Research shows that when a rat is infected with Toxoplasma, its brain is altered so that the rodent loses its fear of cats. The infected rat becomes much more likely to get eaten by a cat, and then—voila!—the parasite reaches its target host.
Other research indicates that even human behavior can be affected by parasites.
A parasitologist (who knew such a field existed?) reports that women who are infected with Toxoplasma tend to be more extroverted and caring—to what end as far as the parasite is concerned, is not known. My personal theory is that perhaps the parasite is trying to make us take better care of its feline hosts. I come from a family of dedicated cat lovers. As a clan, we like dogs just fine. But we’re nuts about cats. For example, I have an aunt who owns nine indoor kitties. She also feeds and takes care of dozens of feral cats.
My sister is another fierce protector of all things feline. She has appointed me executor of her estate on behalf of her two cats. I have precise instructions for where and how they’ll be cared for if they outlive her (her will even includes funding for a long-term kitty haven).
Then there’s me. My husband calls me a “cat whisperer.” When I see or hear a cat on the street, I’m magnetically drawn to it. I’m strangely drawn to it, I’m thinking now.
Our familial tendency to adore cats and care for them makes me wonder—could it be that we’re all infected with the Toxoplasma parasite, and we’ve been passing the bug down through the generations? Maybe the parasite has altered our brains to make sure that we take excellent care of its host, Mr. Cat.
Bottom line: Is a bug pulling our strings?
Technically speaking, I’m not even sure that a parasite is a bug (science teachers, help me out here). But I’m sure it looks like one under a microscope. I’ll bet it looks really disgusting, too.
The whole thing makes me think about some signs my relatives have hanging all around their houses. The signs say things like:
“The cat owns the house. We just work here.”
Things may be worse than they know.
We might all be working for a damned bug.
Update:
Now I feel vindicated for having sounded the alarm about parasites affecting humans. Radiolab weighed in recently with an entire show on the subject. Think about it next time you’re communing with Kitty!
Conferences, Panels and the New World Order
Our discussion on changes in the publishing world have highlighted the ever-shifting sands on which we stand. One aspect, which has always been contentious, is how conference organizers will recognize the increasingly fluid definition of a ‘published author’.
I still remember the controversy a few years ago when Malice Domestic revised its rules about who could participate in panels and be eligible for awards – endorsing, in effect, the traditional publishing model in the face of uncertainty over the onslaught of self- published authors. I remember my first Malice go-round (where new authors introduce their books to fans) and the plethora of authors dragging round wheelies with copies of their own self published books to sell. For the fans and other authors the resultant confusion fueled anger and resentment on both sides. In the aftermath of that controversy, and given recent ‘defections’ of high profile authors to a self-publishing model, I wonder how conference organizers are going to address the thorny issue of awards and panel allocations.
Are self-published authors to be granted the same status as traditionally published authors?
Will they be eligible for awards? Will they be able to participate on panels?
How will conference organizers decide how to allocate panels given the range of publishing options now available – and where the rules of just a few years ago no longer seem to apply (when many conferences decided only traditionally published authors could be eligible)?
So what do you think? How will these issue be resolved? I can imagine some self-published authors arguing that if Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath can be on a panel or win an award, so should they…Or should only those who were traditionally published in the past be eligible? Should volume of sales count? How should conference organizers deal with e-book authors such as John Locke,who has shunned traditional publishing, or Amanda Hocking who has gone on to embrace it?