Yearly Archives: 2013

Impart Info with Attitude

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Today I welcome back to TKZ my friend and editor, Jodie Renner, to share tips on imparting factual information without it coming off like the dreaded “info dump”. Enjoy!Jodie_June 26, '14_7371_low res_centred
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by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker

Strategies for Turning Impersonal Info Dumps into Compelling Copy

As a freelance fiction editor, I find that military personnel, professionals, academics, police officers, and others who are used to imparting factual information in objective, detached, bias-free ways often need a lot of coaching in loosening up their language and adding attitude and emotions to create a captivating story world.

Really need those facts in there? Rewrite with attitude!

Say you want to write a fast-paced novel and your background is in a specialized field, so you decide to set your story in that milieu you know so well. Maybe you want to write a legal thriller or a medical suspense, or a mystery involving scientific research or stolen artifacts. Or maybe you’d like to use your military, police, or forensics experience, but your writing experience to date has mainly been confined to producing terse, objective, factual reports.

As you’re writing your story, you decide at various points that you need to interrupt the story to explain something the readers may not understand. And you want to get it right, both to lend credibility to your story and because you’re concerned about criticism from other professionals in your field. Your first impulse might be to copy and paste sections on that topic from a journal or online search, then tweak them a bit. Or just stop to explain the technical points in your own words, factually, as you would in a report or research paper, then go back to your storyline. Big mistake.

You’ve just interrupted an exciting (we hope!) story to give a mini-lecture. Remember that the main purpose of fiction is to entertain your readers with an engaging tale. To do that, it’s critical to stay in the story and in the viewpoint and voice of your compelling, charismatic (we hope!) characters.

How to keep your credibility but write with passion and tension

Want to keep your readers turning the pages? Try to turn off possible reactions of colleagues in your field and remind yourself that your goal here is to entertain a broad spectrum of the population with a riveting story. So limit your factual, informative details to only what is necessary for the plot, and present them through the character’s point of view, with lots of tension and attitude.

Go through the section several times and keep loosening up the words and sentence structure to take out the stuffiness and achieve a more casual tone, in the voice of the point of view character for that scene – it needs to be their thoughts, not the author stepping in. And introduce emotions and reactions – make the character frustrated, angry, or anxious.

And if it still sounds like a university lecture or a journal entry, make your character less reserved, less nerdy, less buried in his work. Give him more charisma and universal appeal, even a bad-boy rebellious side, and add quirks and more attitude.

Better yet, insert another, contrasting character to the mix to add in some tension, conflict and contrast.

Present the facts in a heated dialogue.

To impart some specific information while keeping your readers turning the pages, try these steps:

1. First, in a separate file, copy or write the bare facts in a paragraph or two – up to a page.

2. Go in and loosen up the language a bit – rewrite it in layman’s language.

3. Choose two interesting characters who each have some kind of stake in this info and are passionate about the topic, but in different ways.

4. Give them both charisma and quirks – and opposite personalities. Maybe make them competitive or distrustful.

5. Give them each their unique voice, based on their personality differences.

6. Give them opposing views on the topic or conflicting goals.

7. Using those facts, create a question-and-answer or argumentative dialogue between the two characters.

8. Add in some character actions, reactions and sensory details.

Now it’s starting to read like fiction!

Remember, most of your readers will be outside your field of specialty, and won’t find those dry factual details as fascinating as you do!

A before-and-after example, disguised from my editing:

Setup: A rebellious, trigger-happy cop has been ordered to be examined by a psychiatrist.
The brief “info dump” part starts with “Dr. Brown flipped…”

Before:
Dr. Brown opened up Jake’s file. “What happened after you were discharged from the Army?”
“I decided to become a cop. After police academy, I was assigned a beat in the Washington Park area in the South Side of Chicago.”
“The Washington Park area?” Dr. Brown asked. “That’s a pretty rough part of town.”
“Yeah, it reminded me of downtown Baghdad,” Jake quipped.
Dr. Brown flipped a few pages in the file where there was some background on Washington Park. The summary stated the area was only 1.48 square miles but was usually considered either the most dangerous or second most dangerous neighborhood in the United States. In fact, in some years it had seen more than three hundred violent crimes committed on its turf. Crimes such as murder, robbery, drug-dealing, assaults, prostitution, and rape were committed regularly in Washington Park.

After:

Here, the author has replaced the above factual paragraph with a dialogue.
“Washington Park?” Dr. Brown asked. “That’s a pretty rough area, I hear.”
“Yeah, it reminded me of downtown Baghdad,” Jake quipped.
“How so?”
“The area is tiny, barely one and a half square miles, but it’s infested with crime. Some years you get more than three hundred violent crimes there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, murder, drug-dealing, robbery, assaults, prostitution, rape—you name it, they’re all run-of-the-mill activities in that area. Stress city, man—I made my bones there.”

How the experts do it – with attitude!

Here’s an excerpt from a scene in a crime lab, as an example of how bestselling thriller author Robert Crais reveals the details of the fingerprinting process without interrupting the story to fill in the reader as an author aside:

[…] The white smear was aluminum powder. The brown stains were a chemical called ninhydrin, which reacts with the amino acids left whenever you touch something.
Starkey bent for a closer inspection, then frowned at Chen as if he was stupid.
“This thing’s been in the sun for days. It’s too old to pick up latents with powder.”
“It’s also the fastest way to get an image into the system. I figured it was worth the shot.”
Starkey grunted. She was okay with whatever might be faster.
“The nin doesn’t look much better.”
“Too much dust, and the sunlight probably broke down the aminos. I was hoping we’d get lucky with that, but I’m gonna have to glue it.”
“Shit. How long?”
I said, “What does that mean, you have to glue it?”
Now Chen looked at me as if I was the one who was stupid. We had a food chain for stupidity going, and I was at the bottom.
“Don’t you know what a fingerprint is?”
Starkey said, “He doesn’t need a lecture. Just glue the damned thing.”

And it goes on like this. Entertaining reading, and we’re learning some interesting stuff at the same time.

~ from The Last Detective, by Robert Crais

Another good example of how to impart info without boring your readers:

Here’s how Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore provide some information on a well-known structure in Las Vegas, without sounding like a travelogue or encyclopedia. This is from The Blade, an excellent thriller I edited in late 2012:

Setting: The Strip, Las Vegas

“So the Reverend Hershel Applewhite is a liar,” I said when Kenny returned from accompanying Carl down to the hotel lobby.
blade-cover4-internetI stood at the window staring at the imposing pyramid-shaped Alexandria Hotel in the distance. I’d read somewhere that the forty-two-billion candlepower spotlight at the top of the hotel could be seen from space. The same guy who designed it—I couldn’t remember his name—built similar pyramid hotels with beacons in South Africa and China. Claimed he wanted his lights to be seen from every corner of the world.

Writers and readers – do you have a short example to share of imparting info with attitude?
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 Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/ and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

 

The ebook future’s so bright that I gotta wear shades

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By P.J. Parrish

I am constantly losing my sunglasses. This is a big deal when you live in South Florida where people wear them even in winter. Double big deal for me because I need prescription lenses.
Plus I like looking cool, you know? And as any woman of a certain age can tell you, sunglasses are the way to go if you want to jazz up your look and can’t afford an eye job. (Stay with me here, you men out there, I am getting to what this has to do with writing, I promise).
But I lose my glasses. Have left them all over the world.  So when a girlfriend told me about this great online glasses maker Warby Parker I went to check them out. Nice shades! At prices I can afford! And I don’t have to go to LensCrafter at the mall!
Then, as I was reading about this new online company, I had an epiphany about -– wait for it! –- my ebooks.
Warby Parker is one of many new upstart online-only companies that are finding great success by bypassing the traditional retail model. Which is exactly what all of us writers are trying to do with our ebooks these days, right? 

Brief background: The four geeky guys behind Warby Parker (the name is from two characters in a Jack Kerouac journal) were trying to figure out why designer glasses cost beaucoup bucks and discovered it’s because everyone in the process was taking a cut — designers, manufacturers, brands, wholesalers and retailers. So they eliminated the middlemen, lowered the prices and built their reputation and customer base via the internet.

Sound familiar? In the traditional publishing model, think of all the folks who get a cut before you the author does — agents, editors, designers, copy editors, bean-counters, printers, binders, warehouses, distributors. And that’s before we even get to the bookstores. This is why royalty rates for hardcovers usually range from 10 to 12.5 percent, with 15 percent for big authors. Paperback is even less. Everyone along the book line has their hand out.

Back to Warby Parker for a sec. They seem to be pretty inventive. On their site, you can upload a photo and do a virtual try-on. And they’ll send you five frames to try on at home free. Isn’t such agility also one of the hallmarks of good ebook authors today? Every author I know who is succeeding at ebooks is thinking outside the old marketing boxes.  We are packaging our books in boxed sets. We’re offering short stories and novellas. We’re being flexible with pricing and even — gasp! — giving our products away. (It’s called sampling in business and it’s been a successful practice since the 19th century.) How many of you have tried to get your traditional publishers to do some of this? Maybe drop the price of your backlist ebooks to help catapult your new book? Show of hands for those who succeeded? That’s what I thought…

So what about that epiphany? Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s not an epiphany so much as an affirmation of something I already knew in the back of my brain. I am new to the ebook self-pubbing business. I’ve only put one backlist title out there, Dead of Winter, and one novella, Claw Back. I know I have a ton to learn and some catching up to to do. (I mean, I can’t even figure out GoodReads, for corn’s sake).

What I have figured out is that I need to be a better business person. Yeah, I am a writer first and the creation of the story will always be paramount. And I want to keep a foot in traditional publishing because I still believe there is a place for actual books you can hold and actual bookstores you can visit. (even the Warby Parker guys figured this out — they opened a couple boutiques because they realized people still want to touch things before they buy them.).

But my real epiphany is this — that if I don’t pay attention to Parrish Inc. no one will. I have to get rid of any illusions I still might have about some nice big paternalistic publisher being there to always watch over me.

I may need glasses, but I’m not blind.

  

What is History?

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By Clare Langley-Hawthorne

So I have an idea for a new book and it takes place partly in the early 1980s and it suddenly strikes me that, though I lived through this decade as a young teen, for my own children this era is as much ‘history’ as the Edwardian age is…and then I started to worry, am I really contemplating writing a ‘historical novel’ set in the 1980s?!

I was at a writer’s conference a few years ago and on a ‘historical mystery’ panel I remember an editor saying that ‘the 1980’s are not history’ – at the time, I dismissed the idea out of hand because it seemed such a no-brainer. I mean, the 1980’s – that’s hardly ‘historical’ – but then I started thinking about what happened during this time and my ideas fermented…until, I started to write and then I wondered, so what is the recent past like the 1980’s. Is it history or not?

For the most part, classification hardly matters, but when contemplating writing a novel set in the early/mid 1980s, I have to confess I started to wonder…I mean, how does one deal with the recent past in novels? How to you write about an era that hasn’t quite passed into ‘history’ and which, with all its quirks, is very much open to scrutiny. 

Just watching an episode of the show The Americans makes me appreciate just how ‘foreign’ some of the 1980s can seem…but it also makes me worry about dealing with the ‘recent past’. I have to wonder, what is the best approach to writing about an era that seems ‘so near and yet so far’?  One thing is for sure, you have to be absolutely sure about all your references as too many people are ready to catch your errors. But what about the other pitfalls? Are the 1980s ready to be used as a backdrop for a novel, or is the era caught between the past and present and best avoided? 

So what do you think?
Is a novel set in the 1980s ‘historical’?

Let Your Characters Live and Breathe

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Among my books on writing is a 1919 title, A Manual of the Art of Fiction, by one Clayton Meeker Hamilton, a professor at Columbia University. It’s a bit academic, but I’ve found some gems in it. Among them is the following. In his chapter on characterization, Hamilton states:

The careless reader of fiction usually supposes that, since the novelist invents his characters and incidents, he can order them always to suit his own desires: but any honest artist will tell you that his characters often grow intractable and stubbornly refuse at certain points to accept the incidents which he has foreordained for them, and that at other times they take matters into their own hands and run away with the story. Stevenson has recorded this latter experience. He said, apropos of Kidnapped, “In one of my books, and in one only, the characters took the bit in their teeth; all at once, they became detached from the flat paper, they turned their backs on me and walked off bodily; and from that time my task was stenographic––it was they who spoke, it was they who wrote the remainder of the story.”

Has that ever happened to you? I suspect it has. It’s one of the most pleasurable aspects of writing (though a little daunting if you’re a dedicated outliner).
So what should you do when a character starts making a few moves of his own?
1. Listen
As Madeleine L’Engle once put it, “If the book tells me to do something completely unexpected, I heed it; the book is usually right.”
Take a breath and just let the turn of events soak in. When writing No Legal Grounds, about the stalking of a lawyer and his family, I had planned all along for the wife to leave the house and go off to stay with her sister. But when I got to that scene she wouldn’t go. Just wouldn’t do it. I tried to make her, but she told me to go pound sand.
So I walked around my writing desk thinking about it. I listened to her reasons. And it turns out she was right. She became a stronger character. Of course, I had to change my plans from that point on, which brings me to:
2.  Re-Imagine
Whether you are a plotter or a “pantser,” now is the time to jot some free-form notes on this new development.
Start with a general document on plot possibilities. Ask yourself questions like:
What further trouble can happen to this character?
What sorts of things has this character unloosed by her independent actions?
How have the other character relationships changed?
And so on. Next, add to your character’s voice journal (this is an exercise I follow and recommend in all my workshops. It’s a stream-of-consciousness document in the character’s own voice). Let the character talk to you about what’s going on, and what she might want to do about it.
3. Plan and Write the Next Two Scenes
Don’t worry about changing your entire outline yet. Just do the next two scenes. Write them. The act of writing itself is the most important way to let the characters live and breathe. Get a feel for who they are now, by writing out the consequences. Then you’ll be in much better shape to write to the end.
So what about you? Do your characters ever take off on you? How do you handle it?


Amazon and Goodreads, Sittin’ in a Tree…

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I do not visit Goodreads as often as I should. There are readers out there who spend hours on it, and yes, I probably should as well, but I am one of those people who is good socially only in small doses, whether in person or in cyberspace. I only

use Facebook to wish folks Happy Birthday; I text better than I talk, but never instant message; and I rarely visit Goodreads. Part of the reason for my lack of use of the latter is that I cannot keep up with my reading of those books of which I am already aware; if I discovered, say, an entirely different genre — such as redneck noir, to name but one — it might send me entirely over the edge that I am already toes up against and leaning forward.





I as a result have only a (barely) working knowledge of the site. I know that it is very user friendly; the opening page treats me with more respect than do my children. It does a wonderful job of pretending that its happy to see me. Maybe I don’t visit often because I know that if I did I might never leave. It is just as well, for I discovered today that Goodreads loves another, a suitor known to its friends and detractors as “Amazon.” They haven’t set a date for a nuptials, but a ring has been proffered and accepted, and a dowry promised.

I’m thinking — and I cannot stress enough that I am stating this from a position of ignorance — that, as with other marriages arranged for the purposes of uniting dynasties, this one could result in offspring good and bad. I was amused to read that one of Goodreads’ co-founders asked its users “…what integration with Kindle would you love to see the most?” I was sorely tempted to respond “Kindle. From behind” but felt that such would perhaps be inappropriate. No one asked how the friends of the parties felt about this coming together, however (though that hasn’t stopped Scott Turow from weighing in). 

Until now. I am asking you: how do you feel about Amazon purchasing Goodreads? What do you see as advantages or disadvantages for authors, publishers, readers, and the entities themselves? Is this a good thing or a bad thing, overall? Should Amazon maintain an editorial firewall, if you will, between itself and Goodreads? How will we even know? Ready, steady, go!

Reader Friday: Desert Island Film Festival

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Okay, you’re stuck on that proverbial desert island. No one around, but for some strange reason there’s a movie house and a trained monkey that knows how to run the projector. What three films would you want to have with you, one from each category:

1. Drama

2. Comedy

3. Musical

(We at TKZ will try to air drop you some popcorn)

So much for women’s lib…

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by Michelle Gagnon

While watching the season finale of GIRLS, there was a moment at the end where I was seriously tempted to hurl something at the television. Because after all the advances women have made over the past fifty years, apparently for the younger generation of women showcased by the show, we’re pretty much back where we started.

This episode concluded with a nod the classic, “An Officer and a Gentleman” scene where Richard Gere sweeps Debra Winger off her feet, literally. Now, I loved that movie–still do–but the underlying message at the end was that the only way for poor Paula to advance in life was to marry well. I’d hope that nearly thirty years later, we were past such tired tropes. But according to Lena Dunham, they hold true. Not only does her character get “saved” by a man (ironically, the same one that earlier in the season terrorized her), but her fellow castmembers all fall in line accordingly. One starts dating her ex-boyfriend again because he’s suddenly struck it rich. Another dumps her boyfriend for not being ambitious enough (as underlined in a scene where his boss explains that, “she wants you to make enough money to be able to keep buying her purses shaped like bread products.”) Even the “hippie” character Jessa takes a payout from the wealthy investment banker she was married to for a heartbeat.

Really? Is this what we’re selling to girls in their twenties? I understand that GIRLS is a fictionalized version of reality, but if this throwback mentality is being showcased ironically, it’s far from apparent. And over the course of the season, this “girls can’t do it” attitude has been emphasized time and again. Hannah finally scores a book deal, but suffers a breakdown over the stress and is unable to write it. Marnie is laid off, becomes a hostess (and paramour to an older artist), and decides to become a singer; but we only see her pursue that dream via an ill-advised attempt to humiliate her ex at his office. And Jessa simply takes off.

I’d like to think that this is not emblematic of a wider issue with the upcoming generation of women, but a recent conversation with a friend was very disheartening. She told me that her recently-divorced brother (a man in his forties) now only dates girls in their twenties; thirty is his cut-off point, because after that age they‘re focused on marriage. Plus, he’s discovered that girls in their twenties are extraordinarily eager to please. They have no problem with him calling last minute because another date cancelled. They text suggestive photos after the first date. In addition to the age limit, he also stops seeing them after five dates–and he claims that most of them don’t seem to expect anything more.

He’s an awful jerk, of course, and probably has a keen eye for girls with low self-esteem. But listening to her, I couldn’t help but think that the behavior she’s describing is precisely what Dunham has been showing us over the past two seasons. Her characters are not strong young women, struggling to forge their way in the world through that challenging post-college phase. They’re highly educated girls whose lives invariably revolve around men, and whose biggest aspirations appear to involve being supported by them.

Mind you, I’m not saying that finding a person to spend the rest of your life with isn’t a lofty ambition. And I also strongly believe that deciding to stay home and raise children is just as valid a choice as pursuing a career in the workplace. But the fact that this is what we’re seeing on television, at the same time that Sheryl Sandberg’s eye opening book “Lean In” is making waves, is telling. Mary Tyler Moore it ain’t.

I’d love to see a show aimed at this age group with strong female role models–and I’m hard pressed to name a single one. A show where the “girls” had some self-esteem, and respected their relationships with themselves and their friends as much as their romantic liasons. A show, basically, where it wasn’t all about finding the right boys. In television, where shows created, written, and run by women are finally becoming more prevalent, is this really the best we can do?

 
 

Know Your Audience

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Nancy J. Cohen

This past weekend, I had the privilege of speaking to the Southwest Florida Romance Writers in Estero, Florida. Up to 25 members were present when I spoke about Social Networking for Writers and passed around my eight-page handout. We could have discussed this topic for a lot longer than the allotted hour, but our time ended and I left for home.

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On the drive back to the east coast, I reflected on how a speaker really has to gear her talk to the audience. Speaking to a bunch of writers is a lot different than giving a talk to a roomful of fans. Readers in general are eager to hear how you got published, where you get your ideas, what you researched for your story, and if you make a living at what you do. Don’t ask me why, but that question always arises. Would you ask a lecturer how much money he makes?

You’re expected to be witty and entertaining and to use anecdotes in your talk. I like to educate the public on the realities of the publishing business, so I’ll talk about the impact of the digital era, choices for writers today, and what readers can do to help authors in terms of customer reviews, Liking our pages, sharing our posts, etc. Lay persons find this information to be fascinating. Sure, I’ll talk about my books but mainly as an overview about my series and some of my research experiences. I don’t believe in doing readings or a book review on a specific title. There’s nothing more boring, IMHO, as an author’s droning voice as he reads from his own work. It’s more exciting to talk off the cuff about the publishing world and what fuels my stories.

In contrast, when speaking to fellow writers, I aim to teach. I want to get points across that they can take home and use in their own work. Motivational talks uplift and inspire writers to keep plowing ahead despite the setbacks that we all experience in this career. I’d rather give practical tips, how-to details, and specific instructions. Handouts accompany all of my workshops. This is not necessarily the case if I’m on a panel, however. Then it’s much harder to get across a lot of information because you’re sharing the time and stage. It’s good to come prepared with a few pointers regardless, and handouts are still appreciated, but having one hour to myself is best for in-depth instruction.

I’ve attended panels at writers conferences where the authors prattle on about their work, and attendees leave the room having been entertained but learning nothing new. I don’t care to attend those types of sessions myself. I’d rather go to a workshop where I can gain new insights or tips on a specific aspect of writing or marketing. Anybody can talk about himself. How many can teach in a meaningful, clear manner? Those who can’t teach will do very well speaking on panels at fan conventions, libraries and community groups.

Where am I going with this? If you have a speaking engagement coming up, consider your audience. If it’s a bunch of fans/readers, talk about your books, the publishing world, where you get your ideas, the writing process. If it’s a group of writers, target your material so they can take away something worthwhile.

If you’re a reader, what do you like to hear when you go to see an author? If you’re a writer, do you differentiate how you approach each audience?

On the road again

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I’ll be flying most of the day today, praying for a lull in the wacky weather that’s been plaguing the East coast this year. (Whatever happened to Spring, anyway?)

I’ve been known to make heroic efforts to write when traveling. One time back in the 90’s during a family visit in Cleveland, I holed up in a hotel room, rented a typewriter (a typewriter–that’s how long ago the 90’s were),  and banged out several chapters. 

“What is Kathryn doing all day?” my kinfolk wanted to know. 

I never try to write when I’m physically on a plane, however. It’s all I can do to make it through a few pages of whatever book or magazine I grab at the airport store. There’s something about the way the stale, over-pressurized air mixes with the stoic energy of passengers crammed into gerbil seats that puts a damper on creative energy.  I feel like I need my elbows to write.

But that’s just me. What about you? Are you able to write in a productive way on an airplane?

Yes, and…

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One of the classes I’m taking during my Hollywood experience is the basic level improvisation course at The Groundlings. This troupe is renowned for launching the careers of many famous comedians, including Lisa Kudrow, Will Ferrell, and Melissa McCarthy. Although reaching the comic mastery those people have achieved would be a dream, my reason for participating is simpler. I think the class will provide great tools for use in my writing and acting.

For those who’ve never seen improv, particularly live, you’re missing out. It’s astounding—and almost unbelievable—that these performers can take a single suggestion from an audience and build an entire scene or even a whole production around that word. Yesterday I saw a two-act play created on the fly in the style of a Jane Austen novel using the audience suggestion of “topiary.” The results were hysterical. I think it’s safe to say that Regency-era contrivances have never before been dependent on a hedge trimmed to look like an ailing cat.

The most important concept in improv is the requirement that you always respond “yes, and” to your scene partner. If your castmate says that you two are at the beach, then you are expected not only to accept that idea but also to build on it, perhaps by saying, “Yes, and here’s your surfboard. Let’s catch some waves.”

As children, we tended to be great at taking an idea from our playmates and building a whole recess period around it, no matter how crazy it sounded. We played. As adults, however, we’ve been conditioned to say “no” or “but” in response to something that may not fit into what we want to do or because it sounds silly. I can attest that it’s very hard to restrain yourself from saying the dreaded b-word in improv. For many of us, it’s our first impulse and has to be consciously quashed.

The problem is that “but” stops any momentum you have in the story you’re building. If your scene partner says you two are at the beach, and you say, “But we can’t be because we’re in the mountains,” the scene dies right there. You’ve completely negated the offer and told the person that you don’t like the idea and want to do it your way. This kind of negative response is called blocking.

As writers, we can suffer from the same blocking process when we’re creating. I always have that little voice in my head that wants to say “but” every time I come up with what initially seems like a brilliant brainstorm. The voice presents all the worst-case scenarios: “But you might paint yourself into a corner with this plot twist”; “But this new character might not end up being interesting”; “But this scene probably won’t work with the rest of the plot.” Often the response is more blunt: “But that’s a stupid idea.”

If I let it go too far, I find myself editing the story before I have anything written, and it can bring the entire process to a standstill. I think that’s where writer’s block comes from: we are blocking ourselves from creating because we’re dismissing everything that comes into our heads, telling ourselves something won’t work before we even give it a chance.

So I’m trying to say “yes, and” to my ideas. That’s where the magic of improv is made. You might start with a simple day at the beach and find it leads you to a mysterious encounter with a fragile object washed up on shore. It’s that serendipity I want to rediscover in my writing. Sometimes I don’t realize where my own mind can take me, and if I say “but” to inspiration, I’ll never get to those amazing destinations.