Second drafts are a lot like torture. There are periods of unenviable agony, broken up by periods of wonder at the absence of pain. In my case, the agony comes in the form of utter frustration. As I've said before, I am editing two projects concurrent with the new one I'm writing. Work has been a bit slow the last week or two, between looking for more gainful employment and getting distracted by other things but I've thought about it a great deal (the Procrastinator's Creed, I think, is "I haven't done anything, but I've sure thought about it.") and over the last two days I've gotten back into the proverbial swing of things.
I'm taking some advice I was given about how to approach editing Eve of the Dragonspeaker, and putting a bit of a spin on it. I opened up a brand new composition book and started reading my novel. I haven't made any changes yet, but each time I find something, and I've found a good bit, I note it by chapter in my notebook. For now, I'm looking at major issues. Does the dialogue sound right? Why is this happening? Are these decisions in-character? That sort of thing. I'm also making sure to sort of bolster my glossary with information, to keep the narrative (and the world) clear, concise, and continuous.
Unfortunately, I'm coming across the same issues time and again, and that's frustrating. Fortunately, the time that's passed since I last looked at this work has made it much, much easier to know when I'm being stupid. A surprising amount of the writing is solid, even the dialogue is, for the most part, right where it should be (barring some horrible, horrible lines). The majority of the issues I've found are related to characters. The things I discussed yesterday.
Those are easy enough to fix. Most of the issue just involves cutting down some bits of action or dialogue. A few of them, most notably Rythe's tendency to suddenly start talking and acting like the White Knight of Heroville, will require a little more effort on my part. I've noticed too, that I'm adding internal monologue in more places, because the narrative feels sort of empty without it.
I managed to read through five chapters yesterday (they're long chapters, get off my back) and I've got about three pages worth of jotted notes. I'm happy about it. I think this second draft will be much easier to work with than the first. I'm excited about it again, and I'm almost impatient to get to it this afternoon.
As is so often the case, I haven't done anything with Star Rider. No action, anyway. I've thought about it, remember. I opened it up this morning. I think my first idea was a bit ambitious. Just getting it all translated into type will be sufficient progress, before breaking it down into chapters and sections and getting into the meat of the editing. Luckily, I've taken about ten years worth of notes on this thing, and the changes I need to make aren't terribly difficult or even all that extensive.
Those are the updates I have thus far. No real advice, except that the advice I've always received about editing was right on the money. If you finish a project, set it aside for a while. A few days, a few weeks, a few years, whatever it takes, so that when you come back to re-write, you find yourself with a fresh perspective. It's a simple idea, really, but it works wonders.
Constructively Yours,
-S.R.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Character Development
One of the most important and, in my opinion difficult and rewarding, parts of writing is creating characters to populate your world. The way you go about this will vary from writer to writer and genre to genre, but as with all aspects of writing, some things will be universal. To do it well, you'll need to use every bit of your ability. Everything in Stephen King's toolbox, so to speak.
Characters are, let's face it, real people. If you don't feel that way, you're in the wrong business. You don't need to be friends with them, hell you don't even need to like them for all I care (I certainly have a few I'm no fan of, for various reasons) but you have to know them. How they think, how they feel, how they act. You need to know their deepest secrets and the ways they go about hiding those secrets. Know them as intimately as you know yourself (more intimately for those of you plagued with self-amnesia).
I think drafts come in very handy with characters. I know I'm guilty of, in the first draft, writing things that are just awesome in my head just because they're fucking awesome in my head. Unfortunately, something awesome may also be completely out of the question for my characters. In fact, I've had this problem about ten thousand times in my revision of Eve of the Dragonspeaker with just about all of my characters. Know what I found? If I cut that shit out, or change it so that the scene works with the characters, the story improves. Seriously.
Here's an example:
Rythe Halences (which some of you may remember from my college days, having read some parts of this story) is the central protagonist in a cast of roughly a quarter of a billion characters (it is Fantasy, after all). He's young, he's reckless, he's cocky. He's a mercenary. But he's also the good guy. There's supposed to be this sort of sense of honor in him that gradually forces him, over the course of the novel, to face what he's destined to become and save the world or whatever. The problem is that I wrote him as this sort of boyish knight, all honor and glory and all that trite, boring shit. Rythe isn't those things. It's why I love him so much. He's an asshole. He's a thief and a sell-sword. He was raised that way, that's all he knows. So while he can have some soft spots (gruff, grunting protagonists aren't my thing) and be compassionate he can fucking not be a knight in gleaming silver. No way.
The other characters in the story, at least in this first draft, seem equally paper thin. Lanir Bladeslinger (I like the cliche name, and you can piss off) is the required muscle-bound warrior-type, Cerana is the pretty elf love-interest, Syncra Vyrminaard is the spindly mage, Kiara Hethiam is the twat of a princess that's more burden than blessing, Kain Talinseth is an asshole, and so-on.
But they aren't those things at all. Not really. Syncra is a womanizer. He isn't spindly at all, he's one of the most capable characters I've ever met. He's young, he's no Gandalf. He's not even Raistlin Majere. He's exactly what you or I would be as an attractive twenty-something with magical powers. He uses it to get laid. And he's got a hell of a temper. Like, slaps cops around for giving him a parking ticket temper.
Lanir is a half-god monster of a man who cares frighteningly little for human life. He's fond of his friends, but that's about the limit of his empathy for other people. He's like two steps from being a sociopath.
Kain Talinseth is, of course, an asshole.
My job as a writer is to communicate these things to you. To open up these characters and let you, as the reader, get to know them as I have. All the Worldbuilding I've done, all these fabulous places I've created and these engaging stories I've spun aren't worth a shit in a sewer if I can't make you want to know these characters.
So how, in the name of the gods, do we do that?
Well, that's the challenge. I think the most important way we can get to know characters in through their actions. One of the cardinal rules I've learned, through classes and reading and my own writing, is that a story is way more fun to read if the writer shows you what you're meant to know, rather than telling. So, I could tell you that Rythe is a man that has no real qualms about killing someone in a fight, but I'd rather craft a scene where he runs into some guards and, rather than running or talking or surrendering, elects to seize the opportunity and kill them in the street. There's no enjoyment in it. He isn't a murderer or a sadist or a psychopath, but he solves his problems by fighting them. He's reckless that way. It may make him less savory (although thirty years of Stallone-Van Damme-Schwarzenegger films seem to indicate otherwise) but it is honest. And he does grow.
By the end of Rythe's story he's older, wiser, and more mature. While he still doesn't shy away from fighting, it isn't his first impulse. This happens over a long period of time, and it happens very gradually. The key isn't to write a character's actions in such a way that you like him, as a writer. The key is to write them honestly.
Then there's dialogue. Dialogue is one of the most fun (and occasionally frustrating) parts of writing good fiction. Weak narration can (but should not) be carried by great dialogue. Hemingway is my favorite example of this, because reading things like For Whom the Bell Tolls require a great deal of imagination on the reader's part because Hemingway excels at dialogue and leaves the rest up to us. He writes it so magnificently that when he doesn't attribute the words to a character (and he frequently does not) you can tell who is speaking just by their tone, their phrasing, their dialogue. It's pure fun, for me.
Varth Elaron, one of Skyborn's major protagonists is the sort of lovable dick that makes writing dialogue so great. He's a lecherous bard (so, me). He loves to drink and sing and tell stories (so, me) and he's always commenting on the things people say. He's this sort of meta-character in a way because he says these things about writing and story-telling and speech that are both a comment on what another character has said and a comment on these things in our world. He's great fun, and most of it is dialogue. It's my story, so there's all sorts of fighting and sex and mysteries and horrible things happening, but Varth is there through all of it cracking jokes and spinning yarns and making sly (and overt) passes at the women he meets.
Varth, I think, also came about because I want to challenge myself. As I've related before, my dialogue was once very poor and while I think I was successful in other parts of my writing, I wanted to strengthen that weak spot. So Varth is a big mouth bard (he's also based loosely on a Dungeons and Dragons character I created several years ago, because I'm a geek).
Lastly there's internal monologue. I may actually write something in the future about this topic, simply because I've only recently started playing with it. Internal monologue is, essentially, things the character thinks in the privacy of his or her own mind. It allows the writer to communicate things about the character that don't fit into dialogue or action. These things are usually smaller aspects of the personality. At least, that's my ideal.
I don't trust internal monologue because it's a balancing act. Too much of it and the writer seems lazy and the story suffers. Too little and the story seems incomplete. It's a difficult feat to do well (and there are writers who do it very well and those who do it spectacularly bad).
The only real example from my own work I can give you, without much explanation, is from Varth. Varth remarks on multiple occasions that "Sarcasm is a fool's art." However, in his own head, he's constantly making sarcastic remarks about other characters, about the gods, about the situation he finds himself in, about the world. So, as a benefit, internal monologue can work with dialogue to give a real idea of a character and make them come to life. Varth, for instance, frequently says things he doesn't mean whether as a means of keeping the attention on himself or for comedic effect or because it sprang to mind and he has no filter (so, me).
Use your skills. Your characters are crucial to your story and your story is crucial to your characters. For your readers to be interested, both of those things need to be important. Otherwise, your story is just a big, fat, boring paperweight. I can't tell you what kind of characters to create, because trying would only stifle your creativity, but then I probably don't have to. They're already there, aren't they? Get to know them and you'll be surprised at how readily they tell you everything you need to know.
Adverbially Yours,
-S.R.
Characters are, let's face it, real people. If you don't feel that way, you're in the wrong business. You don't need to be friends with them, hell you don't even need to like them for all I care (I certainly have a few I'm no fan of, for various reasons) but you have to know them. How they think, how they feel, how they act. You need to know their deepest secrets and the ways they go about hiding those secrets. Know them as intimately as you know yourself (more intimately for those of you plagued with self-amnesia).
I think drafts come in very handy with characters. I know I'm guilty of, in the first draft, writing things that are just awesome in my head just because they're fucking awesome in my head. Unfortunately, something awesome may also be completely out of the question for my characters. In fact, I've had this problem about ten thousand times in my revision of Eve of the Dragonspeaker with just about all of my characters. Know what I found? If I cut that shit out, or change it so that the scene works with the characters, the story improves. Seriously.
Here's an example:
Rythe Halences (which some of you may remember from my college days, having read some parts of this story) is the central protagonist in a cast of roughly a quarter of a billion characters (it is Fantasy, after all). He's young, he's reckless, he's cocky. He's a mercenary. But he's also the good guy. There's supposed to be this sort of sense of honor in him that gradually forces him, over the course of the novel, to face what he's destined to become and save the world or whatever. The problem is that I wrote him as this sort of boyish knight, all honor and glory and all that trite, boring shit. Rythe isn't those things. It's why I love him so much. He's an asshole. He's a thief and a sell-sword. He was raised that way, that's all he knows. So while he can have some soft spots (gruff, grunting protagonists aren't my thing) and be compassionate he can fucking not be a knight in gleaming silver. No way.
The other characters in the story, at least in this first draft, seem equally paper thin. Lanir Bladeslinger (I like the cliche name, and you can piss off) is the required muscle-bound warrior-type, Cerana is the pretty elf love-interest, Syncra Vyrminaard is the spindly mage, Kiara Hethiam is the twat of a princess that's more burden than blessing, Kain Talinseth is an asshole, and so-on.
But they aren't those things at all. Not really. Syncra is a womanizer. He isn't spindly at all, he's one of the most capable characters I've ever met. He's young, he's no Gandalf. He's not even Raistlin Majere. He's exactly what you or I would be as an attractive twenty-something with magical powers. He uses it to get laid. And he's got a hell of a temper. Like, slaps cops around for giving him a parking ticket temper.
Lanir is a half-god monster of a man who cares frighteningly little for human life. He's fond of his friends, but that's about the limit of his empathy for other people. He's like two steps from being a sociopath.
Kain Talinseth is, of course, an asshole.
My job as a writer is to communicate these things to you. To open up these characters and let you, as the reader, get to know them as I have. All the Worldbuilding I've done, all these fabulous places I've created and these engaging stories I've spun aren't worth a shit in a sewer if I can't make you want to know these characters.
So how, in the name of the gods, do we do that?
Well, that's the challenge. I think the most important way we can get to know characters in through their actions. One of the cardinal rules I've learned, through classes and reading and my own writing, is that a story is way more fun to read if the writer shows you what you're meant to know, rather than telling. So, I could tell you that Rythe is a man that has no real qualms about killing someone in a fight, but I'd rather craft a scene where he runs into some guards and, rather than running or talking or surrendering, elects to seize the opportunity and kill them in the street. There's no enjoyment in it. He isn't a murderer or a sadist or a psychopath, but he solves his problems by fighting them. He's reckless that way. It may make him less savory (although thirty years of Stallone-Van Damme-Schwarzenegger films seem to indicate otherwise) but it is honest. And he does grow.
By the end of Rythe's story he's older, wiser, and more mature. While he still doesn't shy away from fighting, it isn't his first impulse. This happens over a long period of time, and it happens very gradually. The key isn't to write a character's actions in such a way that you like him, as a writer. The key is to write them honestly.
Then there's dialogue. Dialogue is one of the most fun (and occasionally frustrating) parts of writing good fiction. Weak narration can (but should not) be carried by great dialogue. Hemingway is my favorite example of this, because reading things like For Whom the Bell Tolls require a great deal of imagination on the reader's part because Hemingway excels at dialogue and leaves the rest up to us. He writes it so magnificently that when he doesn't attribute the words to a character (and he frequently does not) you can tell who is speaking just by their tone, their phrasing, their dialogue. It's pure fun, for me.
Varth Elaron, one of Skyborn's major protagonists is the sort of lovable dick that makes writing dialogue so great. He's a lecherous bard (so, me). He loves to drink and sing and tell stories (so, me) and he's always commenting on the things people say. He's this sort of meta-character in a way because he says these things about writing and story-telling and speech that are both a comment on what another character has said and a comment on these things in our world. He's great fun, and most of it is dialogue. It's my story, so there's all sorts of fighting and sex and mysteries and horrible things happening, but Varth is there through all of it cracking jokes and spinning yarns and making sly (and overt) passes at the women he meets.
Varth, I think, also came about because I want to challenge myself. As I've related before, my dialogue was once very poor and while I think I was successful in other parts of my writing, I wanted to strengthen that weak spot. So Varth is a big mouth bard (he's also based loosely on a Dungeons and Dragons character I created several years ago, because I'm a geek).
Lastly there's internal monologue. I may actually write something in the future about this topic, simply because I've only recently started playing with it. Internal monologue is, essentially, things the character thinks in the privacy of his or her own mind. It allows the writer to communicate things about the character that don't fit into dialogue or action. These things are usually smaller aspects of the personality. At least, that's my ideal.
I don't trust internal monologue because it's a balancing act. Too much of it and the writer seems lazy and the story suffers. Too little and the story seems incomplete. It's a difficult feat to do well (and there are writers who do it very well and those who do it spectacularly bad).
The only real example from my own work I can give you, without much explanation, is from Varth. Varth remarks on multiple occasions that "Sarcasm is a fool's art." However, in his own head, he's constantly making sarcastic remarks about other characters, about the gods, about the situation he finds himself in, about the world. So, as a benefit, internal monologue can work with dialogue to give a real idea of a character and make them come to life. Varth, for instance, frequently says things he doesn't mean whether as a means of keeping the attention on himself or for comedic effect or because it sprang to mind and he has no filter (so, me).
Use your skills. Your characters are crucial to your story and your story is crucial to your characters. For your readers to be interested, both of those things need to be important. Otherwise, your story is just a big, fat, boring paperweight. I can't tell you what kind of characters to create, because trying would only stifle your creativity, but then I probably don't have to. They're already there, aren't they? Get to know them and you'll be surprised at how readily they tell you everything you need to know.
Adverbially Yours,
-S.R.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Plot Thickens
I'm going to talk about plot here (GET IT?!). Plots are hard, man. 300,000 words without getting off topic is no easy task. There has to be a beginning, some other stuff, an ending and it all has to be coherent and not self-contradictory (there's a better word for that, I'm sure). So how do we make that happen? Hire a good editor? Sell our souls to Satan? A movie montage?
Eh. Yeah, sure.
I've stressed before the importance of notes, particularly using them early in the process to create your world and keep track of the rules and people therein in a way that's fairly easy. If a bit time-consuming. For Skyborn I spent the first two full weeks writing notes for the story, everything from a creation story to the lay of the land, but it all served a purpose and, by and large, that purpose was keeping me from contradicting myself. When you're writing, just about every aspect of your world is going to affect the plot in some way. It can be as minor as your characters being tired at the beginning of a fight because they had to climb over rocky foothills to reach it, or the disposition of a supporting character (or even a minor, background character that the protagonist has to deal with) causing further trouble for your plucky hero. Everything will affect your story, and your story needs to flow properly.
Now, that said, I do not believe in the use of outlines. I don't think a writer can, if they're being honest, sit down and actually plot an entire novel before they write it. An honest novelist will realize that much of the magic of writing comes from letting it flow organically. Some errors are par for the course, and that's the purpose of re-writes and editing. That process exists for a reason. However, there's a difference between sitting down and hammering out a story without any forethought and letting the story come out of you naturally. The latter requires a great deal of work. I think that's where many would-be writers lose their drive.
Every writer comes to a story differently. Many of them get a scene or a character stuck in their head and the story forms from there. Others see the end of a story and unravel it from there. Still others will have other methods. There is no accepted way to begin the process. But putting the work in, the forethought, is the best way to make sure you have a story to work with, instead of series of disjointed scenes.
Likewise, I'm sure we've all had this experience where we're sitting down to write and an idea for a scene or a plot point from a different part of the story comes to us. What do you do in that situation? I used to set aside what I was doing and write the scene, in its entirety, in a separate document. The problem, I found, with doing that, was that I then felt like I had to move the story toward that scene. Then the story no longer flows naturally. It feels forced and stunted. Maneuvering the story to fit the scene doesn't work. The scenes need to fit the story. The plot has to flow, in other words.
So now, when I have an idea like this, I jot it down in my notes. No actual exposition, no dialogue, just a brief note or a very simple outline of my idea. If it doesn't work for this story, then it doesn't work, but the idea might be a good one down the line. I do the same thing with my poetry. If I find myself with a great line, rather than working my current piece around it, I jot it down somewhere else for later use. But I never, under any circumstances, leave what I'm doing in favor of skipping ahead.
One other suggestion before I wrap this up, and I like placing it here because it ties things neatly together. Remember how I talked about self-discipline? If you keep to your regimen of writing every day, it will help keep the story fresh in your mind. This has the added bonuses of making it less likely that you'll have those nasty errors I talked about and keeping those creative juices flowing. You won't even need to think about plotting because it will come to you naturally.
So, plot is great but only honest plot. Natural story-telling. Anything else, and you're just wasting your time. The challenges involved are some of the most difficult parts of writing a coherent narrative, but also the most rewarding. Keep at it, but don't forget to let the story come to you as it will.
Yours,
-S.R.
Eh. Yeah, sure.
I've stressed before the importance of notes, particularly using them early in the process to create your world and keep track of the rules and people therein in a way that's fairly easy. If a bit time-consuming. For Skyborn I spent the first two full weeks writing notes for the story, everything from a creation story to the lay of the land, but it all served a purpose and, by and large, that purpose was keeping me from contradicting myself. When you're writing, just about every aspect of your world is going to affect the plot in some way. It can be as minor as your characters being tired at the beginning of a fight because they had to climb over rocky foothills to reach it, or the disposition of a supporting character (or even a minor, background character that the protagonist has to deal with) causing further trouble for your plucky hero. Everything will affect your story, and your story needs to flow properly.
Now, that said, I do not believe in the use of outlines. I don't think a writer can, if they're being honest, sit down and actually plot an entire novel before they write it. An honest novelist will realize that much of the magic of writing comes from letting it flow organically. Some errors are par for the course, and that's the purpose of re-writes and editing. That process exists for a reason. However, there's a difference between sitting down and hammering out a story without any forethought and letting the story come out of you naturally. The latter requires a great deal of work. I think that's where many would-be writers lose their drive.
Every writer comes to a story differently. Many of them get a scene or a character stuck in their head and the story forms from there. Others see the end of a story and unravel it from there. Still others will have other methods. There is no accepted way to begin the process. But putting the work in, the forethought, is the best way to make sure you have a story to work with, instead of series of disjointed scenes.
Likewise, I'm sure we've all had this experience where we're sitting down to write and an idea for a scene or a plot point from a different part of the story comes to us. What do you do in that situation? I used to set aside what I was doing and write the scene, in its entirety, in a separate document. The problem, I found, with doing that, was that I then felt like I had to move the story toward that scene. Then the story no longer flows naturally. It feels forced and stunted. Maneuvering the story to fit the scene doesn't work. The scenes need to fit the story. The plot has to flow, in other words.
So now, when I have an idea like this, I jot it down in my notes. No actual exposition, no dialogue, just a brief note or a very simple outline of my idea. If it doesn't work for this story, then it doesn't work, but the idea might be a good one down the line. I do the same thing with my poetry. If I find myself with a great line, rather than working my current piece around it, I jot it down somewhere else for later use. But I never, under any circumstances, leave what I'm doing in favor of skipping ahead.
One other suggestion before I wrap this up, and I like placing it here because it ties things neatly together. Remember how I talked about self-discipline? If you keep to your regimen of writing every day, it will help keep the story fresh in your mind. This has the added bonuses of making it less likely that you'll have those nasty errors I talked about and keeping those creative juices flowing. You won't even need to think about plotting because it will come to you naturally.
So, plot is great but only honest plot. Natural story-telling. Anything else, and you're just wasting your time. The challenges involved are some of the most difficult parts of writing a coherent narrative, but also the most rewarding. Keep at it, but don't forget to let the story come to you as it will.
Yours,
-S.R.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Talent vs. Teaching
(Note: While I typically avoid using names without express permission, aside from those of established writers I'm referencing, I have done so in this piece because I feel that no one I mention will have any qualms about being praised.)
I'm a big fan of Stephen King. Not an "every single thing he's ever written in signed, first-edition hardcover" big fan, but a big enough fan that I'll defend the merits of his writing to anyone at anytime. I think he's brilliant as a storyteller and he has a real, enduring, and obvious love of the language. That's why I'm a fan. Personally, I don't even like some of the things he's written. His style can be a little bit long-winded sometimes, but I respect that its because of his attention to detail, not because he likes to waste words. So although I don't dig every story he writes, I do respect them and I do think he's a great writer.
I think he also understands what goes into being a great writer.
So this morning I picked up On Writing and started reading through it again, just to spend some idle time doing something halfway productive. It got me thinking about talent. And what can be done with talent. See, there doesn't seem to be any real equation for becoming a successful writer. There's no steps to follow, no well-worn path to tread that will take you from starting out in this field to popular success. Or literary success, for that matter. They are, after all, different things. In some cases, as with Mr. King and dozens of others, this is silly. In other cases, as with that broad who wrote Twilight, this makes perfect sense. Those Twilight novels are popular fiction, fodder for the masses. They reach a large audience, but really have no literary substance. They're bland, boring, bullshit. That may be solely my opinion but, let's face it, I'm right.
So I'm pondering this odd sort of juxtaposition of writers in our culture and I think it comes down to talent and teaching. To be a great writer, in any sense, or hell even a good writer, you need a bit of both.
King says, and I agree, that plenty of people have some degree of talent, however large or small. My friend Russ can tell a story that will have you pissing yourself laughing. He's not a writer (he's told me this on several occasions) but he's got the talent for telling stories. He can move you with them in the ways that all great storytellers can, and that's something to be admired. Its the talent, to some degree. That, I think, is the part that has to be natural. You can't teach someone talent or creativity. Those things aren't made they're born into us. The love of words is, I think, equally gifted to us, but it exists in more people than most of us realize, again to some lesser or greater degree. Not everyone can be a writer, not even a large minority of people, but there are many, many people that have some talent.
The rest, I think, is taught. The little devices we use to make our stories more poignant, the syntax, the structure, the style. We're taught these things and, especially with style, we adapt them to our own, but everyone needs that base.
I'm not shy about talent. Whether I have it in some vast, brilliant pool or not is subject to debate but I'll admit freely that I have some natural ability (and affinity) for wordsmithing. I've pursued it most of my life. I think it comes heavily from my parents. Both of them are writers (or the amateur sort, neither of them really had the opportunity to really pursue it as I have). My mother is a poet in many ways, who has such a grasp of language (I think without even realizing it sometimes) that it will occasionally startle me. I've even managed to (in my younger, more daring days) read some things she's written in the years since I was born, things I'm not sure she ever meant anyone to see, and they are breathtaking. My father is a prose man, a novelist at heart, who grew up reading Asimov and Sagan and their ilk (among others, of course). I've read his opus and, actually, its one of the projects I'm currently working on. Its a brilliant piece of fiction for a man with very little teaching. There are rough places, things that need a great deal of polishing, but the talent is obvious. The teaching is what he lacks.
Both of my parents have been very supportive. Even when I was a child I would sit and tell them outrageous stories (things I don't even recall now) and they would listen raptly. I learned from them the kind of support I'd need to grow into the writer I'm, admittedly, still striving to become. But that isn't the kind of teaching I'm referring to, not exactly.
I've had a number of teachers, as we all do, through school and college. I've loved more than I've loathed, but two of those teachers really stand out. Between them, I think they've taught me just about everything I know in one way or another, and they've given me the kind of extra-familial encouragement that is so vital to pursuing any artistic endeavor. Joy Daniels (I believe she's married now and using a different last name, but I'm not certain) was my English teacher in 8th grade. I'd moved to a new town, a new school, halfway through that year and the transition was a bit rough, although I had no real friends to speak of at my old school and no real connections there. Ms. Daniels was the first teacher that ever saw something I'd written for pleasure and said "Yes, keep doing this. You need to keep doing this."
That was one of the most important days of my entire life. She'd only had me in class for about a week. I don't even know now what possessed me to show her what I was writing, but from then on she took an actual interest in my education and, on many occasions, sought me out and encouraged me to pursue writing. She transferred to the high school, and I had her again my Junior year for English and a Creative Writing/Journalism elective and, although she wasn't into the kind of editing I learned in college, she gave me innumerable bits of advice and, more importantly, confidence. She helped me learn things about grammar and structure that I would go on to refine and work into my own style. She was the first teacher that ever told me, "You need to know the Rules when you're writing, so you know which ones you can bend and break".
When I went to college I knew I was going to the right place when I chose St. Andrews. Everything about that place, even the things we all bitched about while we were enrolled there, is perfect to me. No other place I have ever been has so cultivated both the desire and the ability and the absolute love for every aspect of writing as that school.
More importantly, I met the rest of my teachers there.
Dr. David Bell (which I think I'll always call him when we're talking in person no matter how many years I spend out of his classes) is a novelist and creative writing professor and, frankly, the man who has taught me the most about writing. Some of it was direct, things I learned through his classes or his criticisms, and other times it was indirect. A few months ago something he said during my freshman year (this is almost six years ago, now) finally clicked in my head and the difference it has made is tremendous. I've told the story about how he said if I could just get the dialogue right I'd have a career in this and the impact it made on me, but I think the real reason I was able to learn so much from him (aside from reading his actual novels) is that his mannerisms, his personality, made it easy to learn.
David Bell isn't the kind of professor who lectures. He's too conversational, too sarcastic. He's got this odd sort of acerbic conviviality that makes you want to pay attention to what he's saying because it isn't a dry lecture about proper comma placement and stale texts on writing theories. More importantly, he's one of those rare professors (in fact, every professor I had at that school is of this breed to me) that actually gives a shit about what he's teaching. He didn't get a degree and a teaching job because it pays (I like to think) but because he enjoys writing. That, to me, is the mark of both an accomplished and capable writer and an even better mentor. Also, sometimes I kiss his ass so I feel better about all those times I skipped class to drink before dinner.
Those things aside, I'm not saying that every writer needs to get a degree to be good. Some writers have the capacity to learn without that setting, no matter how informal. Reading, as King says, is the second most important thing a writer can do to improve (second to actually sitting down and writing). Flexing and strengthening that creative muscle is the same as any other muscle. You need to use it. But learning the way I did helped me to find things while I was reading that were useful. For instance, one of the first honest criticisms I ever got was in Dr. Bell's Writing the Novel class and the most common bit of feedback I received on my submissions (aside from "Why the fuck is this freshman in our class?") was that I needed more internal monologue. I needed to be inside my characters' heads more. I needed to show rather than tell. Now when I read, even for pleasure, I keep an eye out for that. How do other writers work the thoughts of their characters into the story and, more critically, how does that add both to the character and the story?
That isn't a natural ability. Its something we learn. I learned other things from my fellow students, my friends, and other writers. From Chantal, who remains my dearest friend, I learned that simply because the genre of story I tell (in this case, fantasy) is something a potential reader isn't interested in, the actual story can draw them in. She does not, ever, read fantasy. It isn't what interests her, but a really compelling story will draw her in regardless of the setting. For a fantasy writer, that's crucial. So many people are turned off immediately by the genre or the funny-sounding names or the nerd-gasm inducing titles like Bones of the Dragon (by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman). We don't have to cater to those people, but we should endeavor to tell stories that will turn them into fans, stories that transcend silly genres. Stories that are, at their heart, great stories.
Ed taught me to be myself when I write, regardless of the strange, bizarre twists that might include. Tell stories that are important to me, in such a way that they become compelling to other people. Mason taught me that having confidence in my ability is every bit as important as the ability itself. They need to go hand-in-hand, and it doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor about it. In fact, being able to laugh about it, despite how deeply important it is to us, is something that requires both tremendous heart and brass balls. Emily taught me that writing will always be the most important thing in my life, regardless of all the other important things in my life. Whether I dedicate hours and hours every day to it or I get side-tracked by work and obligation and drinking (which happens more often than I like to admit), everything we do is part of the molding process.
Cate taught me to learn from my mistakes. In addition to being a very, very talented writer she's also a ferocious editor. She has the ability to take something and see the potential in it in ways I still don't understand (and she is also one of the people who may kill me for all of this, which is alright). Regardless of any circumstance, she has never gone easy on something I asked for her help with, but she has never been derogatory either. Her criticism has always been more than helpful and, at times, even complimentary. When she finds something weak, something that needs work, she also finds ten ways to improve it and whether I follow that guidance or go another direction with it, the fact that she highlighted those mistakes makes all the difference.
Lastly, Courtney has taught me just about everything I know about inspiration. The most common question writers are asked is where the ideas come from and, quite frankly, there is no real answer to that question. They come from everywhere. Random things spark in your mind, things that may not bring ideas hurtling into another person's head. Even individual writers get their ideas from different places. It isn't something you can explain in simple terms, but inspiration, that creative drive, that insatiable desire to write is something a little more conceivable. At least, for me. The things that inspire me to write, that really get me going, are mostly tangible things. People, music, books, the sorts of things that get me thinking about my own work and, in doing so, inspire me to write. The way that she, herself, inspires me in conversation or by reading something she writes, has taught me a great deal about what it means to be inspired and how those things come to be inspirational.
So I want to leave you with the big idea (because I learned MLA structure, damn it) and that is to learn from the people around you. I've been blessedly surrounded by creative people my entire life, and most of them are writers but, personally, I think most of us are surrounded by creative people in some way or another and, if you have the talent, they will have a lot to teach you.
Gratefully,
-S.R.
I'm a big fan of Stephen King. Not an "every single thing he's ever written in signed, first-edition hardcover" big fan, but a big enough fan that I'll defend the merits of his writing to anyone at anytime. I think he's brilliant as a storyteller and he has a real, enduring, and obvious love of the language. That's why I'm a fan. Personally, I don't even like some of the things he's written. His style can be a little bit long-winded sometimes, but I respect that its because of his attention to detail, not because he likes to waste words. So although I don't dig every story he writes, I do respect them and I do think he's a great writer.
I think he also understands what goes into being a great writer.
So this morning I picked up On Writing and started reading through it again, just to spend some idle time doing something halfway productive. It got me thinking about talent. And what can be done with talent. See, there doesn't seem to be any real equation for becoming a successful writer. There's no steps to follow, no well-worn path to tread that will take you from starting out in this field to popular success. Or literary success, for that matter. They are, after all, different things. In some cases, as with Mr. King and dozens of others, this is silly. In other cases, as with that broad who wrote Twilight, this makes perfect sense. Those Twilight novels are popular fiction, fodder for the masses. They reach a large audience, but really have no literary substance. They're bland, boring, bullshit. That may be solely my opinion but, let's face it, I'm right.
So I'm pondering this odd sort of juxtaposition of writers in our culture and I think it comes down to talent and teaching. To be a great writer, in any sense, or hell even a good writer, you need a bit of both.
King says, and I agree, that plenty of people have some degree of talent, however large or small. My friend Russ can tell a story that will have you pissing yourself laughing. He's not a writer (he's told me this on several occasions) but he's got the talent for telling stories. He can move you with them in the ways that all great storytellers can, and that's something to be admired. Its the talent, to some degree. That, I think, is the part that has to be natural. You can't teach someone talent or creativity. Those things aren't made they're born into us. The love of words is, I think, equally gifted to us, but it exists in more people than most of us realize, again to some lesser or greater degree. Not everyone can be a writer, not even a large minority of people, but there are many, many people that have some talent.
The rest, I think, is taught. The little devices we use to make our stories more poignant, the syntax, the structure, the style. We're taught these things and, especially with style, we adapt them to our own, but everyone needs that base.
I'm not shy about talent. Whether I have it in some vast, brilliant pool or not is subject to debate but I'll admit freely that I have some natural ability (and affinity) for wordsmithing. I've pursued it most of my life. I think it comes heavily from my parents. Both of them are writers (or the amateur sort, neither of them really had the opportunity to really pursue it as I have). My mother is a poet in many ways, who has such a grasp of language (I think without even realizing it sometimes) that it will occasionally startle me. I've even managed to (in my younger, more daring days) read some things she's written in the years since I was born, things I'm not sure she ever meant anyone to see, and they are breathtaking. My father is a prose man, a novelist at heart, who grew up reading Asimov and Sagan and their ilk (among others, of course). I've read his opus and, actually, its one of the projects I'm currently working on. Its a brilliant piece of fiction for a man with very little teaching. There are rough places, things that need a great deal of polishing, but the talent is obvious. The teaching is what he lacks.
Both of my parents have been very supportive. Even when I was a child I would sit and tell them outrageous stories (things I don't even recall now) and they would listen raptly. I learned from them the kind of support I'd need to grow into the writer I'm, admittedly, still striving to become. But that isn't the kind of teaching I'm referring to, not exactly.
I've had a number of teachers, as we all do, through school and college. I've loved more than I've loathed, but two of those teachers really stand out. Between them, I think they've taught me just about everything I know in one way or another, and they've given me the kind of extra-familial encouragement that is so vital to pursuing any artistic endeavor. Joy Daniels (I believe she's married now and using a different last name, but I'm not certain) was my English teacher in 8th grade. I'd moved to a new town, a new school, halfway through that year and the transition was a bit rough, although I had no real friends to speak of at my old school and no real connections there. Ms. Daniels was the first teacher that ever saw something I'd written for pleasure and said "Yes, keep doing this. You need to keep doing this."
That was one of the most important days of my entire life. She'd only had me in class for about a week. I don't even know now what possessed me to show her what I was writing, but from then on she took an actual interest in my education and, on many occasions, sought me out and encouraged me to pursue writing. She transferred to the high school, and I had her again my Junior year for English and a Creative Writing/Journalism elective and, although she wasn't into the kind of editing I learned in college, she gave me innumerable bits of advice and, more importantly, confidence. She helped me learn things about grammar and structure that I would go on to refine and work into my own style. She was the first teacher that ever told me, "You need to know the Rules when you're writing, so you know which ones you can bend and break".
When I went to college I knew I was going to the right place when I chose St. Andrews. Everything about that place, even the things we all bitched about while we were enrolled there, is perfect to me. No other place I have ever been has so cultivated both the desire and the ability and the absolute love for every aspect of writing as that school.
More importantly, I met the rest of my teachers there.
Dr. David Bell (which I think I'll always call him when we're talking in person no matter how many years I spend out of his classes) is a novelist and creative writing professor and, frankly, the man who has taught me the most about writing. Some of it was direct, things I learned through his classes or his criticisms, and other times it was indirect. A few months ago something he said during my freshman year (this is almost six years ago, now) finally clicked in my head and the difference it has made is tremendous. I've told the story about how he said if I could just get the dialogue right I'd have a career in this and the impact it made on me, but I think the real reason I was able to learn so much from him (aside from reading his actual novels) is that his mannerisms, his personality, made it easy to learn.
David Bell isn't the kind of professor who lectures. He's too conversational, too sarcastic. He's got this odd sort of acerbic conviviality that makes you want to pay attention to what he's saying because it isn't a dry lecture about proper comma placement and stale texts on writing theories. More importantly, he's one of those rare professors (in fact, every professor I had at that school is of this breed to me) that actually gives a shit about what he's teaching. He didn't get a degree and a teaching job because it pays (I like to think) but because he enjoys writing. That, to me, is the mark of both an accomplished and capable writer and an even better mentor. Also, sometimes I kiss his ass so I feel better about all those times I skipped class to drink before dinner.
Those things aside, I'm not saying that every writer needs to get a degree to be good. Some writers have the capacity to learn without that setting, no matter how informal. Reading, as King says, is the second most important thing a writer can do to improve (second to actually sitting down and writing). Flexing and strengthening that creative muscle is the same as any other muscle. You need to use it. But learning the way I did helped me to find things while I was reading that were useful. For instance, one of the first honest criticisms I ever got was in Dr. Bell's Writing the Novel class and the most common bit of feedback I received on my submissions (aside from "Why the fuck is this freshman in our class?") was that I needed more internal monologue. I needed to be inside my characters' heads more. I needed to show rather than tell. Now when I read, even for pleasure, I keep an eye out for that. How do other writers work the thoughts of their characters into the story and, more critically, how does that add both to the character and the story?
That isn't a natural ability. Its something we learn. I learned other things from my fellow students, my friends, and other writers. From Chantal, who remains my dearest friend, I learned that simply because the genre of story I tell (in this case, fantasy) is something a potential reader isn't interested in, the actual story can draw them in. She does not, ever, read fantasy. It isn't what interests her, but a really compelling story will draw her in regardless of the setting. For a fantasy writer, that's crucial. So many people are turned off immediately by the genre or the funny-sounding names or the nerd-gasm inducing titles like Bones of the Dragon (by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman). We don't have to cater to those people, but we should endeavor to tell stories that will turn them into fans, stories that transcend silly genres. Stories that are, at their heart, great stories.
Ed taught me to be myself when I write, regardless of the strange, bizarre twists that might include. Tell stories that are important to me, in such a way that they become compelling to other people. Mason taught me that having confidence in my ability is every bit as important as the ability itself. They need to go hand-in-hand, and it doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor about it. In fact, being able to laugh about it, despite how deeply important it is to us, is something that requires both tremendous heart and brass balls. Emily taught me that writing will always be the most important thing in my life, regardless of all the other important things in my life. Whether I dedicate hours and hours every day to it or I get side-tracked by work and obligation and drinking (which happens more often than I like to admit), everything we do is part of the molding process.
Cate taught me to learn from my mistakes. In addition to being a very, very talented writer she's also a ferocious editor. She has the ability to take something and see the potential in it in ways I still don't understand (and she is also one of the people who may kill me for all of this, which is alright). Regardless of any circumstance, she has never gone easy on something I asked for her help with, but she has never been derogatory either. Her criticism has always been more than helpful and, at times, even complimentary. When she finds something weak, something that needs work, she also finds ten ways to improve it and whether I follow that guidance or go another direction with it, the fact that she highlighted those mistakes makes all the difference.
Lastly, Courtney has taught me just about everything I know about inspiration. The most common question writers are asked is where the ideas come from and, quite frankly, there is no real answer to that question. They come from everywhere. Random things spark in your mind, things that may not bring ideas hurtling into another person's head. Even individual writers get their ideas from different places. It isn't something you can explain in simple terms, but inspiration, that creative drive, that insatiable desire to write is something a little more conceivable. At least, for me. The things that inspire me to write, that really get me going, are mostly tangible things. People, music, books, the sorts of things that get me thinking about my own work and, in doing so, inspire me to write. The way that she, herself, inspires me in conversation or by reading something she writes, has taught me a great deal about what it means to be inspired and how those things come to be inspirational.
So I want to leave you with the big idea (because I learned MLA structure, damn it) and that is to learn from the people around you. I've been blessedly surrounded by creative people my entire life, and most of them are writers but, personally, I think most of us are surrounded by creative people in some way or another and, if you have the talent, they will have a lot to teach you.
Gratefully,
-S.R.
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