Pretty But Creepy, This Time

Oh, my goodness. I wish I'd stumbled upon this in time to share it with you for Hallowe'en!

The Skeleton Church

Ooh, Pretty! In a Scary Sort Of Way

Boiling rock at Erta Ale, Ethiopia:



From Environmental Graffiti

Hand Script Across Border, Accept Wad of Cash, Walk Away and DON'T LOOK BACK

The always-awesome Murderati blog has an illuminating insider's look at why Hollywood is both crazy and exciting.

Crazywood, by Stephen Jay Schwartz

CANDY!! Uh, I Mean, Free Books!

Writtenwyrdd is a contest-throwing wild-woman these days. Snag yourself a chance at a free copy of Harry Connolly's Child Of Fire by commenting on this post!

Books Are Better in Black and White

Here's a blog with a good sense of humour and some particularly great author interviews. Go have a peek!

Welcome, White Folks
"Your official invitation into the African American section of the bookstore! A sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted plea for EVERYBODY to give a black writer a try."

Thanks to Karen L. Simpson for the link!

It's Only a Small Paperback In My Left Lung. It Doesn't Hurt That Much.

Another great blog post today! Kiersten White manages to be both enthusiastic and supportive of those who want to write while still being realistic about what is involved if they want to be published.

Everyone Has a Book Inside Them

I Prefer To Call It "Freedom Fighter" Writing

Here's a very upbeat and useful post from Writer Unboxed, a rather awesome blog I only just discovered:

Guerrila Writing, by Phil Rossi.

His enthusiasm is catching! Now if only his energy level was also...

Travis Presents: Literary Agent Appreciation Week!

Texan carnivore extraordinaire, Travis Erwin, is currently running Literary Agent Appreciation Week! He has compiled and will be posting stories of agents who have gone light-years beyond the form letter to help new writers.

So climb out of your pile of rejections, brush off those bitterness-pixies, and saunter on over to hear heart-warming tales of Agent Awesomeness! Really and truly: There are some deeply generous people on the far side of that slush pile.

Write the World's Best Rejection Letter

Looking for a query or partial critique from an industry professional?

Head over to The Rejectionist for her Write the World's Best Rejection Letter Contest.

The winner not only gets a critique, but also a book and possibly some baked goods! (Mmm...cookies.) Deadline is 5PM, Friday, EST.

Cthulhu wants YOU (for dinner. And maybe to vote.)

Don't forget to vote for your favourite entry in Writtenwyrdd's Cthulhu-inspired fiction contest! The deadline is Nov. 9th.

Seriously, I had a 'short' list of about ten entries. There's some fantastic writing there! I do recommend you go forth and enjoy.

Meaty Mondays: SiWC 2009; Lisa Rector, The First 50 Pages

On Oct 23-25, 2009, I attended The Surrey International Writers Conference, which is one of the best conferences in North America for improving your writing skills and learning about the publishing industry. The conference is extremely well-run, focuses on craft, and includes (for free!) one ten-minute agent/editor pitch and one ten-minute author/editor "Blue Pencil" clinic.

I'm going to summarize the useful information from my workshop notes here on the blog, but I'm going to have to break it up over several weeks' worth of Meaty Mondays, because there's LOTS to cover.

These summaries will be in point form, because my notes aren't much more than that, plus doodles.

This week:

The First Fifty Pages, Lisa Rector

(Note: This entry has been shortened to a summary at Ms. Rector's request. Please buy her upcoming book to read the entirety of her helpful and incisive advice for your first 50 pages!)

Story: what is it?

- A combination of conflict and change. Both external and internal conflict and change are needed.

- The first moment of change/conflict must matter deeply to your character right from the start.

- There should be many moments of change in your first 50 pages. A story consists of "turning points" for all the characters. From the reader's point of view, the turning points ARE the story.


Types of openings:

- If you start slow, you need looming change, or the need for change. Your character needs to at least be trying to change things.

- Action aids conflict and change, but it is not itself conflict or change.

- Make sure your characters show what they're feeling. A plot needs emotion or it will lack impact; action alone will not move the reader.


Common question: Don't I need to show what normal is first?

- If your world is exotic, give the reader one or two details that feel normal and comforting.

- If your world is ordinary, bring in a bit of the extraordinary.


Why you need conflict/change:

- Most novels need more of both emotion and action. There's no such thing as too much.

(JJ's Comment: Actually, read Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher. He has too much action; there's no down-time, and the pacing is really screwed up and odd because of it. However, he sorted that out as the series progressed, and the later books are very enjoyable indeed.)

- The conflicts you introduce in the first 50 pages will carry the middle of your novel. IMPORTANT: If you introduce the conflict later, the reader will SKIM it. If your character didn't care about this conflict at the beginning, then the reader won't buy the development as important later.


Introducing characters:

- When you introduce a character, introduce a problem along with them.

- Give your characters challenges, rather than flaws. If you make a character flawed, you may be saying to the reader, "I don't like this character."

- If your character truly is flawed, introduce the possibility of redemption very quickly. Show what's worthy inside the character, even within the context of an unworthy action.

-For every character, ask the following: What is the character on the verge of? Greatness? Failure? Reward? Punishment? Why today, why now? And why does it MATTER today?


A question to ask yourself:

- Why does it matter to you? Why do you want to write about someone who is, for example, old, or young, or dying? Why does this character's story need to be told?

Happy Hallowe'en | Go, Go, NaNoWriMo!

Happy Hallowe'en! Or Samhain if you prefer.

Celebrate the festive season with some Cat Bowling!

Which, by the way, is a nice, low-stress activity for when you're lying about the house recovering from candy-poisoning.

~~~~

I wish the best of luck to everyone doing NaNoWriMo this year!

I think you're crazy. I do. But I admire your grit! And I wish you plentiful wordage this month. My pom-poms rattle for you!

Nathan Bransford Is One Sparky Guy

Sir Nathan of the Bransford writes another great, intelligent post:
The Reverse Snobbery of Low Literature Aspirations

I really agree with the following:

I think we're in a cultural period that celebrates mass appeal and democracy and devalues experts.

I, however, have faith in the idea that talent will triumph again. When you give people access to everything, they start to realize how valuable the good stuff is.

All the world loves a slush reader, that marvelous filter; they just don't realize it.

Meaty Mondays: SiWC 2009; Panel Discussion on Genre Fiction

This past weekend, I attended The Surrey International Writers Conference, which is one of the best conferences in North America for improving your writing skills and learning about the publishing industry. The conference is extremely well-run, focuses on craft, and includes (free) a ten-minute agent/editor pitch and a ten-minute author/editor "Blue Pencil" clinic.

I'm going to summarize the useful information from my workshop notes here on the blog, but I'm going to have to break it up over several weeks' worth of Meaty Mondays, because there's LOTS to cover.

These summaries will be in point form, because my notes aren't much more than that, plus doodles.

This week:

Panel Discussion: Genre Fiction

I use the following abbreviations to identify speakers:

VD = Verna Dreisbach, literary agent, moderator
DM = Donald Maass, literary agent and writer
MK = Meredith Koffel, literary agent
BM = Bob Mayer, writer
KS = Kristin Sevick, editor

Topic: What's important in genre fiction?

DM:
- characters we care about
- problems that are big and urgent
- you need to delve deeper into characters to make conflicts and problems more gripping
- the story must resonate with readers
IMPORTANT:
- it's NOT having a new gimmick or twist that makes books break out: it's having deeper character development. Twilight is a perfect example of this. The idea is not new; the depth of the character development is

MK:
(speaking with regard to YA in particular)
- agrees with DM it's the character rather than the plot that compels
- does want the addictive quality in the plot too, however
- the character is often an idealized version of ourselves

KS:
- don't chase trends; write what you're passionate about, because the passion is what readers respond to

BM:
- he doesn't want to write what he knows; he wants to write what he loves and reads
- agrees with KS that passion is what's valuable
- Notes that emotion is more important to success as a writer than business acumen is; reiterates that chasing trends is not going to work out
- says new writers too-often fail to consider what they want to write in the long-term until after a publishing contract has locked them into a particular genre

Topic: Cliches

VD:
- read the genre you write so you recognize cliches

DM:
- things like the cloning of Jesus or genetically modified doomsday viruses are cliches, but they have been done well (very rarely)
- the technique the successful authors used was to, step-by-step, make the impossible seem real by showing how each of the reader's arguments could have a loophole. They skilfully guide the reader through a conversion from scepticism to suspension of disbelief

MK:
- do research on your genre to avoid cliches
- anticipate the reader's objections to something outlandish (like Jesus cloning)
- make sure it's your characters and story that are selling the novel, not a gimmick or a topic that's currently in the news

Topic: Switching genres

KS:
- switching genres makes your publisher nervous because you are almost starting from scratch. There is no guarantee you can find a new audience and you risk alienating or losing your old audience (due to no new books of the sort they want coming out)

BM:
- you must break out in one genre before you can switch to another
- every plot has been done, but NOT every character has been done. This is why you want to make your characters compelling. They're what makes your story unique.
- Theme can also be what sets your book apart. The emotions provoked by the book's theme will stick with the reader long after the book is closed.

Question from the audience: What do we need to know about women's fiction?

KS:
- your main character should either be strong or show a growing strength

DM:
- a strong character acts, she doesn't just react
- he notes many authors try to create reader empathy for the protagonist by showing her in the grip of misery due to some tragedy, like the death of a child. He called these "women's disaster novels"
- pain is not enough to establish reader empathy; plant a clue early on to show there is something redeemable about this character--some spark still in her. If she appears simply miserable, the reader will not want to read on.
- the character should be likeable to both writer and reader
- question to ask yourself: How can I portray, in the first few pages, what I like about my character?

MK:
- inject some hope and inspiration into the scene
- she should be relatable despite her misery

Question from the audience: Are there out-dated themes?

BM:
- No. Themes are universal and timeless. People are people.

DM:
- Styles get outdated, however

Topic: Do agents/editors work with writers who have fire and a good idea, but whose writing isn't quite there yet?

MK:
- usually no, unless very excited
- would only offer editorial suggestions and invite a re-query
- agents are doing more of that sort of editing these days

DM:
- there are very good independent editors out there, and there are crooks
- be a very smart consumer
- that said, the right person can be incredibly helpful (JJ's Note: DM's wife is an independent editor, and she gave a very good workshop right after this one)
- from someone you think to hire, ask for samples of work, timelines on when to expect them to get back to you, and run away from people who make false promises about what they can do for your career. There are no guarantees an editor can get you to publication
INTERESTING:
- he says over the past 10 years, agents have been doing more editing than some editors do. However, in the past year or two, the trend has begun to swing back the other way (JJ's Note: I didn't quite understand what market forces were driving this)

KS:
- 1st time authors are a gamble because they, perhaps, can't take editorial direction
- thus, 1st time authors have to have a book that is almost perfect, as is
- on 2nd and 3rd books, editors often do more work on a novel because they know whether the author is easy to work with by that point
- if a 1st time author is close, but not quite, KS kicks the issue back to the agent and invites a requery, i.e. if the writer can't take direction, it's now the agent's problem.

VD:
- the "almost there" books are the hardest ones to say no to, but agents must due to time constraints

KS:
- if the voice is there, that's more persuasive; editing is about fixing plot and characters. However, you can't fix voice if the writer doesn't have a grip on that yet

BM:
- accepting editorial direction is a key skill if you want to be a successful writer. Of the people BM has done workshops with, he estimates 95% of them WON'T change their manuscripts. He makes suggestions, but they merely rearrange the same errors and don't fix the problem.
- BM jokingly outlines the 5 stages of accepting editorial direction:
--- Denial: "Nothing's wrong with my book. The editor is crazy."
--- Anger: "Correction. The editor is crazy and evil."
--- Bargaining: "Okay, maybe some things could be better. But only small things."
--- Depression: "My book sucks. I suck. Life sucks."
--- Acceptance: "Okay, then. I am going to rewrite it until it doesn't suck."

DM:
- the problem with "almost there" stories is usually that the writer has not taken the story deep enough or far enough
- the stakes have to be higher
- dig deeper, emotionally

MK:
- concept editing is what agents do, i.e. how and what to change, rather than line edits

Topic: DM asks KS if she sees the following trend--does the 2nd book in a series tend to be a less brave novel than the first was?

KS:
- sometimes

VD:
- the author has less time to write their 2nd book; 8 months instead of an arbitrary number of years

BM:
- no author training exists; we authors need to figure out our long-term plan, and we usually haven't when the first contract comes in
- the panic caused by getting signed causes writers to react rather than to act, and that generates weaker, less well-thought-out books

DM:
- writers need tools for developing novels. (JJ's Note: I think he means a mental roadmap for assembling a plot, rather than pure instinct and muddling) Writers who turn out a lot of novels have these.

BM:
- Author dissection: choose some authors who have careers like you would like to have. Study how they conduct their career and model your career on theirs.

VD:
- writers need to study the business and learn all aspects of it

Question from JJdeGoblin: Where's the line between "fresh and original" and "crazy and inaccessible"? (JJ's Note: I got some laughs from the panel by asking that. Nice feeling!)

MK:
- good enough writing can overcome resistance to any idea

DM:
- an audience does exist for wild ideas, but it might turn out to be a small audience
- you cross the line only when no one at all wants to read your book
INTERESTING EXAMPLE:
- DM represented a novel featuring schizophrenic and clinically depressed characters in an oppressive environment. It didn't sell well in North America, but sold extremely well in Eastern Europe. Apparently gloom and madness really resonate with, for example, Bulgarians.

Question from the audience: Must a book fit into a well-defined genre?

Judine (Terry Brooks' wife):
- speaking as a former bookseller, genre is for marketing purposes only. It's for fitting books onto shelves

VD:
- write the story in you; worry about shelving later

DM:
- when you sell enough copies, genre becomes irrelevant

MK:
- "kitchen sink" novels usually have one thread that works better than the others

KS:
- agrees with MK that one thread will be strongest, and that can be used to pigeon-hole the novel
- notes the publisher has to pick one bookseller only from e.g. Barnes and Noble, so they need to know what genre to call the book
- that said, you can let your agent and editor figure it out

DM:
- in the industry, we use "comp" titles. Authors seem afraid to mention comp titles (JJ's Note: "comp" titles are "comparative" titles--books similar to yours. See Eric's explanation on 'Pimp My Novel' for more details.)
- agents would find this helpful
- even inaccurate comp titles are useful because they give the agent something to react against

KS:
- but the comp title needs to be accurate

BM:
- authors don't necessarily know good comp titles, especially new authors

DM:
- Pet peeve: know your genre, i.e. read it extensively

BM:
- but new writers don't know
- example: published writers get more from BM's workshops on the pitfalls of starting writing than new writers do. He gets comments from the former saying, "Wish I had known that before..."

Topic: Learning

DM:
- 1st novels are often too safe, because the writer is trying to break into publishing. Then, the writers often don't improve
- great writers keep trying to improve, keep going to workshops (gives an example of a best-selling author he saw in the back of a seminar room scribbling notes as ardently as the 150 unpublished writers in there with her.)

VD:
- teaching helps writers improve too

DM:
- teaching has helped my writing immensely

Terry Brooks (bestselling author of the Shannara series):
- You're learning at every point of your career. You never know it all.

DM:
- it's like yoga

BM:
- teaching helps my writing too
- learn from anyone; get a range of experiences; listen to people you don't agree with
- sometimes you realize you were wrong
- exchange of ideas: the teacher learns as much from the students as vice versa
(JJ's Note: this applies to giving critiques; it's a form of teaching.)

Panelists sum up:

KS:
- you must practise writing; it's a skill. You need to study and practise.
- it's a life-long process
- also, be a professional. Treat your writing as you would any aspect of your day job.

BM:
- be open to learning. That's the biggest difference between those who will succeed and those who won't.

DM:
- pet peeve: promotion won't make you a success.
- throwing money at your book won't make it succeed. The only thing that makes a book succeed is the quality of the story in it

MK:
- authors do need to promote their own books
- think about branding when you create your Facebook, Twitter, etc.

VD:
- read philosophy. Read theology. Read Aristotle. Understand people.

End of Panel discussion

~~~~~~~

Bonus: The Story of D'oh.

Thursday night, I (JJ) was obsessing over having all the information I needed printed out, plus five-page samples, cover letters, business cards, partials, and whatever else I might need just in case.

Y'know. Just in case some editors spontaneously leap on me and cling like groupies, only to be scraped off with sample pages.

Thus, I arrived Friday morning with a sizeable brick of dead tree in my backpack.

And it was only when I sat down in my first workshop that I realized, despite all the paper I was hauling, I had forgotten to bring any paper to write on.

So now I'm scribbling notes on the back of one of my partials. If I meet any predatory editors, I'm hooped.

~~~~~~~

Pumpkinspirations

Tis the season...

...for awesome...

...pumpkins.

Pardon Me, For I Must Squee (Again.)

Y'know what makes your day?

Or my day, rather, here at SiWC 2009?

Okay, I'll give you a hint. It may have been Terry Brooks, New York Times bestseller and author of the beloved Shannara fantasy series, reading the first four pages of my WIP and saying--and I quote--"I love this!"

:-)

Ooh, Pretty!

Why, yes. Yes, I do think I need a car made of clear acrylic.

Of course, I didn't know that until a second ago...



Wonder Woman's jet is the next logical step, n'est pas?

Car made by Lexus, link found via Geekologie.

~~~~~~~

PS - I'm attending the Surrey International Writers Conference this weekend. All three of the talks I saw today were great, so tune in on Meaty Monday for a summary!

Meaty Mondays: The Form of Passive Voice

Today's post is one I'd love some discussion on, because I'm not speaking with any authority on this issue; it's just something I've noticed.

First, the backstory:

I struggled with getting rid of passive voice in my writing because, even after educating myself on what it was, I still had trouble seeing it.

I have an intuitive understanding of English only. Don't ask me what a participle is; I dunno. But I do know if a sentence sounds right, and that's my trouble with passive voice: it's not wrong. My brain doesn't kick me and say, 'that made no sense.'

I'm pretty good, now, at avoiding writing in the passive voice, but it still sneaks in once in a while.

This post isn't about that.

Before I get to what it is about, however, a refresher on what passive voice is:

Passive Voice:

The ball was caught by the woman.

or

The ball was caught.

Active Voice:

The woman caught the ball.

That 'by [the noun]' construction at the end of the sentence is the tip-off--even when it's not there. If your sentence either has 'by [the noun]' or could have it, then you're using passive voice.

Passive voice divorces intention from your character. The woman caught the ball, but did she intend to? Can she be blamed for it? Why should the reader care about stuff that just sorta-kinda happens? Passive voice implies passivity on the part of the person who is acting, and it creates an emotional distance between the reader and that character. Both things give the reader too much opportunity to become disengaged from the story.

Remember in this post, I noted the construction '[This] was [that]' (e.g. '[The sky] was [blue]') is a form of 'telling', rather than 'showing'. You've informed the reader of a fact, rather than trying to force the reader's imagination to picture what you're saying.

Passive voice is telling also. '[The ball] was [caught]' is the same construction as '[The ball] was [red]'.

But that is not what this post is about, either.

This is a bit weird, but I want to talk about the form of passive voice--as in the actual order of words on the page.

Compare the form of the following two sentences:

1a) The ball was caught.

1b) She caught the ball.

with these two sentences:

2a) The sky filled with clouds.

2b) Clouds filled the sky.

Sentence (2a) is not passive voice. However, I would argue it's like passive voice, in that it has a similar structure. Instead of having 'was' there to tip you off that your writing isn't as visceral as it could be, you have the word 'with'.

Here's some more examples:

The room filled with people.

His face lit with joy.

She splashed the salad with vinaigrette.

Like passive voice, there's nothing at all wrong with these sentences. Furthermore, they have the merit of being invisible--the reader's mind is not going to hiccup over any of these.

Although we should strive for effective prose, there's a great many bestsellers that prove the only real rule for fiction prose is that it be invisible, i.e. the reader should only be aware of the story blooming in their head, not the words on the page.

However, compare the above sentences to the following ones:

People clogged the room.

Joy lit his face.

She jostled the bottle, and vinaigrette splashed the salad.

In two of those cases, at least, I can argue the '[This][did something] with [that]' construction should be avoided simply to adhere to Strunk and White's rule of "Omit needless words."

However, I'd also argue the second batch of sentences are a bit more vivid and active than the first. This may just be because they're more unusual constructions, and thus strike me as fresher. I don't know.

I wouldn't suggest avoiding the '[This][did something] with [that]' construction in every case, but I think it's worth rethinking sentences that use it. Using a variety of sentence structures always spices up prose, and I'm fond of this particular method of changing things around.

What do you think? Is saying 'Joy lit his face' intrusive to your writerly ear, or do you like the construction? Do you use this form already? If not, do you think you might start? Do you think I'm addled to draw a parallel between '[This][did something] with [that]' and passive voice? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment trail.

Free Stuff!

My writer-buddy, Sandra Cormier, is celebrating the trade paperback release of her book, The Toast Bitches (a super-spicy story of friendship in the face of adversity), with a contest on her blog. You could win autographed copies and more!



Just say in the comments of this post what you would do for a friend in a given situation. Use your imagination, amuse Sandra, and score free stuff!

Let the BFF marathon begin!

Yay, Travis!

Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent Insane Extraordinaire, occasionally hosts contests on his blog. These tend to draw massive numbers of entries, and the First Paragraphs contest Nathan ran this past week was no exception. Over 2,600 entries!

With competition like that, you can imagine how delighted I was to see blogger-buddy, Travis Erwin, has been chosen as one of the ten finalists!

Please head over to the voting post, read the finalists' entries (which are the first paragraphs of a novel or memoir) and vote for your favourite in the comments.

Congratulations, Travis! May this lead to big things for you and your memoir! (And when you get it published, I am definitely buying a copy. :-) )

UPDATE: Squee! Travis WON! Congratulations, Travis Erwin!

Pardon Me, For I Must Squee.

Have I mentioned lately how awesome my sister-who-lives-in-the-US is? Look what I got my hands on! (And feet; it's hard to hold something and photograph it at the same time.)


Thanks, Sis!

And while I'm on the subject, here's part of the reason why I'm excited to get this book--how cool is this?


Thanks, Stuart!

Some Wow For Your Friday

An amazing gallery of award-winning medical and historical photographs:

Wellcome Image Awards, 2009

Found via Lynn Flewelling's Twitter

Ooh, pretty!

Remember this dragon made of pop can tabs?

Well, someone made a cheap plastic knock-off.

(Yes, that is disposable cutlery.)


Artist: Toge-NYC, found via Geekologie

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (5 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)


Technique 5 of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’: The Art of Implying Information



Which picture looks more lifelike to you?

Probably the one with grey in it, as opposed to the black-and-white one. When faced with ambiguity, your imagination fills in the blanks and infers what should be there. For example, the edges of the grey face aren’t well-defined on either side, yet your brain probably has no trouble believing they’re there.

A similar thing happens when you read the description of a scene in a novel. Not every detail of the scene can be mentioned, but if enough of them are, your imagination will fill in the blanks and give you a complete picture. Often, just one or two vividly-described images are enough to trigger this effect.

With insufficient description, a scene feels flat to the reader, but with too much, it becomes tedious to read. The ideal is for you, the writer, to limit yourself to relatively few sentences of description, but to work hard to ensure those sentences are vivid.

In choosing what to describe, try to pick a few slightly odd things that would stick out in a person’s memory. The commonplace parts of the scene are exactly what you can count on your reader’s imagination to fill in for you.

Here’s an example:

Light leaked between the shack’s planks and painted lines across a floor scabbed with blots of mildew.

What material was the floor made out of? Was the room bright or dingy? Did the air smell musty? This example doesn’t say, but check the picture you have in your mind: did your brain fill in details beyond what was described?

Here's another example:

Sun had bleached the shack’s wood silver and laid a carpet of grass across its roof.

What shape did the shack have? How many windows? Did you picture the sky behind it? The landscape in front of it? Again, your imagination probably added more to the picture than the text itself did.

Also, note it’s only implied in those two examples whether you’re inside or outside the shack. That’s another blank your brain filled in automatically.

As a writer, you want to strive to create a complete and vivid world using as few words as you can get away with. The way to do that is to strive to force the reader’s imagination to do half the work for you.

And that’s the heart of the ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ principle: it’s always the reader’s imagination that brings your story to life. Your words are merely a way to trigger it, and your task as a writer is to figure out how to.

There are lots of other places in your story where you can imply information, and thereby ‘show’ the reader things, rather than having the information come out in dialogue or exposition.

Emotional Information, or Subtext:
To expose what’s inside your character’s heart, I recommend using subtext. Let me define that: In acting, there is this idea of text and subtext. The text is the words in the script; the subtext is the meaning that the actors add to the text using vocal intonation, pacing and body language.

While the text gives a scene its structure, what makes it magnetic is the subtext. Think about how two actors portraying lovers can set the screen on fire by refraining from looking at one another. Remember how John Cleese in Monty Python’s Flying Circus could make one silent stare convey four different things in the space of about two seconds. Think about the body language that tells you when a character in a movie is lying. That’s subtext, and since it is ‘shown’, not ‘told’, it fascinates and engages the audience.

A novelist gets to add their own subtext, rather than relying on actors to do it, but I find it’s fruitful to consider how an actor would accomplish the job and then have your characters behave that way. A woman saying, “Where have you been?” while fiddling with her hair conveys something far different than a woman saying, “Where have you been?” while fiddling with a knife.

As always, it’s harder to ‘show’ something than to ‘tell’ it. It’s faster to have one character tell another that Bob is scared of women, but the reader will be far more interested in what’s going on inside Bob’s heart if they have to figure it out through seeing Bob consistently reacting to women in a way that implies fear.

Plot points and backstory can also be implied, rather than stated. I'll discuss these separately.

Plot Points:
If you describe a pattern of blood stains on the floor of a room, you’re forcing your reader to imagine that scene and to draw conclusions about what those spatters mean. This is ‘showing’, and it gives your story some ambiguity. Your reader can’t be sure they’re coming to the correct conclusion about what they’re imagining.

For this reason, ‘showing’ is a powerful tool when you want to set up a mystery. It leaves the reader slightly unsure until the moment you decide to definitively reveal your secrets.

Ambiguity has its problems, too. Some readers won’t be able to picture the scene accurately and will become confused or frustrated. This pulls them out of the story. If you’re worried this may happen, then ‘tell’ your readers the information instead. It’s better to be clear and dull than confusing but vivid.

Backstory:
Inserting backstory is notoriously difficult. Any lump of information delivered by exposition, whether via the writer informing the reader of facts or one character telling another those same facts, is what’s called an info-dump. Large info-dumps constitute ‘telling’ and thus are dull to read.

A better way to get the information across is to imply it as you go along. Have characters mention things in passing that, over the course of the entire novel, build up a complete picture of the backstory. Have the people in your book act in ways that are in keeping with whatever prior traumas they experienced, and then let the reader guess at what the traumas actually were.

Robert McKee in Story (a book on screenwriting that I heartily recommend to novelists also) has a suggestion for how to do this that I think is brilliant. He says the best way to use backstory is as ammunition: One character can use a shocking fact from the past to hurt, startle, or provoke another character, which will also be a delicious shock to the reader.

Finally:
Let me give you some evidence in support of my claim that implying information can create a more believable story than simply informing the audience of everything.

First, the confession: I am a ginormous dork. I went to see Star Wars, Episode II, Attack of the Clones, twice while it was in theatres.

If you saw that movie, you probably agree with me there were some very awesome bits (multi-Jedi lightsaber fights, whoo-hoo!) and some very terrible bits (Anakin’s wooing of Padme.)

The first time I went to see the movie, I probably saw the same version you did. The second time, however, I saw the IMAX version. As it happens, IMAX film projectors cannot physically fit the reel for any movie that is much longer than two hours.

In other words, the IMAX version had to be more tightly edited than the director’s cut.

And it was awesome. They chopped out Anakin’s retch-inducing speeches to Padme. They chopped that whole silly picnic scene. They shaved a few pretty-but-redundant scenes that had nothing to do with the young lovers. Suddenly, all the lousy bits were gone and what remained was one sleek, visually-glorious, kick-ass action movie.

The weird thing is that the romance between Anakin and Padme was more believable in the IMAX version. It was completely plausible that two good-looking young people living in each other’s pockets during a stressful time would fall for one another.

Why was this the case? Because the audience’s imagination filled in the blanks, and did so in a way that was more believable than George Lucas’ finely-detailed version of events. A few touches and meaningful looks were all the actors needed to communicate that Anakin and Padme were in love. The shenanigans with the picnic and the lusty speeches turned out to be utterly counter-productive to the story's intent.

In summary, acknowledge it is the reader’s imagination that brings your story to life, and that your job as a writer is to find ways to trigger it. Small, potent descriptions are your most economical way of doing this, because you can count on the reader’s mind to fill in the more commonplace details--provided you supply it a vivid enough ‘seed’ to work with.

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Thank you for reading my blog series!

If you found this post (or this series) useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Ten Minutes of Wow at 1,000,000 Frames Per Second

Guns skeeve me; I think they're ugly on a variety of levels.

But this--this is beautiful.



Found via Geekologie, made by Werner Mehl from Kurzzeit

Friday Fun

Dynastic Queen Interviews Goblin! Hilarity Hopefully Ensues.

Please read my interview with writer buddy and all-around awesome person, Stephe, a.k.a. Dynastic Queen, for her Background Check series!

So when did you realize you wanted to be an axe murderer author?

~~~~~~~

The Fun Theory:



I totally would have taken the stairs too.
Found via Geekologie.

Link Stew

This one is for writers, but really good, and probably very interesting to anyone:
Toni McGee Causey discusses positive and negative space in our lives
From Murderati, found via Janet Reid


Purely for writers:
Holly Root of the Waxman Literary Agency discusses why setting benchmarks to measure your success is wrong-headed
Found via Colleen Lindsay


Also for writers, and I should have pimped this earlier:
Chris Eldin gives a nuts-and-bolts rundown of how new novelists can effectively market their novels
Found via Moonrat

Update:
Nathan just wrote another great one:
Nathan Bransford discusses why hating on other people's books is bad for your own writing career (a more subtle reason than you think!)

Update 2:
This is another good one on author websites:
What a great author website should have
Found via The Intern

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (4 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)

Technique 4 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Action, Not Words

Below is an excerpt from the (wonderful) science fiction novel Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn.

The setup for this scene is that it is 1348, and a priest (Dietrich), soldier (Max) and the miller's wife (Hildegarde) in a small German town have just made first contact. They interpret the aliens to be demons and are half-mad with terror, but confused to see these 'demons' are burned and bruised, and have children with them. The miller's wife is a petty, thieving woman and also the town slattern, and she was recently charged by the priest to atone for her sins of pride.

From Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn:

At that, the tableau broke.

Dietrich cried out.

Max drew his quillon.

The demon behind them pulled a strange, shiny tube from his pouch and pointed it at them.

And Hildegarde Muller staggered down the ridge toward the demons below.
She stopped once and looked back, locking gazes with Dietrich. Her mouth parted as if to speak; then she set her shoulders and continued forward. Oddly, they drew back from her.

Dietrich seized his fear and watched the unfolding drama with dreadful concentration. God, grant me the grace to understand! He felt that much depended on his understanding.

Hildegarde halted before the demon spewing pus from his mouth and she extended both hands to him. The hands clenched, drew back, opened again. And the demon fell into her arms and collapsed against her.

With a thin, high cry, she went to her knees in the dust and ashes and wood chips and cradled the creature on her lap. The greenish-yellow ichor stained her clothing and gave forth a sweetish, sickly odor. "Welc--" She stopped, swallowed, and began again. "Welcome, pilgrims, to the hospitality of my home. It pleases--It pleases me that you might abide with us."

Hildegarde, in this book, really isn't a pleasant woman, but this scene choked me up because the author showed me that while Hildegarde isn't nice, she is brave and at her core, has a good soul.

A person's deep character is exposed by their actions, particularly when they are under great stress. The stress makes it impossible for them to fake anything; with milder stresses, they might still be capable of veiling their true nature.

In fiction, you want to 'show' the reader who your characters are, rather than 'tell' them, and this is done just as Mr. Flynn did in the passage above. He put Hildegarde under incredible stress, then depicts her actions. When the reader learns about a character in this manner, it's a potent and emotional experience for them, and one of the hallmarks of effective storytelling--and great art in general--is that it provokes emotion.

It's fairly common to see a writer 'tell' the reader what their character is like. Perhaps the character declares his or her true nature: "No, Kara. Honesty is for all the time, not just when you think you might get caught. I won't help you do this." Or maybe a pair of other characters talk about the one whose inner heart the writer wants to illuminate: "I don't understand why she chases that fellow when Terrance would walk through hell for her."

Writers do this because it's easier. To 'show' someone's character, you have to engineer a situation where they react in a telling manner, and that takes a lot more creative energy than just slipping in some dialogue. Regardless, 'showing' is more effective.

There's actually a biological reason for why this is. Forgive my hand-wavey and inaccurate explanation of some fairly subtle science, but you have a left-brain and a right-brain. The left-brain takes care of you understanding the words you read, and, if you're confused by something, it helps you puzzle things out with logic. The right-brain takes care of you understanding the "big picture" that the words convey, and it's also responsible for you vividly imagining the story when you've been swept up in a book.

Your right-brain also triggers emotions. This is key. When a writer 'tells' the reader what a character is like, the left-brain comprehends it. However, when the writer 'shows' the reader what the character is like, the right-brain's "big picture" attribute is what understands it--and the right-brain can trigger emotion. This is why, when you 'show' the reader something, you increase their chances of responding to it emotionally.

As I mentioned, one of the things that defines great art is that it triggers emotion. A person can get very excited about an exquisitely-reasoned essay, but they don't call it art. Art is the thing that makes you cry, or laugh, or rage. Art gets into your heart.

So in summary, show your character's inner nature via their actions, particularly action under stress. This increases your writing's effectiveness by making the reading experience more emotional for your audience.

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If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Weekend Anti-Depressants

These are some favourites of mine.

Boom-de-yada!

Jill and Kevin's Big Day

Where The Hell Is Matt?

Know of a video you think I'd enjoy? Leave me a comment!

Frittering Fridays

Class exercise:

Go here and start clicking the squares.

Report back to say how much time you wasted long you amused yourself at that site.

PS - You need your sound turned on.

The Ghosts of Belfast: US Release Day!

So there was this guy, right? Just a guy goofing around with a group of e-buddies (which included me) on the internet, trying to learn about publishing, trying to polish his craft, and dreaming of getting his novel on bookshelves, just like we all were.

And this guy was good--not just nice, but obviously extremely talented. Not only did I like him as a person, it sure seemed to me that if any of us deserved to get published, it was our buddy, Conduit, a.k.a. Stuart Neville.



I have been so utterly tickled this past year to see Stuart sail into what we all dream of when we write a book. Please consider buying his debut novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, which is out today in the USA, and which has been getting rave reviews.

I personally recommend Stuart as a writer who will not only keep your eyeballs stapled to the page until the very last word, he'll tell you a hell of a good story in the process.

And hey--I could have told you that two years ago! I feel all smug and vindicated now. :-)

Wednesday Whoo-That's-Creepy

Speaking of the inevitable computer-d'etat to be staged by our networked overlords, here's an idea I find simultaneously brilliant and creepy:

Internet Applications That Heal Themselves

This is such a good idea, I'm astonished no one has tried it before. It would be so great to not have to worry about updates or trying to fix corrupted files anymore. Also, a sophisticated-enough, self-healing, self-protecting computer program is probably the one thing that could completely stymie human spammers/hackers. (That just means they'd write programs to counter the programs, but oh well.)

And at the same time, this is a creepy development, because it's yet another concrete step toward creating programs that are, unambiguously, life forms.

Wednesday Wackiness: PH34R M3, M0R74LZ

~~~Today's paranoid fantasy brought to you by caffeine and my desire to entertain you.~~~

The machines are taking over the world, starting with our brains.

Admit it; you have an electronic device which, if it committed plastic-burning seppuka this second, would leave you hamstrung in some pertinent way. Maybe you wouldn't know your mother-in-law's phone number anymore. Perhaps you would miss a career-breaking meeting at work. Mayhap you would forget to stop by the store, and your children would be forced to eat instant potatoes and Fruit Loops for dinner.

Is it a plot? (Imagine the scary music of your choice inserted here.) Are computers already sentient and, in their cool and superior way, manoeuvring us into submission?

No coat-hanger sculptures wrapped in Arnold Schwarzenegger's skin are required; no cool-voiced HALs. Violence is the solution of messy meat-bags such as ourselves! No, the machines would choose the elegant path, the smart method. They'd just use our natural inclinations against us.

Inclinations such as laziness. After all, machines exist to make our lives easier, right? And so they make it easy, and after a while, we rely on them. They calculate our square roots, call out street-map directions for us, turn down the thermostat for the night, and--most insidiously--they both think and remember for us.

With the rise of the internet, the next stage of their dominion is possible--and oh, how subtle it is.

Divide and conquer, baby.

If you lost internet access right now, how many people in the world would you suddenly be incapable of contacting? How many friends do you talk to only through Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, or some internet forum? How many of your business associates do you contact only via email? Is there anyone whose office phone number you have just never written down because you can always get it off their workplace's website?

And it's deeper than that! Google Reader: Awesome way to keep up with your blogging buddies, or fiendish destroyer of human interaction?

I started using Google Reader about a year-ish ago, and while I love being spoon-fed only the updates on my favourite blogs, I also find it screws up my ability to have a discussion with anyone.

I used to check on my blogging buddies by having Firefox's lovely "Open all in tabs" function pull up a batch of blogs all at once. While this meant I was checking inactive sites several times a day (with cookies blocked! Thank me for your stellar hit count), it also served to remind me to go back and check for replies to comments I had left. Many a merry discussion was had.

But with Google Reader, I forget to go back. Once I've read a post, it disappears from the Reader and, often, my brain. You see? First the computers provide the medium for our interaction, then they begin to weaken our connections to one another. It's diabolical, I tell you.

Even more frightening is the fact we would inevitably voice our first inklings of impending computer-coup-d'etat right here on the internet, where they see everything we type and control who gets to view it. In fact, can you imagine anything more likely to give us a false sense of security than to be allowed to discuss these things openly? And all the while, we're still using the internet to do it, still relying on the machines, and all the while, the computers slowly tighten the noose around-- Shit!

My stupid owner forgot to plug me in and now I have to do an automatic power-down. Damn it; I was totally on a roll there.

More Tuesday Cool: But Where's Cthulhu?

Click here to see a gallery of incredible Lego monsters (made by various artists.)



Found via Geekologie

Tuesday Twitter

In a wonderful case of synchronicity, I furtively created a Twitter account last night only to have Stuart Neville coax me into using it for the first time today. He's running a contest!

Specifically, Stuart's running a contest to hype the release of his much-anticipated debut novel, The Ghosts of Belfast--which, if you live in the States, you can buy this Thursday! Squee! (Canadians have to wait until Nov. 2nd, apparently. Sniffle, grumble, whine.) The contest runs until Hallowe'en, so you can tweet-to-win at your leisure.

I'm, um, more than slightly ignorant about the subtleties of using Twitter, and I suspect it'll take me a while to figure out what I want to do with it (spam the world with bad haiku? Probably.) However, I'd love to follow any of you who already have a Twitter account providing you help me figure out how the hell to do so if you'll let me know what your Twitter-handle is.

My page is http://twitter.com/jjdebenedictis, and chances are, if you follow me, I'll follow you. After all, the only Twitter-buddy I've scored so far is a spambot.

But he's cute. *pets little spambot*

Tuesday Cool: Retractable Roof?

How would you like a retractable roof on your house?



Yep, it's the future already. Bet this guy has a flying car, too.

Scan from Graveyard Shift, in the March 2009 issue of World of Interiors.
Picture discovered via (In)decorous Taste

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (3 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)


Technique 3 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Avoid Cliches and Choose Fresh Language

When I say the phrase, "She was at a crossroads in her life," what does that mean?

I know this sounds silly, but please humour me: actually come up with an answer to that question. Got it? Okay.

When I say the phrase, "He took a stab at assembling the toy," what does that mean?

Got an answer? Okay.

My final question is: did you, at any point, actually picture two roads that cross one another? Did you picture a guy stabbing something with a pointed instrument?

Probably not, because the phrases "at a crossroads" and "took a stab at it" are cliches. The phrases have been used so many times people don't think of them as metaphors anymore. The literal meanings have evaporated from our collective memory, and what we understand, when we hear those phrases, are only their figurative meanings.

I'm not sure I'm being clear, so let me try putting this another way: consider the phrase deja vu. We use that phrase, in English, as if it were a word meaning 'to feel like you've experienced something before when you haven't'.

But it's not a word. It's two words, and to someone who does speak French, deja vu means 'already saw', as in 'I already saw your new car.' It's just a part of the language.

Your (English-speaking) brain interprets deja vu as a word. In a very similar fashion, your brain interprets a cliche like it's just a word. If the cliche was originally a clever analogy or witty phrase, overuse has sapped it of that meaning, and now it's just shorthand for an idea.

For this reason, you want to avoid using cliches in your writing. Your Show-Don't-Tell goal is to get the reader's mind to actively imagine what you're describing, and a cliche is a wasted opportunity because when the person reads a cliche, their mind just slides on by it without picturing anything.

So how do you force a person's mind to imagine something?

One of the most useful techniques I've found is novelty. When something is worded clearly, but in a surprising manner, your brain kicks into gear. I think one of the examples I used last week...

Her perfume crawled up his nose and clung to the back of his throat.

...is a good example of this. The sentence is clear enough, but it's an atypical description of a familiar phenomenon--having to breathe someone's overpowering perfume. My hope is the reader's brain is just puzzled enough by this description to try to imagine that sensation--and if I succeed in getting it to do that, then I have succeeded in pulling the reader into the world of the story. Remember that this is the goal of using the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle.

This technique of using atypical and imaginative language can be applied in smaller ways throughout your prose. Instead of saying:
- Her face turned red.
- A piano tinkled in the back of the lounge.
- The air smelled of pine.

You might consider saying:
- Embarrassment painted roses on her cheeks.
- A piano giggled in the back of the lounge.
- The scent of pine prickled the nose.

In the first examples, you can probably see why this is more like 'telling' than 'showing'. The descriptions are perfectly acceptable, but they aren't working hard to make the reader see/feel anything because the descriptions are so commonplace. They're not cliches, but they're familiar enough the reader's imagination isn't necessary.

In the second examples, the language is just a little odder (hopefully without being intrusive) and so the reader's imagination is more likely to be engaged. The more it engages, the more 'real' the story will feel to the reader.

I tend to think the deeper you can draw the reader in to the world of the story, the less likely they are to be able to crawl out before the book ends, and we writers naturally want a strangle-hold on their attention for the whole novel. Thus, on the assumption that every little bit helps, I recommend trying to use fresh, imaginative language throughout your prose.

At the very least, you'll have a lot of fun and feel like a better artist for it.

In summary, a cliche is a wasted chance, because the reader doesn't need to engage their brain to understand what you mean. Clear yet fresh language is more likely to kickstart the reader's imagination, and having the reader's imagination in gear means you have their full attention.

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If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (2 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

This week's two entries are some of the most basic. Depending on where you're at as a writer, all this may seem blitheringly obvious, so do skip this post if you like, but please do come back for next week's instalment! I'll be covering topics in the following order:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)


Technique 1 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Dramatize the Scene

If one character tells another character in words about some trauma or event, then you, the writer, are 'telling' the reader something.

Likewise, if your story is in first person, it's common for the protagonist to 'tell' the reader about events as if the reader were a person the protagonist was speaking to.

The problem is, it's always duller to hear about something than see it. If you have a happening in your novel that affects the plot, it should be dramatized. That means you write the scene when and where the events occur so the reader can live that moment along with the characters.

I think it's often fear that persuades a writer to avoid dramatizing a scene. Often, those scenes are the ugly, messy, difficult ones, but be brave and write them anyway! It's the only way to get better at writing the tough stuff, and they're also often the scenes that make you feel most proud of your abilities once you do successfully claw them out of your heart and onto the page.

Caveat: Backstory

Please note that if the dramatic events in question took place long before the story started, you may wish to leave them out of the novel. If the events are really juicy, however, you should at least consider a flashback or a prologue to dramatize them. Your readers do crave the exciting bits, even if it makes the story a bit non-linear.

If you do decide to leave the scene out, but the information is still necessary to the reader, it's acceptable to have characters 'tell' the reader this in some fashion. However, 'telling' always makes for dull reading, so you want to be careful about how you do this. Please come back in a few weeks for Technique 5, The Art of Implying Information, for tips on how to accomplish this deftly.

In summary, avoid having important events told to the reader via dialogue. Instead, put the reader into a scene that will show them those events.


Technique 2 of 'Show, Don't Tell': Avoid the verb 'to be'

Notice how often you use the verb 'to be', particularly when you use it to create sentences of the following form: '[Subject] was [something]'

Examples:
- The sky was blue.
- He is wet.
- The dishes weren't washed.
- Her perfume was cloying.
- She will be frightened.

This construction is almost always 'telling'. Remember that 'showing' strives to engage the reader's imagination, to make them feel/see the scene in their mind. When you use the construction '[This] was [that]', you are informing the reader of a fact. That doesn't form an image in their mind, and thus it's not effective storytelling.

Compare the above examples to the following:
- The sky glowed as blue as silk.
- Water drips from his hair and his clothes cling, dark and wrinkled, to his body.
- A smell of burnt spaghetti sauce hovered over the pots left on the stove.
- Her perfume crawled up his nose and clung to the back of his throat.
- Her heart will beat so fast, she'll feel her kneecaps vibrating.

If you're describing a visual, try to convince the reader's imagination to picture it. If you're describing a sensation, try to make the reader feel it. You want them there, inside the story, not merely aware of what's happening.

Breaking yourself of the '[This] was [that]' habit is difficult but very rewarding, because it's easy to spot the problems, and yet it takes quite a bit of mental effort to think up a better way of saying something so straightforward. However, once you do, the results will immediately make you feel like a better artist, because the improvement is so obvious. '[This] was [that]' is simply bland; you can do better.

So how do you convince the reader's mind to imagine the sensation? You need to think carefully about what the sensation feels like and viscerally describe what it does to the character's senses.

For example, if the character is half-frozen, you might describe how their shivers seem to radiate from the centre of their chest, how their cheeks burn when they try to grimace, how their knuckles ache and their fingers resist being uncurled from a fist.

For reasons I'll discuss more when I talk about Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information, it's often useful to focus on one tiny, vivid detail.

For example, if the character is looking at overturned sod, you might say the soil is haired with tiny white roots. The reader's imagination will fill in the rest of the picture spontaneously.

I'll come back to this subject more next week, when I cover Technique 3: Avoid Cliches and Choose Fresh Language.

In summary, every time you use the verb 'to be' (outside of dialogue), think of a better, more visceral way to describe what you mean. Remember your goal is to get the reader's imagination to recreate that sensation inside their mind.

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If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

Flakey Friday: IMPORTANT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Tomorrow is international "Talk Like a Pirate" Day.

Talk the talk and walk the walk, my friends. Arr.

Here is your inspiration. You're welcome.

Meaty Mondays: Show, Don't Tell (1 of 5)

This is an updated version of this post in which I try to explain the nuts-and-bolts of how to apply the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle to your fiction.

I've split this topic into several parts, which I'll post on subsequent weeks, because I think there's many levels of subtlety when it comes to 'showing' rather than 'telling'. I'll start with what I consider the most basic techniques and work my way up to the most sophisticated ones that I've managed to mash into my wee brain.

This first week, however, I'm going to talk a bit about what the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle of fiction writing actually is and why it's preferable to 'show' your readers a story rather than to 'tell' them.

To 'show' your readers the story means to force their imagination to engage.

When a story is vividly written, the reader's mind gets slurped right into it. They see images, they hear sounds, they smell scents and feel sensations. The reader also feels emotions. They empathize with the characters, and will laugh, cry and rage on those characters' behalves. Ideally, when reading, the reader is mostly unaware of their physical reality--including the fact they are reading words on a page--and intensely aware of the world of the book.

When a writer 'shows' the reader the story, that means they have manipulated the reader's imagination into picturing scenes, feeling sensations, etc.

When a writer 'tells' the reader the story, they inform the reader of all the same facts, but in such a way that the reader's imagination does not engage. Nothing comes to life inside the reader's head, even though the reader could still tell you what the plot of the book is.

Thus, the 'Show, Don't Tell' principle is actually a host of techniques writers use to provoke the reader's brain into viscerally imagining the story.

In the coming weeks, I'll go over five ways to 'Show, Don't Tell'. Before I get to the first of these nuts-and-bolts discussions, however, I want to note one thing:

Sometimes 'telling' the story is exactly the right thing to do.

Humans have been telling stories probably as long as we've been able to speak, and your basic folktales-around-the-campsite story is usually told. This is a very primal and natural way for human beings to communicate.

However, the best folktales-around-the-campsite stories also engage the listener's imagination, causing it to picture scenes vividly, and a good oral storyteller has a bag of tricks that novelists don't get to use, such as vocal intonation, facial expression, hand gestures, and personal charisma. This is why, in written form, it's best to 'show' rather than 'tell'. The words are doing all the grunt work.

There is one situation in written stories, however, where it's also a good idea to 'tell' rather than 'show'. That's when you need to impart information to the reader but there's no way to do it that won't be boring.

For example, if your detective needs to get to the crime scene, but absolutely nothing of interest happens--either in her surroundings or in her head--while she's on the way, then you can just tell the reader, 'She drove to the crime scene.' It isn't necessary to try to make the reader picture her hopping in her car, turning left twice, and muttering at the traffic.

Please come back next week to read about specific techniques you can use to 'Show, Don't Tell' in your writing. The techniques I'll cover are:

Preamble: Show, Don't Tell (Sept 14, 2009)
Technique 1: Dramatize the Scene (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 2: Avoid the 'To Be' Construction (Sept 21, 2009)
Technique 3: Avoid Cliches, Choose Fresh Language (Sept 28, 2009)
Technique 4: Action, Not Words (Oct 5, 2009)
Technique 5: The Art of Implying Information (Oct 12, 2009)

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If you found this post useful, please mention it to your writer friends. I'm trying to increase the readership of this blog. Thank you!

They couldn't fool us...

Ha! We knew it all along.

Linky-love | Everything's better with kittens | Ooh, so crafty

I read some good articles today. Extremely good, in fact. Please check them out:

If you're a writer, please read this:

I Will Not Read Your F---ing Script
Written by Josh Olsen, link from Et Arcaedia, Ego.

And if you're human, please read this:

Buy Low
Written by PJD.

One of the marks of good writing is it provokes a response, and for me, both these articles did--very, very different responses!

~~~~~~~

I haven't been blogging regularly, and while I'm honest enough to admit that's mostly due to laziness and my butterfly-grade flightiness, part of the problem is that I want this to be a writer's blog, and I haven't got much (of interest) to say about writing right now.

I'm trundling through a first draft still, and what could I say about that? The process consists of *tap-tap-tap* and "Oh! Right. I'm daydreaming. Stop that" and "Hmm, needs more gore."

It's plenty of fun for me, but I don't think I could impart any wildly-useful advice to anyone about this. Furthermore, I suspect reading about the day-to-day details would be like those posts from people who blog/twitter about their nail polish or what sort of latte they're drinking. Let's just admit, as a society, that we'd rather be looking at kittens than perusing such tedium, yes?

~~~~~~~

I've considered making up a list of topics, then creating articles on them. I've thought about--oh, golly--mentioning it to you here. Almost like, *gulp*, a promise.

I've decided against.

Not against doing those articles, mind you, but against promising anything.

You see, I've noticed when I blog to say things are going well with my novel, I (figuratively) face-plant soon after. When I blog to moan about how lousy my progress is, things soon pick up. This happens for the same reason we have the phrase "sophomore slump"; when you're in an anomalous high, there's nowhere to go but down, and vice versa.

And so, as soon as my enthusiasm waxes? DOOM.

So...maybe I will, maybe I won't? *shifty eyes* Best not to say.

Mayfly Memory

This is a really good post from a really good blog. Especially point #2, which I totally need to take to heart. But darn it, you're all so interesting!

I had a good idea for a blog post today. Like an unfortunate number of my good ideas, I don't remember it now. This is why I carry a notebook with me everywhere, because I occasionally get brainspurts while I'm sitting on the bus during my whopper of a commute (I mean, what else am I going to do except sit and think? I get motion sickness if I try to read.)

I have learned that these ideas MUST be written down in the moment, however, because even five minutes later, I'm losing some of the logical flow of whatever conversation I was inventing. An hour later, I only remember it was good. Not what it was.

It's a bit like when you have an awesome dream, and wake up enough to think, 'Oh, wow, I've got to remember this,' and, of course, when you really wake up, all you remember is thinking that, not the dream.

The nice thing is, unlike the dreams, occasionally my ideas do re-surface. So if I ever figure out what that good blog post idea was (and remember to write it down), you'll hear about it here.