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Fiction Writing Junkies

2010-09-02T20:19:39Z

Aging hippies like me are a tough crowd when it comes to online marketing. Natural suspicion.

But my Facebook plans have started to take shape, and at the urging of a friend, I started a page this week called "Fiction Writing Junkies," geared toward writing resources and revision / editing advice that you think might benefit fiction writing students, workshoppers, or other writers initiating their own projects.

I posted a few discussion topics so far -- in addition to my own "Author News", which I'll keep updated with appearances and other book-related stuff, we've got:

Marketing and Promoting Fiction - experiences that you think others might find useful
Success Stories -- another place to promote your own successes, whether it's publication, agent acceptance, or a breakthrough with your own work
Memoir Fear - how to tackle stories and characters that are a little close to home
Workshop Stories -- bound to be funny (I hope -- some of mine are), these are your workshop experiences that you've found valuable or frustrating or quirky
Tales from Reject Mountain - your rejection stories and frustrations, but without real names so you keep me out of trouble
Writing Websites and Blogs -- resources for fiction writers that you've found helpful or that you'd like to recommend; I'll post to this as well.

Have a look and get involved! I welcome your posts, your feedback, and your suggestions for other topics you might find useful.

The Second Novel

2010-08-26T04:41:00Z

So I'm having an early supper with a buddy the other night -- we hadn't see each other in a couple of months -- and he asks me, "How's the second book coming?"

I start to tell him about limited but illegal human drug trials and their devastating consequences, and how I hoped it would be a worthy sophomore effort in my "Companies Gone Wild" series.

"Excuse me?" he says.
"What?"
"I thought you were talking to Ben about bearer bonds?"
"Oh, the financial thing. The prequel."
"Isn't that what you're working on?"
"No."
"No?"
"Well it wasn't my idea to do that."
"Well whose idea was it?"
"An agent I spoke with. You know, do another financial plot to be consistent with the last one. I started it, but stopped."
"How come?"
"I knew it would never have the heart of the first one."
He leans forward in his chair. "I am so relieved to hear you say that."

Okay. Let's set aside for a second that I am surrounded by people who, should I ever run out on my own wedding, would tell me afterward, "Well, you know, we never really liked him."

Did anyone ever see The Heiress with Olivia deHaviland -- movie version of Washington Square by Henry James? Remember at the beginning of the movie that she's picked out her own dress for a party, which she won't let anyone see beforehand? When she comes down the stairs, it's the butt-ugliest dress you ever saw, I mean draperies, a total canvas tent of a dress that befits neither her femininity nor her fortune.

And no one tells her.

That's my prequel. Excuse me. That was my prequel.

Lancome on a pig.

I knew it in my bones from the beginning. I knew it sitting in the agent's office, and when I wrote the first couple of chapters. It would never live up. Couldn't. But there was that pressure -- and I was so advised a number of times -- to do the same thing again, to fall into that writing trap of trying to make lightning strike twice with the same rehashed plot. This is what builds a writing platform, this is what would establish me as a specific kind of writer so I could be marketed against the other guys who were specific kinds of writers, make it easy on everyone.

The financial research for SHAKEDOWN was necessary, and even though readers have told me it's technically bulletproof, it was never very interesting to me. Researching bearer bond fraud and other pre-server, pre-FinCEN financial crime? Snooz-o-rama. You know why? It was too easy. Everything from camels to cocaine went through the mailrooms in those days.

The thing that impressed my friend, after spending ten minutes telling me how relieved he was that I wasn't pursuing the prequel and why, was that I realized the idiocy on my own. And, as any true friend knows, this is the only real path to enlightenment, even though you still want to strangle them for their silence.

I was a psychology minor in college, and the research for this next one -- sociogenic illness, brain chemistry, town fanatics, and a string of deaths no one can explain -- this is real stuff to me. It's more human, visceral. It could happen to us, not our bank accounts -- there's your marketing. It's personal. And the research is really fun -- the actual science is fascinating.

Broad themes are similar to those in SHAKEDOWN -- a company thinks it has a good reason for what it's doing. Their reasons are compelling; the economic and social infrastructures are failing, and what they do is not just about making more money. I knew when I wrote the first chapter that, if I do my job right, it will live up and possibly even be a better story.

And so here's tonight's lesson - if you're not interested in what you're writing, your readers won't be, either. The prose will be flat, the characters will be wooden, and the story will already be familiar, and therefore boring to you. If anything you're doing feels forced, let it go.

This must be what people mean when they say that writing has to spring forth "organically" -- from a natural place. You know when it feels right, especially when you have a novel or a few stories under your belt. That voice gets stronger with the doing. I don't know how to explain it -- it's like gears grinding when you force it. Maybe it's your characters screaming.

Stick to your guns, and this goes for writing workshop participants out there. When your gut, that little voice that eerily seems to know better than you do much of the time, tells you to follow a particular path with your story, rev up your dirt bike and follow it. It doesn't mean you can't change your mind later, or shift the plot lines around. But these dirt paths are the ones that lead to epiphanies in your stories -- a deeper understanding of your characters, more seamless plot devices, clearer conflicts, conflicts that are natural to your story and natural for your characters. These are the paths that have the ability to surprise the writer, if the writer bothers to look at the brambles. You should strive to allow your story to surprise you -- this is as organic as it gets. It may not be the most marketable product, but it will be true. Consider it resume-building.

It may partly upset the book marketing cart, but I'll have to strive to be like those film directors that never allowed themselves to get pigeonholeded by filming the same movie over and over. Robert Wise directed The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Sound of Music. Ang Lee directed The Hulk and Sense and Sensibility. Those movies aren't exactly in the same ballpark, right? These directors went for the stories, and in the hopes that my readers and marketers follow, I will too.

Italics are the Crutch of a Puny Mind

2010-08-15T02:42:00Z

Mine, to be precise.

So here I am, formatting the SHAKEDOWN manuscript for the Kindle, trying to decipher the cover art specs, adding back some of the formatting that was lost in converting the design file back to Word.

Formalizing paragraph formatting? No big deal.
Redoing the fonts and spacing for chapter headings? Not a problem.
But re-italicizing the de-italicized words? Major pain in the butt.

Okay, some usage is legitimate -- italicizing the names of actual newspapers, for example, or foreign words and phrases.

But as I navigated through the remaining, oh, I don't know, 295 occurrences, I began to ask myself, "What on Earth were you thinking?"

Did I stop paying attention?
Did I stop noticing that they were even there?
Did I not consider that about 290 of these occurrences were completely unnecessary?

After correcting about 25 of them, they began to seem like words or phrases that were capitalized or underlined for emphasis. They might as well have been in 48 point font the way they screamed at me from the virtual page.

What did I think I was doing, directing an actor in a movie?

It's a good lesson, this eBook conversion business, if for no other reason than to remind me that, when a writer relies on italics or similar formatting to do the work that the words are supposed to do, that writer should hear whooping warning bells.

I started mentally editing the sentences I was correcting, making other word choices that would have more effectively conveyed emotion or sentiment without using italics. And guess what? Most choices were better, and the de-italicized dialogue more effectively conveyed the character who was speaking.

And when the words were fine the way they were originally written, losing the italics made no difference, and actually seemed to convey greater emphasis through their absence. Anyone out there still underlining for emphasis? Same issue. When you see them, it's a shout out that your word choices probably need to be different.

I resisted the temptation to make any editorial changes for the eBook edition, although I did remove an extra space between two words that shouldn't have been there. I left the italics as they were, my puniness preserved. If the final eBook conversion doesn't respect the fact that the italics are there and removes them, no harm done. I doubt that readers will miss them.

I am vowing, however, not to use this "technique" -- and I use the term loosely -- in the new novel.

So if you have a manuscript out there, go scan it for your own formatting crutches with a fresh eye. You, and your readers, will be very glad you did.

Free Critiques!

2010-08-06T17:15:00Z

For all of you looking for ways to get your work critiqued between workshops or in an anonymous forum, here's a terrific opportunity for you. One of my former award-winning writing teachers, Peter Selgin, offers on his blog a "first page" critique service. Here's the link:

http://yourfirstpage.blogspot.com/

And here's how it works:

1) You send Peter the first page if your story or memoir - the instructions are accessible from the above link.
2) Peter critiques it on his blog, and gives a little information about your genre and other work that you might find relevant.

So easy, there's no excuse not to do it.

Peter preserves the author anonymity of each page, though he does have a list of contributors that includes links to their own websites. Free critique AND free marketing!

Not only do you get Peter's feedback, but the feedback of others subscribing to Peter's blog who may comment on the comments, and on your responses as well. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of this. Peter is an insightful teacher who is not one for false praise or coddling. You'll get the straight skinny about how your work can improve, and your writing will be better for it. He is well-published in both fiction and non-fiction (check out his books from Writers Digest), and knows of what he writes.

You'll be thinking of the feedback you're given long after you get past the first page. The other terrific benefit here is that you can read other writers' first pages and their related critiques as well, which can frequently be an eye-opener even if the genre is different from yours.

We've talked about this in the revision posts here, but many comments you receive in Peter's virtual workshop, as in others, have relevance to your style, your way of presenting information, your way of introducing characters, and (the death blow) the tendency we all have to communicate -- to tell -- too much too soon -- to "pad" our first pages as we draft our stories and novels.

So go have fun with this, and let me know how you do!

Chapter Endings and Foreshadowing Your Plot Crisis

2010-08-03T02:05:00Z

I have a bad habit where movies are concerned. I watch them over and over to see if I can find any flaws. I'm not talking about grips dashing behind the scenery (The Day After Tomorrow) or hairstyles that mysteriously change in the middle of a scene (Moonstruck), but inconsistencies in editing or in the script that create puzzling mood swings -- and resulting gaps in the story.

My latest victim is the wonderful Crazy Heart, the 2009 film starring Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's the story of Bad Blake, an aging outlawin' country singer who rediscovers love and purpose in his grown-bitter life. (If you haven't seen it, don't read any further, because there are some serious spoilers.)

First, I'm going to tell you about a good scene transition...

...in which Bad is on the phone with new-found love Jean (played by Gyllenhaal). They are discussing whether she will come to visit him in Houston. They've just spent a romantic weekend in Taos, yet she is a little undecided -- Bad is an alcoholic and she does not want this behavior around her four-year-old son. The scene ends with Bad asking, "So, you gonna come?" The next scene opens with her and her son getting out of a cab in front of his house, everyone very pleased about the visit.

The scene right before the reunion where Bad Blake asks, "So, you gonna come?" is like one of those great chapter endings that resonates because it leaves a question unanswered for a few seconds, leaves you wondering what will happen next. There is no lengthy character interaction about the pros and cons of the trip, no heavy-handed foreshadowing of what Jean might be setting herself up for. The reasoning, the second thoughts, the sweet hopeful waiting, the obligatory lunch with friends who try to talk one or both of them out of it, and (thankfully) the packing all happen off-camera -- right where they belong. All we needed to know in response to Bad Blake's question was the woman he loved getting out of that cab.

"Never state what's implied." Think of this when you write. What information is really necessary for your reader to know? What is more powerful for having been left unspoken? What actions or behaviors can show your readers what a character is thinking better than if the message hits them like a sledgehammer? This will accomplish a few things for you: reduced sentimentality in your plot, fewer words that are better spent revealing things elsewhere, and stronger characters -- better because they spend little or no time whining on the page about things we all whine about in real life. We all know those scenes already.

Remember this when you write.

All writing should either advance the plot or deepen your understanding of the character. I believe more and more that some of the most powerful sentiments in a story are left unsaid, and that some of the most powerful reasons are left unexplained -- because if we've lived any kind of life at all or experienced any of the really great movies or books, we already know what the reasons are. And I think good writers -- and filmmakers -- know this, even if they might spend a little while putting it into practice.

Now, a faulty scene occurred a little before this good one...

...After a romantic evening following by their weekend getaway in Taos, Bad and Jean are back at Jean's house in Santa Fe. Bad has spent a full day babysitting her son. Bad is leaving to go back to Houston, and is trying to talk Jean into coming with him. She avoids his touch and chooses this time to tell him that she doesn't want her son around alcoholic behavior. He is, not surprisingly, a reluctant listener.

Never state what's implied - again.

The confrontation was ill-timed. The deleted scene (the weekend in Taos) did little to explain what Jean noticed between the long weekend and the morning of Bad's departure to make her verbalize this sentiment at this particular time -- just the opposite, given the growing bond between Bad and her son. These two people are completely head over heels, and their lives are clearly becoming very sweetly entwined, not just in the deleted scene, but in two other scenes that reinforced their growing affection.

Even more critical -- we the audience already know he has a serious problem and that there's a crisis looming. We just don't know how bad a crisis. We don't need another character to foreshadow it for us.

When you see what happens later in the movie -- when Jean makes it clear that she had no illusions about the potential threat Bad posed to her and her son -- you're left wondering whether she should have said anything at all before the film's crisis point. Jean's doubts could have been conveyed more simply -- finding a heap of empty whiskey bottles in the trash, for example. In fact, the early confrontation is even more puzzling given her subsequent decision to go visit him.

If she had remained silent, we would have known she was trying to rationalize things to herself -- and who doesn't understand that? Having Jean express her doubts this soon -- after a series of scenes that imply that the doubts are in check -- made it appear that she was knowingly willing to put her son in harm's way -- not good. This may even be another example of something better left unsaid -- at this particular time. It was also a very clumsy use of foreshadowing.

Sometimes writers try to pack a lot of information into the early pages in an attempt to make their story more interesting right up front. Sometimes writers pack "hints" about things to come into early pages too. But this can cause the same kind of disjointedness as I just described about the movie, fed by often-misapplied advice that a writer has to hook the reader quickly. It can also lead to stories "dropping off," becoming deflated because all the good stuff happens early and the story is basically over before you want it to be. This results in facts coming to light, or sentiments being expressed, at times that are not optimal relative to your plotting or your character development. It also results in many more interesting things not even being incorporated into the story.  It's much better if these things spring organically from within the story itself -- in their own time.

Had the clumsy Crazy Heart scene been deleted instead of the scene in Taos, the crisis would have resonated much more deeply because everything beforehand pointed to Bad Blake finally getting his act together. We wanted him to.

Think about this when you write too. Don't give your crisis its legs too soon. it can be implied -- an image of empty bottles -- but it usually doesn't have to be articulated before it actually happens.

Allow your reader to want what the characters want before you take it away.

Writing Workshops - Pointers for Success II

2010-04-16T02:25:00Z

Lots of people lamenting how much Bad Writing is out there, and how the odds are so against Good Writing. Well, there's a lot of good writing out there too, but as long as we're all learning, here are a couple more workshop stories.

By the way, has anyone read the debut novel Tinkers by Paul Harding? It just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the writing has been lauded in critical reviews. Small press too (Bellevue Literary). Check it out.

Teacher's Pet

"Even after you've won fame and fortune, every time you write you've got to write, there's no shortcut, you have to start your career all over again."
-- William Saroyan, "Fame and Fortune and Fun at the Hampshire House," Sons Come & Go, Mothers Hang In Forever (1979)

I was in a fiction workshop once with one other person I knew, and we both also knew the instructor because we had taken workshops with her before. We got through the first round of critiques, but one student was extremely upset by the fact that my friend and I were getting what they perceived to be "good commentary" when they were getting less complimentary feedback from the instructor about their work. This person quit the workshop after that first round, convinced that the writing submitted by my friend and I was getting unfairly preferential and more positive treatment -- just because we knew the instructor! The student sent a scathing email to everyone that complained about the perceived favoritism, and they never came back.

Unfortunate, right? Because the work that my friend and I submitted had already been revised repeatedly (good thing we didn't know then how much MORE work was ahead of us, or we'd have just gone sailing). Our work had simply been worked on more than the work submitted by the other student, which by all impressions was a very promising story, but also clearly a much earlier draft.

It was a bummer when this person left, too, because not only did they need some insight that they could have gotten had they stayed, but it was one less reader that would be able to provide feedback to the rest of us. There were only six students to begin with.

If this happens to you, if you're the beginner in the room, try not to take it personally if you get the feeling you're being forced to drink alone from the Revision Fire Hose. If you stick with workshops long enough, and especially if you find an instructor that helps you achieve another level with your writing, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you'll be submitting progressively sharper drafts of your work. This earns you a kind of shorthand with the instructor, and usually a degree of respect, because they know after several submissions that you're serious about sticking with it, and because you've been down the road before with the same piece. (Same thing happens with a professional editor, by the way.)

This must be very frustrating to someone just starting out, because they naturally feel they're missing something, missing a broader message, or even a secret that will make revision less painful. There is no secret, trust me. It doesn't exist. There will always be bad writing that gets published before yours, writing so bad it'll make you believe you can crap better dialogue. The truth is, it's just familiarity, and you'll learn all the same things through experience and apprenticeship, same as we all did.

And when it comes time for me to workshop the next one, I'll be back in the beginner's seat! The big circle.

Should I say the apprenticeship never really ends? No, probably not.

Conflicting Comments

"Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping."
-- Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth (1827)

One likes it, another doesn't; one gets your ending, another doesn't. One finds your favorite scene overstuffed and full of itself; another thinks it's poetry; one loves your setting, another has bad dreams from it.

What to do?

Don't let them throw you. Identify any patterns in the commentary. If the positive and negative comments are evenly split, you get to make the choice -- that's what one of my instructors used to say, anyway -- but this won't usually be the case unless you've written something really controversial. If you go through two or three rounds with the same piece, assess what comments are repeated with each draft. This is a really great indicator, because it can point out to you flaws that you may not be aware of -- flaws that translate into messages or projections in your writing that you may not intend. Take a separate piece of paper and summarize each point -- positive on one side, improvement-related on the other. These are good, early indicators of writing strengths and weaknesses.

I was cleaning out my own workshop files the other day -- about ten short stories that were revised several times. One story was Shakedown, as an infant. I read through the student commentary. What I found was that many of the comments were repeated -- by a professional editor four years later after the story had become a novel! How many bricks had to sail into my temple to get me to realize it? A lot. This continued into the master classes, when I was workshopping several chapters at a time. People thought my protagonist was a pig, and so did my editor. I had to make some real choices about that, and they weren't easy. But the payoff was that I had to dig a lot deeper to understand the character, and in so doing, I think I was able to create a more empathetic one.

But when push comes to shove, make a decision and take it for a test drive. As the writer, you can always go back and change your mind -- rewrite. Don't let the indecision or the contradictions paralyze you, and listen to your instincts if you really feel something is wrong or right in your own story. Just try to be really objective. If you find yourself changing things back and forth and back again, get closer to the material to try to understand what the best choices are for your story, get out the shovel, and start digging. Sometimes you'll decide to take some comments to heart after a longer while, or it may take time to gain enough insight to really understand them.

Apprenticeship again. The farther you go, the more you learn, and the more intuitive you become about your work and your characters.

"If you have one strong idea, you can't help repeating it and embroidering it. Sometimes I think that authors should write one novel and then be put in a gas chamber."
-- John P. Marquand, New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 5, 1958

Not that I'm suggesting anything by quoting Marquand, but why is so much bad writing allowed?

6) The authors know something about the editor, last year's holiday shrimp cocktail, and a lamp.
5) The authors have famous friends in high journalistic places.
4) They have high friends in famous journalistic places.
3) Their story is so weird or disgusting or perverted that we just can't help ourselves.
2) The authors already have a national media platform so the publishers don't have to do any work.

...and the number one reason why authors get to publish bad writing...

1) They're just better lookin'.

All quotes from The International Thesaurus of Quotations, compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall DeBruhl (1996, HarperCollins). Still my favorite.

Knowing the Rules Before You Break Them -- Still a Rule?

2010-03-31T04:55:00Z

I spoke recently with a college student whose writing instructor told him that his work wasn't structured enough, presumably because it didn't follow some expected formula.

Think about the many structures of a novel or short story. When an instructor tells a student to stay between the lines just for the sake of staying between the lines, I think this is more a failing of the instructor than the student. All one has to do is turn to literary magazines for numerous examples of fiction that breaks the rules. Remember our Pulp Fiction example -- one of the first movies to show action out of sequence. No one really considered that before in the same way. Remember the Woody Allen movies, and all the asides to the camera -- point of view shifts, certainly. But a new technique, and comically effective.

Yet, knowing the rules of setting, plot, dialogue, action, and pacing, and practicing established fiction-writing techniques, is what enables you to break those same rules effectively as your writing matures and you learn your craft.

I remember a recent writers' gathering at which a well-known bestselling author said he could write a book in less than two months. I have no doubt believing that his draft would be polished and that the main serial character would ring true to fans. But when students or other aspiring writers hear this, I think they view it as a benchmark they should be able to achieve, or strive to achieve. Worse, they may be all too willing to believe that their two-month effort is comparable to that of a bestselling author who's unicycled around the professional editing block a few times. More times than not, it won't be, not because of a lack of writing talent, but because of inexperience.

(By all means, try to produce a first draft in two months -- that's a good exercise too. Just don't let it see daylight.)

The aspiring writer may not realize that producing a really terrific first draft, while possible for a bestselling author who has an editorial team standing at the ready to finish it off, is unlikely to happen for them -- at least, not right away. So when they submit that first draft and get turned down -- repeatedly -- it can cause bitter disappointment and discouragement.

How many of these rejections are associated with inexperienced rule breaking? Probably a lot.

My first draft of SHAKEDOWN was awful, and my second was even worse. That's more than six hundred pages of stinking tar. Each. I tried to break a few rules, but didn't fully understand what I was doing.

Scientists will tell you that a failed experiment is a success because it gets them closer to an answer, closer to the truth. Same with fiction. If not for those early drafts, I wouldn't have been as receptive to change, to really understanding what I was trying to accomplish, and applying (learning) technique to what was already there to build a stronger story and stronger characters.

Encouraging experimentation in writing is a good thing -- but you have to be willing, as with any experiment, to take the time to understand what works and what doesn't. What is it about the writing that stands on its own and what needs help? Apply that kind of thinking, and you're in business.

This may be why a lot of writing instructors stay in the middle of the road -- it's hard to argue with precedent. And there are many argumentative students out there who simply don't want to hear that writing takes a lot of work, which can strain even the best teacher's sanity.

1) Read work that is similar to what you're writing. If you're a student, ask your teachers for examples and do your own research, but also insist that there be some practical learning from the experience. Don't settle for just "reading the same genre" because it happens to be similar relative to your subject matter or basic plotting. Dig deeper. Look for how characters struggle with emotions in situations that may be similar, and then aim higher, aim to avoid the predictable (you almost always can.) Know what you want to change, and know how your story will strive to be different. What do you admire? What do you lose patience with as a reader -- very important. If you're writing about heroes, read the recognized classics, read Joseph Campbell, and don't forget your folklore. Compare Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker with the legend of King Arthur. How many similarities do you see? What's different? How is your story different?

2) Practice 15-20 minute sessions in which you write a scene or a description -- anything. The view from your window, a character in your neighborhood, what your child looks like sleeping. Let it sit for a few hours or a day, read it through, then write it again (without referring to the first version). If you do a few of these, you will see patterns in what kind of writing you fall back on -- cliche, bodily reactions, writerly metaphor, extraneous dialogue, interrupting your own action. The "scene" technique will improve your writing over time -- get you closer to what's really going on with your characters. The "careless" and "predictable" writing will fall away and be replaced with something more meaningful that your readers, and characters, will relate to more closely.

3) Rewrite a specific scene or stretch of dialogue from another point of view, or introducing another action or event. If you want a real challenge, write it from the point of view of a character from a different part of the country, local slang and all. Use one of your own scenes, or pick any novel off the shelf.

4) Think about the rules you want to break. Why do you want to break them? (This is important.) In what different ways might you break them? If you're leaning toward telling and not showing, the telling has to be spectacular, more than chronology or fact-spitting. Spectacular.

Now you're in the laboratory with your experiments.

Just remember - no experiment is a failure.

Can't Beat Those Early Influences

2010-03-31T01:50:00Z

"When did you first want to be a writer?" people ask me.

Seventh grade started out with the 1971 World Series in which I picked the Pittsburgh Pirates to win against the defending Baltimore Orioles. I was the only one in my class who picked the Pirates to win. I was probably the only kid in Northern California who acknowledged a choice for the Series that year, because the Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants three-to-one to win the National League Championship Series, and the Orioles thumped the Oakland A's three-zip to take the American League pennant. If I weren't enough of a nerd child before that memorable October, picking the Pirates sealed the deal and started a scourge of Pirate-themed playground hazing.

I had no innate understanding of baseball or sports underdogs.

But there were the Pirates' caps, which were unlike any other baseball caps and therefore the coolest baseball caps in existence.

Dad also taught in the Oakland public schools. We would have needed special dispensation to root for Baltimore.

Baltimore took the first two games, and my prediction's hopes looked dire. But the Pirates prevailed, and boys didn't tease me after that. They all secretly thought Baltimore was a slam dunk and were stunned at my lucky prescience, even though the Series went the full seven games. The only thing better would have been for me to hit a real home run on the playground. The best I could do was sail a kickball over the fence a few times.

I should have been a soccer fan.

I think it was the entire class who entered a diocesan essay contest about Citizenship that winter. I have no recollection now of what I wrote, nor do I have a copy of the original essay. Those were carbon paper days, and there were no Xerox machines or hard drives at our disposal.

On March 24, 1972, my teachers announced that I placed third in the contest. When they called my name in class, I wondered what I had done wrong -- there would have been a few things to choose from. But that day was to be a happy occasion, teachers beaming, principal proud, classmates stunned once again.

The next fiction outings featured classmates and scary stories -- people coming out of the ground, strange cults in an isolated house. These stories gave my little sister nightmares, much to my delight. My fascination with the unseen monster, and how one's imagination is far worse than reality, still hasn't left me. (Check out the Cthulhu Mythos by H.P. Lovecraft -- a collection of short fiction -- to gain some insight into just how original modern science fiction and dark suspense is.)

When my sister's daughter was old enough to read my early stories, she wondered what nuthouse in the world could be persuaded to take me. Unseen monsters know no generational bounds, I guess.

The point is, I didn't have to place first in that essay contest to know what I would do someday. It was like a switch, like believing the Pirates would win. Something got awakened that early Spring day in 1972, and it doesn't go away, even through long periods of career dormancy, child-rearing dormancy, or any one of many Other Priority dormancies -- we all have them.

You know if writing, on whatever level, is something you want to do. You know you observe things in ways that many others don't, and you know your power of invention. Stories begin to accumulate in your mind, and if you're lucky, you get some chances or even stolen moments to put them to paper.

Remember Roseanne, writing while her son slept? What a great "writer episode" that was.

Whether to read to your kids, to perform at family gatherings or reunions, or for your eyes only, few things have the ability to provide insight more than putting words on paper. If you have that voice in your head nagging for you to put your own words down, give it a shot.

Hit your own home run.

Authenticity in Technical Detail

2010-03-19T04:42:25Z

When you write about a particular industry or set your book in a particular locale, authenticity is everything. Knowing details that only insiders or residents know is critical to giving your story credibility.

I knew when I wrote SHAKEDOWN that the technical detail for the financial scam had to be dead on balls accurate to be plausible to anyone in the financial industry. Systems professionals who might read the book just to see if they could find a hole in the plotting also needed to be convinced.

When your research is complex, it's best to ask the experts.

I was lucky to know a number of systems professionals who were able to explain the technical detail I needed to construct a believable scenario by which money could move around with a false trail. It blew me away that they didn't have to think about it much -- they just pulled out their pens and started scribbling schematics on napkins! (These are the guys they need in Washington.) But they gave me insights that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to obtain. Whether you build systems, construct locks, or write regulations, you tend to know how to break them, where to find the loopholes. Experts help you establish credibility so that you sound like you know what you're talking about.

Erasing a money trail, as it turns out, is painfully difficult, and requires a significant amount of collusion among very different divisions of a company and beyond, but this is how bad guys navigate.

While "suspension" of disbelief" goes a long way for the casual reader -- if we don't have familiarity with a technical subject, we tend to believe what's on the page in a novel -- I knew that my phone would be ringing off the hook if I got it wrong.

There's one paragraph where the technical aspect of the financial plot is explained, in dialogue. One paragraph in 421 pages, one that most people probably skipped right over. But for those in a position to evaluate it, that paragraph was the O.K. Corral.

So how many hours did the research take? A lot, and the plot changed over time, got less elaborate. But it didn't matter how much time it took, because it came out right in the end. That's where you need to focus.

How do you articulate what you need to know if you don't know what you need?

Explain it in terms of the plot.

What has to happen to make your story work, or to feed your other plot points? What answers do you need? And don't forget to explore options. Consult different experts, people who know their trade -- when the answers coincide, you're there.

"I need someone to remain in a coma for six weeks."
"What kind of internal injuries would be serious but generally not life-threatening?"
"I have an arsonist character that can't get caught. How can he avoid it?"
"What kind of handgun would an old vet pass on to a son going to war?"
"What color is the blood when someone's shot near the heart -- dark red or bright red?"

The really neat thing about consulting experts is that they know their stuff and they love to talk about what they do. I called a county coroner once for information about how certain murder cases were handled. We had four-hours of conversation and exchanged several emails in which he answered countless questions. Then he sent me the manual -- a very respectful manual, actually, about how murder cases were handled and how evidence was to be preserved if a body were found in or near water -- something I specifically needed to know for a story. If you tell your local experts that you're working on a book, and organize your information ahead of time to keep your communications on track, they'll likely be willing to talk with you. Be sure to send something in thanks afterward.

Geographic and historical details are also important. Even if the facts appear momentarily, and they're not rally central to the story, they can disconnect a reader very quickly if they're inaccurate:

No one drives on the lower deck of the Golden Gate Bridge because there's only one level of roadway.
Marin County isn't south of San Francisco.
There's a hairpin turn off Presidio onto West Pacific, near the golf course.
What were the dates of the Zodiac killer communications in early 1974?
What's at the top of Nob Hill, and what's the view?

It helped to grow up near San Francisco. But if you use an unfamiliar locale as your setting, there are ways to get a sense of place -- photographs, interactive online maps that show actual street geography, reading local newspapers, public records, even a brief visit if your pocketbook will allow it. Notice these details. Pay close attention to color and sound and light, because they can bring your setting to life.

I have to admit that it helps to have a book already under your belt to prove you're an author -- when you write mysteries and thrillers, asking questions that are related to crime and murder and arson can raise eyebrows, especially if you're not well known.

Just be prepared for some semi-serious teasing about exactly why you want the information!

Then go write it down.

The Joy of Conflict

2010-03-13T01:11:00Z

Crash, directed by Paul Haggis and released in the US in 2005, won the Best Picture, Best Editing, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay Oscars in 2006. If you want a great lesson in creating characters with truth, this is it.

Key characters want something that they either can't get or will find very difficult to get -- this establishes conflict, the life-blood of fiction. One of the more compelling things about Crash is that what each character wants shifts as they travel the arc of the story and realize things about themselves. These shifts are brought about by changes in what they desire.

They experience profound changes as people. Look closely at how the characters are drawn at the beginning of the movie and compare that with how you see them at the end. In the beginning, they are almost caricatures, but as the movie progresses, the writer lets us see their flaws, and glimpse some of the influences that deepened those flaws over time. When crisis strikes, we see how each character has really been forged, and they see themselves. They face painful, heart-wrenching decisions, and we can relate to much of it, even though the situations may not exactly match our own. They descend or rise with their enlightenment.

When I read through old writing workshop notes, I see that I was often told (and still am) that my characters had to actually make decisions, make their own choices, and not just be carried (by me) along the story's path. This takes some time to figure out as you work through the plotting and the story. It comes a small length at a time as you progress through revision.

Connections are also important in Crash. Look at how the characters lives are intertwined, how they come together in unexpected ways, and how they influence one another's behavior. It's like watching the pieces of a puzzle float into position, and it's not overstated or heavy-handed -- a risk with the technique that can often make the reader (or filmgoer) feel as if he's being beaten over the head with symbolism.

This is an area where your character research can be beneficial, because all that thinking leads to subtlety -- an image, a feeling, or a choice that feels natural because it actually comes from somewhere. It isn't forced because it is steeped in real emotion, real truth.

Look at some of your earlier drafts and see if you can spot opportunities to deepen your characters' experiences. Give your characters real, personal conflict and make them work hard to resolve it, and you'll soon see them take shape before your eyes.

Glimpsing Your Character's Soul

2010-03-10T03:25:00Z

There are many tools out there to help you get to know your characters. But think like James Lipton, the host of Inside the Actor's Studio. He asks his subjects what their favorite curses are and what they want to hear God say when, if Heaven exists, they arrive there. There are questionnaires by Bernard Pivot, a French talk show host known for interviewing authors. Even Marcel Proust answered questionnaires -- once at thirteen and once at twenty.

http://senselist.com/2006/09/06/the-questionnaires-of-james-lipton-bernard-pivot-and-marcel-proust/

You can find questionnaIres that deal with physical appearances, basic likes and dislikes, family and marital situations, where they live, who their friends are. They resemble a character study for a play, researching or establishing where your characters are coming from. They're important.

But you want to dig deeper into your character's emotional lives, paying attention to what sights and sounds and tastes and smells evoke memory, what touches their soul.

Here are a few starters, some basics:

Favorite season, soap, toys and games as a child and as an adult, comfort food, favorite flavoring (i.e., in coffee or pastries or liqueurs)
Most rebellious act
Best practical joke
Favorite novel, nonfiction, movie, play, song, music, cookie
What do they find difficult not to touch when it is nearby?
What memories are aroused by their favorite and least favorite smells?
What memory is associated with their favorite and least favorite sounds?
What are the sounds and smells of their profession or avocation? Which are most pleasing? Most repellent?

And a few questions:

What's the one memory from a past love that doesn't go away?
If they could have their choice of view out their window, what would it be? An ocean? A golf course? A cityscape?
If they could have dinner with three people from history, who would the three people be?
Who would they like to wake up to when they die?
What would they most want to say if they could see their closest deceased friend for only ten minutes?
If their parents are deceased and could return for only ten minutes, what would your character most want to say to them?
Is there anyone they want to kill?
Is there anyone they want to meet?
If there's one thing they could get away with stealing, what would it be?
What is their attitude toward money? Does it match their spending habits? Do they resent people who seem to have it?
For a party, are they more likely to bring wine or food?
If they bring food, will they bring an appetizer, main course, or dessert?
Would they be more likely to be a painter or a bricklayer if they had to choose?
Do they smell their clothes before wearing them?
Do they smell the clothes of their children before dressing them?
What do they do when they're awake and everyone else is asleep?
Would they have a dog or a cat?
What do they drink in a restaurant? at a bar? alone?
What is their morning routine, their "toilette?"
What is their secret vice that no one knows about (Mallomars or spying on the neighbors)?

Exploratory questions always lead somewhere else, give you another glimpse at your character's life from another angle. The responses can be blended into your writing to convey emotion without actually naming the emotion, without telling what your character is specifically thinking or feeling.

When you develop your own questions,span your characters' lifetimes. Invoke all the senses. They can be clues to the emotional past, deepen your sense of what your characters appreciate and why -- critical components to their three-dimensional well-being. You won't disclose all these details through telling in your story. But you will refer to them, use them to establish patterns and themes, at critical moments in your character's emotional upheaval. Your readers will feel closer connections to them.

What are your favorite questions?

The Beauty of Difficult Words

2010-03-10T02:12:00Z

Oxford University Press publishes a reference book entitled Better Wordpower -- a terrific reference of vocabulary from different professions and disciplines almost guaranteed to make you sound like an expert. This is good enough, but inside you'll also find a synonym / antonym list, common foreign phrases, words that are often confused, a wonderful section discussing basic etymology (really good for aspiring GRE test takers), and a collection of difficult words.

The difficult words are less common, more provocative, than many of the GRE words I had the pleasure of studying a couple of years ago. The GRE words can consider themselves replaced. Oxford's list piques both interest and curiosity. Musical, Updike words.

Try building a sentence around these suckers. It’s not so easy. These words have to be fitted to a paragraph, tailored to a character’s voice or scene, or they’ll sound like you’re trying too hard. Too writerly.

From the Oxford book:

piceous - Black, glossy, like pitch. I’m using this and I know exactly where. It’s perfect.
verglas - A thin coating of ice or frozen rain (on an exposed surface). The word sounds fragile.
deipnosophist - a master of the art of dining, according to Oxford; a master at the art of table conversation, say other sources. Sitting next to someone you can't stand at dinner, especially if you're on a diet, makes you a diepnonosophist.
claque - A group of people hired to clap in a theater. What does it pay?
serein - a fine rain falling in tropical climates from a cloudless sky after sunset. You get the same thing outdoors at New York restaurants in the dead of summer humidity, but here they just call it "plumbing." (The Old French word is serain, meaning dusk.)
pavonine - Like a peacock. Fifties hair?
limaceous - Related to slugs or snails. Lots of possibilities.
virago - A fierce or abusive woman. Not quite the same as the maiden goddess of the harvest.
callipygian - Having a beautiful, well-shaped butt. "Her callipygian days were behind her."

Your assignment is to construct sample sentences. Let's post a few!

The Paris Review Archive

2010-03-09T00:24:00Z

If you haven't yet discovered The Paris Review interview archive, you're in for an incredible treat. From the 1950s forward, here they all are, a diamond necklace of discussions with some of the most gifted, most admired, most cantankerous writers of the last 60 years -- novelists, biographers, essayists, poets. Poets all.

"The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads."--William Styron, Interview, Writers at Work: First Series (1958)

On the Paris Review website, the Styron interview is referenced as having taken place in 1954 (the 1958 reference above indicates a later published collection). Along with Styron, to name a few, there's Graham Greene, Ralph Ellison, Isak Dinesen, Truman Capote, Thornton Wilder, Dorothy Parker, and Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway seemed particularly disdainful of the interview process, stubbornly chiding George Plimpton for asking "old, tired questions." Hemingway's responses are often understandably, but disappointingly, as clipped as the dialogue in his short stories.

In later years, you'll find John Dos Passos. Maya Angelou. John Cheever. Pablo Neruda. A.S. Byatt. Margaret Atwood. Margaret Drabble. T.C. Boyle. Umberto Eco.

The questions progress from a rather hesitant tone (perhaps they were edited?) to a more directly personal, charged character that some might call intrusive. You'll find more questions about the writing process itself, and writing habits, topics many authors are hesitant to articulate, as Hemingway famously was: do writers consciously consider plot, do the characters really take over the reins (Cheever's response to this is hilarious), how does a writer know when he/she is done, personal questions about the moment they realized they would be a writer and when they told their families, as if wanting to write were a sin requiring confession to one's parents. Journalism students might be interested to note the different interview styles across the decades.

The link below will take you to the 1950s interviews, which are available in full -- just follow the tabs to the others, many of which are excerpted. You're sure to make discoveries here. Most libraries are likely to have some access to these brief moments of literary history through subscriptions or archival records.

So if you're feeling solitary and unloved as a writer, laugh and cry a few tears over these treasures and understand you're not alone.

http://www.theparisreview.org/literature.php/prmDecade/1950

Quote from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl)

The Backroads of Revision - Part IV

2010-03-06T20:15:00Z

I am always baffled when I hear someone tell me that they don't want pre-publication feedback on their writing because they don't want anyone telling them what to do.

"He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice." (William Faulkner, in a speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Dec. 10, 1950)

What's the fear?

They're going to make my story into something it's not. Where a story goes, and what happens in it, is the writer's decision. Workshops and editors compel you to look at your story in a different way, to think of your characters in different environments, in different action. This is healthy. It makes you sure of where you're going, and it makes your story stronger. What you've done with your first draft is get their interest -- now you need to give them more. Remember, a critical comment is a brushstroke on a canvas. You supply the contrast, the conflict, the emotion. The brushstroke may form the basis for something, or you may paint over it. How -- or even if -- you execute your response is up to you. Always will be.

Where a story goes, and what happens in it, is the writer's decision. Workshops and editors compel you to look at your story in a different way, to think of your characters in different environments, in different action. This is healthy. It makes you sure of where you're going, and it makes your story stronger. What you've done with your first draft is get their interest -- now you need to give them more. Remember, a critical comment is a brushstroke on a canvas. You supply the contrast, the conflict, the emotion. The brushstroke may form the basis for something, or you may paint over it. -- or even if -- you execute your response is up to you. Always will be.

I'm not listening to anyone whose writing is inferior to mine. Writing and editing are different skills. This is why we have editors. Even the writers in workshops who were just beginning, or who had a lot to learn about craft, could still tell me if a scene moved them, or if they connected to a character. This is what you're after. It's important feedback. Writers who finish a first draft sometimes put a metaphoric lock on it, thinking it will keep the story safe, intact. But your most valuable critics will try to pick that lock open, to break it. When they succeed, if you pay attention, the next lock on your next draft will be stronger.

If I write just to please other people, I'm just pandering. I write for myself. This is perfectly fine and okay if you don't care about being read. But if you care about being read, about having your story mean something to someone else, you'll keep the reader in mind. You're out of business if you don't.

You can't write in a vacuum. When you consider the reader, you get to the truth of your story, the emotive truth, giving something through your stories that others can recognize in their own lives, an experience that lives beyond the page. Truth is elusive, and lies beneath heavy layers of language and structure and dialogue and action. Truth requires work.

When you doubt what's on your own pages, I think it means that what's on the page is not the full truth -- and you know it. When workshop comments make you doubt yourself and your story, push through those doubts. It's the revision equivalent of getting back on the bike, and it will steel you against professional rejection later on when the reasons might be a complete mystery and not worth any lengthy contemplation.

"[A] life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way."--Philip Roth, The Counterlife (1987)

SHAKEDOWN was originally a short story. When I look back through the initial workshop comments from 2002 and 2003, I see the following:

"A suggestion from an old writing class: show don't tell."
"What happened at the end?"
"Get closer to the bone here. More emotion. Too detached."
"[protagonist] is not really conflicted...need to feel some degree of empathy for him and right now I don't."
"...their lives were totally untouched by the betrayal...that doesn't feel real as a reader."
"What do [the] characters look like?"
"The characters are so passive...[they are] dominoes that fall when they're pushed."
"...Business tends to put people to sleep."

You'd fall over laughing if you could see the first few drafts of the novel. On my third draft, a workshop buddy's comments were analogous to what Dashiell Hammett said to Lillian Hellman in the film Julia about her first draft of The Children's Hour, something like: "I don't know what happened, but you'd better throw that out."

That's lost, right?

Three and four years later, I was still learning from those workshop comments. But in that time, I had started to practice in earnest. I wouldn't have started to practice -- not nearly as soon, anyway -- if I hadn't been forced to look at the story's flaws through the eyes of an objective group of readers who were good enough to be honest with me. My strongest recommendation is that you seek out the same.

"But I know what they're going to say," you may think. This is getting closer to what the fear of criticism really is: that someone will either articulate an idea that you had begun to form and, in your view, "steal" it away, or come up with an idea that you hadn't thought of that actually improves the story. This makes the story not your own, doesn't it, and will cause major resistance. It's at this most critical time that you need to keep an open mind. Remember, it's a single brushstroke on which you elaborate.

You don't know ahead of time what the readers of your drafts will say, not most of the time. By all means give yourself a reasonable amount of time to think the story through, to work out where you want it to lead. Then fire it into the trenches, because your critiquers will also tell you what does work about the story, and that's equally valuable.

It's an odd thing, revision. As long as potential changes or choices are only in your head, you're not as compelled to deal with them because you're the only one who sees them. When you hear them from someone else, or see red marks that aren't your own on the page, it spurs you on. It validates some of what you already suspect, and forces you to take the next step. That's a good and positive thing. It gets your story closer to completion. It frees you from the vacuum.

Keeping it all to yourself is unfortunate, because a lot of good writing goes unnoticed that way. A lot of talent goes undeveloped, and a lot of wonderful stories die on the vine.

Don't let yours be one of them.

Quotes from THE INTERNATIONAL THESAURUS OF QUOTATIONS (compiled by Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl)

Our New Financial Task Force

2010-01-17T00:14:00Z

I'm frequently asked if a financial fraud of the type described in SHAKEDOWN -- a massive insider trading scheme -- could happen. A couple of years ago, I would have thought it difficult to perpetrate such a fraud over an extended period of time. Post-Madoff, I wonder if that's naive, not just because determination and collusion go a long way in managing a successful long-term fraud, but because some of the regulators either seem to have lost their bearings, or don't have enough people on board to work a meaningful caseload.

Last November, a new financial task force was signed into creation by Executive Order. The New York Times picked up a Reuters piece on January 8 that quoted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder explaining the new task force's responsibilities. The piece also mentions more than 5,000 cases of fraud at financial institutions pending investigation at the Justice Department, and 2,800 cases of mortgage fraud being investigated at the FBI.

7,800 cases sounds like a lot. 5,000 pending cases sounds like a lot.

I had to remind myself that there was no information about how many firms were named in these investigations, or how many investigations might still be related to Madoff. It could be 7,800 investigations about 7,800 distinct financial institutions, or 7,800 cases about half a dozen firms. There was no information about how many licensed securities reps or mortgage brokers might be involved, or in which states, or the nature of the complaints (suspected or actual fraud). All this information would be important to lend perspective to the reported numbers.

But the issue I can't stop thinking about is this: if we can't adequately resource the financial task forces and oversight efforts that are already established, long established, at the SEC, FINRA, FinCEN, the Justice Department, and the FBI, how will we resource another?

In relation to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we learned that it was hurriedly enacted to calm investor sentiment after Enron's failure, and that it could never do what people initially believed it would do -- namely, to prevent Enron-scale fraud. In relation to potential terrorists, we hear that meaningful cautions aren't sufficient enough to warrant restriction of flight privileges until those cautions can be verified. In relation to Madoff, we hear that, even after well-sourced warnings about financial wrongdoing, the regulators looked the other way. We hear about TSA employees leaving their posts, and mounted airport security cameras (that calm at least some traveler fear through their presence) not working.

So, on top of all this, when I hear about a 5,000 case backlog of financial investigations at Justice, and that the new financial task force will be led by the already-backlogged Justice, I start to think that what taxpayers are financing is inaction. I start to think that what oversight has come to mean is window dressing -- however well-intentioned it might be to ease our sentiment.

Is this what the new task force is fated to become -- a calming gesture?

Of course government oversight groups do a job, and some people have to be doing that job very well. Criminals are still arrested and prosecuted, and someone is doing something protective, every day. Most of the security cameras probably work. That's a good thing, and we don't want to forget that -- or the people doing these difficult jobs.

But there are too many lapses not to force some difficult questions, even if we keep a good perspective, and even if we acknowledge that the Administration is trying to do a positive thing.

Fighting financial crime is not a new concept. It's been going on since 1929. But we act as if every new instance is a standalone instead of part of a broader pattern of poor leadership and ethical lapse that is made worse by competitive earnings pressure. So let's take a look:

How will the duties of the new task force differ from those of the SEC, FINRA, FinCEN, Justice, and the FBI? What is new?
Has anyone analyzed redundancy of duties with other groups? And I'm not talking about an elaborate two-year consulting engagement here -- just some straightforward, unbiased, roll-up-your-sleeves analysis that could be done in a month by someone knowledgeable.
Is there a clear definition of the new task force's authority?
What about accountability?
Is there a clear definition of its limits?
How will it be financed?
How will it be resourced?
How extensively will it be resourced?
What will be the financial expertise of its staff?
What will be the investigatory expertise of its staff?
What will they be paid (we need real courage here)?
Will the new task force have enforcement capability?
What technology will it have at its disposal?
How proactive will it be allowed to be?
Will it have a confidential -- really confidential -- hotline?
What will the penalty be for false reports to this task force?
What range of action might the task force take on the basis of varying complaints? Is it documented, spelled-out?
How will task force members document their responses and their decisions to respond or not respond to complaints of wrongdoing?
Who will review these decisions for propriety and consistency?
What new punitive deterrents will be in place -- ahead of the task force -- for companies and individuals perpetrating financial crimes?

Because the people on this new task force have to be at least as smart, equipped, technologically savvy, financed, and even motivated as those perpetrating the frauds.

Because the gloves have to come off when a former stock exchange Chairman is the one behind history's largest and longest-running Ponzi scheme.

Because the last thing we need when the next crisis blows is someone standing behind a podium sipping their water and telling us, "Well, we didn't think we had enough information to go in."

Should You Do a Book Tour?

2009-12-05T21:29:00Z

There seem to be mixed feelings about whether book tours are worth it. Unless you're a blockbuster or someone whose work is heavily anticipated either critically or commercially, book tours are unlikely to be financed on your behalf by your publisher. So what’s the answer?

I can't speak for non-fiction, which is generally agreed to be more commercially viable and lends itself better to promotion. But if you're writing fiction, brace yourself -- you'll very rarely make enough in book sales at any individual signing to finance your event. If your book was heavily promoted prior to publication, or reviewed in a major paper or book review, this may increase sales a bit, but be careful about expecting it.

So why sink several thousand dollars into an effort that is unlikely to pay for itself? Most fiction writers today have to be responsible for their own marketing and promotion. As with any other marketing or promotion decision, financing a book tour is an investment.

Here's the deal. It's not The Book that goes out on tour. It's not The Book that talks on the radio or meets with book clubs. It's not The Book that greets that one fan who has anticipated your arrival at their neighborhood bookstore.

It's you.

People don't come to see The Book. They come to see you. From that perspective, the purpose of a book tour is not to sell The Book. It's to sell yourself as an author.

The investment is in you.

Pre-Event Promotion

Talk with the stores about what they do to promote events, and what you can do to help promote yours. If there are writing groups or chapters of national groups (Romance Writers of America or Mystery Writers of America, others depending on your genre or book subject), approach them with an announcement of your event. No big deal to this, and no reason to be intimidated. Just be professional.

Find out how well connected the events coordinators / managers are at your prospective stores. The more influence they have with contacts in the local community and with local press, the better this is for you in terms of getting the word out about your event. Stores will usually take care of getting your event listed in local press calendars, but ask, just to be sure this is covered.

Booksellers will often say that how the event is structured is up to you. If you want a bookseller to coordinate a question and answer session, or if you want to do your own presenting, or if you need equipment to do a demonstration, make your needs and expectations clear before you arrive.

If your book is getting any kind of critical or bookseller attention, make sure the booksellers know it, especially the store managers and owners.

Be Nice

As a writer, you work in solitude most of the time, and you become accustomed to having your own way in terms of schedule and distraction. Thinking about cultivating a public image is foreign territory.

If you decide to go on tour, it helps to be polite and professional when meeting booksellers and the public. If your personality naturally leans in this direction, consider yourself lucky. I heard a lot of stories from booksellers about authors who show up and are withdrawn and unengaging, or openly resentful if the store is not packed with people. Remember that this could reflect negatively on you, and on a public image that has just begun to form. Early impressions have a way of sticking. People will readily talk about negative experiences and impressions with authors -- just as they will about positive ones. So lose the writerly curmudgeon in yourself, just for a few hours.

Be gracious is attendance is low, and don't call attention to it. This rarely has anything to do with the store, and isn't really anyone's fault. If you're unknown as an author, it takes time to build name recognition over time. Just remember that the people who do come to your events will love that you're there because they came to see you. Retain your sense of humor, and respond to them as you would to a crowd of 100.

Share Information

Be prepared to share a bit about how you write -- your routine, your experiences with revision and revision techniques, and how you prepare to start something new. If there are other writers or members of writing clubs in the room, they will want to hear about this. Some writers are very guarded about sharing this kind of information, considering it an invasion of privacy. But it needn't be. You don't have to share every detail.

If you want to set limits about what you talk about, think about it ahead of time so you can redirect the conversation -- politely -- in a direction that you choose. If you can tie your story to actual news, and offer your own insight about how your work "connects" with real life, that tends to initiate some interesting discussions.

You may wish to focus the conversation on the book itself, on the story, but keep in mind that many people who attend signings have not yet read the book because they're there to get the signed book from you. Practice discussing the book without spoiling the plot, using generic references. It's really tough!

Support Comes After the Event Too

All the bookstores were tremendously supportive, but some really got going after the event, more so than before. I think this gets back to establishing a relationship with the store, events managers, and store managers -- another reason for touring. A bookseller's experience with you in the store is important. Your behavior may have a lot to do with how extensively your book is hand sold after you go home.

Booksellers have a lot of demands on their time. They get a pile of ARCs every day, and are asked to give special treatment to a lot of books. "Big" books will get priority over yours. Be persistent. If your book is any good at all, it'll get attention.

* * *

There's nothing like making a personal connection with people who have read or are reading your book. I didn't realize how powerful an emotion this would be. It focuses the tour on reading and writing -- as it should. For me, a signing was a success if one person showed up because, to that person, a personal handshake and greeting was important. I'll always be grateful for that, and for the memories that linger long after the unpacking is done.

Casting the Movie

2009-12-03T17:54:00Z

I don't know if other writers do this, but I picture actors in the roles of my characters as I'm writing. But I was in for a shocker, discussing roles recently with a screenwriter buddy. He said that everyone in the book would have to be younger "on screen," to make the story more appealing to moviegoing audiences. Who are, of course, younger.

What, we fifty-somethings don't get off our couches to go to the movies anymore? But we're baby boomers. Nothing stops us. There's room in theaters for our scooter chairs, and the Film Forum has tea. We can't eat the jiffy-lubed popcorn anymore, but does this mean we should be counted out? There are still Junior Mints to perfume our tooth adhesive. We can sneak in baggies of oat bran if we wait for the lights to go out. There are bathrooms.

If my baby-boomer friend is right, and he probably is, it would mean that Helen would have to be in her twenties.

If you haven't read the book, I won't write a spoiler, but I will say that a twenty-year old woman would not have anywhere near the insight that Helen has at thirty-eight, and that a twenty-year-old Helen in particular would have been too angry to entertain even a casual relationship with Hollister, given his job at the time.

W. Somerset Maugham said, "In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally."

If Hollister were in his thirties and still building a career instead of reflecting on a successful one, he wouldn't have had the time to put two and two together, nor would he have cared to. If I back up the story to the 1980s, Wall Street was enjoying one of the longest-running bull markets in history. Who cared about regulation? Companies back then would have thought that Sarbanes-Oxley was a foot creme.

Change the ages, and the whole story structure comes crashing down. There would be no resonance.

CUT TO DIRECTOR ROLLING HIS EYES. FADE TO BLACK.

This is why writers are advised to heave their manuscripts over the Nevada border in exchange for a Hollywood check, and get the next flight back where they came from. (I think it was Hemingway who originally made this observation, though I suspect Faulkner and Fitzgerald would have agreed with him.)

Raymond Chandler once said, "If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I would not have come." He also said, "In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing."

When it comes to books and plays, Hollywood does and will do what it wants. Scripts are written for audiences. Just ask Scott Spencer. And look what Lillian Hellman had to do to These Three under the Hays Code before the story could be retold as originally intended -- as The Children's Hour -- twenty-five years later.

Twenty-year-olds want to see themselves on screen. Fifty-something actors, especially if they're not aging well, are too chilling a reminder of what's to come, and what twenty-somethings want to see that? Or so the focus groups tell us.

But we want to see ourselves too, cry the baby boomers.

Stories lose something when they can't be told as intended. Screenplays are different from novels -- they have a different structure, and must be reworked extensively to retell a story in pictures. Lines of dialogue are changed, sometimes even made better. Characters are trimmed, consolidated. The lessons of revision. Consequently, the stories are similar but not the same. Studio movies cater to a perceived sensibility, tied to sales, that books can still occasionally overlook. But we hope the essence of a story, its emotion, is preserved, that Hollywood can grow more comfortable with portraying a world as it really is, as it did with Michael Clayton.

It's the story, always the story, that really matters, that should matter. Who plays each role shouldn't matter if they play it well. We want good guys to win when they're thirty. But we especially want them to win when they're fifty. They have fewer chances left.

Ah well. As Kyle MacLachlan said, "Hollywood is not good when it comes to age."

At one of the book signings for SHAKEDOWN this summer, we sat around casting the movie and had terrific fun doing it. I won't tell you who we decided on, but characters were cast at the appropriate ages. And that's how I'll remember them.

DIRECTOR: What crust.
WRITER: My bread.
DIRECTOR: Not any more.

Quotes from www.brainyquest.com. />

Book's Out - Now What?

2009-10-28T17:38:00Z

This is what post-partum depression must be like.

Your book is done. It's enjoying some nice reviews and word of mouth. Signings are winding down and you're starting to make appearances at conferences and other group meetings. In the words of Larry David, you're feeling "pretty, pretty good."

Then someone asks about your next book.

"My what?"

Jarred back to the reality of remembering what you actually want to do OTHER than promote your own book, you sit down at the PC or with your pen.

And you sit some more

Where'd all the words go?

If you're doing your own book promotion, it's a lot of work. Advance reader copies, organizing signings and other events, talking with the media. But sooner or later, you have to get back to writing.

It's not so easy.

The words don't just float onto the page as they did with your most recent revision of a well-established draft. It'll take some time to get back into writing mode, especially if you're starting something new with new characters, or something new with familiar characters in different circumstances.

Remember that it took time to know your characters as people, time for them to make their own decisions, so to speak, and time for their behaviors to really get into sync with their motivations. This is an important process, and one that can't be rushed -- like getting to know real people. You'll get there again, but remember that it took some effort the last time, and you're just re-starting your engines.

Begin with an outline?

Once you decide on the story you want to tell, try working through a brief outline of major plot points -- the things you're sure of, the questions you have, and the actions you feel strongly about.

Some writers don't like to use outlines, because they feel they're then committed to a specific course of action or plot or cast of characters. The other thing, of course, is that there may be a sense of failure if the actions and characters committed to in the outline change later on. Don't believe it -- that's not failure. That's revision.

The outline gets you started -- you're still the writer, and you're still in control (at least until your characters start acting on their own). It's a tool, similar to a good vocabulary or a workshop critique. Use it as such. It's also as dynamic as you want it to be, and can be used to trace your decisions and even your reasons for specific plot lines and characters as you progress through your work. It can change as your story evolves and grows. And...you can go back to it if you -- much later -- decide to return to an original plan or an earlier outline.

I use a spreadsheet to identify point of view characters, their major actions, and their motivations. Most importantly for me, I begin by identifying "scenes" that I envision for the characters. This starts small, but builds on itself very rapidly as you construct your story. A spreadsheet also helps with sequencing, if a particular action must precede or follow another.

If you're familiar with Excel, you can also "sort" a spreadsheet by each specific character to check the timeline of specific actions, or by chapter number if you number each line on the spreadsheet accordingly. You can sort data to determine whether you're overloaded with chapters in one particular character's point of view, or whether you have too many point of view chapters from the same character one right after the other. I also used color coding when I got to the final drafts, to be able to visualize how "balanced" the story was relative to the point of view characters. This helped me with how certain chapters flowed into others, and significantly improved the novel's continuity.

How many of you find outlines useful?

Use other writing projects to get back into a routine

If you blog, write blogs more frequently. Writing press releases and pitch letters also help reestablish a writing routine, and using writing exercises from a workshop or critique group will help get the fiction wheels turning. Signing up for a workshop will also help establish some deadlines that you must work to meet, and of course spur you to create new work or revisit something you previously started.

Editing someone else's work, including the stories and chapters you get in workshops, helps to keep your revision skills sharp. It gets you back into examining a story's structure so that you're prepared when you raise that dreaded red pen against your own words.

Words, words, words

Build your vocabulary.

If you're writing on any level, you have a love of words. When I was studying for the GRE a couple of years ago, I acquired a long list of great words, and actually got turned on to an Oxford list of "difficult" words that are fun to study and think about incorporating into your work -- because you'll rarely see them outside of (some would say high falutin') literary fiction. These words can spark ideas about characters or behavior that may help solidify certain actions in your mind.

Palaver. Lugubrious. Sedulous. Nascent. Ganosis. Saprogenic.

I love going back to this list, and it always reminds me of a schoolmate in eighth grade who admitted to reading the dictionary. It's not so crazy (though it seemed pretty wacky back then).

Don't get discouraged

It's like going back to the gym when you've been away for a while. The first few times are tough. Painful. You ache morning and night.

But once you get into a rhythm, you feel better, you feel motivated to continue, and it gets easier. Remember you have one book under your belt, maybe more, and there are others inside of you.

The Backroads of Revision - Part III

2009-10-02T21:32:00Z

One of the surest ways to educate yourself about common writing pitfalls is to read other people's drafts, and then try to find the same infractions in your own work. Whether through workshops or private critique groups, you may find that you're more adept at recognizing structural problems in other people's work than in your own, especially when you begin.

Don't waste time trying to figure out why. I've been guilty of all of the things I'm about to discuss, and probably will be again. Just try your best to apply what you learn.

The writer who cares more about words than about story – characters, action, setting, atmosphere – is unlikely to create a vivid and continuous dream; he gets in his own way too much; in his poetic drunkenness, he can't tell the cart – and its cargo – from the horse. (John Gardner)

You're reading an interesting scene, a good one. The characters' stakes are high, and you're anxious to see who gets shot. And then you read something like, "But Dorothy wasn't the type of woman to liked having a gun pointed at her; in fact, her blood came to an urgent, trembling boil."

Bang. The gun goes off, but it's the reader's concentration that's shot.

Unless you're writing a spoof, try to avoid interrupting your story's action with an editorial or an internal monologue. It's analogous to a sword-wielding actor suddenly turning to the camera to explain his fencing strategy. When this happens on the page, it's just as obvious and unwanted -- an author intrusion that indicates no trust for the reader's sensibilities, a conviction that the reader must be told what's going on instead of shown. Worse, it indicates a lack of confidence on the writer's part in allowing dialogue or action to convey the same sentiment in a way that advances a deeper understanding of the character, and in a way that will actually interest the reader.

It's hard as a writer to relinquish that control, but these interruptions are easy to recognize once you know to look for them. Try to focus instead on what the character does or what she is feeling -- not what physiologically happens to her. Remember Dwight Swain's concept of scene and sequel. Focus your scene on the action, and the sequel on reflection and character development. Both should advance your story, and not state the obvious. Don't disturb the dream.

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. (E.L. Doctorow)

You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different. (Neil Gaiman)

The same holds true for describing physical -- or physiological -- actions or reactions. Analyze your writing for scenes in which your characters are "whirling around" or "turning their heads from side to side" or "hopping on one foot" or "dodging first one car and then another." Similarly, too much blood boiling, guts roiling, hearts pounding, sweats breaking, and knees shaking makes your characters sound like marionettes -- cartoonish and unrealistic, even freakish.

What your reader wants to know is what your characters are thinking and feeling and doing. The physiological expression of their emotion is a copout. We know what we feel like when we break a sweat, or the conditions that would make this happen to us. But in that respect it is a cliched human response. It's a stage direction, like waving ones arms in the air or pulling one's hair.

We know what this means in cartoons. These kinds of descriptions come easily to us because there is a common understanding of what they generally mean within the human experience. But they are caricatures. They disrupt the flow of writing, and are used frequently because the writer doesn't know what else to say. This may be an indicator that the writer is not in complete touch with the characters. But what do they mean uniquely for your characters? What is it you're really trying to say? What is most important about the cartoonish action for your readers to understand?

Eliminating these physical descriptions from the page will rejuvenate your writing and give your story's pacing a sense of immediacy. By all means, use these expressions as placeholders if you can't think of anything else in the frenzy of composition. But when you revise, eliminate them with a vengeance.

...a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story. (Frank Yerby)

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. (Ernest Hemingway)

I was reading a draft novel written by a friend and I was struck by the sudden reappearance of a character from the protagonist's past. I wrote in the margin, "This better go somewhere."

It didn't. But my friend -- transparently -- wanted the reader to think it would.

Hey, look over there! Something shiny!

Red herrings -- the tactic of introducing a person or activity that goes nowhere relative to your main plot -- is a device that most readers recognize because their built-in shit detectors are better than yours. Its sudden appearance is suspect, and if you later take it away or have it come to a dead end, especially with no explanation, there goes your credibility as a storyteller

Ask yourself if it would be better to suggest -- or actually involve -- another character in a deception. Ask yourself how, from the beginning of your story, you can establish ambiguity or tension in a non-contrived manner. Rather than sudden appearances or re-appearances, can your red herring have a more constant or frequent presence on the page? Can he be suspiciously or conveniently "around" at critical moments? After key actions? Readers will suspect things, even if -- perhaps especially if -- you don't state them.

Try to establish these predicaments with the idea that you want your reader to return to your novel to see if you slipped up, or if they can "spot" the hint that things are not as they were led to suspect by your plotting.

The movie The Sixth Sense provides a good example of this. Remember watching it the second time to see if you could spot the bullet hole in the shirt?

The same holds true for unlikely lapses on the part of a character in an effort to allow certain things to happen. A detective doesn't notice that the light bulb outside his door is out before he's stabbed. As in Michael Clayton, Clayton doesn't notice that a bomber is getting out of his car when he's only several feet away -- no matter how engrossing the phonecall. These are easily resolved -- the detective can sense an unfamiliar darkness a split second before he's hit; Clayton could have been about to turn a corner onto the street where his car was parked, in full view of the accomplice.

These characters are smart, savvy people who are good at their jobs and deserve to be respected. They would notice things like this, and can simultaneously be jumped unawares.

When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. (Elmore Leonard)

In one draft of a novel I read, each chapter was written from a particular character's point of view. With each subsequent chapter, the writer would restate, in exposition, some of the key actions or points that had been conveyed in the last point-of-view chapter for that same character.

Trust your readers. They will remember. Always move your story forward, not backward. If you think of a better way to say something, go back to the original spot and change it.

This principle can also apply to writing that contains technical information. As with SHAKEDOWN, a balance must be struck between including too much technical information that doesn't matter, and enough such that people with your same subject knowledge or background will find the story's technical machinations believable. If your reader can skip this information without losing anything critical, and if your technically-minded readers believe in its plausibility, then everyone's happy and you've done the job.

All quotes can be found on the following website. Attribution is assumed to be correct.
koti.mbnet.fi/pasenka/quotes/q-writ.htm

The Problem With English Majors

2009-08-29T04:35:00Z

I was talking with a friend the other day and we were remarking on the H1N1 virus and the resurgence of cold and flu bugs at a time of year we're not used to experiencing them. "And one of my friends got ammonia," he said.

Say what?

"Ammonia."

I no longer have the heart to correct this. I've misused language before, and no doubt will again. ("Only in dialogue!" comes a voice from offstage.) I used to think the phrase "for all intents and purposes" was actually "for all intensive purposes," and didn't get corrected until I started work after college as a technical writer, which is pretty scary all by itself. I feel better when I think I hadn't previously used the phrase in writing. I'm certain I haven't used it since out of sheer embarrassment. The phrase "spitting image," -- lovely thought -- is actually "spit and image." It's just that "spitting image" sounds better, more concise. Like "spitting distance."

The first draft of SHAKEDOWN to go to agents had at least thirty-one typos, including two instances where I wrote "your" when I meant to write "you're." But I can blame that on carelessness, sloppy editing. I know I know the difference. "Of course you do," the agents sniff behind their linen, Lions-monogrammed hankies.

"Irregardless" was a misuse I always recognized, commonly used but technically incorrect. It's "regardless," irrespective -- IRrespective -- of how it's used. Hey, maybe that's where the confusion came from. I mean, the source from which the confusion came.

Another friend, a world traveler, still orders "expresso" after dinner, but only to vex me.

I remember a sign in the laundry room of my first apartment. It read, "Please don't leave your clothes in the dryers. Others will want to use them." Now, the writer of that sign meant for tenants to take clothes out of the dryers promptly so others could use the dryers. I read that sign and thought people would be going after my clothes. Back then I could have outrun the other tenants in the building and gotten my clothes back. But I just got my AARP card and that's not as funny an observation as it used to be.

My favorite business sign -- more appropriate to present-day financial scandals -- is and always will be, from 25 years ago, "Real Estate Loans For Any Purpose." Come to think of it, maybe that wasn't an error. Maybe that particular bank was just ahead of the curve!

Can one correct these hairline linguistic fractures without offending one's friends and associates? I used to think so, but no more. Correcting someone else's language is risky business, unless you're hired or engaged for that purpose as a teacher or editor. You might risk being perceived as superior-minded. Lofty-thinking. Sober. You'll be branded too smart to have anything to do with.

I mean, too smart with whom to have anything...to do.

But something inside goes Ping! when I hear them. I want to say something, but somehow pointing out the correction seems analogous to the actions of a bratty little sister, a tattle-tale, a know-it-all whose linguistic sensibilities will get their payback -- count on it -- on the playground of life. You'll be avoided at parties if you're invited at all.

The problem with English majors is that the reflex never goes away. Misplaced modifiers and dangling participles abound in casual communication -- nails on a chalkboard. Jay Leno used to make fun of print errors in newspapers and magazines on The Tonight Show -- maybe this will carry over into his new, show. I got a kick out of these examples of mis-usage, and still look for them. But I watch in secret. It's a genetic defect. How is it possible that I enjoy these more than the bands? Now, I just suffer in silence.

If you think you're guilty of language misuse, there are a number of resources, other than Tonight Show reruns, that can provide a vocabulary refresher to help you distinguish words often confused in meaning because they sound the same or similar, or a visual depiction of phrases you think you may have misheard. Strunk and White did it in The Elements of Style, but check out Karen Elizabeth Gordon's The Transitive Vampire. You may also get a kick out of Googling "humorous malapropisms," or askoxford.com's list of commonly confused words (there are several competing lists), or the Lake Superior State University Banished Words List, including commentary. Best to check out the commonly confused words, and their correct spelling, before submitting a resume. Once you get the job, there's more flexibility.

I'll invite you to submit your favorite originals, and leave you with a favorite example of a dangling you-know-what. See if you can spot the error and correct it:

Reeling from the last editorial rejection, the Milk Duds grew more and more tempting.

And a musician who posted a sign on the front door to his shop, indicating his lunch break -- an old, but still worthy, play on words:

Bach in one hour. Offenbach sooner.