Arthur Plotnik is in the House

I don't recall exactly when I discovered the word wizard-guru that is Arthur Plotnik. But all I know is that whenever he writes about writing or language or  style everything he says is jam-packed with insights.  Among his books are The Elements of Expression, The Elements of Editing, The Elements of Authorship, and the bestselling writer's guide Spunk & Bite. Now how could you not appreciate a master who calls a book Spunk & Bite? Like me, you might already marvel at his love of language, his sly twists,wordsmithery, and humor. Which is why when I blogged for Powells I recommended that writers read his books, heed his words and called him a freakin genius-god in the writing world. With his latest book Better Than Great, A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives available for preorder and on sale June 1, it seemed like a fine time to ask him questions that I know you'll find elucidating.

Q:Could you tell us why you decided to write Better Than Great, A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives (that's a mouthful). I realize that this is designed to bolster a writer's  vocabulary, but I'm wondering if you might have another secret agenda you'd care to divulge.

A: I could say it was to liberate humankind from the tyranny of stock superlatives, such as great, awesome, amazing, incredible, and unbelievable. But first, I'd wanted to purge my own vocabulary of these exhausted, one-size-fits-all terms, the ones we use for anything to be emphasized. A plate of nachos: awesome. A trip to Machu Picchu: awesome. New haircut: amazing. The seas parting: amazing. I was tired of words that had lost all force and make no distinctions. I even tired of wishing people a great this or fabulous that.

So I started gathering and shaping playful alternatives for my own use. Soon, in a greeting card, I was wishing friends a "spumescently brilliant, rapturous, pleoperfect, clangorous, jollified, gladsome, ebullient, soul-schvitzing, luminous, boffo, festal holiday season, not to mention a nirvanic New Year's and annum analeptic."  The list soon grew into a book idea that everyone called, for their (then) lack of a better word, great.

 You seem to genuinely delight in language. Since words are our humble tools, how can this love of language be passed along to beginning writers?

 A: They have to experience that delight---the heart-juddering frisson of the perfect, unanticipated word or turn of phrase; the savor of sustained lyricism. 

The trouble is, our everyday world hardly brims with language virtuosos or personalities who ignite a passion for words. Abbreviated communication forms like texting are anathema to language-love (though a well-Twittered word can still delight). Without inspiring models (mostly from reading), new writers become message-oriented, attitude-oriented, their language rarely acquiring the texture that makes it adhere and resonate. And so if falls to the deft writing coach to guide beginners through model passages---eloquent to funky examples, Jane Austin to Junot Diaz---hoping to plant the love that cannot be suppressed.

Q: What is your explanation of how language stimulates the senses in a reader and your tips for doing so?

 A: Hey, no essay questions!  But the short advice is: Write to the guts. Get something visceral into the equation---something that stimulates the sensual memory, the emotions, appetite, nervous system. Devices for doing so include surprise (we react chemically to the unexpected), sensual particulars, sensations spelled out, or an association with felt experiences.

For instance, how do you describe a color to make it sensed and felt? Some examples: "Hectic red" (Shelley),with that surprising, visceral modifier. "The black of the void" (Gary Shteyngart), evoking fear---the alarm bell of the senses. "A green-green-green that makes you want to cry" (Sandra Cisneros), spelling out the palpable sensation. "Eyes of "anti-freeze green" (Chuck Palahniuk), a particular reference with chilling associations. "Upholstery the color of Thousand Island Dressing"(John Banville)---something you can, ugh, taste.

Q: Do you have sage advice for when to modify and when to leave the noun alone? And what about adverbs? I'm an anti-adverb editor, but I'm wondering if you're more lenient than I when it comes to these critters.

 A: Leave nouns alone when, in context, they have all the force and clarity they need. "Memories lurk like dustballs at the back of drawers," wrote Jay McInerney.  Did he mean affecting memories? Fragile, hidden dustballs? Dresser drawers? Probably. Did he need to say it? God no. On the other hand, when John Lanchester writes, "This grew in me an . . .  an intellectual tumescence," we do appreciate having the type of tumescence clarified, as well as the evocative image.

Same story with adverbs, which tell us the how (manner) and the how much (degree) of a verb or modifier. He drank copiously (degree). He drank sloppily (manner). He's a reportedly excessive drinker (manner).  Adverbs evolved to supply extra information, nothing wrong with that. What has given them a bad name is their frequent (or cliché) use when the information and/or force is already there: She's completely unique. I was incoherently babbling. You are totally bedazzling.  I hungrily wolfed the meatballs.

But when used inventively, adverbs add nuance, tone, and especially emphasis. In Better Than Great's introduction, I offer some examples from journalism and literature: kneebucklingly sweet; blissfully deranged; searingly gifted; blamelessly beautiful.  And Jessica, didn't you once recklessly describe me as a "freakin' genius-god in the writing world"? With the intensifying adverb "freakin(g)," you were emphasizing the degree of genius-divinity or the strength of your conviction. Maybe it was excessive, but I liked it so much that my wife had it printed on a T-shirt. An adverbial T-shirt.

 Q: Years ago you wrote that voice is in "harmony with your roots." I've used that expression many times while talking to writers about voice--crediting you, of course. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about voice in fiction and nonfiction and how writers can develop a consistent, potent voice.

 A:Greater genius-gods than I have opined that voice is the total of all the decisions you make as you choose words and put them together. Just about everything in your education and experience influences those decisions, beginning with your roots and including your homies, your favorite literary models, your aspirations, and your relationship to an audience of listeners or readers. Some writing mavens say that you don't make or "develop" a voice, but that it simply emerges along with your personality. Rhetoricians from the Greeks on have presented figures of speech ( for example, hyperbole, metaphor, and irony) and other devices as the means to a style or voice.

I'm a little of both schools: the flavor and consistency of your voice will take care of itself; but understanding the elements of rhetoric---which are about emphasis and persuasiveness---help give it force. Good writing guides teach these elements one way or another, and are worth studying to a point. Mainly, they clear the junk from your writing and reveal patterns for styling your own wit and inventiveness into something voice-like. But when you write, don't think about your voice being heard and adored; what you want an audience to "hear" is ideas, feelings, and story well rendered. The adoration will come.

Q: What's your best advice to writers on editing their own writing?
A:Standard advice says: Write first---get the words down---and edit later. I edit partly as I write; it makes me feel better as I go forward, but it's disablingly slow. Whenever you do edit, though, follow the big rules: Omit needless words, as Strunk & White rightly tell you; say it shorter, making sure the verbiage is never too much for the thought. Kill your darlings---those belabored turns of phrase that call attention to themselves and away from the message. Favor the concrete---particulars---over abstractions and generalities. Pay attention to verbs; choose lively ones and drop in an unexpected zinger now and then. Of a victim falling to his death from a building, Gary Shteyngart writes, "his head knew the ground" instead of "his head hit the ground." Wow. Don't overdo any device. And of course, burn and kill all clichés and anything that seems stale; when you talk about voice, freshness is everything!   

Q: I'm also wondering if you could start a movement to resuscitate awesome so that it recaptures its original meaning? We'd be happy to aid in the cause.

 A:Yes---in the New Order, "awesome" will be applied only to things inspiring extreme fear or reverence. No more "awesome toilet paper" or other Yelper-ish acclaim for the trivial.

Meanwhile, to prop up the moribund term, Better Than Great suggests such intensifications as: tongue-dryingly awesome, Colossus-of-Rhodes awesome, fall-to-your-knees awesome, awesome on a toot, giga-awesome, industrial-strength awesome, and tera-awesome, which is 10-to-the-twelfth-power awesome, suitable for most divinities.  

But in our campaign, Jessica, let's require anyone uttering "awesome" to stagger backward all atremble,  respecting the gravity of the word. Writers using it casually will be forced to watch hour-long sequences of "King Kong," fearing and revering the awesome ape. Cruel but necessary.

Q: While attending the University of Wisconsin I enrolled in a class on tree identification. We'd meander through lovely  parks near the campus identifying trees and learned the differences between spruce  and pine. Then I moved to the Northwest and am still learning the names of species out here. Can you tell us about your passion for trees as illustrated in The Urban Tree Book? Do you tree gaze in Chicago these days?

A:When I started that book (with my wife, the illustrator) I was a new convert to tree love, the most passionate kind. Learning enough to write an authoritative guide opened worlds of pleasure on every block. Trees took on personalities. I could all but talk with them. Okay, I do sometimes talk to them. Sadly, these days the conversation is often depressing. It's like walking through an injury ward: practically every urban tree is fighting off ailments, many of them caused by our carelessness or lack of care. Trees are like writers to some degree: they give so much, don't ask a lot, get pissed on, and somehow keep giving.

 
Q:Who do you wish you could meet, living or dead?

A:Why Shakespeare, of course, the real genius-god. We'd quaff a few pints of grog, talk about words, and have a laugh over the evolution of English into rap. I might ask, "Ay yo, Will---whutup wit all dem mysteries 'bout ya'll and who scribed ya plays?"  Thus I'd be getting the 411 for a definitive biography with a seven-figure advance.

Q:Pasta or sushi?

A: Basta with the pasta. And make my maki a dal makhani, the summa-cum-yummy Indian dish.
Q:What's on your nightstand?

A: Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, as you might have guessed by now. His eye and ear are Wüsthof-knife sharp in this, his best novel. Also on the table, my Soft Bite guard against tooth grinding, because apparently it's not enough for writers to grind it out all day

Q: What projects are you working on next?

A: Launching the new book is a big time-suck, but I'm amusing myself gathering modern metaphors as I encounter them, putting them in categories.  Something might come of it, but here's what kind of fun they offer in the meantime (from the APPEARANCE category):

 “You’ve had a face like a smacked arse since you got here.” —Zadie Smith

 “Look at the head on that sheygets, the thing has its own atmosphere, . . .  Thing has ice caps. . . . Every time I see it, I feel sorry for necks.”  ---Michael Chabon

". . . his father’s nose like a skinned animal pinned to his face with the shiny metallic tackheads of his eyes, his mother a shapeless sack of organs with a howling withered skull stuck atop it." ---T.C. Boyle

"He had the complexion of baba ghanoush." ---Marisha Pessl

" ... a visage of absolutely uncompromising vapidity and bloodlessness; a face like the belly of a toad."  ---Will Self

Micro fiction

For those of you who are working at breaking into publishing, don't forget that opportunities exist to publish flash fiction. For inspiration check out  Micr-O Fiction: 8 Provocative Writers Tell Us a Story in 300 Words or Less

Spring!

Before you answer the siren's call of your garden or other springtime activities, take stock of your writing goals. How much have you accomplished these first months of the year? How are you going to stay on track as the weather becomes sweeter? What are you learning about craft and how are you applying it?
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Why Art Matters

Last night we drove south through Washington and into Oregon, a huge silver moon shimmering overhead. I taught a workshop yesterday in northern Washington and Friday we stopped at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington on our way north. In case you're not familiar with it,  it's the home of a studio (the Hot Shop) and a furnace that's in use by visiting artists and the resident glass blowers, and a place to watch their transformations take shape, stunning collections, and is a place as magical as an enchanted forest. In fact, there is an enchanted forest there--only it's in glass.

The highlight of our tour was the children's inspirations that had been turned into art, The Kids Design Glass Collection (it will be there through October 31). "The Museum has a growing collection of objects created by a variety of artists interpreting drawings that have been submitted by children and selected by Museum staff.  This body of work celebrates the rich imagination of children while documenting the interpretive skill of the glass art community. It uniquely fulfills the Museum’s mission to involve the public in a dynamic learning environment that promotes the appreciation of glass as an artistic medium."

I walked out of there my head swirling with color, thinking about the kids, and the glass blowers, and how glass blowing has been in existence for 5,000 years. So grateful for art and the artists who keep alive the ancient forms. Art feeds us. As writers we need to be immersed in all the arts, to be nourished and inspired and rejuvenated.

And with that thought, here's a link to Jeanette Winterson's piece in The Guardian on why art matters The Secret Life of Us. She says in part:

Art is a different value system. Like God, it fails us continually. Like God, we have legitimate doubts about its existence but, like God, art leaves us with footprints of beauty. We sense there is more to life than the material world can provide, and art is a clue, an intimation, at its best, a transformation. We don't need to believe in it, but we can experience it. The experience suggests that the monolith of corporate culture is only a partial reality. This is important information, and art provides it.

 When you take time to read a book or listen to music or look at a picture, the first thing you are doing is turning your attention inwards. The outside world, with all of its demands, has to wait. As you withdraw your energy from the world, the artwork begins to reach you with energies of its own. The creativity and concentration put into the making of the artwork begin to cross-current into you. This is not simply about being recharged, as in a good night's sleep or a holiday, it is about being charged at a completely different voltage. 

"From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in the future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." ~ Ray Bradbury

Happy St. Patrick's Day

To all the Irish and wearers of the green out there. When I was a girl my mother would play "Danny Boy" on the morning of St. Patrick's Day. So this morning while my tea was brewing I found myself singing a few bars "Oh come ye back when summer's in the meadow Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow...." Although it was early and I was having particular trouble with the high notes.

Keeping on top of today's fast-changing publishing industry can be exhausting and worrying. There are so many influences happening that sometimes it seems that predictions are impossible and  hope is waning. Here is Jenna Glazer's latest blog post Publishing and Me, and the Great Freak Out of 2010 about the topic. I thought it was noteworthy because she's so prolific and has lots of contacts in the industry.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people's, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception. That is what I am looking for when I read a novel; one person's truth as far as it can be rendered through language. This single duty, properly pursued, produces complicated, various results. It's certainly not a call to arms for the autobiographer, although some writers will always mistake the readerly desire for personal truth as their cue to write a treatise or a speech or a thinly disguised memoir in which they themselves are the hero. Fictional truth is a question of perspective, not autobiography. It is what you can't help tell if you write well; it is the watermark of self that runs through everything you do. It is language as the revelation of a consciousness. ~ from Fail Better, Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith's 10 Good Writing Habits
Skies are pale slate this morning and rain is drumming down and the misery in Japan continues. It seems so important not to become numb to their suffering and loss, to learn lessons large and small from all that went wrong.

Continuing on with the theme of writers sharing wisdom, here are some jewels from Zadie Smith. She's the author of  White Teeth, Autograph Man, On Beauty. Her essay about writers Fail Better is here and here is a link to a Powells interview where she talks about her writing influences (I do think of families as being somewhat pathological.)

1.When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2.When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3. Don’t romanticise your “vocation.” You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer's lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing.  Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.
8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9.Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10.Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand—but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
From an article in The Guardian

"Sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear: some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever - which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes." ~ Tom Robbins

REMINDER:

If you sign up for my workshops please, please include your email address and phone number. I'm psychic, but I'm not that psychic. Really.

Writing advice: Andrew Morton
Below is more writing advice that first appeared in The Guardian from former British Poet Laureate (which is a ten-year post in England) Andrew Morton
10 Techniques to Spark the Writing
1.Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly.
2.Think with your senses as well as your brain.
3.Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.
4.Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on.
5.Remember there is no such thing as nonsense.
6.Bear in mind Wilde’s dictum that “only mediocrities develop”— and challenge it.
7.Let your work stand before deciding whether or not to serve.
8.Think big and stay particular.
9.Write for tomorrow, not for today.
10.Work hard.

Reminder:

Summer in Words

June 24-26

Cannon Beach, Oregon

For anyone in love with words and needing to get them on the page.  
Registration opens April 1

5 Bits of Writing Advice from P.D. James  
1. Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it. 

2. Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious. 

3. Don't just plan to write—write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style. 

4. Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell. 

5. Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer—however happy, however tragic—is ever wasted.

"To me the world of poetry is a house with thousands of glittering windows. Our words and images, land to land, era to era, shed light on one another. Our words dissolve the shadows we imagine fall between."~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Well there's a pause in the rain here and I keep checking in on the news and body count from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. On NPR this morning a reporter in Tokyo mentioned how the people seem dazed and shattered as they try to go about their day.  Now with the worries about the nuclear power plants, I'm wondering how far all the heart break and destruction will reach.

In my lectures about the origins of storytelling I always mention how early humans used stories to communicate their fears and worries, including how nature rattles and thunders and smotes. (I don't think I've ever used smote in a sentence before, but it does feel like a mighty hand sweeps down from time to time, with a ferocity that awes and terrifies.)

These stories, which began back during an Ice Age, were often told out of necessity. Think about it—if you passed on stories about the run-in with the mammoth or the saber tooth tiger, or speculated about a lightening strike from the thunderstorm the previous night, you were passing along valuable lessons in survival.  Over time, these survival stories became more elaborate, humans created art in response to their environment and their questions about pain, and death and stars. 

Eventually mythos evolved—the need to inspire through drama. And here we are still on the brink of a new century, and our new methods of storytelling can show us a tsunami roaring in and destroying marinas, bridges, buildings as if they were as insignificant and flimsy as Tinker Toys and Matchbox Cars as it is happening, across what we imagined was an endless ocean. Images of the ravaged coast almost too horrifying to take in.

The circle of storytelling continues to make sense out of suffering and loss and heartbreak. And to lend hope. Keep writing, keep telling stories.

Quick Take:

Narrative closeness, through your POV character or narrator, creates sympathy and empathy in the reader.

Skies are too gloomy for words this morning and the day promises rain. How can it be time to turn the clocks already? But then I was running errands yesterday and was surprised to see that some of the plum and cherry trees were already blossoming. In the softest shades of pink. Keep writing out there.

File this under: Inspiration
The sun has broken through and it's spring-like in Portland. One of the best parts about writing books and blogging is hearing from writers all over the world. A while back I exchanged emails with LP OBryan.  He's a writer in Dublin and he wanted to thank me for writing Bullies, Bastards & Bitches, How to Write the Bad Guys in Fiction. Today I received this inspiring email that I wanted to share with aspiring writers everywhere. It's also posted on his blog:

First, to all who've followed, supported, and sent me private feedback a gigantic thank you.

A big moment in my life has arrived. I have been offered a three book publishing contract by Harper Collins UK. This will see The Istanbul Puzzle coming out in January 2012, The Jerusalem Puzzle in January 2013 and a further title probably in January 2014.

After I picked myself up of the floor, double checked just in case they mixed up my submission with someone's else's, and said a prayer of thanks, I put the pieces of my exploded brain back together. That process may not be complete yet.

This has been a long time coming. I wrote on and off since childhood, but I began writing in earnest and almost every day in 2000. The first few years were spent in an innocent journey writing a historical novel about a Roman Emperor's son who comes to the decision to murder his father. Then I figured out that there was a craft to writing. Now I measure my books on writing by the number of feet they take up on my bookshelf.

My influences go back further though. The Istanbul Puzzle has, I hope, some of the mystery of The Secret Island, by Enid Blyton, the quest, if in a much much smaller way, of The Lord of the Rings and the modern pace of The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly.

Then I started attending writers conferences, including Winchester, Thrillerfest NY, The Southern California Writers Conferrence, Listowel Writers Festival. I also began attending writing classes in London, then in Dublin, then online. If I listed them all you would wonder why I needed so much help.

To keep this brief there were a number of exceptional agents, editors and writers who gave me valuable feedback on the way. These include Glenn Meade, the popular Irish thriller writer who read and commented on The Istanbul Puzzle and Pam Ahearn a major US agent out of New Orleans who took the trouble to give me detailed feedback on The Istanbul Puzzle and also I must thank many others in my writing groups, both online and offline, including the Wednesday group here in Dublin who I must thank. I could fill this page with all the names.

I plan to fill my time between now and January with editing The Istanbul Puzzle, starting The Jerusalem Puzzle, and occasional short (mercifully) warts-and-all blog posts on the process of moving from aspiring to published author and seeing my book in print.

And finally, when I do get into Harper Collins' offices later this month in London to discuss the process in detail I plan to kiss the floor. They are wonderful, prescient, amazing, clever, wise and beautiful people each and every wonderful one of them! You have to like the people who saved your life, don't you? Whatever happens next they are the best. The very best.

I would suggest you click on About LP where he describes how he's been plugging at writing for years. And notice that first line: "I was born in Ireland, a misty, indebted and quarellsome isle." Now from that first line can't you tell he's a born storyteller?  
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

CALYX Journal’s Tenth Annual

2011 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize

Prize:  Winner will receive $300 cash award and publication in CALYX Journal. All finalists will receive a one-volume subscription, and their poems will be published on CALYX’s website. All U.S. entrants will receive an issue of CALYX Journal. 
Contest dates: March 1-May 31, 2011

Each entry can include up to three (3) unpublished poems, no more than six (6) manuscript pages total. Do not put your name on the same page as a poem; all entries are read blind. Include a separate cover letter with name, address, phone, email, and titles of poem/s. Please do not send simultaneous submissions or previously published work. Complete guidelines are also available online at http://www.calyxpress.org/Cranstonprize.html. 

Reading fee:  $15 per entry, all checks in U.S. currency on a U.S. bank, checks payable to CALYX.

Send submission to:             

CALYX Journal

Lois Cranston Poetry Prize

PO Box B

Corvallis, OR 97339

Final Judge: Sidney Wade is the author of five collections of poetry including Stroke, Celestial Bodies, Empty Sleeves, Green, and Istanbul’dan/From Istanbul (published in Turkish and English by Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, Istanbul).   Wade received a Fulbright Fellowship and was a senior lecturer at Istanbul University. She served as President of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) from 2006–2007 and is currently the poetry editor of Subtropics.

Amanda Hocking's sales hit a million

For those of you who are afraid of some of the new publishing trends, consider the case of  Amanda Hocking who has now sold over 1,000,000 e-books. Yep, that's a million and she writes fiction. And no, she doesn't want a traditional publishing contract.
Keep writing, keep risking, and keep dreaming

Quick Take:

When plotting always know your protagonist's goal and the dreaded consequences of failure. Make the consequences of failing truly suck. Without these consequences, the stakes in the story are simply too low, which in turn affects suspense and tension.  The Old Man and the Sea is a terrific example of how this works in a story.

WRITING BASICS

WORK HABITS

1. Writers write.

2. Read critically.

3. Write regularly.

4. Research thoroughly, both before you write and before you revise.

5. Read your work out loud.

6. Edit and rewrite—at least three times.

7. Write for an audience, not yourself.

WRITING STYLE

1.   Use conversational language.

2. Prefer short words of Anglo-Saxon origin over long words.

3.  Use the active voice.

4. Show, don’t tell. This means use specific examples, conversations, scenes, and details that place the reader in the action allowing them to draw their own conclusions about what is happening.

5.  Limit modifiers and qualifiers, especially adverbs.

6.  Place key words at the beginning and end of the sentence.

7.  Vary the structure and length of sentences.

8.  In general, use short sentences (30 words or under) and short paragraphs (5-6 sentences).

9.  Power your sentences with specific nouns and vivid verbs, not modifiers.

10. Tailor your tone to fit your material.

11. Use attention-getting devices—exclamation points,  parenthesis, italics, etc.-- sparingly.

12. Avoid jargon, foreign phrases, and pet words.

13. Trim clutter, redundancy and  passive phrases.

1  14. In general, use simple declarative sentences with run-on sentences and fragments for emphasis.

Summer in Words update

I'm so happy to announce that Emily Whitman is going to be also teaching at Summer in Words 2011.(Dates June 24-26 registration opens on April 1)
Emily Whitman used to dream of a time travel camp to the past. Now she travels to different worlds as the author of YA novels. Thanks to her journeys, she knows how to greet a Greek god, share her trencher at a medieval banquet, and launch a peregrine falcon into the wind. Emily's debut novel, Radiant Darkness, was praised for its "originality and flair" by BCCB and was a #1 IndieBound Pick. Her new novel, Wildwing, is a time-travel tale of romance, mistaken identity, and the wisdom of following your heart.
A native of Boulder, Colorado, Emily attended Harvard and U.C. Berkeley. She has taught at the Pacific Northwest Children's Book Conference, written for educational publishers, worked in library reference, and faced a room of sixty for toddler storytime. Her passions include cooking, travel, ancient stones and libraries. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
Please stay tuned for more details

REMINDER:

I've still got some spots available in my workshop Between the Lines on Saturday, March 12 in Portland. If you especially need help with narrative voice and distance, this workshop is for you. Contact me at jessicapage (at) spiritone (dot) com.

  Interview with Susan Blackaby

I met Susan at a writer's gathering last summer and was immediately struck by her wit and intelligence and was fascinated by her life as a children's author.  And then, of course, there was that stack of gorgeous kid's books. Since writing for children is a difficult market to crack, I thought you'd all be interested in hearing her take on things. She's  the author of more than 40 books, many of them translated into Spanish, ranging from pet care, to a retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, to a biography of Cleopatra.  And by the way, I couldn't agree with her more that Swede in Peace Like a River is one of the best fictional characters of all times.

How did you get started as a children's author and why did you choose this particular age group?  
SB: I worked my way up from the typing pool to the editorial team at Addison-Wesley back in the 70s, and from there I started writing for the educational market. Moving into the trade side of writing for children was just one merry hop-skip step off the path.

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Can you tell us about your latest books Nook, Nest & Cranny and Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox and how these ideas evolved?
SB: Nest, Nook & Cranny came out last year and is a collection—a long-awaited collection—of poetry about animals’ homes. It got a push from one of Ann Whitford Paul’s writing workshops at Haystack that inspired a flawed but jolly poem about a hermit crab, but it really got its start in Mrs. Nichols third grade class. She was a fabulous writing teacher and her influence stayed with me for the 50 years it took to get this little volume into print. There were various detours and distractions along the way….

My editor at Sterling, Meredith Mundy, sent me a little scrap of artwork that showed a groundhog holding a cup. She asked if I could write a story to go with the character, and Brownie Groundhog was born.  I’m so glad that Carmen Segovia, the artist, so generously allowed me to tell Brownie’s story—and in turn, Carmen went on to create the most eye-popping art imaginable to bring Brownie and the fox to life. It is beautiful.

 What is the best part about writing for kids?
 SB: It keeps your sensibilities sharp and wow, you really have to stay on your toes. Kids are a tough audience! And they are endlessly goofy. So it is a cheerful if tricky combination.

I know that you also write curriculum. How do you balance both parts of your writing life?
SB: Curriculum content is narrowly defined and strictly enforced, so it doesn’t lend itself to far flung creativity. The discipline and precision of it is satisfying, however, and any kind of writing is good practice—& I often get my best ideas for my own projects when I’m gnashing my way through a work deadline. The biggest hurdle is doing what feels like work at the end of the work day. Do chefs come home and cook dinner? Is it any wonder that the cobbler’s kids go barefooted? Gee, I’ve been writing all day, I guess I’ll go write some more, even though normal people are watching Law & Order reruns and taking it easy.

What is it like to work with an illustrator?
 SB: In general, authors and illustrators don’t work together on picture book projects—a time-honored tradition that sounds loony &/or Draconian but actually works just fine. The editor and the art director serve as go-betweens; some of them share information, sketches, and plans, some don’t. The result is a book that neither the author nor the illustrator could have produced alone, and the collaboration occurs in some magical space that neither one can actually visit.

What is the toughest part about being a writer and how do you get past it?
SB: All writers know that the solitude—which you crave, need, and can’t wait to get—drives you a tiny bit crazy. We in Portland are lucky to have many talented colleagues that understand this dilemma and know just when to take five.

How do you take risks with your writing?
 SB:I think you always have to venture into the unknown in order to come up with something unique, and you’re never on a very firm footing as you open to the blank page or start the next chapter or think about where you are going in your manuscript. It can be hard to trust the process and easy to second-guess yourself all along the way. So in that regard, you pick up a pencil at your peril, though some days are more dangerous than others.

What is your best writing advice in 8 words or less?
SB:  Be patient.

Who do you wish you could meet, living or dead?  
SB:  Cleopatra

Sushi or pasta?
SB:  Pasta

Who are your favorite fictional characters?
SB:  Simpkin in The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter
Miss Amelia in The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
Swede in Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

What books are on your nightstand?
SB: Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
6 New Yorkers
1 Martin Beck mystery

 What are you working on now?
 SB: A hot mess of a novel mostly. Plus a couple of picture books and a little bit of poetry here and there, with a couple of nonfiction ideas floating around. The usual hodge podge.

Ray Bradbury Interview

I'm home from Prince George, B.C. leaving behind a world buried under white (and I mean buried) and have returned to spring about to burst on the scene.

I'm crazy about Ray Bradbury's beautiful little book on creativity,Zen in the Art of Writing and have always wanted another peek into his mind. Here's a chance with this interview in the Paris Review. I especially loved this answer in the interview: I often use the metaphor of Perseus and the head of Medusa when I speak of science fiction. Instead of looking into the face of truth, you look over your shoulder into the bronze surface of a reflecting shield. Then you reach back with your sword and cut off the head of Medusa. Science fiction pretends to look into the future but it’s really looking at a reflection of what is already in front of us. So you have a ricochet vision, a ricochet that enables you to have fun with it, instead of being self-conscious and superintellectual.

And then there's this answer, but I suggest you read the whole interview, especially if you read science fiction. 

Why do you write science fiction? 

RAY BRADBURY

Science fiction is the fiction of ideas. Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves. Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

Imagine if sixty years ago, at the start of my writing career, I had thought to write a story about a woman who swallowed a pill and destroyed the Catholic Church, causing the advent of women’s liberation. That story probably would have been laughed at, but it was within the realm of the possible and would have made great science fiction. If I’d lived in the late eighteen hundreds I might have written a story predicting that strange vehicles would soon move across the landscape of the United States and would kill two million people in a period of seventy years. Science fiction is not just the art of the possible, but of the obvious. Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

 He recently told me he still lives by his lifelong credo, “Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”

"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." ~ unknown

From an editor's desk: make a scene
A good story is about threats to character's inner and outer lives. Most of these threats will happen in scenes. In scenes something significant happens that has not happened before and will not happen again. A scene brings the story overall to a new place in the narrative, it offers something fresh and somehow stirs readers`s emotions. The best scenes are not only based on conflict or opposition, but also are embedded with tension and mood. Tension keeps a reader uneasy, off balance. We want want uneasy readers just we want our readers leaning into the page, taut with worry because the story is laced with delays, unanswered questions, withheld information.

Elements in scenes:

dialogue
subtext
dialogue tags
actions, gestures, reactions
characters`thoughts
exposition
description
setting

TIP: When you`re writing a scene ask yourself what is the worst thing that can happen next.

Snow, Schools, Teachers

I flew up to Prince George B.C. today. It's a lunar-like, white, frigid world here this time of year.  And did I mention slippery?

My friend Mike Carson is a high school teacher here and his students are trying to raise money to build a school in Haiti. The link is here and the organization is called Free the Children. When Mike and I stepped into the school this afternoon (he'd picked me up at the airport) he stopped to chat with a group of kids getting ready for the district-wide training session happening here tomorrow (I'm teaching two workshops.) I was so touched my his interactions and joking with the kids. So much tenderness and respect and concern.

As we were driving over here we were talking about the governor of Wisconsin and his plans for teachers and public employee unions. I just gotta say, this world needs more and better paid teachers. And gratitude for all they do in the world. Please consider donating to Free the Children. Thanks --we'll return to our regularly scheduled blogging next time I'm at the computer.

If You Love Books

and want to know more about the publishing industry, you might want to read this article about the state of the publishing industry.  It's a review of John B. Thompson's MERCHANTS OF CULTURE The publishing business in the twenty-first century Then go out and buy some books. Really.

Chelsea Cain

Skies are dusty gray and a steady drizzle is coming down. Chelsea Cain's latest book  The Night Season was released on March 1--not a minute too soon for those of us longing to check in with her troubled characters. She was interviewed by Jeff Baker at The Oregonian. You might be interested in her comments on her writing process.  Here's the link and opening graph:

"In the House That Gretchen Built, there are many rooms. Chelsea Cain writes in almost all of them.

Cain lives with her husband and daughter and two frisky Boston terriers in a big white house in Colonial Heights, just above Ladd's Addition in Southeast Portland. The family moved in four years ago, after Cain signed a multimillion-dollar contract for a series of thrillers set in Portland and featuring a serial killer named Gretchen Lowell. There are two other main characters, police detective Archie Sheridan and newspaper columnist Susan Ward, but it's Lowell who gets all the attention with her feminine wiles and imaginative methods of torture. The gorier Gretchen gets, the more Cain's readers love her."

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart. And don't be afraid to write about bad asses.

From an Editor's Desk: Intimate knowledge

Know your characters, know your characters, know your characters. What they fear, how they hurt, how they endure. Exactly where their deepest vulnerabilities lie. Exactly what they desire most. And how far they'll go to achieve it. How they act in their best, happiest moments and in most of dark desperation. Know their emotional bandwith--how they handle insecurity, jealousy, fear.

Delve deep. What they don't want the neighbors to know, their in-laws to discover. Ways they don't want their children to follow in their footsteps.
Readers are looking for intimacy and connection in fiction. And if readers cannot connect with characters because they're too self destructive or conniving or evil, that's okay. As long as they understand them. Fictional people are also more consistent than real people, and can often be more knowable. 

Now, some of your badass characters certainly aren’t going to see life through the same lens that you do. But you need to understand that cracked lens, that twisted mask, that is part trauma, part meanness, part deviancy.  

But it starts with you the writer, asking a lot of questions. Observing a lot of people. Caring and thinking about what makes them weep, and surrender, and wonder.

“When I sit down to write, my job is to move the story. If there is such a thing as pace in writing, and if people read me because they’re getting a story that’s paced a certain way, it’s because they sense I want to get to where I’m going. I don’t want to dawdle around and look at the scenery.”~ Stephen King

Something for the Ladies

And women and girls. Kathleen Postma has written an inspiring post about women and getting published at her blog, Female and Want to Publish? Get a Grip.
She begins: "It is the best of times and the worst of times—if you are a woman writer, that is. More women than ever are embracing the writing life. More women then men take part in writing workshops, writing conferences and informal writing groups. They are producing a substantial number of words and are finding print or online venues to publish their work. However here’s the sad fact: Few women writers appear to be taken seriously where it may count. According to a recent study by VIDA, the new organization that evaluates the critical and cultural conversations on writing by women, the most prominent magazines in literary art show a stark lack of articles, essays or fiction written by women"

And yes, still raining like mad here. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

"Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist." ~ Bill Bryson

Between the Lines: Mastering the Invisible Elements of Fiction

Date: March 12 (rescheduled)

Location: PNWA, 1241 NW Johnson, room 125 (Portland, OR) Times 10-5

Cost: $75

Readers want to be haunted by stories, characters and specific scenes that linger in their memories. While reading they want to be transported to another time and place. The best fiction does this; touching the deep layers in us. A writer achieves this effect by embedding dozens of techniques into his story to create a deep and simmering story world.  Yet, since some elements in fiction are suggested or remain invisible they’re difficult to analyze. This workshop brings these fictional elements into the light to help you create your own nuanced, layered, and compelling stories.  We’ll combine discussion and exercises, and read three short stories during the workshop session, we’ll cover various vital techniques for creating fiction with depth and resonance. Generous handouts will be included. These techniques include:  
How to structure scenes then layer them with mood and tone.  
How to make decisions about narrative voice and distance.  
How to choose the most appropriate viewpoint for the story.  
How to make pacing decisions.  
How increasing complications and motivation drive fiction forward.  
How tension and suspense contribute to every page and the part foreshadowing plays in achieving them.  
The proportion of details needed to create a story world that breathes.

For more information: contact Jessica at jessicapage(at)spiritone(dot)com

(Note: this workshop will also be held in Manzanita, Oregon on April 30)