The Versatile Blogger Award Winner: Thank You!

Hello to all you writers out there, this is Adair Heitmann writing to you on this steamy summer day. Did you hear the bells and whistles? The Fairfield Writer’s Blog just received The Versatile Blogger Award! This is awarded to blogs that are considered helpful and excellent. Aw shucks. Both my colleague and fellow writing workshop leader, Alex McNab, and I currently keep The Fairfield Writer’s Blog going (along with our invited guest authors). We strive to be informative and always bring the blog back to its core mission of “literary connections.”

As writers we constantly hear about building our writing platforms. Part of building your platform includes creating and maintaining an online presence. Blogs are a great way to do that, and commenting on other people’s blogs can be invaluable. (See more about this in the list below.)

The Versatile Blogger Award was a connection that came put of the blue, thanks to blog reader Brooke Ryter.  Part of being nominated for the award is to select and share 15 blogs/bloggers that have been recently discovered or that we follow regularly. Here’s Alex and my edited and combined list, sorry we couldn’t put every blogger we know on it. The list is in no particular order, but we attempted to include blogs that are good resources for writers. Please check them out.

http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/
Mary Carroll Moore writes all about the book writing and creative writing process.

http://janefriedman.com/
Jane Friedman – Being human at electric speed: Exploring what it means to be a writer in the digital age.

http://ollinmorales.wordpress.com/
Ollin Morales Courage 2 Create inspires writers to do just that . . . write!

http://artistsroad.wordpress.com/
Patrick Ross: Travels of a MFA student and prolific writer.

http://writeconnexion.wordpress.com/
Gabi Coatsworth: writing about a writer’s life in Fairfield County, CT.

http://kimscraftblog.blogspot.com/
Kim Craft Fiction, Memoir, Creative Writing (from Top Ten Blogs for Writers list)

http://christinakatz.com/
Christina Katz: The Prosperous Writer. Her handle sums up her niche.

http://anneksmith.wordpress.com/blog/
Anne Kathryn Smith, writer at large. She recently commented on The Fairfield Writer’s Blog and I was drawn to a helpful link to her blog.

storyfix.com
Larry Brooks is one of many storytelling gurus online. He revisits the basics of structure from time to time in helpful ways.

the millions.com
Publishing news, author Q&As, plus a lot of links to pieces of interest on other sites.

mediabistro.com/galleycat/
Galleycat is a publishing news place. On the parent media bistro site, there are periodic interviews with authors and editors, under the heading What Do You Do?

plotwhisperer
The focus here is on plotting your story.

bloodredpencil.blogspot.com
A rotating group of book editors has something new up every weekday. There are a lot of helpful gems back in the archives.

dystel.com
Dystel & Goderich Literary Management posts essays and links from its agents. Again, lots of good stuff in the archives.

jenniferweiner.blogspot.com
She spoke at the Library a few years ago, and is currently doing the mega media circuit.

Thank you again to The Versatile Blogger Award for helping us here at The Fairfield Writer’s Blog continue to be a valuable resource to writers everywhere.

Until next time, stay cool, and keep on writing!

The Four Horsemen of Storytelling

Had the legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice (below) been covering a workshop for aspiring fiction writers instead of the October 1924 Notre Dame-Army college football game at New York’s Polo Grounds, the most famous lede in journalism might have read:

Outlined against a bright white sheet of paper, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: POV, Backstory, Showing & Telling, and Information Dumping.

Indeed, it is rare to sit through a critique-group session without somebody at the table yammering about at least one of the Four Horsemen of storytelling. If you want to sound like a writing workshop expert, you’ve got to know the lingo. Like this:

POV. It’s inconsistent.

Backstory. It appears too early and/or there is too much of it.

Showing & telling. There is too much of the latter and not enough of the former.

Information dump. There is TMI.

Here are some random thoughts about the Four Horsemen, using examples from a few of the tough-guy type of novels I’ve been known to read.

POV. Point of view comes in many forms. First person. Second person (if you’re channeling Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City) Third-person omniscient. Third-person limited (sort of like first person, i.e., from one character’s perspective, without the “I”).

Several years ago, in his first-person Dave Robicheaux novels, the master crime writer James Lee Burke began including long passages about events that his hero was not present for. Often, Burke sets them up by having Robicheaux say something like, “Here’s what he told me had happened.” Much as I have enjoyed the Robicheaux stories, with their great sensory detail of setting and their lively, idiom-inflected dialogue, I’ve never grown comfortable with author Burke’s jarring POV shifts.

When you start with a first-person or third-person-limited POV, stay with that character as the story unfolds. If you must fill in the blanks, you could try what the late Robert. B. Parker did in his final novel, Sixkill: Set off the material unwitnessed by the protagonist with line spaces and italics. Still, it is awkward. You are taking the reader out of the dramatic present of your storytelling.

Backstory. As in:

Two shots rang out and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life.

But first, let me tell you a little about myself.

(Skip to page 75 to return to the present.)

In Colin Harrison’s thriller The Finder, the reader learns early, albeit briefly, about a nasty scar on protagonist Ray Grant Jr.’s stomach. There are mentions as well of nightmarish memories Grant endures from a past exposure to multiple corpses. Yet it isn’t until the middle of Chapter 15, 150-plus pages into a 310-page book, that we learn what caused the scar. Then, 175-plus pages in, in Chapter 18, we learn why and where Grant came across so many bodies. Both are important to the character and the plot. The early hints leave the reader with a desire to find out, which helps keep her or him turning pages. Harrison follows the rule of not giving the reader backstory until absolutely necessary.

Showing & telling. The more technical terms are scene and summary. “Show, don’t tell,” may be the most knee-jerk phrase uttered in critique groups. Yes, you want to dramatize your story with action and dialogue. One of my workshop mentors, Sandi Kahn Shelton, said one of the most liberating things I’ve ever heard from a published novelist: Sometimes you’ve got to simply tell it. You can waste a lot of time trying to convey necessary information in dialogue or through a character’s inner process or via some artificial framing device.

Suzanne Hoover of Sarah Lawrence College, another writing mentor of mine, told us that, if you are writing a highly dramatic moment in your story, the choice is easy—scene. But when writing intermediate passages of information or transition, the choice is questionable. If you put everything into scene, everything carries equal weight. You may not want that. You also are constantly jerking the story to keep the energy flowing.

You must consider the narrative pacing of your story. Establish an acceptable rhythm. Build, then relax, then build again. Ask yourself, is this scene obligatory? Does the reader really need to see this? Finally, so much of our best, lyrical writing is in descriptive summary passages. Yet, Suzanne says, it’s shocking how much of that is being ignored, even skipped, by today’s readers.

Information dumping. The author has reams of research and is determined to include it all, regardless of how critical it is to the story and its characters. Again, Harrison’s The Finder offers examples. We learn about construction engineering details in the Empire State Building, and about the many gradients of pulverization in the paper shredding business. Would the story have succeeded without the details in these short passages? Perhaps. Too much information? Not for me.

Part of the fun of reading a good novel is learning about things. If the information is presented within the context of a much larger whole, and appears far enough in that the story’s forward propulsion is firmly established, it can work—and it does in The Finder. Neither the Empire State Building stuff or the paper-shredding details might have been appropriate in a 10-page short story. Yet in a 310-page novel, they are quick, fascinating sidebars that help illuminate the conflicts and characters.

In both instances, Harrison delivers the information in dialogue, one character lecturing another. In The Finder, the method is effective. But that is rarely the case. Spoken information dumps often are not just unnecessary, they sound phony. One of my favorite tough-guy authors had a couple in a novel he published a few years ago. I was surprised and disappointed. But I’m not going to call him out by name. That would be TMI.—Alex McNab

A Cure for Writer’s Block

I have writer’s block, oh my!
I’m going to sit in a tree, up high.
Where I will look down at my toes,
Wiggle my nose
And think up some prose.
Why can’t I feel flighty
Up here in my nightie?
Maybe a cuppa Earl Grey
Sipped here my tree
Will go with my warm scone and me.
Then onto writing with all my might
As I wave my silver sword in delight
On passion, on vixen, onto my mission
Will I finish in time for my next contest submission?

Hello writers, this is Adair Heitmann here writing to you today about the dreaded disease called writer’s block. All of us have had it at one point in our journeys as writers. Recently, after I developed a creative writing prompt for a writing critique group I lead, I was inspired to write the preceding poem.

The prompt for my writing workshop was: You have “writer’s block.” What is your cure? It cannot be practical or logical in any way. Describe it using all your senses.

The exercise was like a vitamin shot in the arm. The prompt reminded me of the invigorating power of being impractical. Often we approach problems with a like-for-like solution, only to feel drained and more dissatisfied. The next time you are at a loss for words, break out of your routine, do something illogical. You’ll be surprised what you find up there in your inspiration tree.

What are your favorite dazzling cures for writer’s block? Share them in the comments below.

Until next time, keep on writing!

Bulletin Board Wisdom

According to lore, author William Styron had a piece of cardboard tacked to the frame of the door that led into his workroom at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. The cardboard was inscribed with these words from Gustave Flaubert: “Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Looking for some writing wisdom, familiar or fresh, for your workspace bulletin board? See if you find some here, winnowed from an original list of one hundred.

• “Story ideas begin with a simple “Suppose” or “What if.”—Anonymous

• “. . .All art comes out of conflict.”—Joyce Carol Oates (right)

• “Get black on white.”—Guy de Maupassant

• “Words are sacred. They deserve respect.”—Tom Stoppard

• “When in doubt, use a simple declarative sentence.”—Robert B. Parker

• “My task is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.”—Joseph Conrad

• “In every scene something engrossing needs to happen.”—Suzanne Hoover

• “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”—Kurt Vonnegut

• “Everything a character says should tell you something about who he or she is.”—Nell Freudenberger

• “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”—Stephen King

• “Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained.”—Esther Freud

• “Research is best when it doesn’t show.”—Lawrence Block

• “Stop when you are going good and you know what will happen next.”—Ernest Hemingway

• “There is but one art, to omit.”—Robert Louis Stevenson

• “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”—Elmore Leonard

• “Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.”—Jane Smiley

• “The writer’s life is a life of revisions. . . .”—Jonathan Franzen

• “You can always edit garbage. You can’t edit a blank page.”—Jodi Piccoult

• “Don’t be jealous of others’ success. . . .Wish others well and hope to join them someday.”—Po Bronson

• “. . .Never, under any circumstances, give up submitting one’s work.”—James Lee Burke

• “The ordeal is part of the commitment.”—Philip Roth

• “Don’t be ‘a writer.’ Be writing.”—William Faulkner

• “Don’t get it right, just get it written.”—James Thurber

• “Don’t make excuses; make sentences.”—Rick Mofina

• “I decided it was okay to try and fail; not okay to fail to try.”—Hallie Ephron

• “It’s a long haul. Remember to enjoy it.”—Tim Parks

• “Finish the damn book.”—Laura Lippman

• “Being a good writer is 3 % talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.”—Anonymous

PS. Congratulations to Joanne Hus. Her story “We All Fall Down,” which she workshopped awhile ago in our Saturday morning writers’ group at the Library, has been published in the new issue of Venü magazine, available at the Fairfield University bookstore downtown. Joanne also did the illustration that accompanies the story. She illustrated and designed the Library’s collection of original essays Around the Table: Food Memoirs from Fairfield that was published last year.—Alex McNab

Writers — Use What You Have

Hello to all you writers out there, this is Adair Heitmann writing to you on this cold, rainy day in Connecticut. Are you snug, dry, and creating? Recently I had an eye-opening experience. Last year I signed up for The Sketchbook Project 2012. It is this really cool, world tour of contemporary artists’ books. To enter you must choose a theme to use as a take-off point. Silly me, last summer I thought I had all the time in the world to meet the January 31, 2012 deadline. Luckily, when I entered the project my intuition whispered in my ear, “Choose the theme Writing on the Wall.”

Well, last Monday came around with me staring down the blank sketchbook. It was my one day off from work and I had a book to fill. Not letting a time crunch deter me, I remembered waking up in the middle of the previous night with the answer. I’ve been working on a series of haikus for about three years. When I’m inspired, usually by the intersection of mother nature and human nature, I write one. Working on the haikus, on and off, as time allowed, I shared the poems periodically with my writing critique group. I’d re-work them, and place them in my familiar manilla folder labeled “Haiku,” and then file them under “Poems” in my filing cabinet. There they sat until a few days ago.

I brought the folder down to my kitchen table, grouped them by the four seasons of the year, and created an outline for the book. Needing to round out the book I wrote a brand, spanking new haiku, on the spot, and included that too. So the book really was three years in the making, an hour for the outline, and two hours for the artistic crafting of the book. Like a cook who invents a delicious meal based on what is in the cupboard, I used what I had. I parboiled my words, sautéed the right ingredients, set the table, and lit the candles. I completed the book, and mailed it, meeting their deadline.

The Sketchbook Project is all about process, and it sure reminded me that you never know where your words will end up. You just have to trust and believe they will find a home. Before The Sketchbook Project I never thought of grouping my haikus by season and publishing them as a collection. Now I am.

Until next time, keep on writing!

Screenwriting advice for novels & stories

In our Library writers’ critique group, with a couple of exceptions, we all are writing novels and short stories. Yet we’ve recommended to one another the works of screenwriting gurus Syd Field, Robert McKee, John Truby, Blake Snyder and Michael Hauge. Why? They offer nuts-and-bolts advice about building a story. Using the volumes available in the Library, here’s a quick rundown of their most prominent ideas.

Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Key idea: Field’s Paradigm is a three-act structure with antecedents in Aristotle: Set-Up in Act I, Confrontation in the longer Act II, and Resolution in Act III, with Plot Points—incidents that turn the story in a different direction—moving the story from one act into the next. Book style: Tome-ish, long-running text sections; straight-forward and, to me, rather bland. My favorite movie analysis/script excerpt: “Chinatown.” (What can I say about my choices? I’m a middle-aged white guy, not a 21st-century teen.) 

Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. Key idea: Inciting incident upsets the balance in the protagonist’s life, he identifies an object of desire that will restore that balance, and he struggles against antagonistic forces in himself, in others and in his environment while seeking that object of desire, which he may or may not achieve. Book style: Multi-layered, somewhat tome-ish; cites many specific movies; uses boldface highlights and line diagrams; jargony. Favorite movie analysis/excerpt: “Casablanca” (above).

John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Key ideas: The seven steps of story structure and the 22 building blocks of every great story. Book style: More accessible than first appears; uses familiar film examples to illustrate jargony terms; breaks up text sections with a hierarchy of subheads. Favorite movie analysis/excerpt: “The Godfather.” (Local angle: Part-time Connecticut resident and bestselling mystery author Robert Ellis gives a shout-out to Truby in the Acknowledgments pages of his novel The Lost Witness.)

Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. Key idea: The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet, a.k.a. the 15 sections of a successful story. Book style: Fun, conversational, jargony, with worthwhile substance. Favorite movie analysis/excerpt: “Miss Congeniality.” (Not actually a favorite; I’ve never seen it. But it’s the one movie the late Snyder breaks down into his 15 beats.)

Michael Hauge’s Writing Screenplays That Sell: The Complete Guide to Turning Story Concepts into Movie and Television Deals. Full disclosure: The Library does not have any of Hauge’s books. I’ve read some essays on his website, which lay out a six-stage plot structure with five turning points, and I’ve talked about his advice with my workshop colleague Lauri Brett, who attended an all-day workshop he led. So I feel confident in the following. Key idea: Essential component of a successful story is the hero’s pursuit of a compelling desire. Style: Concise, somewhat jargony. Favorite movie analysis/excerpt: “Erin Brockovich” or “Gladiator” (take your pick).

So what can these books do for you as a narrative-prose storyteller? They can help you with story structure. They can help you with character arc. They can help you with scene crafting. They can help you with building dramatic momentum. In short, they can help you get your storytelling organized. And that is no small thing!

One big caveat: Sometimes I think the screenplay gurus—with the exception of Field—are descendants of whoever wrote the Introduction to Sociology textbook I studied in college, so adept are they at coining new terms to describe basic screenwriting steps or patterns. McKee’s buzzwords include: Archplot, Miniplot, Antiplot, Multiplot, Nonplot; Symbolic Ascension; Ironic Ascension; the Mind Worm; and the Gap. Truby uses Story World, Symbol Web and Scene Weave. Among Snyder’s 15 beats are Fun and Games, and Dark Night of the Soul; and among his Immutable Laws of Screenplay Physics are The Pope in the Pool, Double Mumbo Jumbo, Watch Out for That Glacier, and, of course, Save the Cat, a rule that says “the hero has to do something when we first meet him so that we like him and want him to win.” Hauge’s Ten Simple Keys to Plot Structure include More, Bigger, Badder; Something Old, Something New; Before and After; Lines & Arcs; and Secrets & Lies.

Don’t get hung up on the whacky jargon, or the horizontal, rising-angle, and overlapping-circle line graphics, or the formulas about which minute of a two-hour screenplay should correspond with which structural milestone. Instead, absorb the universal characteristics of dramatic storytelling and incorporate them into your own story.

Stephen J. Cannell, the prolific TV show creator/writer (“The Rockford Files,” “Baretta,” “21 Jumpstreet” et al.) and novelist (King Con, Vertical Coffin, The Tin Collectors, et al.),  posted a 21-part online writing seminar on his website several years ago. I followed it from week to week. Here’s his final thought from that course:

“Don’t let this excessive list of Do’s and Don’t’s make writing seem more complicated than it is. Remember, writing should be fun.”—Alex McNab

The Journey of a Writer

Summertime greetings to all you writers out there from Adair Heitmann. How is your writing going? Do you have less time to improve your craft during the hot, humid days of summer? Or do your work and personal responsibilities ease up during July and August, affording you ample opportunities to flesh out your memoir? Is your life quieter so you can hear the soft voice inside waiting for time and space to come out? Or is your summer so full of other outside voices that you can’t wait for school to begin again?

In the summer months, many people travel. I like to think of writing as a journey with interesting side trips. The journey takes preparation, willingness, stamina, and a sense of adventure. The writer needs to trust that it isn’t always the destination that is important, it is the process. When I write, then share my creations with my writing critique group, or send my essays, books, and poems out for publication or to contests and agents, those extroverted actions bring me in touch with people, places, and organizations that I never would have encountered, if I had not started the journey.

When I have bad days, days in which I can’t write for as long as I’d like or at all, or if I get a rejection letter, I remember that I’m in it for the long haul. My dedication to writing is like a trip around the world, not across town. The art of writing has its ups and downs, twists and turns, and it has magical moments. Experiences filled with wonder, acceptance, and connection.

Until next time, enjoy the journey of your summer, and keep on writing!