What J.D. Salinger Got Right

I recently watched a documentary called "Salinger", and when it was over that sadness that always lingered after reading his stories was present in the room.

Media called Salinger hermit and recluse. Clearly he was neither of those as he was constantly seen about the small town near where he lived, took frequent trips to New York and Florida. He wasn't hermiting, he was simply trying to live out the last thread of sane left to him after surviving WWII, and then surviving the crashing success of Catcher in the Rye--the same novel that would be fingered as the reason and justification of three high profile shootings including the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of then President of the US, Ronald Reagan.

It's possible that Salinger decided to withdraw from life in public because he understood his capacity to be a dangerous man if allowed to stew too long in the soup of public pressure. Men and women hunted him down believing he had answers to their chaotic, hopeless lives. He didn't. And he knew it.

It's possible that Salinger's own writing left him with no alternative but to turn his back on the media lest he become entrapped in the same poser culture he railed against in his theology thinly disguised as fiction stories (he was a follower of Vedanta, Hindu philosophy and his stories always preached the tension between    body    and     spirit).

No doubt, Salinger walked a tightrope of being and maintaining his status as public figure and being fully dedicated to writing itself. Pure writing without any distractions.

It's murky and complicated (just like life), but there's one thing that stood out for me, one point where I believe Salinger was right: you can't talk about writing and be a writer. You must write. Only that.

There's a discipline to this, especially in the world of the internet where it is (literally) possible to glean so much information about how to write fiction that you could--in time--present college level courses on the subject and yet not be able to execute any of it.

A writer could, in theory, spend every weekend at one writer's conference after another soaking in so much knowledge he or she might feel a brain burst coming on. But so what if you can't actually do it?

I'm not against writing conferences. If you have a plan and have carefully selected workshops that will actually benefit your writing, and leave the conference with measurable ROI (return on investment), then great. Rare. But great.

But.

Nothing trumps the doing.

Write.

Read.

Write.

Read.

Don't stop.

Remember that well hashed saying that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill? My husband recently pointed out that I've passed that milestone. I am, according to the hour formula, a master writer. (Can you see me giggling right now?)

What's the singular biggest lesson those 10,000+ hours of writing have taught me?

I can't talk myself into becoming a good writer.

I can only write, and write, and write some more until I find my true self and then write that.

No Virginia, There's No Such Thing as The First Draft

Last week, I announced on Facebook that I had completed the first draft of my WIP.

My mother read on Facebook that I had completed the first draft of my WIP. She asked to read it.
I laughed and laughed.

No way anyone is reading that puppy.

I lied about completing the first draft.

Or. Maybe not.

I can't be certain.

What I know is if anyone read the draft it would be like what I imagine a magician would feel like revealing his or her secrets.

My first draft is a blabber mouth. It explains how I do all my tricks.

There is so much rough stuff inside that first draft, so many side notes, and highlighted ALL CAPS messages to myself that should anyone read it they'd think, Shazam, I know exactly how she twists the plot, rearranges time, and spaces out plot reveals that I could just go home and write the thing myself.

And we can't have that.

I have come to a startling conclusion:

I don't believe in first drafts.

Meaning, I doubt they exist. I would love to believe there are writers out there who pound out a story so well crafted that the second draft is only so much polishing. If you told me that is exactly how you write, I'd smile and nod and later I'd draw pictures of you with the eyes X'ed out.

My second draft isn't polishing. It's major reconstructive surgery. And not the out patient kind. The you're going to be here for awhile so you might as well get comfortable and for heaven's sake stop abusing the nurse call button.

You can't read my second draft, either.

Sure, I've tucked away most of the dead giveaways, spun the scenes so they glisten just enough to distract you from what I don't want you to see.

But.

And I'm being butt-neeked honest here.

But, that second draft (meaning the manuscript after I've moved through it fully from the opening chapter to THE END) has a face only a mother could love. Still more voice and jazz hands than breathless pacing and didn't-see-it-coming-but-now-that-it's-here-it-couldn't-have-happened-any-other-way plot twists.

After the third time through the novel I've tucked away the how-to secrets, buried the plot twists, sped up that pacing and layered on the subtle elements of story-world, sub-plot, running jokes (this story has a few running jokes. Cuz I like running jokes and it's my story so there), character traits, time line (cursed thing, that time line. Bane of my writing existence), and break-neck speed ending.

After the third time through, I might consider letting some very close friends have a peek. Only because I begged them.

And what would I call that draft?

In my email to my close friends begging them to read the thing I would say this: Please, please, please, pretty please read this first draft and let me know how much needs to change/be rewritten/be burned at the stake.

Yep. I'd call that one my first draft.

Which is total ca-ca.

And also absolutely true.

Write the Story you Want to Read

"Filled with restlessness and longing, he began to read." The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (page 74).

We've all heard it before: write the book you want to read. We give mental assent to this phrase: Yes, yes. What I want to read. Only that.

And yet.

We sit down to write and the screaming memes drown out the book we mean to write. The voices of people who would judge the work before it sees light of day (we ascribe this, usually without knowing if it is true or not). The voice of mom, or our Sunday School teacher, or whoever. If only we could be left alone with our thoughts.

Dig around for some cup of courage that allows us to write through the din of voices. We tell ourselves no one will read the darn thing anyway, save some glassy-eyed agent's assistant. Who will know if we pour our misunderstandings onto the page?
Banish the memes and what is left? The basket is lighter. Honest prose. True story.

And yet.

There is the doubt that we are not up to the task. A story grand as one we want to read certainly requires a steady hand. And look. Our hands tremor. Our word reach is puny. We must look up the word rigour in the dictionary because we most certainly are using it incorrectly.

Sign up for NaNoWriMo and learn to let the words fly, land where they may. We sprout wings and realize trusting ourselves isn't the point. That writers are, primarily, untrustworthy folk. There's joy in that.
Memes exiled, the issue of self trust resolved, we solider on with the scraps of truth left to us. The basket is nearly empty. True story.

And yet.

There is the story. The tapestry in our minds has turned to a single clanging gong on the page. Stiff, shrill, obvious. We have misplaced our campfire enthusiasm, shelved our wide-eyed curiosity in favour of experience. By accident we bought into the social media gimmick that word count and to-do lists, and deadlines mean we have arrived (where, exactly?).
It turns out we must rid ourselves of ourselves. Dissolve ego in the acid of honest prose, good story. The basket is empty.

And yet.

We are left with exactly all we had in the beginning. Nothing more than our restlessness and longing.

Writer's Fear

Where does all the fear come from?

The results are in: Writers are one freaked out group of people. 

What are we afraid of? According to the comments on Wednesday’s post the answer is: plenty.

We’re scared of the foundational questions that form the bedrock of our decisions to even pursue writing in the first place. Let’s start on that shaky ground.

Should I Art? Writers (all artists, really) are faced with the unspoken—and sometimes voiced—questions posed by our culture the moment we choose a life of art: Are you sure? Don’t you want a paycheque? (That’s paycheck to you Americans.) Don’t you know art is just a hobby?

Margaret Atwood created this handy reference chart of writer’s fears about what people think about our books and us as people.

What people say	What Writers Hear
1. I always wait for your books to come in at the library.	I wouldn’t pay money for that trash.
2. I had to take you in school.	Against my will. Or: And I certainly haven’t read any of it since! Or: So why aren’t you dead?
3. You don’t look at all like your picture.	a. Much worse.
4. You’re so prolific!	You write too much, and are repetitive and sloppy.
5. I’m going to write a book too, when I can find the time.	What you do is trivial, and can be done by an idiot.
6. I only read the classics	And you aren’t one of them.
7. Why don’t you write about _______?	Unlike the boring stuff you do write about.
8. That book by _______ (add name of other writer) is selling like hotcakes!	Unlike yours.
9. So, do you teach?	Because writing isn’t real work, and you can’t possibly be supporting yourself at it.
10 That story of MY LIFE - now THAT would make a good novel.	Unlike yours.

If we manage to push our way through the maddening din of the cultural pressure to abandon writing and put on a suit and tie, we immediately slam into the next major fear: Who am I that I should I art? 

Ah, yes. Self-doubt. Isn’t it true that I do not possess the skill/talent/education/cunning good looks of a true artist? Alas, I lack.

Well of course you lack. That’s why you art. Art isn’t about getting your poop in a group first and then approaching the craft from a God’s eye view of having accomplished something. Art is the journey. 

So we slog through and manage to create art. And guess what happens? Rejection. And not even real rejection. Rejection we conjure in our imaginations and somehow convince ourselves will absolutely happen if ever the art we’ve created is shared with the world/agent/publisher/editor/next door neighbour/Mom. 

Should we manage to leap over the fear of rejection fence (which we got over simply as a matter of repetition. We were rejected and rejected and found ourselves still living), we meet up with Fear Of Success, Otherwise known as Second Book Syndrome. 

Everyone gushes after a new author. Hopes are high! Then the book releases, your third cousin emails you that it wasn’t half bad, and Wow! You’ve got a contract for a second book. But what if your third cousin doesn’t like your second book as much as your first? No time to think about it now! You have a lifetime to write your first novel, and six months to write your second.

Now we’re really afraid. Writer’s block is our new best friend. We squeeze the words out as if from an empty toothpaste tube. We’re so close to the story that every word we write looks wrong. We stare at a word and it just looks weirder and weirder the longer we stare. We being to doubt that English is our Mother Tongue. Half way through the second novel we realize we don’t actually know how to write a book. 

We switch into auto-type, madly plastering the page with words, as many as we can think of as quickly as possible (and update our facebook page with our process: 25,000 words today and I blew out my keyboard!) even if the words come out in no particular order because 

We

Have

A

Deadline  

Sure, having a deadline makes you look like a superstar on social media—Oh me, oh my! My fab editor is waiting on my manuscript. Tee hee—but the reality of deadlines is they suck the fun out of the creative process for many writers.

The only thing worse than a deadline is a lack of a deadline. This usually means we’re still steeped in the first couple of fears listed above. 

Here are some cures for your writer’s fear:

Realize that writing is work. Do the work. Don’t complain. I'm lucky enough to know Joy Jordan-Lake and call her friend. In a recent email discussion (we were talking about our fears as writers) she observed: “Writing is like home renovation alternating between sledgehammer and tweezers”

That's the secret. Do the work. 

Self confidence isn’t necessary, but gumption is. If your knees are shaking and you feel like you’re going to throw up, you’re probably doing the right thing.

Show up for work. Do what scares you. Face the fear. Then, do it some more. In time, you’ll find you’ve acquired the knowledge, skill, expertise, and mastery you feared you did not possess.

Cherry Picking at the Feast of Words.

"...the art of reading is ... an intimate ritual ... a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us .." From The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

I haven't read Zafon's novel but, after Sharon's introduction to it on Wednesday, it's been added to my (impossible) TBR pile.

What caught my attention is the first bit "an intimate ritual." Call me dense, but the rest lost me somewhere--the muddled metaphor of mirrors offering glimpses of our insides. But it sounds romantic (if you don't think about it too hard. I mean, I've never glimpsed my pancreas in a mirror, nor do I care to.) Full points to Zafon!

Reading is not a natural act. Meaning, if we left our toddler to his own devices he would learn to "read" images and symbols, but not many words. The act of reading a word, then translating it into an image that represents a symbol of an action is complex and, in some sense, unnatural. A look at literacy rates in North America can only confirm how difficult of an act reading is to learn, practice, and master. 

Reading takes thousands of hours of rehearsal. Thousands of hours spent alone (minus the time spent listening to the Library Lady, a good teacher, or loving parent) engaging in the triple of act of recognizing word symbols, comprehending them, and translating them into meaning/action, and doing this very rapidly.

Is it any wonder that writers understand every moment a reader spends with their work as a sort of sacred time? A passing of one's soul through the other's. Writers move into the intimate ritual of aloneness as a ghost beside the reader while the pages turn. We want to participate fully in a feast of words we are not invited to. The feast enjoyed by the solitary reader.

What's the first thing I think of when I contemplate this feast? Of entering into the "intimate ritual" of a reader? 

Word choice.

I take it as a personal responsibility to the reader to fully engage her process of mastering reading by offering rich, textured words that evoke sensation, complex symbology, and atmosphere. The weapon of choice?

Nouns.

Ah, you thought I was going to say verbs, didn't you? Smart you. Of course verbs! They smear movement all over the page. Vital. 

But let's pause to praise the nuanced noun. 

Nouns that are specific as well as apt have a powerful effect on the readers senses, every bit as meaningful as vigorous verbs. 

Here's your assignment. Take a look at the four nouns listed below. Give them meaning, punch, and impact by offering an alternative noun that is specific, and apt. We're not looking for phrases here, just a single word.

I've offered an example noun for each--but you will be far more glorious in your reach.

Tree. (Ironwood)

Car. (Sedan)

Man. (Elder)

Street. (Lane)

Post your answers in the comment section. Be enlightening, be apt, be entertaining, and keep in mind the intimate ritual we desire to participate in as the provider of the feast of words.

*Bonus homework--for keeners only--describe yourself with three nouns. 

Why You Shouldn't Talk About Your Novel

I was talking to a writer friend of mine recently and one of the many subjects we touched on was what happens when a writer talks about his/her work in progress.

Writers love to talk about their work. It's only natural, apart from the world, clacking away on a keyboard for hours on end makes us jumpy, chatty, a little nutso when we get out among people (or is it just me?), but there are very good reasons why you shouldn't talk about your the novel you're currently working on, and not one of them is the reason you're probably thinking.

You don't really know what you're talking about. A novel is a long process, and while the general subject matter might not change over the course of writing "Chapter 1" and "The End" the content will shift remarkably. Plan all you like (and I'm a planner), but the end product will be something different from what you started out to write.

You're boring people. Your flat out excitement about the minute details of your character's existential journey is non-transferable. No one cares about your characters. Why? Because they can't read the book yet. Don't ask your friends to get worked up about something they don't understand, can't envision, and aren't able to read because it's not written. Naughty, naughty.

You're wasting your creative energy. When the eddy of ideas swirl, and you're dying to tell someone all about it, you need to sit down and write instead. If you blab all the goodie details of your latest and greatest idea, that's where the energy flows--out your mouth, into someone's ear and goodbye. When you try to sit down later and recapture the perfectness of that moment, it will elude you.

Think of it this way. Creative energy runs in unreliable pipes. It pours out into you whenever it feels like it, and runs dry the rest of the time. When you stand under its flow, you want to be certain to direct that energy into your work. If you talk about your work to someone else, you mis-direct that energy into a place that does your work no good. You're wasting that energy because (see above) it's non-transferable.

And you thought I was going to say that you shouldn't talk about your work because someone might steal your idea. Nah. Truthfully, someone has already written a book about what you're writing a book about. But not the way you write it.

Carpe Annum by saving your creative energy for your work. Pour it into the pages and no where else. Future readers will thank you.

Siphoned your energy into the wrong places? Share your cautionary tale with us. Harnessed that fickle flow right onto the page? Share your victory dance so we can dance with you.

Carpe Annum--Seize the Year! We Can All Be Astonishing

Today's post began as a Facebook status update. I wrote it earlier this week but I can't say why I wrote it. Meaning, I can't point to a particular event or circumstance that served as a catalyst for it. Sometimes life offers the pinprick of inspiration for such things (in novel writing we call it the inciting incident), but I'm hard pressed to come up with one for these thoughts. Probably because, much as we'd like it to, life doesn't work the way fiction does. Our cause and effect are often too far apart for us to clearly see them as a pair. (The job of the novelist is to bring personal cause and effect close enough together on the page for the reader to see, understand that this event brought about that event, and allow enough room for the reader to ponder how her past plays out in her present.)

Here's the status update I wrote on Facebook:

"The next time I read a book I think is badly written, or not up to my standard, or sags in the middle, or whatever, I'm going to remind myself that what I'm reading is a person's attempt to create something. And that act of creation, that attempt alone is astonishing. 

We've left ourselves in a world that will tear apart anything that smells of novice. But we've got it wrong. We need more cheering sections and less critics. We need more pom-poms and less pomp.
I need to be that fanatic encourager, for the sake of the art, yes, but more for my own sake. When I cheer for others, the clouds break above my head and I can begin to see the world as limitless. I begin to see that I too can dare to create something. That we can all be astonishing."

The comments under the update were as interesting as I could have hoped for. People were quick to separate constructive critique (which we strongly believe in) from criticism--the kind of negative review that is all scathe and no insight--which is an important distinction. I was gratified to read the conversations that took place around this topic (I often lose control of my FB wall and it is taken over by people who have conversations with each other. I enjoy this very much). 

The main point, however, is the emphasis on creation. The act of creating is, to many artists, sacred. A kind of sanctified place, if not utterly holy at least butting up against the edge of it. We employ this perspective frequently when we ourselves are writing--creating--and later when we feel the burn once the book is handed over to an editor, knowing it will not be spared the knife. I love everything about these moments of creation, editing--remodelling, recreating--precisely because I feel apart of something larger than myself.

Too often, I forget the cosmic-closeness feeling when I pick up someone else's novel. I ignore the fact that this writer too fell into the pool of creativity and taught herself to swim. Instead, I can be quick to criticize her stroke. I forgive my own flailing, my own ragged gasps as I nearly drowned in the eddy of hopeful creation, yet I press the other writer to impress me a deftness I myself do not possess.

And that is where my Carpe Annum lies. Part of how I plan to seize 2013 and make it my own is to promise myself that I will never forget the wonder, the astonishment of the creative act no matter who is creating. I love and respect story. That means, by extension, I love and respect those who work to create story. 

Love and respect. We can all be astonishing.

That's my Carpe Annum promise.

Tell us how you plan to Carpe Annum.

What is the most important aspect of fiction?

There are 6 billion things to know and learn about writing fiction. I've counted. Stayed up all night once counting and counting.

Inevitably, the question arises: What is the most important aspect of fiction? What is the essences of what makes fiction necessary? It's a question I've been thinking about for a long time. And I'm going to share my answer with you.

Yes, I have an answer.

Really. I do.

Stop smiling, I'm serious.

In order for me to tell you my answer, I must tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I sat at a kitchen table reading part of a manuscript. The author sat across from me and watched me read. She fidgeted, picking at her nails, crossing and uncrossing her legs, noisily tried to be quiet. Her squirming made me squirm too. She wanted my opinion regarding the quality of her writing and what I thought of her work in general. That’s what I thought she wanted. But I was wrong. I read on, and as I did, a strong emotion rose in me: boredom. Uh oh.

When I finished reading the scene, I pushed the pages toward her, across the table. She pulled her hands back, as if the papers might be poisoned. She wouldn't touch them. "Should I keep writing?" she asked. "Am I good enough? Or should I just forget it?" She didn’t want my thoughts on her work, she wanted something very different. Impossible.

I pulled the pages back and glanced through them again. I’m not sure why I did this. Perhaps I hoped the answer was written somewhere between the neatly typed lines. But I understood what she was asking. It’s the question that keeps most writers awake some nights.

I read through the first several lines again.

She had skills. Technically, her writing was nearly perfect. Her transitions were smooth, her characters well defined. She had nice, clean descriptive, and enviable grammar.

But.

Hmmm. Something was missing. What was it? Plot? No, she had a plot all plotted out with plot points and pointed plotting. Better go over my handy-dandy fiction must-have checklist:

Writing skill ............... Check!

Clean manuscript ......... Check!

Good plot ................... Check!

Believable characters...........Check!

Yet, the thing just laid there like a dead mackerel, staring up at me with its one good eye.

Then it hit me! (the answer, not the dead mackerel)

It was missing one thing. The MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL.

I had to answer her. We were in a small kitchen and she was blocking the only exit. I said, "You’re the only one who knows if you should keep writing. My advice is to stop writing so hard and start telling stories."

She was technically flawless, and nothing more.

Readers want a great story told in an interesting way. They want to be engaged, have fun, get lost, fall in love, feel something new, and forget time and place.

But doesn't great writing help all of that to happen? Yes, but good writing is seamless--so good it disappears in the background and the reader can focus on the story.

What's the most important aspect of writing? Storytelling.

Writing is only the means. The story is what matters.

Writers are far better off mucking around in storytelling than we are perfecting our grammar, or mastering punctuation, or detailing endlessly boring events in an attempt to “show not tell”. Story barrels down the hillside and sweeps us along with it. It roars, and whispers, and demands attention. It is bigger than its writer and readers combined. An untamed thing. Telling it takes everything we have: our skill, our action, our guts.

Have you got the swagger of a storyteller? Are you willing to abandon safe places for the sake of story? Have you done so? Share!

Spin What You Know

Thank you, everyone for your kind wishes and congrats over Talking to the Dead winning at The Word Guild Awards. Tossing those warm fuzzies right back at you! Mwah!

How can you take what you know, and spin it into a story that will speak to the world? I'm thinking it begins by asking simple, yet complex questions.

In praise of Colum McCann's novel, Let the Great World Spin, Dave Eggers said, "Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York."

I checked the back flap author info, and sure enough, Colum McCann lives in New York City with his family (born in Dublin, a stay in Japan, now in The Apple). McCann knows New York. He lives there - he's familiar with it's nooks, shops those out of the way places. Maybe rides the subways under the city, the elevators above it. It's a classic example of an author writing what he knows.

But that's not the question, here. The question is what makes Let the Great World Spin one of the 'greatest-ever' novels about New York? I can't speak for McCann, but I've made some observations while reading this novel about how McCann took what he knew and put a spin on it. Here are my imaginings of the steps McCann took:

He looked at his city (traveled through it, walking, riding, talking to people) and began to piece together an image of New York City as a whole. New York is a city divided - boroughs aligned with fear and poverty, Harlem, Queens, The Bronx, and addresses that define people more precisely than any adjective could. Park Avenue. Upper East Side. The Village. He knew all this going into the novel, of course. But he took the next step - he did what all great writers must do, he looked closer and asked himself, "What does this mean?"

It means, in part, that New York is a microcosm for American society, a sort of petri dish in which an entire nation can be observed in miniature. And in discovering this meaning, he would have asked himself the question, "How do we continue to live with each other in the face of these polemic divisions?" He would have examined the divisions - the choices and circumstances that leads some people to The Stroll, others to Park Avenue, and still others to the wild party scene, gulping the landscape like some many glasses of champagne, and, unbelievably, to walking on tightrope between the World Trade towers.

After this process, he would have turned his attention to the hinge question, the one on which the whole shooting match either works, or falls apart. He asks, "How does this city connect us to one another?"

And this is the story he tells - a city that, on the surface divides according to income, skin color, education, opportunity. A city with invisible walls that hem people in, and keep others out. But then, he takes up at the threads of the last question "How does this city connect us to one another", and he pulls. He brings the answers to the foreground where we can see them for the first time. It feels like a magic trick - TA-DA! and I can see what was only moments before invisible. I am made aware that the beating heart tucked away in a high-rise in the Bronx, gazing down at the hookers below, is connected to my own beating heart. He opens our eyes to the fact that the stranger we pass is, in reality, nearly related to us. That his existence matters to our own, and that ours matters to him.

And that is what makes it one of the greatest novels about New York. Because, in the end, its a novel about all of us.

This week we've been talking about writing what you know. As you do, ask yourself these simple, difficult questions:

What does this mean?

How does this reality affect us?

How does this reality connect us?

These questions will lead you to other questions - ones tied specifically to your subject matter, your story.

How have you taken what you know, and examined it more closely? Let your assumptions slide, and searched for the invisible threads?

Have you read a novel that has done this? We'd love to hear!

Some Thoughts on Stage Business Accompanying Dialogue by Arthur Plotnik

If you don't know Arthur Plotnik, you need to. If you do, you should invite him 'round for tea more often. He's someone who will never weary you - his e-mails alone are worthy of publishing. I should know, I've gotten a few.

When I began writing (I mean taking a full run at it) I found a book called Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style and thought, What luck! I want to write bold, contemporary, stylish stuff. Then I realized it was a STYLE book, something like good ol' Strunk and White's Elements of Style and thought, oh poop, not that stodgy stuff.

Happily, Plotnik is doing something very different with the rules- hes having a ball with them. An educated, eloquent, literary ball. I read Spunk and Bite cover to cover (let's face it, not something I do with every book on writing) and have been suggesting it to every new writer I meet.

He's here to give us insight into the art of staging.

Meet the man:

Arthur Plotnik is a versatile author with a distinguished background in editing and publishing. Two of his works have been featured selections of the Book of the Month Club: The Elements of Editing (Macmillan/Longman), a standard reference through more than twenty printings, and The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts into Words (Henry Holt / toExcel/ Barnes & Noble). Reviewers have consistently praised Plotnik's writing for its accuracy, style, and wit, often ranking it with Strunk & White in practicality.

His latest book, Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style, was published November 15, 2005, by Random House Reference. Poet Billy Collins called it "A must for every writer's desk." Lauded by Booklist, Library Journal, and many others, it is among the bestselling new titleson language and writing. A trade paperback edition (with new study guide) was published in May 2007 with the subtitle, A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style.

Plotnik has written scores of magazine articles and columns, seven nonfiction books, and numerous (pseudonymous) paperback novels. He has appeared in publications ranging from La Prensa (Bolivia) to The New York Times. Long a columnist for The Writer magazine, he serves on its Editorial Board. He previously contributed to Britannica Book of English Usage and the "American English" column of American Way in-flight magazine.

Some thoughts on stage business accompanying dialogue by Arthur Plotnik, author of Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style (Random House)

In dialogue, there are spoken words—and then there's all that other good stuff:

"I'm Holly," she said. Because she wanted no trace of an accent in her heaven, she had none.

I stared at her black hair. It was shiny like the promises in magazines. "How long have you been here," I asked.

"Three days."

"Me too."

I sat down on the swing next to her and twisted my body around and around to tie up the chains. Then I let go and spun until I stopped. "Do you like it here?" she asked. (From The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.)

Every storyteller invents stage business—the actions, gestures, and thoughts that surround dialogue and sometimes leak into the dialogue itself. Stage business–or "shtik" as I call it—gives dimensions of space, time, and texture to the linear output of talking heads. But most writers pay little attention to it as part of their craft, instead focusing on what the characters are saying and what happens to them.

Sometimes—rarely—powerful dialogue and plot can carry the show, with stage business merely a by-product. But imagine a theater director foregoing stage directions, allowing her actors to stand motionless and speak their lines like frozen manikins. Some might call it avant garde. To me it would be one step up from watching wallpaper fade.

Not to exploit the possibilities of stage business is to forfeit a powerful tool in both fiction and non-fiction. Not only does shtick give dimension, but it serves to break up what would be the monotony of long exchanges; it can advance the plot, reveal character, offer bits of information, and, of course, nuance what is being said.

"I love you," he told her.
She checked her cell phone. No messages. "Love you, too."

Stage business comes in a variety of parcels, and good writers tend to use a mix of them. Here are the main ones:

Speech tag: (Same sentence as the spoken words.) "Stop," he said, going into a show of coughing. "You’ll set off the smoke alarm."

Action tag: (In a separate sentence.) "Stop," he said. He went into a show of coughing.

Absolute phrase: (A modifying phrase with its own subject and participle.)"Stop," he said, the incense making him cough.

Thought tag: "This will relax you," she said, knowing he would start coughing as soon as she lit the incense.

Stage direction: They went through their usual ritual. She, lighting incense: "This will relax you." He, making a show of coughing: "Stop, or . . . "

Paint the picture

One of the reasons to add shtick to dialogue, of course, is to offer a picture of what's going on while people are conversing. But be sure the dialogue doesn't already give a clear picture of expression, gesture, and even action. You don't want to be redundant.

"I'm just lighting some incense—stop looking so annoyed."
"Who's annoyed? I'm simply moving the burner out to the porch. Look, I'm already kaff-kaff–coughing."

To preserve the force of good dialogue, stage directions must be used judiciously. Context and spoken words already tell the reader a great deal. Adding too much shtick can get melodramatic, look amateurish. Even bestselling authors sometimes overdo it:

"I think I'm falling in love with you, Maggie. I want you to be aware of that."
Maggie raised her eyes. They brimmed with tears. "I'm aware."
"And?" It was a tortured question.
Maggie shook her head. "Not now. I need time. Please understand."
"I have all the time in the world. I can wait. And I will."
"No one ever said that to me before." Maggie's smile was as golden as the last rays of the sun.
(From Texas Heat, by Fern Michaels)

As you might infer, you'll want to avoid stage business cliches, such as "her eyes twinkled." Common gestures such as "he sipped his coffee" or "she shrugged," however, are fine if not repeated too often. When most people smoked tobacco, the business of lighting, puffing, and discarding cigarettes provided a treasury of shtick. We've lost that prop and good riddance. But dining is still so rich in stage business ("she delved into her melon," writes John Fowles) that some authors make the meal more interesting than the dialogue.
The language of nonverbal expression constitutes a whole lexicon. The more of it you study, the more you’ll accompany the right word with the right gesture. Sources like How to Read a Person Like a Book (Gerard I. Nierenberg and Henry H. Calero) can be helpful. A good Web site is The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, and Body Language Clues.”
For all that, you don't want to create shtick that gets in the way of dialogue--its drama, flow, and momentum. Stage business should be efficient and, in most cases, move in and out of the dialogue seamlessly.

Three suggested exercises:

1. Look for telling gestures, expressions, and postures when you watch people speaking. Note down the ones that pack information or that might seem fresh in writing. Don't forget that types of silence (e.g., prayer) or resistance to gesture can be just as powerful as action.
2 Share your observations or thoughts on stage business with this blog. Offer (for comment) some brief samples from your own writing.
3. Whatever fiction or creative nonfiction you happen to be reading, start paying attention to the stage business; note when it's done especially well or poorly. Soon you'll be a master of evaluating your own shtick.

(Copyright 2008, Arthur Plotnik)

Character Emotions and You

But some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint - like a heartbeat. And pure love: why, some days it's so quiet, you don't even know it's there. ~ Erma Bombeck



No wonder we writers struggle so much with the depiction of character emotions. Overplay them and you slip into melodrama. Underplay, and the reader misses them altogether. You have to understate (not underplay) in such a way that the reader is taken by surprise with feelings that burst from his or her own heart - not from your pen - and you have to build those feelings one by one till they crescendo at the end of the story into something unforgettable.
Chekhov instructed us to make the hero's state of mind clear from his actions. Show, don't tell. But I would add to that an elegant secret I have observed in stories I have loved: skillfully establish a character's interior life through everything she says and does, and when the big moment comes, the one thing she most fears or most longs for, you can simply state what happens, and end the chapter. We already know what she feels.


I find writing emotion particularity difficult in first-person. The temptation is to spill it all out there. "My heart folded in on itself." "A cold finger of dread traced my spine." "A bubble of panic popped in my gut." Used minimally, this works. But there are just so many ways a body produces emotions. In first-person, the challenge is to show the POV character taking action on their emotions. In fact, it's such a challenge, my mind has gone completely blank.

Let me flip through the pages...yes, here's an amazing example. In this opening lines from What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg, we know how the first-person POV character is feeling by what she sees and how she sees it:

Outside the airplane window the clouds are
thick and rippled, unbroken as acres of land. They are suffused with
peach-colored, early morning sun, gilded at the edges. Across the aisle, a man
is taking a picture of them. Even the pilot couldn't keep still--"Folks," he
just said, "we've got quite a sunrise out there. Might want to have a look." I
like it when pilots make such comments.
It lets me know they're awake.

She's nervous about flying! Subtle. Very subtle.
~
It's funny, I'm the opposite of Patti. I love writing first person, and for me it's the easiest POV for conveying emotion. (And I love What We Keep. I read it a few months ago at Patti's suggestion. It's excellent.) But emotion is never easy to write, because, as Katy said, it's so easy to turn into melodrama. Conveying the emotion you want to convey without overstating or resorting to just saying, "She was angry, sad, afraid, etc." is not easy. But this is truly the time to show, not tell if you want your reader to really get submersed in your story. The fact that your character picks at her thumbnail till it bleeds tells us plenty about what she's feeling. Or if she holds her middle as if it's the only way to keep her guts from spilling out, that tells us too. When I'm writing an especially emotionally charged scene, regardless of the emotion, I try to literally put myself there. I want to see what my character sees, hear what she hears, know what she knows, understand the stakes, weigh the consequences, then I can share what she feels. To do that, I have to draw on my own emotional experiences, and that can be uncomfortable at the very least. But it gets me into the moment. Then I rehearse the scene as if I'm playing the part. When I can honestly feel what she feels, I'm ready to write the scene, and hopefully make the reader feel it.
~
The best advice that I've heard about emotion in characters is to use crying very sparingly. This builds on what Katy said about understatement. It is much more powerful to show your character contemplating something that symbolizes their sadness (for example, the toy of a deceased child or replaying the last voicemail from a spouse who has left) than to show the raw emotion itself. Of course, there is a natural place for tears (I've used it myself) but readers grow tired of overuse. I once read a novel by a New York Times bestselling author where the protagonist had lost a loved one and cried on every other page. The sympathy I felt for the character drained away quickly and I grew impatient with her. Crying is a tricky emotion to portray. State it simply or have your character wipe away a tear rather than give a description of full-blown sobbing. Tears can detract from a scene.

There is a scene in the movie Always that has stayed with me over the years. Holly Hunter is sitting in the semi-darkness of a dreary, sparsely furnished room with a look of utter despair on her face after the death of a loved one. If she was crying, I don't remember it, but even now I still sense her pain and hopelessness. The atmosphere was thick with it, and the emotion was more powerful because the room (description) embodied her sadness.

What these other wise women have said is a wake-up call for me, because I recognized that I've got that cryin'-thang going on in my novel. But because I'm writing an historical I just call it weeping and thought it's okay. Not.

The other challenge I'm having -- and I'm hoping some readers can help me out with it -- is how to show character emotions through silence. In other words, people often respond to my protag by not saying anything at all -- for variety of reasons. Now, in music, you can write in several measures of rest. How do you do that in fiction? How do you make sure the reader doesn't just trip along to the next line of dialogue and instead, like the characters, lets it sink in? I mean, you can only say, "They sat in silence a long time" so many times. And now I can't say, "They wept in silence," either.

She does not contemplate the ebb of time as she loves to do. To daydream the ticking moments, dream of holding firm to seconds, minutes, hours. She knows they are ideas, contemplations we all agreed to about how best to divide the day. But she's not thinking about this now as fingers poke and jab at her keyboard. Jut, jut, backspace, misspell, backspace. She doesn't look at the clock, she knows enough what it says. The bright light in the window is enough. Peck, jut, backspace. Fingers tatter at the keyboard, piling words like stones, one on top of the other. A hasty alter on which she will offer up her thoughts to the blog readers. Jut, clack, backspace, misspell, backspace, delete, peck, jut, jab.

Wielding Words With Wisdom

On Monday Sharon talked about words that rankle - trigger words that can make a reader sit up and take notice (or itch). I'm in the throes of editing my next novel and Sharon's post reminded me how powerful words are.

In that spirit, and considering we are running our second Audience with An Agent contest, I wanted to share with you a list of the top ten things you can do to improve your writing in 2010.

1) Write to the right audience
You have an amazing story - now picture yourself reading it aloud, - to an empty cow pasture. The story is fantastic, but no one is listening. How can you ensure your story will find an audience? By knowing your audience before you write. Part of it is to understand the genre you write in, but it goes beyond that to the actual people who will read (and love) your story. Think of specific people in your life and write to them. Knowing your audience will sharpen your fiction, keep it on track, and help you use the perfect words to express the story.

2) Let go of your inhibitions
A sure-fire line to kill a great story? "Oh no! I could NEVER write that!" I'm not talking porno or profanity, we're all sick to death of being bombarded with those things. I'm talking about holding back from asking the bigger questions, poking evil in the eye, having a character act in a way that you would never act, or think things you would never think. By avoiding difficult conflict, you're killing off the best parts of your fiction, the parts that examine questions we all have. Wrestling with story is wresting with life. I say, "Let 'er rip!"

3) Make space
Grab some real estate in your home and make it your writing space. Guard it. Don't let junk mail pile there, don't let kids toys and other people's cell phones clutter your space. You don't necessarily have to have a whole room, just a space to call your own. By taking your writing seriously, you'll train everyone in your household to take it seriously too. If you're feeling cramped and crowded in, it will show up in your writing.

4) Clear your mind
A writing life can be a cloistered one - all that tip-tapping away on a keyboard, deep in thought, lost in a storyline that doesn't quiet make sense yet. Make a habit of getting out there in the world. My Dad calls it, "Blowing the stink off" and every writer needs to do it. Writing is a reflection of life and it's issues and you need to experience those things in order to write about them. Take breaks, call a friend, get out of the house and clear your mind - it sets the stage for fantastic fiction writing.

5) Read dense books
Like to write zippy cozy mysteries? Got a passion for chick-lit? Great! But you owe it to yourself to get out of the wading pool and swim in deep waters. Get lost in a classic book, or discover a shining new literary talent. Find a book that challenges the assumptions of your life, examines questions you've never asked and boggles your mind. Wrestle with the text, suffer through the passages you don't understand, or care for. Read outside your favorite genre - Your writing will blossom.

6) Be passionate
Find the things in life that move you, thrill you, anger you, enthrall you. Then chase them for awhile. Rub up against people who aren't like you. Find that gutsy, lusty, go-for-the-gusto part of you and embrace it. Great fiction is filled with passion for living, for people, and for stories. Throw open the doors of your heart and embrace your red-hot joy for living.

7) Stop trying to explain
Fiction must be about human experience. Many writers, in an earnest attempt to convey a meaningful message, resort to heavy-handed, neatly wrapped packages (especially endings) and hollowed out characters who only exist to serve the message. Give your characters depth and let them live out the story instead of trying to live up to your message. Remember, life is messy - therefore fiction needs to be messy.

8) Be Unique
Every writer looks to other writing for inspiration - each of us stands on the shoulders of writers before us. But there comes a time when you must leave the road others have travelled and forge your own path. You must tell your story your way - not the way your favorite author would, not the way your Pastor's wife would, not the way your Great Aunt Bea would. Fling your own words around the page. Dig deep, and trust your instincts.

9) Try something new that scares you
It's been said, "Fiction is conflict". Writers love to dream up characters and then throw them into all sorts of harrowing circumstances. But when was the last time you had a heart-pounding adventure? How can you recreate the feelings, sensations, and inner dialogue of someone in peril if you haven't left your house for ten years? Find something that makes your pulse jump and go experience it!

10) Admit life isn't simple
Okay, you have a great story, wonderful characters, a theme, an outline - everything is ducky! But check again - have you tied too neat a bow on the whole package? Have you let your characters get sloppy, make mistakes, and put their foot in their mouth? Is your story a journey with pit-stops? Life isn't a simple tale, and your fiction shouldn't be either. We all like happy endings, but it's so much more interesting to leave a few threads loose.