All I Want...

Post deleted due to being overly sentimental.

Beginning to End--The Story Arc

I responded to a fellow writer's blog post yesterday, and her response to my response threw out a challenge. Determined not to let another two months pass before posting here, I want to take up that challenge. Joyce Alton, group moderator of the Speculative Fiction Group over at Agent Query Connect, talked about the importance of not overworking the beginning of your novel before you've finished the whole draft. Her excellent post is here.

The discussion about overworking the beginning before you really know the full and final shape of your work-in-progress had me thinking about the importance of knowing the ending before you can really craft your beginning. Each depends on the other. In writing any kind of fiction, we discuss the importance of arcs--character arcs and story arcs. Without those arcs, there is little drive forward and little satisfaction if, getting to the ending, we aren't fulfilled by the promise given at the start. And how can you know just what to promise you're going to deliver before you actually know what it is that you have delivered?

There are as many ways to approach writing a novel as there are writers. We tend to fall somewhere on a spectrum from "pantser" to "planner," from those who begin with an idea and just ride with it to those who outline the entire story first. I fall closer to the pantser end of the scale. I have to have an idea, main characters, an antagonist, and a fairly clear idea of where I want the story to end. But I know from others who plan nearly every plot point and twist, that no matter how much or little we plan before we start, as we work our way through, our characters will tend to surprise us. Events will occur that we didn't foresee. A surprising twist will take us to a place unexpected, and by the time we reach the end, though it may be just where we wanted it to go, in getting there we may have created something that has changed in tone or brought in aspects that we didn't know would happen when we were laboring to get that killer opening. So don't. 

Getting the ending right, of course, is just as important as the beginning. Well, and everything between, too. But we're talking about that arc, the big arc, the story arc. The opening of our books are a promise to the reader. In a few sentences, a few paragraphs, a few pages, we're showing the reader what we are going to give them. We have very little time to grab and hold them, and that first impression had better be right on the mark. It had better nail the tone of the book, introduce a character and an enticing problem. And it had better have hints of what's to come. That's what will keep the reader reading, make her want to take your book home. But you'd better deliver on that promise made, or you'll have a disappointed reader who won't be back. And how can you make that promise before you know just what, over the length of your manuscript, up to your oh, so satisfying conclusion, you will have delivered? I promise, no matter how carefully planned, it won't be exactly what you thought it would be when you began. So before you sweat that beginning, get to that ending. Sweat that for a while.

Ah, the ending. Whether happy or sad, explosive or quietly thoughtful, it must deliver. This is where the reader sits back with that last page open for a second or two and has his "Ahhh" moment. All the ends have been tied up. All the characters (in my own case, it would be those who survive) have gotten what they deserved or realized what they needed to learn. Promise fulfilled. Easy enough, right? Well, after about ten versions of my last chapter, I realized how many variations were possible before combining and polishing to what felt satisfying. And you know what? It made the beginning I'd worked on, but thankfully had not dwelt on too much, not right at all. It lacked the tone. It started in the wrong place. It meandered where it needed to punch. It needed the ending, the feel of the ending, to get it right. In other words, before I knew, really knew, what the whole scope of the novel would be delivering, actually did deliver, I couldn't really make that promise. 

So, as they used to say, don't stop to polish, polish, polish, wear out your beta readers, and stall your progress--keep on truckin'. Get to the end. You may think you know the arc your story will take, but you don't know until you get there exactly what you will have delivered on the promise you made. Then you can go back and make sure that promise is just what it needs to be to deliver that final "Ahhh."

The story arc--don't make promises you don't keep. But each of us has a different way to get there. What's yours?

Beginning Again, Again

Well, dang. Here it is, another two months, a new year, and I'm just getting back. I don't make resolutions, but I do set (movable) goals. The full moon coming close on the heels of Twelfth Night seemed a good place to start. Festivals over, and the first full moon of what may be the last year, if we're to believe some interpreters of the Maya forecast. For myself, I choose to ally myself with those who think it is the end of an age and the start of something new. Surely does feel as if things are coming to a head. (Why does that bring to mind John Belushi in Animal House?) 


So, the full moon comes, and true to my inner werewolf, I enjoyed the first night of insomnia of the year. Did I toss and turn? Did I get out of bed and write? No and no. I lay there waiting for sleep, and waiting, and waiting. Until 5 AM. But I did, as I lay there, determining I'd be more faithful to my writing life. I will blog more often than once every two months. I will restart the querying process. I will not hate my last novel, and I will begin a new one. I will revisit my query, now that I've slotted the novel into a different, more apropos genre and given it a new and darker title. And then there's that dreaded synopsis. But it’s a new year for a new start, right?


And I must get back to the community. I've not participated much at all. I will confess (see back a couple of posts) that I do see the new queries being posted for critique as they come into my e-mail, and I understand more and more the increasing number of agents who choose not to reply or do so with a very polite, generic, form rejection. Most of those, I read only the first sentence, and sometimes I don't even finish that much. If I read one more "The last thing MC expected…" or "17 year old MC never thought…", or even worse, some cute thematic sentence with no MC (main character), no stakes, no threat, and no reason to keep reading. And I'm only seeing a few a day. Agents are seeing 100 or so. Every day. Reject. Reject. But that's not helping anyone.


I think we help each other improve by simply supporting each other. It ain't an easy road, this writing path, and lately the landscape is changing so fast that keeping up with the publishing world is almost a full-time task, let alone reading and commenting on others' blogs and critiquing queries and synopses. I have no children to get to school or soccer or ballet or piano, no dog to walk. I do have a job, but its hours are variable. And yet I struggle to fit into the day all those things. And I didn't even include the most important—the sit your ass down in the chair and write part.


So, a new cycle begins. Nothing resolved, but goals in mind. And maybe something of value to give. Definitely a lot to do. But first, get some sleep. And then, as Yoda said, "just do."

Blogging, Branding, and Vampire Blood

Another two months gone without a post to this blog. I think it's safe to assume, at least for this extended moment of passage, that I am not a social media creature. Again I ponder what I have to say that would matter. I struggle with the notion of creating "a brand" of myself. Hell, I only recently found that the novel I've danced with long after the ball ended isn't paranormal, which never felt right to me, but more probably science fiction. Well shut my mouth. If I can't even peg the genre in which I've wallowed for these many years, how can I advise anyone else about things writerly? Simple: I don't.


I read on others' blogs on social networking and building platform that one shouldn't set out to build a platform or create a brand for one's self. One should simply identify who his target audience is and write to them. Target audience for the novel that I'd be pitching, should I ever land an agent or publisher? That assumes that the audience for that novel would be the same audience for future works and for the random digressions, wanderings down dark hallways of the mind, that make up the blog posts or tweets. Yikes. Somehow those short 140 character things seems more daunting than full posts, so much more ripe with likelihood of instant dismissal. What the fuck is he talking about? 


So who would be my desired audience? They'd be people who love to delve into the mysteries of the common threads that tie together the hidden (dare I say occult?) knowledge of the working of the universe that runs through all religions and is pretty much equally distorted by all of them. People who are willing to believe, but don't necessarily believe. Everything is possible. Nothing is absolutely true. But mostly, I want to talk to people who can go there and laugh about it, and laugh at themselves. 


Above all, they say, be funny. I can be funny, but I don't write funny, and the kind of humor I like best leans heavily toward the dark and twisted side. Erotic. Profane. Quentin Tarantino. I haven't figured out how to address that in blog posts, especially ones about writing, the writer's journey, querying, and all those things that every other person in the publishing world writes about. 


What do I write about then? What kinds of things would I want to toss around with kindred souls? Let's get irreverent. Was the archangel who came to Mary of Biblical fame really an alien visitor? Was her son, the famous one, really the offspring of a human/alien mating? Are the creatures of the night, the ones of legend, vampires, werewolves, goblins, all alien beings playing on our superstitions, giving us what we are afraid of? Are miracles a simple matter of high-level manipulation of what we perceive as reality? Can we laugh at all those possibilities fooling with us, scaring us, and, alternatively, raising us up? After all, alien doesn't necessarily mean from another planet. Just another place. And just because they might exist and operate on a different level of perceived reality from us, mightn't they be just as prone to extremes of good and evil, whatever those are on whatever scale is used to measure them?


See, there just aren't viable tweets there. Or even posts. Do I believe all that shit? Bwa ha ha. No. Well, maybe. Why not? Could be. What was that wheel within the wheel? Sure is one hell of a lot more likely than humans and dinosaurs sharing the planet together after a seven day splurge of creation. No shortage of scared, desperate hopefuls willing to buy the snake oil. How about a vial of blood instead?

Many thanks to Angie for her invitation to talk about what inspires my writing.

Short answer: the magic of words.

 I began reading early, and early discovered the power of words to transport me, to show me the world in new ways, to take me to places unknown. I didn't begin churning out stories as a kid, as many seem to do. I absorbed and observed. I read, not just for the stories, but for the magic of the words themselves.

I've always read slowly. To me, a joy of reading is in the rhythm and color of beautifully constructed sentences, of images that startle me with their clarity, that cause me to read a sentence or paragraph over again just to immerse myself in it. I always will stop to smell the roses.

My early years as the son of a Presbyterian minister whose father had been a missionary to Korea, where my father was born, exposed me to a world of music, art, and spirituality. I played piano, and later, guitar and other folk instruments. I learned the power of art in its many forms to move people. And I learned, as I grew through school, that I had a talent with words.

For a brief time, I taught high school English, and my greatest reward (maybe the only one) came from seeing my kids awaken to their own power with words. I assigned controversial topics for essays and drew stories out of them. Convince me, I said. Make me believe.

Somewhere along the way, in college (isn't that where it always happens?) I began to question dogma.  New possibilities, worlds beyond worlds, unseen forces teased me to look, to wonder.

I wrote songs. Love songs. Songs of social protest. I used the power of words to influence, to move, and to entertain. I wrote poetry, unstudied, free, spontaneous, and the world around me became a live canvas from which to draw.

I'm moved to write because I can. Because the world is a huge, fascinating, terrifying place. A place of ecstasy and sorrow, of heroism and cowardice, of generosity and love and cold, hard malice.  And I've come to feel that we who write have a power to inspire the better aspects of our humanity while seeing all the colors and shying from none. We can entertain. We can offer distraction from pain. We can paint with words. We can show the strength of love in the unlikeliest circumstances.

If, with my use of words, I can transport a reader to a new place, make her look up from the page in an "oh, wow" moment, or cringe in horror, or laugh, or cry, then I've worked a bit of magic.

The pen may well be mightier than the sword. In good hands, it's a magician's wand.

Writer, Do Your Work

Just write. Summer's over, I told myself. Get back in that saddle. Back in the literary social network groove. Engage, crit, comment. Review agents to query. Wait. Go back and look at that query again first. Maybe farther back, to the synopsis. (Or maybe just move on.) But do your work.

So I pulled out an old short I started months ago and made myself sit my ass in the chair and keep going, and I added about 700 words in an afternoon of writing. And I revised my last post here. I did write. Some. Didn't get back to that query yet, though.

Needing to re-engage in the aforementioned social network, I started again reading queries on the wonderful Agent Query Connect site. Most I couldn't comment on. If you don't have anything nice to say… Why oh why do new members (not all, mind you) come on board, say they've lurked and read and are so nervous about putting their work out there (who isn't?), and then prove in their first lines that they haven't done even the most basic research on query writing? There are SO many available resources and guides, and yeah, they often disagree and differ, but there are so many basics, it's amazing that these writers jump into what is a professional place only to prove their complete lack of professionalism.  

I have ranted about this onsite, and plenty of members added their comments. We want to be helpful, supportive, and AQC is all that and more. But what can you say to someone whose opener, the first line a prospective agent will see, is a run-on sentence? A hypothetical question that begs a sarcastic answer? A complete non-hook statement of theme. Telling what the book is about rather that showing enough of the main character to make a reader care and enough conflict to make said reader want to read more?

Querying rules? Discussions aplenty on them-- There are none. They're made to be broken. Stay in the mold and be mediocre. All true (usually.) But as with the craft of writing itself, first you have to know the rules, divergent as they are. Know the accepted conventions. Then make the piece your own, in your voice, in the voice of the novel. Be bold, be original.

 Does the hook have to open the query, or the genre/word count? I'm of the hook-first school, but many successful authors are not, and since I'm not among that group, I have no authority. But the importance of the first line comes home when you are reading through queries as they come in by email. By far the largest number lose me in the first line. If I were an agent, that's an instant rejection. Sometimes it's the subject. I'm not a huge YA reader, and while I was a horror movie freak as a kid, vampires to me are the Dracula type, not Edward Cullen. If I see one more opening with a teen werewolf, fallen angel, or demon, grab the barf bag. That said, grab me with a strong lead (lede) and I'll follow you anywhere. But if I see the writing itself is bad grammatically, why read on? I don't.

Pay attention to your craft, writers. Every phase of it is craft. Craft can and must be learned, or you can never be taken seriously. Even if you do learn the craft, the rough truth is you still may not be. But if you can't take the time to learn, to self-edit, to polish, there isn't much to offer you in the way of guidance. I'm no expert. We're all always still learning. Do your work. It will pay off.

Writing the Bronc

It's been a long and brutal winter, a cold, wet spring, a stifling summer, and writing was forced to the back seat. February it turns out, proved not to be the most difficult month. March brought not only more bleak cold but an unwelcome diagnosis for my partner. A hell of a birthday present for him. Consultations and decisions followed, and time moved on. It always does.

Then the rains came. Days, weeks of it. Cold rain, flooding fields until long after the sowing season. Stuck indoors, I completed another complete revision of The Guardian at the Gateway, my sidekick for longer than many marriages. At last, a few days of perfect Spring weather allowed planting of patio pots and some weeding of the bountiful crop of weeds the rains had encouraged. But before all that could be finished, swamp-like heat settled in, precluding any further outdoor activity except sitting outdoors of an evening with adult beverages, pretending that it was just lovely here on the bayou.

Meanwhile, the day job picked up ridiculously (a good thing, considering the state of real estate today) as the regimen of daily treatments proceeded for my partner, and my writing and critiquing stalled out. I haven't restarted querying since my last two revisions. I've become less confident, or more unsure, since much of my reading during this time has been the constant chatter on the Internet about the rapidly changing world of publishing. With the growing importance of e-books, e-readers (I don't have one—yet), and e-publishing, the traditional routes are being challenged, new ones being explored and developed, and fewer and fewer traditional publishers are willing to take on any but already-known authors or personalities. We unknowns must consider self-pubbing, small independent houses, going digital and going it virtually (pun intended) alone. One must dive into social media and develop their own fanbase. Blog. Tweet. Network.

I suck at it. Key factor: consistency. Every six months or so? I don't think so.

Here's the thing. I see people I "know" from writers' sites who've landed an agent (or not) almost frantically blogging and tweeting about their blog posts to drive others to friend (when did friend become a verb?) or follow them. Some are quite good, but now there are a gazillion blogging writers, agents, and other literary types all talking about the same things with slightly different angles or takes. Who could possibly read them all, get their own done, and still find the time to write? Obviously some do. But not me. At least not this Winter-Spring-Summer. Not yet.

So I question whether I really want what the writing life entails these days. No longer can a writer rely on their agent and publisher to be the primary marketer of their work, if they want it out there. Writers have always had a responsibility to promote their own work. Now they must become the primary person doing that, devoting countless hours to blogging, guest blogging, anything to build interest in them as writers and in their work, in their unique voice. Be funny. Be relevant. Be interesting. Be different. And, oh yeah, be writing that next novel. No one wants a writer who isn't writing.

Well, what fun would it all be without challenge? Do I want to have to do all that? Make myself heard above the chatter?  Do I just want to write, to express myself, to tell stories, draw images, move hearts and minds? Or do I want to be a writer? Am I up to the job? Cowboy up, bucko.

How do you ride the bronc?