Tag Archives: words

August 22, 2010 · 10:54 pm

“Life is like a box of chocolates,” but …

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… but don’t send one to your agent.

At least don’t send one to an agent you are trying to get to represent you.

I recently attended a writing conference, Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com) and will be posting some of what I learned, along with some impressions and comments.

One agent talked about receiving a query for representation that included an Indian charm in it. He said he didn’t know what to do with it. While he was not superstitious, he was afraid to give it away or even throw it away. In the end, he tossed into the back of his desk drawer, where it still resides.

Other items received by agents included a large plastic cockroach wrapped up and included in envelope along with a letter saying how the author was just buggy to have the agent represent him. Another writer sent a query letter in a large envelope “bulked up” with shredded paper to increase the chances the agent would see it.

Photoshoping the agent’s head on top of the body of a friend, with your arm draped over your agent/friend doesn’t work either.

Also, sending in a query on colored or scented paper, or in envelopes marked “urgent” or “time sensitive” won’t help you.

And lest you think that it is only the magical or the madcap you shouldn’t send, don’t send the more mundane or mouth-watering either. No homemade goodies; no store-bought ones. And certainly don’t send cash.

Life might be like a box of chocolates, and your mama might have told you that, but also remember the rest of the quote, particularly from the agent’s point of view: “You never know what you’re going to get.”

So, surprise the agent with a memorable query letter pitch he or she can’t forget, and not a surprise the agent will pitch into the trash or back of the desk drawer.

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August 7, 2010 · 10:15 pm

The Perils of Writing: character hook

Writing tip: character hook

Butterfly on feet

Sometimes even the largest story still needs a little touch

Once upon a time, I attended the Harriette Austin Writers Conference in Athens, GA. At that time, one of the speakers was an editor with a large publishing firm in New York City. He was a University of Georgia graduate, who had come back to the conference to dispense nuggets of experience and wisdom in his bare feet.

As was my biological predilection, my internal clock being generously out of step with the atomic one that governs the external world, I arrived a little late to the auditorium and found a seat along the aisle but not too far forward so as not to disturb the editor who was about to speak.
After the good morning pleasantries, he said that he often received manuscripts in which the subject matter was as grand as the universe itself (which was understandable since he was an editor of this publisher’s science fiction line of books), but that there was often something missing. He said the little telling character details were often missing. He said the main character could be an important negotiator at an intergalactic conference of species trying to save their galaxy from destruction and time was running. Despite the importance of the conference and the importance of the main character, there was nothing the reader could easily identify with, because there was no “character hook,” something small, even banal, that the reader could identify with. He then asked, what if the main character’s feet hurt? What if this character’s feet hurt because his shoes were too tight and that was what he was focused on at the start of this important conference. The editor said it is this small, telling detail that would provide the hook that would make the rest of the story believable. In this case, the protagonist had a problem the reader could easily identify with. But it could also be a small character detail, such as unruly red hair or preference for the color purple that could provide a hook for the reader.

This editor then stepped around from behind the lectern. He stood on the stage before us in his bare feet. With the microphone in his hand, he looked down at this toes and wiggled them. Then, he looked back up at us.

“Now,” he said, “you may not remember a single thing I say up here today. But I bet you’ll remember I was barefoot.”

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July 30, 2010 · 6:29 pm

The Perils of Writing: Tension

Writing tip: Building a better story: tension

Bookends to death

Tension, what is it, how to get it.

In the last installment, I said there was a difference between conflict and tension. Conflict, as Bob McKey pointed out, is the gap between expectation and result. The gap can be small, such as being overcharged a dime or great, such as losing a loved one when you thought he would survive.

The best way to explain tension is to refer to a small book on writing by the writer and editor Algis Budrys, Lithuanian for “Gordon John Sentry, more or less.” His book, Writing to The Point: A complete guide to selling fiction is only 64 pages long, and may be hard to get. But this Strunk and White-sized guide to writing is worth your time (and it even covers manuscript formatting).

For Gordon John Sentry, more or less, a story consists of seven parts: 1) a character 2) in a context with a 3) problem, who 4) makes an intelligent attempt to solve the problem and 5) fails, tries a second time and fails, tries a third time and finally 6) succeeds or completely fails, and whose actions are then 7) validated by another character in the story.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? That is the allure of telling a good story. But the execution is often more difficult, for writer as well as story character. Step 4 – 6 above is where in a story you find tension. The key is that the character makes an intelligent attempt and fails. With increased knowledge, he or she tries again, and fails. The increased knowledge increases the stakes in the attempt and thus increases the tension. After all, it should succeed, right? Then there is a third and final attempt. This is, in essence, all or nothing, so the tension should be at its highest here.

Tension, then, is something that builds over the life of the story, fueled by and feeding into the conflict. A well known love story may provide the clearest example. Romeo and Juliet loved each other. Their families, however, were adversaries. Romeo and Juliet attempted to find a way to manifest their love in the midst of this conflict, each time failing until each makes one last effort that leads to both their deaths. In this example, the tension builds in opposition to the conflict, which is fairly clever if you think about, and because of that opposition, the conflict works to heighten the tension.

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July 26, 2010 · 9:32 pm

The Perils of Writing: Building a better story: Conflict

Writing tip: conflict

Pen chasing writer

Conflict: expectation vs result

In the last installment of this feature, I put forth a little paradigm about writing that started off with “Drama is conflict….” But what is conflict? Is it open hostilities between two armies? It can be. It is the harsh words a husband has for a wife? It can be that, too. It is dealing with opposing desires or wants, such as deciding between love and honor? Yes, it can be that as well.

But all three examples listed above and in a host of others there is a common thread, something unspoken, and as important as words are, it is often the unspoken or unwritten element that defines a scene in a story and sometimes the story itself.

As I said in the previous article, I learned the paradigm that begins “Drama is conflict …” in 1993. Some twelve years later, and even though I wasn’t looking, I learned from author, screen writer, and teacher Steven Womack a definition of conflict that adds depth and, dare I say, meaning to the word conflict and the entire paradigm. He credits learning it from Bob McKey, a script doctor. McKey has made a living and a small fortune fixing other people’s scripts though he often doesn’t get screen credit for it. All scripts need conflict; conflict drives the story forward. How will the protagonist react? What will she do? But conflict is not car chases, gun battles, or galaxies spiraling out of control. Conflict, McKey said, is the gap between expectation and result. That’s it.

Conflict can be as small as being overcharged a dime and how your protagonist reacts or as great as losing a battle when the protagonist fought hard to win. In both examples, there is a gap between expectations and results. How your protagonist deals with that gap and what steps he takes to close it are what drives a story forward, whether the story is a script, a short story, or a novel. The obstacles in the way preventing the protagonist from easily closing that gap are what are called tension, but that is a discussion for another time.

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July 25, 2010 · 3:58 pm

The perils of writing: building a better story

Writing tips

Man with paperclips in his nose and ears.

The perils of writing

My writing is distinctly middle brow. Just ask anybody who has suffered through it. Still, I like to think that even in my middling way, I can still offer some helpful advice when I stumble across it. Therefore, from time to time, I will post some writing advice, but not from me. The advice will come from established sources. I will endeavor not to make it overlong or overreaching, and sometimes it will simply be reminders of what we all probably already know, but it will be some tips I have picked up from reading, from attending writing conferences, or it may even come from you.

The first bit of advice comes from a writing course the Writers’ Guild sponsored way back in 1993. The teacher was Joseph Gunnels and the cost was $75. It was two-day event, May 15 and 16, and we spent part of a pleasant afternoon sitting on the grass outside the Candy Factory on The World’s Fair site in Knoxville, TN. I took over 30 pages of notes, but rather than bore you with details, here is the essence of what I took away from the seminar:

Drama is conflict;
Without conflict no action;
Without action no character;
Without character no story;
Without story, who cares?

In a future issue of this newsletter, I’ll give you a short, crisp definition for conflict that I learned at a more recent one-day writing seminar. It comes from a very highly regarded script doctor in Hollywood, but applies just as well to other forms of fiction writing. Stay turned.

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July 22, 2010 · 10:18 pm

The Supercilious Door

Didn’t you know, there’s a secret marketing department office called SuDoo? Their job is to make things super-silly-to-us, or supercilious when said fast enough. They once had a sign that hung on their door that said “Supercilious Department.” Others called it “the SD door” for short. The sign was so heavy that it kept falling off. At first, people walking by would pick it up, knock on the door, and give the sign to whomever answered. Eventually, people got tired of this, especially since the people inside never said thank you. Finally, the sign fell down and nobody picked it up or knocked on the door to tell the SD their sign was down. The work day ended and as the first SD member stepped through the door, he stepped on the sign. It shattered under his weight and shot out in different directions, one piece wedging under the door to the Supercilious Department, preventing them from closing it. Because he had shattered the sign and the door couldn’t be fixed for several weeks, the sign breaker was stationed at the door to keep people out. He became known as the Supercilious Department Door Keeper, which was too long for people in the office to say, so it became shorted to the Supercilious Door Keeper, and eventually SDK. But the head of the Supercilious Department didn’t like that and insisted that the first time people greeted the door keeper, they had to refer to him as the Supercilious Department Door Keeper. Subsequent references during the day could be shorted to Supercilious Door Keeper. One day, a new employee from another department had a package that needed to go immediately to the Supercilious Department Head, but when he got to the door, he found the Supercilious Department Door Keeper would not let him in. The Door Keeper told him he could send a note inside the department, and the person for whom the package was addressed, could come forward and get it. The new employee pulled and pen and a scrap piece of paper out of his pocket and began his note. Unfortunately, the pen ran out of ink, and so the employee couldn’t finish his note, and since this employee was late for another meeting, he left the package outside the door. The Door Keeper forgot about the package, and eventually it was time to leave work. As the head of the department left, he saw the package, picked it up, recognized its importance, and looked around. When he spotted the Door Keeper making his way to the elevator, he yelled out, “Hey, you, Supercilious Door K—.” It was then that the package exploded. The Department head lost his, and as it turned out, the package was not what he thought it was, but in loving tribute to the Department head who lost his, the rest of the department and eventually those throughout the building referred to the Supercilious Door Keeper as the Supercilious Dork. Over time, the Supercilious Dork rose to be head of the department and because he was so stigmatized and traumatized by what happened that day, he has forever more made it his mission to shorten the names of things. And he never picks up strange packages, especially ones addressed to Supercilious Dork.

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July 5, 2010 · 12:47 pm

The Painted Beast

There once was an ex-cop who did poorly
At being a father and what’s more he
Killed his ex-wife
But then offered up his life
To save his daughter from a life in pornography.

[Editor’s note: this is a distillation of my novel The Painted Beast into a short limerick form. It does not capture all the twists and turns of the novel, but if I had to describe at least one main feature of it in 50 words or less, this would probably do.]

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June 18, 2010 · 7:05 pm

To guess at what happened or posit

Now the portmanteau sits in a closet
Like a gift awaiting a deposit.
The once-Lady from Kent
Won’t even relent
To guess at what happened or posit.

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June 17, 2010 · 7:24 pm

A portmanteau whose latch was bent

So, there was a once-Lady from Kent
Who stole the suitcase and went
Under the cover of night
On a single-engine flight
With a portmanteau whose latch was bent.

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June 16, 2010 · 8:00 pm

Liberty

Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it. –George Bernard Shaw

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