Observations

By Suzanne Roberts

I’ve collected some ideas in my attempts to make my writing more natural and clear, so that the reader can see and feel what’s happening in the story and know the main characters well.

Dialogue must be accurate, and, since I can’t always remember exactly how a person spoke, I carry paper and pen with me. When I hear people talking, especially in a southern or country dialect, I listen and write down what they are saying and how they are saying it. This, for me, is the best way to make the dialogue authentic.

When I was in Charleston in a restaurant recently, my friend and I sat near a group of people speaking in southern drawl concerning religion, marriage, abortion, and myriad of topics. It was like I’d discovered gold. I took out my notebook and began writing their dialogues. Noticing what I was doing, my friend said, “You know, you can get into trouble for that.” So I turned away from them, placing my notebook on my knee. What’s a better idea for recording dialogue? A hidden tape recorder? I’m sure that wouldn’t cause any problems.

Read. Notice the style, vocabulary and methods used by the writers to make their books real, exciting, suspenseful. When I am writing I highlight passages that I think are particularly well written. This helps me see how they are crafted, what works and what doesn’t.

Description - Become aware of everything and everyone around you. Look at the clouds. Are they white and full, floating in the blue sky, or grey and threatening, racing across the shadowy sky. How does the wind feel? Is it cold and harsh or warm and soothing? Consider your character’s point of view. If she is angry, the sun might be a blinding beam of light making it hard for her to see and irritating her eyes. If the character is happy, the sun could be luminescent, sparkling on the water, and bringing out the color of the flowers.

In Bad Dirt, a brilliant book of short stories by Annie Proulx, she describes a game warden traveling through an area of Wyoming.

On a November day Wyoming game and fish Warden Creel Zmundzinski was making his way down the Pinchbutt drainage through the thickening light of late afternoon. The last pieces of sunlight lathered his red-whiskered face with splashes of fire. The terrain was steep with lodgepole pine giving way on the lower slope to sagebrush and a few grassy meadows favored by elk on their winter migration to the southeast.

Observe the people you meet, notice their appearance, movements, speech, idiosyncrasies. Do you see anything you could use for your characters? Add only those that will help the reader see and understand the characters.

Don’t write to publish. Write about what interests you in your own style, which might be erudite or simple. Both styles work. Worrying about publishing makes writing more difficult and less enjoyable, and, probably, in the long run, less publishable.

Digital Downloads

By Monet M. Jones

One of my favorite artists performed one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. Many years ago, Carly Simon sang: “That’s the way I’ve always heard it should be.”

The tune seems to depict one whose strength and will is continually held down by a covering of hopelessness, until a volley of drums lifts the person and her melancholy to great heights; briefly. But the tune is only part of the message; the lyrics tell of her parents’ loveless marriage and her doubts that her marriage will be any better. In the end, she decides that she will marry because that’s the way she’s always heard it should be.

That pretty much describes how I feel about traditional publishing. I don’t want to send off query letters. I don’t want people interested in only the moneymaking aspects deciding whether to publish my book. I don’t want to be obligated to attend book signings or promotional tours.

I don’t want my story bound in hard cover, sold for three times what it is worth to people who will likely never read it, and buy it only because of heavy advertising. That’s not why I write. I write to share my ideas and dreams with a reader. I write to enrich another’s concept of life.

In our current marketing environment, I feel the only reasons for traditional publishing are vanity and “that’s the way it’s always been done.” I believe we are moving to a time when it will be unnecessary to put 'books' in hard copy. The exchange of ideas by words and graphics will occur in digital downloads to e-readers and other computing devices.

Whether or not one applauds this change is immaterial. As we have seen with music sales, the wave has begun; current authors can only ride it or be drenched.

Foreshadowing

By Michelle Gwynn Jones

Foreshadowing is a writer’s way of giving the reader hints of events to come, an incentive to keep turning the page. For mystery writers foreshadowing is essential as it is how we give our audience clues which they will need to solve the puzzle presented in the story.

Foreshadowing can be obvious, for example – "When Harry woke up on Monday he had no way of knowing that by Friday he’d be dead and buried." The reader has no doubt here, that Harry is going to meet his demise.

Foreshadowing can also be subtle, the reader may not even be aware that a clue has just been revealed, for example – A detective is investigating a missing person by interviewing a neighbor. The writer describes that the room has a frayed oriental rug, a coffee table with elephant tusk legs and a dusty upright piano. When the missing man’s body is found, forensic testing shows he was killed with the kind of gun used for big game hunting. Now the reader sees that the clue to the killer was not in the interview, but in the furniture.

Psychic visions, curses on artifacts and threatening notes received in the mail are just a few things a writer may use to hint to future events.

Two forms of foreshadowing are the flash-forward and the flashback. With the flash-forward the author jumps ahead in the story and tells of a future event, then returns to the original point in time. The author makes a promise to his or her audience that if they continue to read the story will move to the future point. With the flashback, an odd term for foreshadowing, the writer tells of a prior event which occurred in the character’s life, or in history, before the beginning of the book. It is important that the author connect the flashback with both the present and the future storyline.

Another type of foreshadowing, which is extremely useful to mystery writers, is the false clue (a red herring) that leads the reader to believe information which is misleading. A writer must be very careful using this form of foreshadowing. The false clues must make sense to the story and the assumptions the audience is led to must be valid. If they are not, the reader will feel that the author has cheated.

Foreshadowing is not easy, it’s a balancing act. The writer must carefully spread the clues throughout the book. If too many clues are presented at one time readers may believe they have solved the puzzle, lose interest and put the book down, never bothering to see if they were right or wrong. On the other hand, if the writer leaves too many pages between clues the reader may feel that the book is moving along too slowly, lose interest and put the book down, not caring if the puzzle ever gets solved.

The most important thing to remember when using foreshadowing is that it is a promise you make to your reader of events to come, it is a promise the author must keep.

Common As Pig Tracks

By Bonnie Stanard

In writing a story about slaves and plantation owners, I have enjoyed rummaging around old words and expressions. I can only wonder why some seemingly serviceable words fall into disuse. Why not say yesternight, nightfall, forenoon, naught and shant? Did these useful words have social problems that put them in decline?

I am learning to be aware of changing connotations. In an excerpt I took to workshop for critique, I wrote of joint grass in the corn field, a common complaint in antebellum diaries. When one of our writers asked if the slaves were digging up marijuana, I realized the word joint had so changed in meaning from 1857 that it couldn’t be used without causing confusion. Take a look at how these words appeared in antebellum times: I don’t truck with his kind; One of his boots flew off and lit on the roof; The woman was sold as a tolerable good cook; He didn’t have the lights to feed the pigs; She couldn’t marry without leave of her father; I have four plugs of gold in my teeth.

Expressions come into fashion and go out. Though you probably wouldn’t use any of these in your everyday conversation, you can figure out what they mean— Don’t set store by him; He was obliged to lay by to recover; and I was too sparing in my praise.

If clichés are dated, does that make them acceptable, if not commendable, in historical fiction? After all, the gist of the era may well be captured by clichés. I haven’t used these in my writing but that’s not to say I won’t: don’t care a scrap; diked out; greased lightning; fit to kill; not worth shucks.

Many plantation owners who left diaries excelled in using urbane language. At the same time, the slave narratives contain some of the most colorful descriptions I’ve ever read. From my notes, I’ve taken miscellaneous quotes from slave narratives (first line and every other one) and plantation owners (second line and every other one) for this nonsensical dialogue which, I hope, illustrates the wealth of imagery in their conversation.

She’s about to drive him crazy and he don’t have far to go.
Him? He can’t manage a turnip patch.
He’s powerful mean when he gets riled.
Her hair is curled so tight she can’t open her mouth.
They wrassle and hug and carry on awful.
She cooks up some terrifying mixture of victuals.
But not enough to feed a cockroach.

As one of my characters might say, I dassen write any more, for I’m nigh on to the master’s word count, and I gainsay go over the limit. For the nonce I’ll bid adieu.

The On-going Saga of the Self-Published (Sign of the Cross) Author

By Mike Long

I continue to hone my marketing skills, as there is zero marketing support for a self-publisher. This may not be all bad as I read that 'successful' authors are expected to do more and more by traditional publishers.

Some things I've learned:
(A) Advertising through magazines is a great tax write-off and little else, unless it's preceded or accompanied by an article/interview/review. Who ever bought a book because of an ad?

(B) Do not trust a magazine to write the article/interview/review after you've paid for their ad. Three have stiffed me; nice ads, no follow through. The response is, "Sorry, I do ads. Someone else handles those things. Yes, I know they referred you to me, but I only do ads. Would you like to order another one?"

(C) Book signings are great sales venues, especially in book stores. Surprising as it may seem, people come there to look for books. Gun stores, furniture shops, your best friend's boutique may not be so great. People visit them to buy something else.

(D) Even better venues are clubs (Rotary, Sertoma, Lions, Civil War Round Tables, Daughters of the Confederacy, etc), where talks turn into sales/signings. If the talk is okay, about a third of the attendees will buy a book. The club officers responsible for booking speakers like to have someone (like me) readily available to fill in for a cancellation.

(E) Enter your work in as many contests as you can. Winners and finalists enhance their portfolios. You can then put little gold stickers on all your book covers: Winner, 2010 Spur Awards, or Finalist, 2011 Southeast Vampire Shootout.

(F) Speaking of vampires, put some in your book to really spice up sales, even if it's non-fiction stuff on Centipede vs St Augustine grass. Really. I wish I had.

(G) As I've said many times before, keep your day job. Just keep writing.

(H) The problem with Publish On Demand publishers is that they have no 'return policy' and neither Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, nor Waldenbooks will stock your book (even with vampires) unless there's a return policy. And if they don't stock it, you can't do a signing there.

Now-feel better? Write on.

A Writer’s Holiday Gift

By Ginny Padgett

Even though I consider myself a veteran writer, I have just been published for the first time under my own name in the Petigru Review, SCWW’s literary journal. So I guess, technically, I am considered a newbie in the writing/publishing game. I use the word, “game,” as euphuism for an artless business driven by the greed for cold cash.

I attended my first writers’ conference in October, and this is my ‘Aha Moment:’ I may be writing in the wrong genre. How can I tell? The answer seems to me that no one has yet bought what I have previously written. The story snippets I heard during a slush-pile session made me realize I may not be a story teller. Perhaps I’m more of an observer/reporter. Whatever the designation, I claimed myself a writer. Discovering my self confidence was worth the price of the conference registration.

Recently Janie Kronk sent out some words of wisdom to our chapter email group from a writer who knows his stuff. Probably most of you have seen this, but this is my holiday gift to those reading our blog and wondering if they are writers, if they could be writers, if they should try to be writers. We can all use the encouragement and inspiration all year long. Happy Holidays!

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. - Ira Glas

The Rock and the Element of Surprise

By Kimberly Johnson

Not the one off the southern tip of Spain. I’m talking about the former pro
wrestler, Dwayne Johnson. He’s an element of surprise.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a formidable foe against Randy Orton and John
Cena. As The Rock, he entertained screaming fans in the squared circle with
24-hour trash-talking, power-drill moves and bulging biceps. Plus, he’s a good looking guy. With a killer smile. The Rock shifted away from body slams and into a pink tutu. Dwayne Johnson played the tooth fairy along with Julie Andrews. So, when Dwayne Johnson took the driver’s seat in the flick, Faster; I wanted to ride shotgun.

I’m a sucker for the who-dunnit genre and its first cousin, I-didn’t-know-he-dunnit.

In this movie, Dwayne plays a vigilante hunting down the gangsters who murdered
his brother. It’s the classic cops ‘n’ robbers theme—with a twist. Dwayne’s fresh out of prison with a mean streak a mile wide. He drives a vintage ride that all the men in the theater cheered for during the chase scenes. Billy Bob Thornton plays the slime ball, red-neck cop who is addicted to heroin. He’s on the trail of this vigilante, hoping this capture will bring him redemption. His partner thinks he’s a creep. His ex-wife thinks he’s a bigger creep. His pudgy son doesn’t know what to think.

Billy Bob turns out to be the bad guy. I didn’t see that one coming.

After leaving the theater, I wondered: How did the screenwriters keep me
guessing? I answered that question with Internet research. The Writers Digest website posted an article by Simon Wood (www.writersdigest.com). It lists nine tricks to writing suspense fiction. Here are the highlights:
* For a good suspense story to work, what’s at stake must be stated at the
beginning.
* Let the reader see the viewpoints of the protagonist and the antagonist.
* Create a really good villain. The bad guy is very visible. The best ones are
smart and motivated.
* Create dilemmas that keep the protagonist in awkward challenges.
* Pile on the problems. Give the protagonist more things than he can handle.

Not bad advice, Mr. Wood. So, I clicked over to crime novelist Michele Martinez.

Martinez is a former New York City federal prosecutor (www.michelemartinez.com). Martinez shares her struggles in a refreshing manner. Here are some observations that improved her writing:

I realized that generally the suspense novels I found the most engrossing were written in the third person and frequently told the story from more than one viewpoint. I had been working in the first person, but ultimately this felt too limiting technically. I wanted to show the reader action beyond things that
happened directly to my protagonist.

I realized I just hadn't structured my book carefully enough. I needed to pay more attention to the transitions between chapters, to give the reader that burning desire to keep turning the pages. I needed to hold back more, tease more.

Now, I know the secrets that Joe and Tony Gayton, the screenwriters for Faster, know. They employed point of view techniques and then reworked structural elements to produce the quintessential I-didn’t-know-he-dunnit flick. If I read about those techniques earlier, then, I would have figured out that Billy Bob was the bad guy.

Tripping

By Laura P. Valtorta

Nobody needs an excuse to travel. It’s just a mind-blowing thing to
do. Marco, Dante, and I went to visit our daughter, Clara, and her
fiancé, Ross, over the Thanksgiving break. It was my second trip to
Texas and my first to Austin, the capitol city.

LANDSCAPE. From the airport to the University of Texas college campus
the ground seemed open, flat, and dusty. I expected to see tumbleweed.
The cab driver was taciturn until Marco asked about the football
stadium at UT that seats 102,000. The cabbie looked South American but
spoke American English.

We hiked in the northwest hilly region and encountered cacti and
mountain bikers. The landscape was littered with limestone.

Bonnell Park, with its 99 steps above the lake, was a good place to
view the Austin skyline, big-ass houses with pools situated on
handkerchief-sized lots, and modern architecture. We imagined that
Sandra Bullock lived there.

The weather was temperamental. One afternoon as Clara and I walked to
the grocery store, a front blew in. The temperature dropped from 80
degrees to 50 degrees in about 30 minutes.

AUSTINITES. We saw a good mixture of Anglos, Asians, Hispanics,
foreigners, and a loud family of Italian-Americans. Very few African-
Americans in sight. The school district where Clara and Ross live is
about 80 percent Asian.

Downtown, my favorite Texans were the cowboy metrosexuals: like the
tall, tan smiling white man who greeted us at Manuel’s restaurant and
made the five of us feel welcome. Lots of large Texan women at the
local Target.

ALLEGATO. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we ate dinner at a
Japanese place that was not overly crowded. Japanese chefs, Japanese
waitress. Clara and I ordered sushi (tropical roll, spicy avocado
crab, and some other roll). It was possibly the best meal I have ever
eaten – certainly the best sushi. Ross, Marco, and Dante played it
[too] safe and ordered tempura.

DOWNTOWN. I could live in one of those apartments. The city needs
more public transportation. The sidewalks were wide, clean, and
inviting. All of the mendicants hang out alongside the highways. We
went to a hat shop; I purchased a hat for Dante.

Next visit – music at Antone’s! This place was recommended by the
taciturn cabbie.

IDEA FOR SHORT STORY. A cowboy metrosexual working at a Mexican
restaurant has a cheerful attitude toward life until he meets a woman
from South Carolina.

The Latest Addition

Meet a New Writer

AMANDA SIMAYS

I hail from Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, and I’ve loved writing (stories, essays, journals, anything) for as long as I can remember. This past spring, I graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I majored in English and Creative Writing and worked as a writing tutor. I spent a semester abroad living next to an extinct volcanic mountain in Edinburgh, Scotland and surprised myself by developing an affinity for haggis (ground-up sheep organs). During my senior year, I turned my guilty pleasure of reading melodramatic novels about creepy old manors with ominous secrets into a senior thesis about ghosts in Gothic literature.

Residual wanderlust from studying abroad and a desire to try and make the world a better place inspired me to apply to an AmeriCorps volunteer program in a part of the country where I’d never been before. That’s how I ended up working with City Year Columbia, where I spend my days doing literacy tutoring with eighth-graders, in the hopes that I can share my passion/addiction for reading and writing.

Besides reading and writing, my hobbies also include arts and crafts, baking, smoothie-making, running, board games, and exploring new places.

Amanda's first post follows.

What I Learned in College

By Amanda Simays

I knew going in that college would be a growing experience, and sure enough, by the time I left, I’d picked up a whole slew of new life skills. I learned how to whip up an impromptu batch of chocolate chip cookies without a mixer, mixing spoon, measuring cup, or a cookie tray. I’d mastered the art of shaving my legs while wearing flip-flops and standing in dorm shower the size of a welcome mat. But if I could pick the one thing I learned that changed my life the most, it would be the skills I picked up as an English major…a deeper understanding of how to read and write.

Of course I didn’t enter my freshman year illiterate, but college transformed how I thought about reading and writing. I became fascinated with the way I could pick up a seventeenth-century poem, seemingly composed of stale words frozen for centuries on the page, and then by taking notes and writing about it, the text would magically come to life before my eyes, pulsing with energy and possibility. I used to think you did the learning first and then writing second, but in my undergraduate years, I learned how you can learn while you write.

I’ve always kept journals, but in college I developed a fuller realization of why I’m so addicted to the activity. It’s not just desire to have a written record of my life as it happens, but a desire for clarity. When I’m confused about anything, when I have a big decision to make, I always write about it, and somehow the translation into black and white letters on the page makes even the stickiest problems seem more manageable.

I learned that I—and humans in general—see life through stories and make up narratives all the time. This awareness added a whole new dimension to my journal-writing habit…I realized I was turning my life into a story, not just in my head, but in a much more literal sense, translating these random thoughts and real-life occurrences into concrete stories on the page. Likewise, when I set out to deliberately make up my own stories in the form of fiction-writing, I began to notice how, on some level, I was still using writing as a vehicle to puzzle out topics I wanted to better understand. My fiction is never strictly autobiographical—it’s too much fun to explore situations I’ve never been in with characters doing things I would never do—but the stories I write often become fun house-style distortions of the issues that are on my mind at the time of writing.

I still have so much to learn about the writing process and what it means to put words on the page, but I’ve come a long way in the last four years. The act of writing brings me joy for lots of reasons, not least of which being the magical power it has to bring sense and order (or at least a more understandable chaos) to the world around me.

What Happened in Vegas...

By Deborah Wright Yoho

The last time I visited Vegas, the year was 1967 and I was fifteen years old. My family was passing through on our way to our new home in the Philippines. For an hour we ogled the bright lights of the Strip through the car windows, and I wondered why women wore high heels with their short-shorts as they teetered along on the sidewalks. We marveled at Frank Sinatra’s name on the marquee at the Sands, and then my parents scuttled us off to our beds at a small motel two blocks away from the hubbub.

Las Vegas today looks more like Disney on steroids than a playground for the Rat Pack. If it is possible to camouflage unbridled gambling and drinking to appear wholesome, the spin doctors of Vegas have done it. McDonald’s fits right in between the Paris and MGM casinos. You have to look closely to find a wedding chapel or an establishment advertising topless exotic dancers.

Ralph and I were quick to explain to everyone in South Carolina that we were visiting Las Vegas to attend my high school reunion, not to gamble. I had to hurry to clarify that I didn’t go to school there but overseas instead, and that Vegas was a destination venue rather than a pilgrimage to stoke the home fires.

I wasn’t that keen on looking up old boyfriends anyway, but wanted instead to promote my book, a memoir about high school days in the Philippines. So I hired a graphic artist to design a poster and a flyer to tote along on the plane.

The results were mixed. People seemed impressed that I was writing a book and were happy to reminisce with me, but I found we didn’t have the same memories! Why was I so surprised? I hadn’t realized that the Air Force base we lived on was large enough to provide such a rich diversity of experience. As I talked with people who remembered me and with many who didn’t, I frantically took notes.

On the red-eye flight back to South Carolina, I pondered whether to incorporate any of the stories I had heard into my tome. Abruptly I realized I am now faced with a new list of questions as I think about what to write: is my story just MY story, or is it really about a unique time and place? What’s more interesting, the things we all had in common there or the individual experiences that were different? At a distance of more than 40 years, can I trust my own recollections? And if I can’t, how significant are my own biases in relation to the purpose of the book? I thought I was nearly finished. Now I find I must start over.

Tom Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” He was right.

The Latest Addition

Meet a New Writer

BELISE BUTLER

I was in private practice as a therapist for 20 years, part of that time
working with politicians. (Try doing that for a living!) I also traveled
the world presenting corporate training and motivational workshops.

I have one super son and two wonderful daughters, as well as six grandchildren and one great grandson. All are successful and talented. (Thank goodness!)

After all of my travels and adventures, my head was filled with knowledge
of many unusual experiences and I wanted to commit them to paper so I
retired, or at least I TRIED to retire, to begin writing. That lasted four
months.

My 92 year-old mother always told me that "I had ants in my pants, sand in
my shoes and my mind was never in the same place for more than five
minutes." I guess she was right because I am still moving in several
directions at the same time. I am a partner in two businesses, Trilogy
Library Services and The Home Staging Group. Trying to wear three hats all
the time, I find that I have very little time to get that “sand in my
shoes.” I am way to busy.

I keep THINKING that SOON I'll stop all of this nonsense and spend my time
doing some real work like unfolding a chair on the beach in lazy, crazy
Key West, FL, while I write. However, every time my thoughts move in that
direction my over-zealous mind says; "Oh yea, lady! That just ain't gonna
happen anytime soon."

So, I continue planning my escape from the REAL world where I can move at
a slower pace, write until my pens run out of ink and become consumed with
counting the grains of sand that collect in my shoes.

Belise's first post follows.

My First Time

By Belise Butler

I’ll always remember my first time.

I was nervous. What would I wear? What would I say? How would it feel?

As I entered the hotel, I told myself, “it’s okay, be calm, you’ll love it … and I did.

WOW!

One of my favorite words is WOW! It conveys anything I want it to. For me, since it was ‘my first time’ it reflected a multitude of feelings. I was ecstatic, excited, enthusiastic, and completely out of my mind with anticipation.

This was officially ‘my first time’ at a writers’ conference and I was hooked. Upon arriving, I was nervous about my critique and cleverly talked Ginny Padgett into visiting the nearby hotel watering hole for one of their special relaxers in a glass. Having been a professional trainer and motivational speaker for companies all over the world, I was always in charge. This time I was not only, not in charge, I was not in control of my emotions. I had to keep remembering that this was different and…after all, it was ‘my first time’

The next morning in the dining room, I sat at a table where three people were deep in conversation. I knew I would blend right in because I had been extremely loquacious since I arrived. Every time I entered the elevator I had a captivate audience. I took advantage of it talking to each person on-board, and escorting them to their floor first, chatting the entire time. I must admit I was distraught when they each exited on various floors and I had to continue alone.

Most of the programs at the conference were excellent. By the end of this way-too-short event I had filled a hundred-page note book. However, I must be truthful and tell you that ninety-four pages of my precious journal were written so rapidly that it looked like a foreign language. Upon review I was sure that I had mistakenly picked up a book belonging to someone from Japan.

‘My first time’ was outstanding. I appreciated the many speakers though out the event. And WOW! I felt a new wave of excitement when Wendy Sherman critiqued my material and shared her thoughts about the MS. I have no doubt that the entire room thought I had just won the lottery when she asked me to rework the first six pages and then send her fifty pages. I don’t normally squeal or jump up and down in public, however I remind you that it was ‘my first time’…and I did.

I applaud the volunteers who gave their time and energy to provide talented professionals. Who, for the most part, were generous in sharing their suggestions and directives for achieving the goals that each participant there had gathered to hear--how to create an outstanding masterpiece.

It was ‘my first time’…but it won’t be my last.

2010 SCWW Conference Notes

By Bonnie Stanard

In a word - wonderful! Since a carload of us from Columbia II rode together, we caroused for two hours before getting lost in Myrtle Beach and finally arriving. Our check-in at the Hilton was quick and painless, and the condo had a spectacular view of the Atlantic. For me, the best part of the conference was the camaraderie with my fellow writers.

Friday night, author James Born started our conference with a dinner speech on his experiences writing police thrillers. He’s the kind of writer you’d like to have over for dinner sometime. Apparently our complaints about the food last year were addressed, though the acoustics of the banquet room weren’t. We found ourselves shouting to be heard above the din.

As for the sessions, prose took the spotlight with presentations covering traditional genres. Perhaps too traditional, for a nod to more innovative writing would have spiced things up (e.g. creative nonfiction, graphic novel, prose poetry, flash fiction). Also, I’d like to see more encouragement for screenwriting.

As usual, agents and editors appeared on the schedule with presentations to ease our tensions about the submission process and publishing. As for faculty, I’d like to see more agents from small/boutique houses. Those of us trying to sell our first or second novel would like to meet independent publishers, which were practically missing from the program. The 'elephant in the room' was self-publishing, which agents and editors tried to ignore. We needed more helpful information on this topic.

The sessions I attended were adequate and came from the 'establishment' in the industry. Joshilyn Jackson gave the tip I liked best: “stop caring about the latest literary trend.” Perhaps I could remember something author Ann Love said about the children’s market if she had provided either a hand-out or visual aid. However, I entered this discussion after a pitch session went bad and that’s all I could think about.

My second pitch on Sunday morning wasn’t as disappointing as the previous one. Agent Suzie Townsend said my race was a factor but not insurmountable. The previous afternoon Agent Raychelle Gardner said in so many words that slave stories are the prerogative of African Americans. She presented this as not just her opinion but that of publishing in general. Though discouraging, the two sessions provided me with the important insight that NYC agents/publishers are unlikely to consider a debut novel about a black slave written by a white person.

By the time my Sunday morning pitch was over and I arrived at the conference rooms, the sessions were well underway. Although I knew my way around, I couldn’t find a room marked as Palisades F and thus missed out on a presentation I wanted to see.

Overall the conference was a success, though there were some complaints—the cancellation of some sessions, Saturday lunch keynote presentation, and a long-winded announcement of the Carrie McCray awards. Once again I’m amazed at the professionalism of Lateia Sandifer, Carrie McCullough, Barbara Evers, their staff, and volunteers. Our thanks to them for their many hours of work. Columbia II’s donations to the silent auction compared favorably with other baskets, thanks to Ginny Padgett and Belize Butler.

CORRECTION: My thanks to Carrie McCullough for setting the record straight: "Noticed a big error in [your] blog -- Barbara had absolutely NOTHING to do with this year's conference. And we don't have a staff, at all. Wouldn't it be nice if we did?"

A Perfect Workshop

By Monet Jones

Many thousands of years ago, or so it seems, I graduated from Hannah High School. My graduating class consisted of twenty-one persons, fourteen girls, and seven boys. The curriculum in that small rural school was naturally limited. Two non-academic courses were considered mandatory; all girls were to take FHA, Future Homemakers of America, and all boys, FFA, Future Farmers of America.

The FFA proved to be an extraordinarily boring class except for three areas, each of which included a contest: electricity, public speaking, and cattle judging. That third area, cattle judging, has had a greater than expected impact on my life because of one learned principle. In order to judge or compare cattle or anything else, one must first determine a perfect example of that which is to be judged.

As one might suppose on reading the title of this article, I set out to describe the perfect writer’s workshop. I started by looking for a definition. Since I didn’t find a good one in my research, I made up my own and present it that my readers, both of you, might critique it.

An environment or gathering of respectful peers wherein one might use words to depict original concepts or events, and receive constructive nonjudgmental criticism of said depictions.

For a participant to receive maximum benefit from a workshop, I believe one must be familiar, but not necessarily friends, with other members. My reasoning here is that in order for comments to be constructive, an evaluated writer must expect criticism from respected peers. If a writer chooses to use familiarity or intimidation to prevent criticism, the concept of a workshop is perverted.

I recently presented some material that connected two big scenes on my current novel. I had not spent as much time on it as I should have. The workshop members made that point very clear.

R - too many long sentences and holes in plot
B - too many repetitions of same idea, POV errors
G2 - “that” not a good connector and two improbable scenes
K – ignorant of how young girls might react to a situation
L - didn’t like me, my work, or the horse I rode in on
D - helpful in showing proper paragraph separation and comma use
G - mixed in a positive comment with several faults

I think Columbia II workshop approaches perfection. I love the camaraderie as we get together but have no doubt the friendliest person there will savage my material if it’s not properly written. That is as it should be.

Sparse Space, Mighty Muse – Part II

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Are you making stereotypes of your characters? Are they predictable? If so, you need to give them a good hard shake and see what falls out of their pockets. If you’re lucky, you’ll find something deliciously odd, dangerous, or scandalous. The goal here, folks is surprise. And surprise for we writers is good, very good.

That’s at least one of the thoughts I came away with from my workshop with Danzy Senna at Skidmore College this summer (see previous post for Part I). In several of the sessions, we reviewed more than a few manuscripts that had some scintillating prose surrounding the character, but there was the predictable narrative that never got away from itself, e.g:

A compulsive young man spends his day watching and calculating every minute[okay, fascinating], but nothing every challenged his compulsive habit, and nothing changed about him or around him; a little boy places a bowler hat on his head to make himself invisible because life at home gets pretty scary [intriguing, let’s keep reading], but he keeps doing this, no one does anything, and that’s all that happens.

We’ve all done this! We get so into our characters and we love them, good or bad, but we don’t let anything happen to them to challenge them or transform them. Nothing pops out and hits them in the face. And to top it off, we may veer wildly off tone. Danzy explained this dynamic as the need to get a narrative strategy to help get inside your character, to get beyond the “clean and easy” (my term), and to get…well, “dirty” (her term). The idea, she said, is to get yourself out of your head.

She suggested reading some folk stories as a way to discover narrative strategies to strengthen your writing. “Notice the tone,” she said, “and study at the dialogue.” Using dialogue, she added, “helps you see more characters more clearly.” Folktales not only do this, but they use a framework that astounds not just us, but our characters, too. Here are a few that came out of that class:

• Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol’s "The Nose" http://h42day.100megsfree5.com/texts/russia/gogol/nose.html
• Italo Calvino’s Italian Folktales
• The Hebrew story about “the talking fish” that ran in The New York Times in 2003. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE0DE1F3EF936A25750C0A9659C8B63&scp=1&sq=Miracle?%20Dream?%20Prank?%20Fish%20Talks,%20Town%20Buzzes&st=cse

On another note, I should add that during my stay the faculty and my peers continued to expand our recommended reading list. Ah, that we should live as long to read all the good books our friends suggest! Here’s just a snapshot of several on my “to-read” list:

Novels
Bad Behavior - Mary Gaitskill
Letters to a Young Novelist – Mario Vargas Llosa

Short Stories
“Women in Their Beds” – Gina Berriault
“Hole in the Wall” - Etgar Keret

Non-fiction
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach


Enjoy!

Sparse Space, Mighty Muse, Part I

By Lisa Lopez Snyder

Thanks to a generous scholarship I had an opportunity this past July to spend two weeks at the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Describing the experience is akin to trying to express what seeing Yosemite Falls is like for the first time. Okay, so maybe that’s not the best way to illustrate my point, but the enthusiasm it generated might measure similarly.

Perhaps the most potent aspect of the Writers Institute is that it is truly a writer’s colony. In the midst of life’s madness, this gathering is a place where you can forget having to make a meal or clean a dish (you eat at the university dining hall), and just dive into the writer’s life all around you--every day. I was one of more than 60 writers who stayed in the dorms on campus and participated in fiction, nonfiction or poetry workshops.

During the first week my workshop (18 to a class) was led by Danzy Senna (http://blueflowerarts.com/danzy-senna), author of the phenomenal Caucasia and the autobiography, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? The second week I studied under Howard Norman, whose novel, What is Left, the Daughter (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/books/review/Wallace-t.html) will have you eager to explore the epistolary form. We had workshop three times during the week and on the alternative days all the groups came together for an afternoon discussion with other workshop faculty and visiting writers, who included Ann Beattie, Russell Banks, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gaitskill, Rick Moody, nonfiction writers Jim Miller and Geoffrey O’Brien, and poets Henri Cole, Jayne Anne Philips, Mary Kinzie and Peg Boyers. In addition to small group discussions with these authors about the craft of writing, we heard them read from their latest works later that night, and then on Sunday evening, we participants held our own public reading.

As a fiction writer, I came away with ideas on how to further explore character, dialogue and story. Ann Beattie talked about how “short stories can be like plays.” She urged us to “use dialogue to create situations” as well as to expose the raw, the “unredeemable” character. Emerging writers can be timid about exposing the “imperfect” character, Joyce Carol Oates said in another session. She reminded us, however, that “all great art is based on conflict.” Simply put, she added, “If you don’t want to upset your mother or father, you won’t be a writer. You can be a nice person, but you won’t be a writer.”

Henri Cole’s reading of his poem “Black Camille” struck me with the utter significance of word choice and how I might apply the lessons of poetry to my work. “What are you now but a blood-red palanquin of plucked feathers and silk airing in the sun?” he read one night. In the hush of the auditorium, I understood then, that the words we choose are not just for their rhythm or sound, but for their absolute urgency. And, we know that takes time. But it’s worth it, isn’t it?

Stay tuned for more in Sparse Space, Mighty Muse – Part 2 next week…

Woman in Red Dress

By Laura P. Valtorta

During a recent disaster evacuation drill at Stanford University, all went awry. Workers and students were supposed to stand outside the buildings, twenty feet away, between 10 and 10:30 a.m., marked by siren signals. The sirens failed to go off as scheduled. Still, the Stanford police managed to rally most people outside, and situate them in neat clusters with their groups -- physics department, law school, visitors center, the Cantor museum, etcetera.

Dante and I waited outside the Cantor museum studying the beautiful sculptures by Auguste Rodin, including the Gates of Hell. We waited 30 minutes for the drill to finish.

At 10:20, a woman in a red dress strode out of the Cantor museum. The guards looked at each other. "What happened?"

"She was inside." The guards shrugged their shoulders. This was the first disaster evacuation drill, and all over campus it had been a disaster. Foreign, non-English-speaking tourists refused to leave the non-denominational chapel. The sirens either failed to sound entirely or they were too soft to hear. Students remained inside the dorms.

Then there was that woman in the red dress, who might have been an employee of the Cantor museum. If there had been an actual earthquake or fire, she could have been killed. But there was no disaster. Instead, she illustrated a point. She pushed the boundaries and disobeyed the rules, either out of stubbornness or ignorance. She showed the system did not function well. During this drill, she was an auslander.

Why does disobedience exist? As an outsider myself, I can testify there is no choice involved. Outsiders are born challenging the rules, questioning authority, stretching the boundaries. Auslander writers, such as the great Stieg Larsson, create new realities, illustrate our unexpressed dreams, and blast aside stereotypes. The result is Lisbeth Salander -- the woman every intelligent woman wants to become.

My goal as an auslander writer is to create a vision of the future that no writer has expressed. My future world is inspired with hope -- it is a utopia as opposed to the dystopia described by such writers as Margaret Atwood. Being an outsider causes me pain and disaffection on a daily basis. Oftentimes I fail to understand the world around me because it seems to be so driven by fear. There must be a reason for my pain. Outside thinking pushes the human species forward. It helps us evolve.

What Ever Happened........?

By Beth Cotten

Remember the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? As I recall, it bordered on a horror movie. The title stirred my muse to write this blog. My question is different and doesn’t provoke the same sense of dread as the movie title....but close. The question is, "What the $#@& Happened to James Patterson?"

On the way to visit my daughter in Indiana, I stopped at the airport gift shop to pick up a novel to read on the trip. I selected a James Patterson and quickly read the blurb on the book about the story line. Science Fiction is not my cup of tea, and this was a different genre from most of his nearly 60 books published since I read Virgin in 1980. So, I rationalized it must be good because it was a James Patterson novel.

I can count on one hand....maybe three fingers....how many books I started and did not read to the end. One was written in Spanish, and it was taking me way too long because my Spanish was "way too long ago." This Patterson book, The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, had a total of 220 pages. I read 80 pages to the end of chapter 31. Almost every other page is the beginning of a new chapter. I did not read further. This is by far the worst book I have ever read!

The premise of the book is that Daniel X is born with an extraordinary power unknown to our world. He is capable of creating inanimate objects and human and alien beings. As a toddler, from his hiding place, he sees his parents cruelly slaughtered, but the killer is not aware of a witness to the murders. Later, he discovers a list of names of super-powered, evil, alien beings and determines his father’s mission had been to assassinate these evil beings to save the world; thus the explanation why his father and mother were murdered. At the age of fifteen, Daniel takes up the search to complete his father’s mission. I will not be the spoiler and tell more.

I did some research:

- Reviews about the Daniel X series were split between those who thought the books were substandard to Patterson’s previous novels and others who praised them.

- The average review was three stars out of five.

- The books were written for young readers between the tweens and teens. (Well, I am a bit older.) Patterson explained the books were written to encourage the younger generation to read something other than comic books.

-The favorable reviews were from the youngsters or from parents and grandparents who were thrilled their child or grandchild was reading rather than spending all the time in front of a computer or television.

-Since 2005, Patterson published an average of 5.4 books a year --- seven alone in 2008. Can any author write four to seven quality novels a year?

Please, Mr. Patterson, don’t leave us “Oldies-but-Goodies” hanging. We were here first!

Is Less More?

By Alex Raley

When I began writing fiction, I tried to include every thought, detail, and event that could possibly be related to the story and much that was not related. Dialogue was filled with things said that had absolutely no relevance to the story. Obviously, repetition crept in on kitten’s feet with tiger paws.

That same tendency to tell all carried over to my poetry; however, poetry taught me that less really can be more. For example, one of my early poems had over forty lines. After many revisions I finally have something that speaks to me. It is only twenty-two much shorter lines. Did I lose anything that I wanted to say? No. I have something that punches out exactly what my soul feels about an event that has hung in my memory for over sixty years.

I am not talking about brevity, which is another matter altogether. T. S. Eliot took twelve pages (more or less, depending on how it is printed out) to give us the classic “The Waste Land.” He even uses repetition – repetition that drives home his thought. An example is found in the section of the poem where he ponders the bareness of no water. “If there were water / And no rock / If there were rock / And also water /And water / . . . Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop / But there is no water.” Every line in Eliot’s poem moves his thoughts forward.

If you want both brevity and sharpness of thought, I invite you to read Galway Kinnell’s “Promissory Note.” In thirteen brief lines he captures the essence of one who knows he will precede his loved one in death and who exacts a wonderful promise from that loved one. There is no way to retell the poet’s thoughts. You can only experience them by reading Kinnell’s poem.

Though I am suggesting that the unnecessary be eliminated from writing, in the real world there are many examples of tomes being successful. My daughter introduced me to “The Girl” trilogy by Stieg Larsson. When I looked at reading five to six hundred pages per book, I thought, this is insane. What I experienced were exciting page turners. Sure there is repetition that comes primarily from constantly changing from head to head depending on whose version of the event you are hearing, and Larsson does love to tell the reader everything. But you find yourself enjoying all of it. I pondered why? I think it boils down to a compelling story, unlike anything we have read before, with good sequencing, and strong, ongoing suspense and expectation.

So, unless you envision yourself as another Larsson, work on eliminating the unnecessary. I might even suggest that you read some contemporary poets to see how they distill their thoughts into succinct lines. Poetry can inform fiction about unnecessary words. Try it.