A Little Too Much Description!!!

By Fred Fields

Since his death in 2001, 23 new novels have been published in Robert Ludlum's name. Tom Clancy and James Patterson rarely write the new novels attributed to them; WEB Griffin, one of my favorite authors, has turned his writing chores over to his son, William E Butterworth IV (WEB).

I mention these facts to demonstrate a new era in publishing, one that causes some pain to readers when the substitute authors don't meet the standards of their originals.

Here is a demonstration of the quality of Butterworth's writing, and why I no longer look for Griffin in the bookstores. The following is a synopsis of eight pages, early in the book, Double Agents, by Griffin (Butterworth IV).

Bottom of  Page 17: President Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomes General William J. Donovan to the Oval office, followed by a description of Donovan.

Page 18: Begins with two paragraphs commenting on Donovan's recent promotion from colonel to brigadier general. This is followed by two paragraphs about what Donovan thinks of Roosevelt's happy state of mind, and that he is sorry to be bringing bad news. Donovan says how happy he is to note the President's good mood. Roosevelt thinks Donovan looks unhappy. The next paragraph discusses Donovan's experience in World War I.

Page 19: Continues Donovan's record, including partial wording of his Medal of Honor citation, followed by eight paragraphs describing the two men's original meeting and subsequent friendship.

Page 20: Six more paragraphs about the friendship. Four paragraphs about what FDR is thinking about the lack of coordination of intelligence gathered during World War II.

Page 21: The whole page is devoted to the history of interagency warfare between intelligence services and the formation of the department of Coordination of Intelligence, headed by Donovan.

Page 22: More on the Coordination of Intelligence Department and its transition to the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services.

Page 23: History of the President's desk, (yes) along with a description of its contents, including FDR's stamp collection and how the State Department saves foreign stamps for his collection. A paragraph describing the Oval Office. Roosevelt looks out the window at his rose garden, rolls his wheelchair behind the desk, and asks about Donovan's family.

Page 24: Five paragraphs about the Donovan family condition. Two paragraphs about Major James Roosevelt, USMC. Donovan goes back to discussing his son's military activities

Page 25: In paragraph two, General Donovan finally delivers the news that the Germans have nerve gas in Sicily! On the ninth page after we learn that General Wild Bill Donovan has important news for the President, we finally find out what the news is.

BORED TO SLEEP? ME TOO! By this time, I have put the book down and decided no longer to search for Griffin books in the bookstores.

Cultivating Readers

By Fred Fields

I used to be a public speaker.

The first thing one must learn when speaking to a group, is "Don't put your audience to sleep". Keep them involved, wanting to hear more.

The question is, "How do you do that?"

Every good speaker knows there are two tricks to the trade, humor and good stories. Make your audience laugh, and make them want to hear the rest of the story. And if you can slip a little message in there, so much the better.

President Kennedy said, "Open with a joke. Get the audience on your side, if that's possible."

Zig Ziglar was probably the most famous public speaker in America for years because he had the talent to wrap his message in humor.

The same is true of writing, whether it's fiction or non-fiction. When I start a paper, whether it's a short blog or a novella, my first thought is, "Who will be interested in what I'm writing, and how long can I hold their interest?"

Of course, humor is not always the answer. A textbook, certainly, won't have a lot of humor. But if the writer is inventive, it may contain some.

For example, a textbook about the Civil War might include the story of President Lincoln asking his cabinet for a vote on the wisdom of enacting the Emancipation Proclamation. Every cabinet member voted against, with Lincoln alone, voting for the Proclamation.  President Lincoln's ruling on the vote; "The ayes have it."

When we write fiction, we hope that the story is a good one, one that will keep the reader involved until the last word. Much fiction is humorous, but even the dreariest, saddest, most serious piece should have a humorous quip or two to relieve the tension.

Right now, I'm considering a book of historical fiction about Simon de Montfort, a thirteenth century English earl who led a revolution that took over the government of England from Henry III for a year. And in that year, de Montfort invited the first commoners to participate in the English Parliament. My question is "How many people would read a book about some unknown figure from eight hundred years ago?" Simon was a unique, interesting, exciting man, but can I write his story well enough to generate that interest?

So you see, choosing what to write about is as important as how to write about it. It will be a waste the time and effort writing a book, if no one is going to read it.

A Mix of Business and Pleasure

By Bonnie Stanard

Writers are artists. Even in a league that includes musicians, painters, dancers, actors, and sculptors, we’re near the bottom when it comes to getting respect, whether that be media coverage or invitations to dinner. Some of us (read that Bonnie) were naïve enough to think our published book would be greeted with uproarious approval (Yes, uproarious…) with scores of sales and devoted fans (YES, fans!). My imagination got me into this absurdity.

Something I often forget is that art and business are partners. Even an inferior book can sell if it has the right business management. And a superior one can flop without it. We get respect not for writing a book, but for selling our ideas/inspiration/dreams to a general public. This is where the fat hits the fire.

The writer in me says I don’t want any part of business. I have to make an effort to participate in the writer’s life—the conferences and author events. I don’t like to make time to read book reviews and best sellers in my genre. The writer’s life, however, is where we grow professionally and gain the respect of our peers.

With the media promising us instant celebrity, we forget that most success stories start small and local. With that in mind, there are ways we can support ourselves and our community of writers. Columbia’s annual Book Festival, coming May 17-19, is a good example. If you miss a convention center filled with people who love books, you’re missing more than just the Festival.  

Hub City in Spartanburg (http://hubcity.org) is a bookshop, writers organization, and publisher. It has a history of promoting local writers with contests, readings, and other events. If you’re writing poetry, you may want to move to Charleston where The Poetry Society of SC (http://www.poetrysocietysc.org) not only holds regular meetings but sponsors poetry contests and readings. Upcoming the weekend of October 26 our own SC Writers Workshop (http://myscww.org) is sponsoring a symposium in Columbia on writing for publication. This is but a sample of ideas. The point is to become involved in not only writing but the profession.

The Free Times newspaper is doing us a favor. Charlie Nutt, who took over as publisher in December, has introduced a feature in the newspaper’s arts section dedicated to books either by local authors or about local topics. At the time I’m writing this, they feature six books on topics ranging from hospital reimbursements to Italian graffiti to a novel inspired by a 1909 SC court decision. Several weeks ago, I contacted the paper with information about my novel Kedzie, and they published a picture of the cover with a descriptive paragraph.

Whatever the difficulties we face today as writers, it’s not a time to be discouraged. This is the best time to write, the best time to be published, the best time to promote a book. As Fred Fields reminds me, we have “good stuff, like self publishing, not needing the approval from publishers, etc., as our predecessors had to have, free internet advertising, easier-to sell cheaper e-books, availability of associations like SCWW and a few good guys like Charlie Nutt.”  

Sarcasm: A Conversation at Downton Abbey

By Kimberly Johnson

Full disclosure--Maggie Smith’s acting is the reason why I watched Downton Abbey. The acclaimed actress plays Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the PBS period drama. Smith dispenses stinging sarcasm to her cast mates better than an angry honeybee attacking a brown bear raiding its honey tree.

Here’s proof:

Lady Grantham (Smith): “You are quite wonderful the way you see room for improvement wherever you look. I never knew such reforming zeal.”

Mrs. Crawley (Penelope Wilton): “I take that as a compliment.”

Lady Grantham: “I must have said it wrong.”

Here’s more proof:

Mrs. Crawley: “What should we call each other?”
Lady Grantham:“Well, we could always start with Mrs. Crawley and Lady Grantham."

I take my fedora off to writer and creator Julian Fellowes for his interplay of mockery and cynicism in keeping the dialogue so fresh and so uniquely British. The finest scenes are when the Dowager and Lady Crawley trade barbs. I think that sarcasm bridges the gap between the two spirited women who have nothing in common, yet have to get along for the sake of the family. Fellowes uses the confrontations to create tension which is a great way to construct conflict.

With this in mind, I researched how a writer can use ironic or satirical remarks as a writing device to lure readers into his text. I found blogger David Hartstein of Wired Impact. He blogged a satirical post that received mixed reactions—mostly negative. He concluded:

#1: Writing sarcasm to an audience that doesn’t know you personally will probably fall flat. Focus on the message that you want to deliver to the reader.

#2: Sarcasm is in the delivery, according to Hartstein. “It’s about your inflection and emphasis. This requires a bit of extra thought when you’re trying to convey it in writing.” Use bolded words and italics for emphasis.

#3: Sarcasm is in the eye of the beholder and someone may take offense to it. Hartstein adds, “In fact, chances are you’ll come across as a jerk. The feeling of it being something of an inside joke is actually what makes sarcasm worthwhile. You just have to craft your delivery to make as many people feel like insiders as is possible.”  

I wonder does Julian Fellowes go through the same thing.                    

Source: http://wiredimpact.com/blog/sarcastic-writing-risks, http://www.btvision.bt.com/

Who Killed Fred?

By Laura P. Valtorta

All of us who attend South Carolina Writers’ Workshop, Columbia II, have thought now and again that Bonnie would make a great detective. The round glasses, the penetrating attention to detail, the no-nonsense hairstyle. She could be another Miss Marple. Hercule Poirot.  A LIsbeth Salander – American-style.

Fiction writers are often tempted to steal characters from the world around them. It’s so much easier to describe the quirks and wardrobe of a real, living person than to invent someone imaginary. Woody Allen explores this phenomenon in his masterpiece movie, Deconstructing Harry. The women in his life become homicidal after he tears them apart in his fiction. The fictional characters Harry creates are better looking but internally the same as the people around him. Harry makes little effort to disguise them. “Jane” becomes “Janet.”

Borrowing characters from life can be constraining as well as disconcerting. If I were to write a mystery in which Ginny killed Fred, I would be limited by the real Ginny and the real Fred. Ginny, the killer, would have to be demonic. It might be difficult to fit the real Ginny into that mold. Fred would have to morph into a victim. And nobody wants to see Fred go down in flames.

When writing is going particularly well, the characters are almost completely fictional. My wine-growing motorcyclist named “Otis” is an invented character – and he’s freer than many of the other characters in that novel. I can bring out parts of myself and embody them In Otis more easily than I could if I wrote about Sarah, the FBI agent or Mike, the Inside Trader.

As tempting as it might be to cause Shaun to earn his living as a balloon artist, or force Leigh to explore the Amazon, it’s much better technique to fashion a personality out of thin air.

Every character we create is a part of ourselves. If we squeeze that part into the friends that surround us – like fitting meat into a sausage casing -- the effect is less convincing than building an imaginary friend.

Writing Is Hard

By Len Lawson

Writing is hard. You first have to find time to write in your busy schedule, and when you do have time, you have to be in the right mood. Otherwise, you procrastinate, and your time is wasted. Once you finally do get to write what you consider to be your best work (if your friends and your family have not discouraged you into quitting by the time your work is complete), you try to get it published somehow whether in magazines, journals, or by some publishing company. This process is where you decide to just quit on your own.

Publishers will tell you that your work does not suit their needs, or it is not a “good fit” for them. They may simply feel that your work lacks merit or just plain stinks. Next because you can’t get a deal with these publishers, you may decide to self-publish. Following making a substantial financial commitment to the work, you must market yourself and your work continually if you have even a glimmer of hope for a return on your investment. Then, you have to decide, Why am I doing all of this? Is it because you want to be the next John Grisham, James Patterson, or Janet Evanovich? Is it for fame or fortune? Is it because someone told you that you’d be a great writer and that people will read and buy your books? Did they tell you it would be easy?

Well, it’s not easy. It’s hard—every bit of it. However, the ones who survive the rejections and the failure do not neglect their craft for a Saturday night movie or a night out partying away their inspiration. They focus on their craft. They improve their weaknesses, and they maximize their strengths. They seek out other successful writers in their genre and ask them for tips. They cheer on their fellow writers when they succeed instead of finding a reason to justify their own failure.  Successful writers have counted the costs of their profession. They have embraced the struggle. They have decided that their writing means more than momentary fulfillment in activities that ultimately do not culminate in their success. They live for every word they write. They are passionate, vigilant, and unrelenting.

You were misled if you thought this was going to be easy. If you still want to be a writer, the first bit of advice you need is to endure. Writers accept the difficulty and become addicted to their writing habit. Writing is hard, but those who embrace the challenge may reap not only material rewards but also fulfillment for their lives and a claim to their place as a voice in the world amongst their generation.

Structure in Storytelling

Structure in Storytelling

By Chris Mathews

For some of us, writing good sentences is not a challenge. We can do that. We write with flair (we like to think). We know how to color our words with strong nouns and verbs, with sensory details, and with vivid metaphors and similes. The real challenge is to structure our writing so that the reader wants to keep reading our story and not lose his or her way in ornate sentences that meander.

Writers wonder what they can do when they come to a dead-end in their writing, when the muse whispers no more. The answer according to Larry Brooks in Story Engineering is that “…successful stories are as dependent upon good engineering as they are artistry.” For me, this book provided just the recipe I was looking for, especially since my method for writing had always fallen into what Brooks calls pantsing, writing from the seat of your pants without a plan.

When I didn’t know where to go next with a story, my writing would stall out or I would write passages that filled up the pages but did not advance the story. What Brooks recommends is applying screenwriting techniques to build a scaffold for any story, making the story work by blending what he calls the six core competencies: concept, character, theme, structure, scene execution, and writing voice.

He defines concept as the idea that is the springboard for the story, best defined by answering the question “what if?” The answer leads to further “what if?” questions, and the answers become the story. Although concept seems very close to theme to me, it is clearly set apart by Brooks. For Little Red Riding Hood, the concept could have developed by asking, “what if a wolf meets a little girl in the woods who tells him she’s going to her grandmother’s? What if the wolf races ahead to kill the grandmother so he can have a second course—Little Red?.” You can see how concepts for screenplays can be “pitched” to movie studios.

Character is broken down into three dimensions, the first, second, and third. The first dimension of a character is what the reader sees on the surface (he has a hairy face, for the wolf). The second dimension provides the backstory or meaning behind the surface (the wolf is hairy because he is an alcoholic and has let himself go to pot). The third dimension reveals the true nature of the character and includes the character arc, the means of showing character growth (Little Red is naïve in telling a stranger too much, but finally puts two and two together).  Brooks is adamant in claiming that the reader must be able to empathize with or root for the main character in the story. He also claims that the protagonist must face conflict if the story is to advance, and he or she must learn something or at least die trying. The structure of the story should change at crucial times as the hero changes from orphan-to-wanderer-to-warrior-to-martyr (here he makes reference to Carol S. Pearson’s The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By).  In an upcoming blog, I will discuss Brooks’ other core competencies of story-telling, and complete an analysis of his techniques in Story Engineering.

           

Call to Action for SCWW

 

By Ginny Padgett

For those of you who are unfamiliar with our workshop’s origin, we are a chapter of South Carolina Writers’ Workshop (www.myscww.org). All persons over the age of 18 are welcome to visit any chapter and become members of SCWW. The dues are $52.00 per year. Membership fees go toward activities and programs like paying liability insurance for each chapter meeting, maintaining the website where you may share your published works, website and blog page, contests, annual anthology and a nationally recognized writing conference.

Last October, SCWW presented one of its most successful conferences – ask the agents and editors who were faculty for the weekend. Unfortunately the economic climate of the past few years has steadily eroded conference attendance at Myrtle Beach. Even observing the tightest of budgets, for the first time in 22 years the organization ended the year in the red. There just weren’t enough participants to meet expenses. Many writing conferences and other artistic endeavors have been eliminated in the last two to three years. Sadly ours is not an uncommon dilemma these days.

Beginning in January, a fund-raising campaign was launched, including donations by individuals, philanthropists and corporations (including an on-line auction organized and executed by Michelle Johnson of Corvisiero Literary Agency), and has netted about $4,000.00. That amount covers one-third of the deficit. SCWW needs your help in the following ways:

• Pay your dues on time. All membership fee are due on January 1, 2013, unless you became a new member in 2012.
• Make a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution will be recognized on the website (www.myscww.org/sponsors/). Here is the address and suggested levels of giving or use PayPal at the Donate button at the bottom of the SCWW home page.

SCWW Donations

4840 Forest Drive

Suite 6B, PMB 189

Columbia, SC 29206

$25.00 – Friend

$26.00-$100.00 – Benefactor

$101.00-$200.00 – Sponsor

$201.00-$350.00 – Diamond Sponsor

$351.00-$500.00 – Platinum Sponsor

$501 and up – Angel

·        Contact a business or individual who supports the arts to ask for a financial donation or contact SCWW President Ginny Padgett (ginnypadgett@att.net) with pertinent information or ideas. Separate categories of giving apply to this group.

The SCWW Board of Directors is working tirelessly to resolve this deficit. Please join the effort. For 22 years SCWW has supported writers and their dreams. Now it’s your turn to lend a hand to SCWW.

Workshop Musings: Why Do I Write?

These are answers from members of our workshop to the question, “Why do you write?”

 Writing began as a way t o defuse overpowering emotions, most of them negative – anger, disappointment, depression. Somehow poems eased the intensity and allowed me to think more rationally.
 My poems distanced me from what ever bothered me. However, in time I discovered that I enjoyed working with words, which can be deceitful as well as honest.
 When I write fiction I experience many adventures.

Bonnie Stanard

 I write because thoughts come to me from God-knows-where that I think might be important to someone else, to those I love, to me.
 I think writing helps me relate to people better as I understand myself better.
 It’s fun. It gives me joy. My parents instilled in me a love for writing.

Chris Mathews

I write as an outlet for my hopes and fears, mostly my fears.

Sarah Herlong

1. Money

1. Fame

1. Attention

1. Pride

1. Money

1. To get some sleep

Re #6: When I get into my writing mode, I wake at all hours to scribble thoughts.

Mike Long

To produce the kinds of stories I like to read and, in so doing, create value for others who also like those kinds of stories.

Also, it’s fun.

Charles Wentworth

 I write to communicate. When I read, I feel close contact with the author. When I write, I hope to communicate some intimate feelings and ideas to my readers. Creative writing is rarified expression.

 Laura Valtorta

  I write because I read, and I see inspiration when I read others’ writing. I have a talent that I must develop in order for my life to be fulfilled. It is my hope that my writing inspires others the way writing inspires me.

Len Lawson

  I write as a creative outlet; however, when I write poetry it is to neutralize emotions I don’t know how to process.

Ginny Padgett

   

The Modern Girl’s Guide to Advice: Just Write It

By Kimberly Johnson

Often glib and sometimes risqué, but she made a good point. That’s how I define Dear Abby’s advice style. Straight, no chaser. That’s how I describe her writing style. I soaked in her column with zeal when it was featured in The State newspaper. She provided a forum for real talk. Here’s an example:

Dear Abby: My boyfriend is going to be 20 years old next month. I'd like to give him something nice for his birthday. What do you think he'd like? — CarolDear Carol: Never mind what he'd like, give him a tie.Dear Abby: I've been going with this girl for a year. How can I get her to say yes? — DonDear Don: What's the question?

Pauline Phillips, the lady behind the pen, died at the age 94 on January 16. Her career started in 1956 at the San Francisco Chronicle. Her pen name emerged from picking Abigail from the Bible and Van Buren from President Van Buren, according to lore. I was shocked to find out that her biggest competition was the Ann Landers column, written by her twin sister, Esther Lederer. I secretly admired the columnist because I wanted to write like that--quippy advice to women and men with succinct words. I figured it took real skills to develop a style and maintain a following of loyal readers. The Best of Dear Abby, a collection of her advice, retorts and insights was published in 1981.

Now that a legend has passed on, there's a new America’s Advice Queen on my reading shelf. It is E. Jean, the saucy advice guru for Elle magazine. The best way to characterize her is that she’s a disciple of Helen Gurley Brown and the grandmother of Sex In the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. Her advice is simple.

Dear E. Jean: I’ve been in an extremely satisfying relationship with my boyfriend for the past two years. Both our families love us as a couple. Since we moved in together six months ago, however, his mother insists on introducing me to her friends and relatives as her son’s fiancée—even though he hasn’t proposed yet! People invariably ask to see the ring (SHOCK—I have none) or ask how he proposed (GASP—he hasn’t yet), and his mom just stands there and smiles and smiles. How can I get her to stop doing this? The poor man hasn’t even had a chance to get down on one knee! —Frustrated and Flustered

Flustered, My Faun: Next time the lady—let’s call her Peggy—introduces you to her friends as her son’s fiancée, simply throw an arm around Peggy, clasp her warmly, and say to her pals, enthusiastically: “Peggy’s pregnant!” “No, I’m not!” she’ll cry. “You’re not?” you’ll say. “Well, your son hasn’t proposed, either. I guess we’ll both have to wait.” She’ll get the picture.

Abby and E. Jean are examples of columnists who used well organized, succinct writing techniques to dispense advice.

Finding Your Writing Influence

By Len Lawson   

It is a crucial benefit for writers to discover the authors who have had the most significant influence on their work. This revelation will help us to understand what type of writers we truly are and in what direction our writing can and should go. Without knowing who has influenced us, it remains difficult, especially for beginners, to understand how we write. However, we do not have to become the same authors as others who have influenced us. We should use this knowledge as a door to greater awareness of our individual craft.

For example, I first became interested in literature in high school. We read the classics like Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and others, but the one author we read who intrigued me most was Zora Neale Hurston. When we read her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, I was overwhelmed with Hurston's diction and dialogue.

Reading Hurston led me to my writing idol at the time Toni Morrison. However, when I made the decision to become a writer, my words came out similar to Morrison’s words with long sentences and many adjectives. When I first allowed others to read my writing, its density confused them. Moreover, I discovered that Morrison read much of William Faulkner’s and Virginia Woolf’s writing before writing her own. Her works are really a combination of both their styles.

I realized that if I were to become a serious writer, then I would have to develop my own style. Nonetheless, my influences instantly came out onto the pages because I had read so much of them. I channeled Hemingway’s use of dialogue in a matter-of-fact tone. I disseminated Hurston’s African American dialogue in some of my writing with Southern settings. Furthermore, yes, I did use what I learned from Morrison’s uniqueness yet sparingly so as not to confuse my readers. I incorporated the best of those authors fused with my own creativity and paradigm.

The result has been a style all my own. Critics might say that I am simply copying other writers and pasting them into my work. I say that without reading a variety of styles, writers cannot discover their own. I leave these tips for us to discover who our writing influences are and to discover who we are as writers:

1. What writers do you enjoy reading? What is great about these writers and their works?
2. What can you detect in your own writing that resembles what you see in other writers you have read?
3. What else can you learn about these writers that can better influence your writing (i.e. their biography or autobiography, how they became writers, what writers influenced them)?
4. Which of these writers’ works, if any, most resemble your own?

            

Django, Historical Buffoonery

By Bonnie Stanard

Anachronisms are the bane of serious historical fiction writers. If we rack up too many, our validity as researchers if not writers is called into question. For those of us who spend a lot of time figuring out things like whether alcoholic drinks were served with a straw in 1858, Leonardo Dicaprio had us choking on our popcorn in the movie Django Unchained. There he was on the screen, surrounded by his slaves and sipping a coconut daiquiri with a straw. Whatever the blood and gore, that straw was indefensible.

As improbable as the straw were some of the situations. Any black person, slave or free, who wore a pistol in 1858 wouldn’t have worn it long. Nor would he sit at a dinner table with white people. And since slaves were considered property worth from $500 to $1500, what owner would damage his own property? And there was a lot of damage here.

But wait a minute. Director Quentin Tarantino signals that the movie is unorthodox on the posters used for promotion. How can anybody take seriously a 19th Century cowboy wearing sunglasses? Obviously Django is not intended as a traditional Western.

In a review of Django, Stephanie Zacharek of NPR claims that if the movie “takes significant liberties with history … , it also faces certain historical truths head-on.” She doesn’t elaborate on these truths and I’m still wondering what they could be. She also says it isn’t a screed because “there’s too much joy in it.” Huh? Did she say “joy?” Amusement … maybe.

Those of us expecting a cowboy adventure of the more typical sort were twisting in our seats by the second half, hardly aware of the playfulness. Early on, I scoffed at the poor approximation of what was supposed to be cotton plants growing in a field. However, Tarantino had everything under control. He hadn’t been so stupid as to accidentally make cotton look like soy beans with blooming boles.

Anyway, director Quentin Tarantino is not easy to interpret. The historical inaccuracies are a way of messing with the concept of suspending disbelief. Even as we immerse ourselves in the story, we are kept out of Django’s world. The movie is a tongue-in-cheek offering that dares you to like it. It’s deliberately provocative.

It’s listed as an “Action” movie but begs for another label, one that will acknowledge the element of absurdity. It’s been well received by critics and has an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. If it weren’t for the violence, I’d watch the movie again with the hope of more insight into Tarantino’s unconventional talent.

For all Zacharek says about Tarantino, her comment about his use of the n-word prompted the most responses, some of them acrimonious (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/24/166898958/tarantinos-genius-unchained). There are critics who reduce Django to that one issue and would throw Tarantino under the bus for using the word. Several weeks ago on my WritePersona blog, I addressed this dilemma, one that haunts those of us who place our stories in the South in the 19th Century. (http://writepersona.blogspot.com -- scroll down to “Tough Words”)

Advice to Beginner Writers

At a recent workshop, our members were asked what would be their best advice to a new writer. Here are three selections.

You can’t wait until you are inspired to write. You have to write everyday. Recreate conversations you’ve had, write descriptions of places you’ve been, and record tidbits of stories people tell you. These are the makings of great writing.

Sarah Herlong

I learned the hard way that it is important for beginning writers to honor your original purpose when you are serious about writing something as long as a book. If something inspires you enough to take on such a complex task, be true to it  Along the way, you will be tempted to go off in other directions.  That's okay; you might produce all kinds of good material for other uses, but eventually you'll have to pare it down if you want to accomplish your original purpose cleanly and effectively.  Here's an example of what I mean:  I started to write a memoir about a period in my family life related to the Vietnam War, inspired by the issue of war today.  As I wrote about my family, my writer's group asked for more insight into my parents.  So I spent a lot of time working on that (which I don't regret).  But now I realize that the story of my struggles to understand my parents is another book altogether. Maybe I will write that book someday. I think so. But I have been at this book three years.  It won't get finished if I keep trying to write TWO stories into one work.  I'm not good enough, yet, to do that. And I won't get better if I insist on struggling on and on when I know in my heart I am over my head.       
Debbie Yoho

Advice:  Keep a notebook or legal pad of thoughts to use for future story ideas.  It is a great way to capture a fleeting thought and come back to it when you are ready to develop it.

Kimberly Johnson

Free Downloads On Kindle

By Mike Long

Until recently I’ve steadfastly resisted giving any of my books away.  Sure, I sent copies to folks for reviews (with mostly good results) and even donated a case to a US Army aviation unit in Afghanistan – but that’s not the same as listing a book as ‘Free’ on Kindle for several days.  Why on earth would a sane person do that?

I’m not sure why sane folks do anything, but what pushed me to try a ‘free download’ promo was the fact that I just wasn’t selling many copies as E-books.  I had my first novel (No Good Like It Is) and the sequel (Dog Soldier Moon) available on Kindle, Smashwords, Sony, Nook, etc., but was only moving maybe twenty or twenty-five on each per month.

I’d already gone through the Kindle pricing drill, starting at $9.99, then $5.99, then 99 cents and finally establishing my ‘sweet spot’ as $2.99 per.  At that price or higher, the author gets 70% of each sale; below that, it’s only 35%.

And when Kindle offered their Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL), I was slow to join up (why loan books for free, rather than sell them?) – until I learned that the KOLL program actually pays a little to the participating authors.  You do have to give Kindle an ‘exclusive’ on your books, but I’d never received a penny from Sony, Smashwords, Nook, etc. anyhow.  Another no-brainer, once I studied it.

And all that led me to the free download promo.  A friend explained that the folks who hold out for freebies on Kindle were probably never going to pay for one of my books – unless maybe they got the first one free and just had to have the sequel, especially if it didn’t cost much.

I ran my experiment Nov. 26-30 2012, after a good deal of mostly free advertising.  I used Facebook (all my groups therein) and LinkedIn, and found more than a dozen sites that would blog or advertise my effort for little or nothing.

There were over 6500 free downloads during that five day promotion; most (6200) were in the first three days, so a two or three-day promo is probably enough.  But what happened afterward is what has really surprised me.

In the nine days since I stopped the promotion, I’ve had over 220 paid downloads (purchases, KOLL Loans) of my first novel; the figures on the sequel aren’t in yet.  Remember, I was only doing about 22 of each per month before.  I don’t expect this pace to continue, but it’s sweet now.

And there are still 6500+ potential buyers for the sequel.  Write On!        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

             

             

           

                                                           

                                                 

           

           

           

                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

             

             

           

                                                           

                                                 

           

           

           

                                                                                                                         

'How To' Sells

By Fred Fields

"If you want to sell books and make money, 'how to' sells better than fiction, at least until you're famous." That's what an editor from a book publishing company told me at the South Carolina Book Festival.

She was right about selling more books.

Also, if you're a novice writer, as I was, and know little or nothing about your craft, 'how to' is much less demanding.  Your reader is more interested in substance than in form.

So the episodic biography that was expected to be my first offering was tucked away, and I wrote a book about how to play golf, a subject I had studied in earnest for almost sixty years.

The 'how to' book was self-published and listed on the internet. It sold a few copies, but not enough. In an attempt to increase sales, I invested in a course to teach me internet marketing, and the sales multiplied far beyond my hopes and dreams.

Looking at that book now, after two years of learning something about how to write, It's obvious that, although there are some good points to recommend it, the book really is not well written. There is more to professional writing than getting 'A's' in Writing 101.

Now, with more experience and knowledge of the publishing business, I am about to do what most neophytes do, ignore proven good advice. Within the next several months, I expect to publish the biography which was put aside earlier. My hope is that it will sell one-tenth as well as the golf book.

Now, profiting from lessons learned, I know two things that I didn't know at the beginning. The new book will have to be written much better than my first effort. And it will have to be marketed differently if it is to experience even minimal success.

    

The Recycled Character

By Michelle Gwynn Jones

When it comes to character development, I have no problem coming up with the main character and the secondary or supporting characters.  I see them clearly in the office, at the crime scene or eating an ice cream cone by the river.  What bogs me down are the tertiary characters.  I don’t mean the throwaways ones like the guy who sells them their frozen treat, but the one who will contribute in some significant way.  I found myself spending way too much time sitting in front of the computer contemplating whether they are a man or a woman or simply picking their name. 

Then about a year ago I found a solution to my problem.  While with a friend, we ran into a co-worker of hers at the store, a woman I had never met, but I recognized her  co-shopper  as the mother of a child my son played T-ball with.  When you live in a town of twenty thousand residents you bump into people you know from one place or another all the time at the dry cleaner, the dentist or the dump.

That’s when I decided I could, and should, recycle my characters.

Everything I write takes place in the fictional town of New Grace, South Carolina, a town approximately the same size of the one I live in.  It seems so natural to cross over my characters.   The detective from my Rachel Shorte Mysteries is investigating a crime in my Reese Millridge novel.  The mother of twins in The Man in Black crosses paths with a serial killer in another work in progress.  Rachel Shorte’s law partner turns out to be the mother of one of the teenage girls in Transferred Intent.

The character’s history is not important to the roles I am now presenting them in.  A person reading Reese Millridge does not need to know about the complicated life of the detective’s girlfriend or  that the young mother was there when a hit man took out his target or that the attorney has her own problems with the Sheriff’s Department.

A friend reading Reese Millridge called to say she just came across the detective in the wrong series.  I knew exactly what page she was on.  When she finished the novel, we discussed his appearance in the book.   She told me having read books in both series the crossover was a nice touch and agreed if she hadn’t read the other book she wouldn’t have given him much thought other than his investigation.  She said she liked having intimate knowledge of his personal life; it was like reading a newspaper article in which a friend is mentioned. 

I am enjoying scattering my characters about town through my writing, but like anything else fun, it comes at a cost.  Now I need to keep a character sheet for people who were once throwaways, and not only must I maintain a meticulous timeline for each story, I need to make sure their timelines are in line with each other.

Actually sitting here writing this, I have to ask myself if my solution to tertiary characters takes up more of my time than I wasted staring at the computer screen before;  but it’s too late to turn back now, I’m addicted.

 

Art by Art

By Laura P. Valtorta

Art begets art. Painting has intercourse with music and produces poetry. Playwriting marries the Philharmonic and their children are operas.

To jump-start my own creative writing, I may read, listen to music or see a movie. Maybe all three. For rapid inspiration, I visit an art gallery.

Two things recently helped grease the wheels of my memoir: Visiting Ginger’s house, and seeing the movie “The Sessions,” starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt. Ginger’s House is a living art gallery – filled with painted walls, found objects, and junk sculpture. The house has a voice all its own.

“The Sessions” is a movie about love and disability that the directors thought about for many years and had trouble selling to the less-artful commercial world of Hollywood. When I saw “The Sessions,” I immediately understood something about hardship and compassion. Something better expressed in poetry or music, or tales about my clients and how they keep my spirit alive. “The Sessions” sends a realistic message about love.

All art is a rarefied form of communication, a direct pathway to the sensual side of the brain. Like a strong smell, art bypasses criticism and conversation. The best inspiration for a poem about a turtle may be one of Peter Lenzo’s sculptures about schizophrenia.

What Is Poetry?

By Alex Raley

Often people, even in our writer’s group, say they don’t understand poetry, or they know nothing about poetry. How can that be? Recently, I took the time to read definitions of “poetry” from different dictionaries. They were remarkably similar. They included such things as words, sounds, meter and verses, but none of them defined poetry as rhymed verses. Perhaps that is because up-to-date dictionaries tend to define words the way they are currently used.

I particularly like a definition of poetry from Merriam-Webster: “. . . writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.”

Edward Hirsch, in his introduction to Contemporary Poetry, says “Poetry is a stubborn art, and the poet is one who will not by (sic) reconciled. Who refuses to vanish – to let others vanish – without leaving a verbal record.”

Think about that for a moment. Isn’t that what we do when we set about to write fiction or non-fiction? We may not be looking for rhythm, but we search for the words to describe the exact experience we have in mind whether that experience is from our lives or from an explosion in our imagination. How often do we write and rewrite to assure that the experience will not vanish but will live in words we have chosen? How often is our fiction filled with unintended poetry?

As Hirsch said, writing poetry is not easy. Don Marguis said, “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

Nevertheless, we keep turning experiences into words, either as poetry or as fiction and non-fiction.

Several writings read in our group are filled with poetry. One with a mother, who will not give up her long wait for her son, expresses her hopes by talking about her grandson. I have taken the liberty of putting it in verse form:

     That darling boy is my grandson

     And a godsend.

     And when my boy Dobey shows up here,

     That child is gonna pull him back

     Into the real world

     In a heartbeat.                                                    

Another writer ends her book about a female who finally escapes from her island of despair:

    In the expanse of water,

    The air seemed easier to breathe,

    Above them the moon was ending its journey.

    Stars seemed to fade away.

    . . .

    The island gradually disappeared

    And with it, Master Goodwin.

As to meaning in poetry, I think that is the rose petal we keeping waiting to hear echo in the canyon of our minds. I heard a lecture/reading by the well-known poet Galway Kinnell. He said that he is often asked to reveal the meaning of a poem. His stock reply is, “. . .shall I read it again?”

I challenge you to drop rose petals as you write. You might just hear an echo even in your fiction.

Exploiting Conflict in your Writing

By Chris Mathews

Conflict is the ticking time bomb in riveting writing.  We may not all be writers, but we are all amateur psychologists.  We understand and are entranced by people at odds with each other.  Moreover, it is when people are pitted against each other, each striving to get what he or she wants that character emerges and plot develops.  In the words of Uta Hagen, renowned actor/teacher, “If I know what I want and can achieve my objectives readily without any problem there is no drama.”  As writers, we must look for opportunities to exploit conflict in our writing.  I use the word “exploit” here to mean “take advantage of” or to “grasp the opportunity” not “to manipulate.”

In my play GARGOYLES, some high school students in a mountain community are acting in a dress rehearsal for a Halloween play, “Raising Spirits,” when the director receives a note from the principal of the school board’s decision to halt the production.   I chose not to have the cast all agree about fighting to present the play. By creating a different point of view for Bet who plays Sister Sabrina in “Raising Spirits,” I was able to develop her character and increase the tension of the scene.  Here is the scene:

CHRIS.    But it doesn’t make sense!  “Raising Spirits” is no ode

to Satan.  It’s a harmless, little Halloween comedy.  Haven’t they

ever seen reruns of Bewitched?

SHANNON.   Chris is right, Ms. Williams.  How do they even

know what it’s about?  They haven’t seen it yet.  Nobody dies.  The

warlock gets his just desserts.   He overdoses on candy corn, and

he’s banished to grade B horror flicks forever.

MS. WILLIAMS.   Shannon, remember where we live.     

MARC.     But they can’t control us, can they?  We’ve worked for

almost two months on this play.  Hey, it may not be Shakespeare,

but it’s got some good laughs.

            KARA.    Yeah, like when Chris sings.

CHRIS.   Hey, watch it.  I don’t sound that bad.

BET.   Well, I’m sick of this play.  It’s stupid and I’m glad we

don’t have to do it tomorrow in front of all the English classes.

JAMIE.    Oh, come on, Bet.  Just because you didn’t get to be

Sally.

BET.   Yeah, well being an airhead in “Raising Spirits” is not my

idea of a juicy part.

SHANNON.    It’s a play, okay.  At least I’m an airhead and

not a pothead, like some people I know…in real life.

BET.  Aren’t we cute?  Little Miss Sunshine, spreading your warmth wherever you go.  Listen sister, just remember you don’t know me.  You didn’t grow up here, Miss Suburbia.  

JAMIE.    Just because she’s type cast.  The lady-in-black.  Ms.

Death Rock…  

            KARA.     …Leave her alone

MS. WILLIAMS.    Okay, that’s enough!   We’re all a little

uptight.  There’s no sense in going on now.  Sorry, guys.  Looks

like “Raising Spirits” has landed us in the pits(she starts to exit).

Come to a dead-end in your writing?  Look for opportunities to inject conflict in your work.