Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Making people believe the unbelievable is not trick; it's work. ...Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for anything." —Stephen King


And Stephen King is a master at making his readers believe the unbelievable.



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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's." —Stephen King



I love this quote. Unfortunately it's often easier said than done.



It's all better with friends.

Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings." —Stephen King




Earlier this month I killed 10,000 darlings. Last month, 35,000. I'm officially a ms murderer.

(These erasers remind me of scary clowns. Just sayin'.)





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Wednesday Wisdom for Writers and Those Who Love Them

"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page." —Stephen King



This is pretty much the guts of it.


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On Writing—A Few More Things

For some reason, God has me reading Stephen King's On Writing at the same time He has me doing Nano. There's a message there somewhere, but I have absolutely no time to look for it.

In case you're interested, yesterday was a lousy Nano day. Zero words. Chalk it up to Techno Treachery. Writing longhand may sound glamorous and more "in touch", but like King, frustration mounts when my hand doesn't produce at a speed that anywhere near matches my thoughts.

Today however, even with going to a movie and dinner with my husband, having a wonderful walk and visit with a friend, taking a shower, getting on "public clothes", putting on a face, and seeing to all of the societal things one should see to, I still managed to crank out 1,277 words.

Personally, I think it was because I didn't have to make dinner.

I was in The Zone. It was almost a shame to stop. But this scary-fear thing set in and I dunno . . . I was either going to become a lunatic and type until smoke came out of my computer, or (and this was my greatest fear) I'd write away until the flame became a sizzle, and the sizzle became a spatter, and the spatter became a pop, and then I'd be left wrung out and dry, never to write again. No more words.

But I digress. That's a topic for another post.

A thought from On Writing that has given me freedom . . . it sits right next to Anne Lamott (whom I love) telling me I could write a "Shitty First Draft" (her words, not mine—but they do create a clear picture). King talks about writing the first draft behind closed doors. In other words, it's just you and the story. No one else is peeking. In fact, he doesn't even do any research at this point. If he doesn't know squat about a particular subject, he just makes it up and waits until the second draft/rewrite to get the details right, if he actually needs them.

The first draft is produced behind closed doors (do you get that I love the closed door concept?). He writes for an audience of one. Not him, but his wife—the Ideal Reader. He imagines her reading the words he writes as he writes them. How cool is that? But he says ". . . my mental version of Tabby is rarely as prickly as my real-life wife can be; in my daydreams she usually applauds and urges me ever onward with shining eyes . . . " Still, he writes for her behind those fabulous closed doors. It's not until the first draft is done that he actually shares it with her.




I'm still nowhere near on target with Nano, but I do have a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment. Next month (or whenever) when I start to edit, I may decide this was a tremendous waste of time . . . but tonight? I don't think so. It feels too good.

It's all better with friends.

So, A Little More on On Writing and Not Plotting

I'm beginning to think the really great writers are confident enough (insane/wonky/free enough) to just sit down, with as King says, a "situation", and let the story rumble.

I remember describing King years and years ago to others. I said that the amazing thing about his books is how he took a normal, everyday event/occurance/place and twisted it.

King talks about not plotting: "I'd suggest that what works for me may work equally well for you. If you are enslaved to (or intimidated by) the tiresome tyranny of the outline and the notebook filled with "Character Notes," it may liberate you. At the very least, it will turn your mind to something more interesting than Developing the Plot."

And: "Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored."

And: "Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest."

My friend and critique partner, Susan Lohrer, sent this quote today from Dean Koontz: "I give my characters free will. The story is never outlined. They go where they want — and surprise me. When they speak, I don't force them to feed information to the reader and advance the story. If they want to digress, I let them. If each is a vivid individual, his or her dialogue will be unique. And often in the digressions, we learn about them and discover new dimensions in the story. When a character says something funny, I laugh out loud because it’s as if I'm hearing it, not writing it."

King's exhortations to be honest and truthful (and it seems Koontz would agree with him) are keys, I think, to allowing a situation to grow into a full-fledged, nail-biting story filled with people we can, on some level, identify with. I'm willing to give this situational writing a try and see what happens.

It's that basic "don't write for the Legion of Decency" hurdle that's a little scary to jump over. At least it is if you've always been the Good Girl.

I loved what he said about description: "Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."

Writers, readers and movie-goers were all saddened today to learn of the death of Michael Crichton. Our loss of his imagination and energy will leave a hole on earth.




Still plugging (albeit slowly) along in Nano. Trying to swing a little looser ala King and Koontz.

It's all better with friends.

On Writing

I'm working my way through Stephen King's On Writing.

The first portion had me laughing out loud.

About half-way through the book (and I'm only slightly farther than that now) some ideas about writing began to sift through to my brain. Not all of them were stunners. I mean, I've heard them before. But the fact that Stephen King said them gives them some kind of ethereal glow.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."

Since lunacy grabbed be by the neck a few days ago, I've been fighting with my über-ugly writing progress with Nanowrimo. It isn't pretty, but I am writing more than before.

Reading is the easy one for me. Plain and simple, if I don't have something I'm currently reading, and at least a few things waiting to be read . . . well, thankfully that's never happened. I'm afraid I would be sent away for a very, very long time. But hey, as long as they had books. . . .

Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day. Every day. I know of writers who write far more than that, and I'm sitting here watching the words appear on screen of a writer who writes far less than that. (Which would explain why I'm woefully behind with the Nano project.) ". . . but only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words."

And here is one of my favorite quotes, and one that I'm struggling with learning now, because as King explains it, it pretty much goes against plotting.

The question is, once a writer sets a goal and creates the space to write, what do they write about? King's answer? "Anything at all . . . AS LONG AS YOU TELL THE TRUTH."

Regarding plotting? ". . . I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible." King tells me that my job as the writer is to give the story the opportunity to grow and reach its full potential. I merely record what I see.

Where can I get some of that magic dust?




You know what I'm reading. You know what I'm working on. That felt like I was writing something along the lines of "I know who you are and I saw what you did."
Ruh-roh.


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Learning From the Masters

I have a loyalty gene that I've finally kicked to the gutter. Back in November, I blogged a bit about eight little words that Dean Koontz used that made my big toes punch through my socks before they blew off.

I found Stephen King before I'd ever heard of Dean Koontz. Someone told me that Koontz was way too far out there and way too scary. I believed them. I stuck with King. Until he started to seem way too far out there and way too scary. But the only Koontz book I ever read was one he co-wrote with King and I'm thinking whatever it was didn't leave a big impression.

What's a girl to do?

I'm about half-way through my very first Dean Koontz in its entirety. False Memory seemed to start a bit slow (as opposed to the beginnings I'd read of The Darkest Evening of the Year, or The Husband) but when it grabbed me, there was no going back.

Dean Koontz is a master. Plain and simple. He's got all the goods and is the real deal.

What I've Learned in 300 Pages:

*** His setting is as much a character as his characters. FM is in a moody, stormy Southern California. It's big. It's bad. But is it as bad as the characters' are imagining? Or is it worse?

*** He spends time developing that character of scene and setting. He takes out his paintbrush, and because the character is so vivid, the brush strokes so firm, you are NOT taken out of the story. If anything, you're pulled deeper into the danged thing.

*** Every scene grounds the reader in the location almost immediately. You don't have to play catch-up to the words. You get to start where the next piece starts. (I've decided that's just having good manners.)

*** He's not afraid of backstory. And when I recognized it and began to prepare myself to do a bit of skimming, I still got caught up in his writing. The backstory he shared was packed with meaning and emotion. It truly filled out the characters and the circumstance. It was never an author's need to dump parts of their fabulously drawn, in-depth character sketches.

*** God is in the details. To me, almost to a distraction . . . until I read a bit further and than appreciate him for not making me feel stupid. Because by golly, I now know exactly what he means by lacrimal ducts and why the creepy character is infatuated with them.

*** He puts energy and description and detail into EVERY scene, building EVERY character to their maximum story viability. He doesn't walk away just letting the reader "get it" or not.

When I grow up, I want to write like Dean Koontz.

It's all better with friends.