What Makes a Good Story

Australian writer, Ian McHugh, has some great tips on how to turn a good idea into a great story:

"Having a notion that the world is round is an idea. A story is like the ship you build to prove that idea. Like a ship, a story needs something to push it along, a method for navigating and steering it and a watertight structure to prevent it from sinking without trace into the dark and airless depths of crushing despair below. Like a ship, a story is a cohesive, complex, mechanical whole, the purpose of which is to deliver your idea to its destination (your readers). And like a ship, if any parts of the machine are poorly designed or constructed, your story will end up becalmed in the middle of nowhere, go off in the wrong direction or sink without trace into the dark and airless depths of etcetera."

Click on the text above to see Ian's entire post, outlining the brainstorming and writing process of his fabulous short story, "Cold, Cold War", which was published in June 2013 and is currently available online at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

How Real is your Fantasy?

On her own webpage, Joanna Fay explains how she uses intuition and word association to invent meaningful names for people, places and objects in her fantasy writing.

"In the ‘show, don’t tell’ model, there are two main aspects I use to give the world of Siaris a feeling of internal realism. One is context; using only the context of a naming noun. The other is creating an unfamiliar word that has real word associations or suggestiveness in its soundforms. Even more effective is to combine the two; then the need to ‘tell’ drops away."

For more check out the full post on Jo's own webpage.

You Need More Ellen Datlow In Your Life!

If you write at all - short stories, novels, any fiction at all,  then you should know who Ellen Datlow is. Multiple award winning editor, Ellen has produced anthology after anthology, working with countless famous authors and editors. If you want to know more about the state of the industry, or how to write better, Ellen is someone you should know.

Special products she is currently offering are:

For $350 (two premiums available): Pick Ellen's Brain: Ellen Datlow will answer all your editing/publishing questions on a one-to-one basis for 1.5 hours in person (at a coffee shop if you're in New York City), or by phone, or by Skype.
(fearfulsymmetries.com)

For $250:
Short Story Critique: Written critique of your short story, up to 7500 words, by Altered Fluid writers' group members Paul Berger, Richard Bowes, K Tempest Bradford, Kris Dikeman, Alaya Johnson, Rajan Khanna, Matthew Kressel, Eugene Myers, Devin Poore, David Mercurio Rivera, Lilah Wild, Greer Woodward, plus print and e-book editions of Fearful Symmetries, plus acknowledgment in both print and electronic editions of Fearful Symmetries. Plus print and e-book editions of Fearful Symmetries, plus acknowledgment in both print and electronic editions of Fearful Symmetries.
fearfulsymmetries.com

For more information, check out Ellen Datlow's Facebook page

Writing in a dialect, accent or register

In a previous post  I discussed the difference between dialect and accent, and examined the concept of register – the kind of specialised language we use only in certain situations. Yesterday, I was reminded that I hadn’t followed up on my promise to look into these matters from the point of view of the writer. What reminded me was an author friend’s thinking out loud about whether she should incorporate accent or dialect into a Scottish-based story she was writing.

It is indeed a curly problem. Full-on dialect or an entire new language would be too hard to follow, because most readers are not willing to learn a whole new vocabulary. Some readers are willing – just look at the number of SF fans who have learnt to speak Klingon or Elvish. Our own Joanna Fay has even been known to write verse in Elvish now and then! But these enthusiasts constitute an exception, not a rule. Most readers cannot be bothered learning too many new words, especially since reading science fiction and fantasy invariably means learning strange new given names, family names and place names. We might also have to fix entire world-maps into our heads! Expecting us to learn an entirely new vocabulary is probably going a step too far.

How, then, can a writer represent an accent in writing? Let’s say, for instance, that you’ve decided to have a main character who comes from London. George Bernard Shaw did this very nicely in his play Pygmalion, which later became the musical My Fair Lady. He introduces his heroine, Eliza, this way:

‘Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y' de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them? [Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.]’

Note Shaw’s directive at the end. Having established the accent, he modifies his representation of Eliza’s speech considerably thereafter, and tells us he is about to do it. But Shaw was a playwright. A novelist can’t step into the text and explain that she’s given up on the accent, so she has to find another way of approaching the problem.

The best way, perhaps, is to pick out a few characteristics of the dialect and show only those in the way you transcribe the character’s speech. To make your point, you can be a bit heavy-handed when you first introduce the character and then tone it down over the course of a few scenes until only hints of the accent remain. But don’t copy Shaw’s efforts by trying to represent the accent by long screeds of text with apostrophes to denote dropped letters. He was giving us a lesson in what not to do!

So can you ever use a seriously full-on accent? Most readers, I think, are OK with an accent that involves just one or two characters, and if those characters are of the ‘cameo’ kind – people who just drop into the story once or twice to fulfil some purpose of the plot – so much the better. But an accent can pall if it is general throughout the book. It is tiresome to read long screeds of text with apostrophes to denote dropped aitches at the start of particular words and dropped g’s from the end of –ing words, for instance, as you would have to do with a Cockney accent like Eliza Doolittle’s. Strange spelling to represent regional pronunciation is also a sticky problem, and without using IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) it’s not reliable. Besides, most people don’t know IPA.

Perhaps the safest way to approach the writing of an accent is by representing not the sounds so much as the patterns and figures of speech that characterise both accent and dialect. For example, using Yorkshire again, we might have a character use expressions such as ‘our lass’ when referring to a daughter or sister, or ‘our kid’ for a son or brother. Idioms such as ‘Put wood in ’ole’ for ‘Shut the door’ and ‘Mash the tea’ for ‘pour boiling water on tea leaves’ would also quickly set the scene as Yorkshire. (West Australian author Anna Jacobs does this kind of thing particularly well in her historical novels, which are set in Lancashire.)

You can, however, get away with introducing a handful of dialectal words whose meaning is always obvious from the context. Greetings are an obvious choice. The standard Yorkshire greetings ‘Eh yup’ (an old Norse greeting – Yorkshire was overrun by Vikings in the ninth century, as any Bernard Cornwell fan will tell you!) ‘Aw reet then’ (All right then) and 'Nah theen' (Now then) will immediately tell your readers where they are, as will the old Cockney ‘Wotcha, cock!’or the Australia 'G'day'. Even people outside the UK will quickly cotton on to the fact that these are greetings. If you’re working with an invented society, it’s easy enough to create a few greetings for your characters to use.

Register likewise needs to be introduced gradually and in a piecemeal manner, dropping in a word here, a phrase there, making sure that the reader has ample opportunity to digest each new word or expression before bringing in more. Let’s say we have a magical system that involves a process called sprunking, that involves taking several different spells then condensing and combining them so that the wizard has only to work one spell for all to take effect. Here’s a bit of imaginary dialogue between a wizard and his apprentice:

‘Shaynee, did you remember to sprunk in the speeded-up turnip-cooking spell when you set up the cauldron for the stew?’

‘Yes, sir, I sprunked it in with the fire spell.’

‘You did what? Demons below, child, haven’t I told you a dozen times or more that you can only sprunk similar things together? A fire spell is a fire spell; a cooking spell is a cooking spell, and you can’t mix the two. First you must deal with the ingredients. You must sprunk in the bit about fast cooking when you call up the turnips.’

That will give the reader a bit of an idea what’s involved in sprunking. To reinforce the idea, the author might show Shaynee working another spell a few scenes later; a spell that involves sprunking, say, a wood-drying spell while making fire.

So, when introducing dialect or register, start with just one or two words, mention each one a couple of times, then introduce one or two more related ‘jargon’ words the third time the first two are mentioned. Repeat from the top until all the required new vocab has been introduced. If you throw too many new words at your reader in the first few scenes, some of them will give up before the end of chapter one and possibly refuse to look at anything of yours again, ever!

Slowly, slowly, catchee reader.

Guest Post from Author Nick Mamatas: “The Writer’s Life: Actually, It’s Awesome!” � Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Dear Gods I love Nick Mamastas! His blog and his online person are funny, articulate and OMG sharp. One day I'd like to be as sharp as he is!

Regardless, he has written a funny little article here about the life of a writer. I'm pleased to say I have purchased his Starving Better and I am eagerly awaiting delivery! I can't wait to read his pointy little comments and have a good giggle even as I learn stuff.

Guest Post from Author Nick Mamatas: “The Writer’s Life: Actually, It’s Awesome!” � Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Meg Cabot's "How To Write A Novel" Video.

I watch too many crochet videos. How can I tell?

I have completed two blankets, a scarf, a beanie, half a scarf and two thirds of a blanket in four or five months. That's how I can tell!

So I thought ... crochet in, crochet out. There must be some writing videos I can watch. And the very first hit is Meg Cabot, who is a prolific and funny author. Her little video here covers some of the basics she needs to write a novel.

Remember that every one writes novels their own way. My longest novel had only a name and a world. No plot, no plan, and no idea. My best novels were somewhere in between.Any advice given to you as a writer is good advice for the person who gave it to you! It might not be so good for you!
:-)

Kristin Jantz talks about Crafting the Draft

Clarion people are running a series on the craft of writing over on their official blog. Clarion West 2008 graduate, Kristin Jantz, talks about ways of approaching first drafting.

The entire Writer's Craft series can be viewed here

--
Carol

Writing Emotion

Writing emotion is not as easy at it sounds. There are, after all, only so many times a writer can describe a point-of-view character’s body language and physiology before it all starts to sound repetitive. There are a limited number of ways a character’s heart can race when confronted with danger, and a limited number of variations on a shrug or caught breath or sigh. Too much gut churning or bile swallowing and the scene reads like an attack of histrionics.

When writers accomplish their first million words of fiction, chances are they have written down every possible combination of body language. They realise that, although each one is useful in its place, not one is guaranteed to convey a sense of emotion on its own.

So how do writers make readers feel the fear or love or anger that their point-of-view characters are going through? Is it all in the character? Or is it also in the plot, dialogue, setting and tone? Is attention to detail merely a way of making the tale appear authentic? Or do details function at some other level, triggering emotional switches in ways that are both subtle and effective?

To explore this question, I set myself a little exercise. I wrote an action scene from scratch, developing it over five different drafts. First I concentrated on plot, and then I incorporated body language/physiology, and then dialogue, setting, details and tone.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Take 1: Starting with Plot:

While taking a photo, Toby lost his footing and stumbled down the escarpment.

Take 2: Incorporating Body Language and physiology:

Toby inched forward and took the photo. He cried out as he lost his footing. He dropped his camera and scrabbled to catch hold of anything that could slow his descent. He yelped as his arms flailed without success. He slammed into a tree trunk. Pain seared through his right thigh. His vision darkened.

Take 3: Incorporating Dialogue:

Toby inched forward and took the photo.

“Watch out,” Krista shouted.

Toby cried out as he lost his footing. He dropped his camera and scrabbled to slow his descent. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. He yelped as his arms flailed without success etc…


Take 4: Incorporating Setting:

The edge was unstable, but the view of the wooded, coastal plain beneath it was worth the risk. Toby inched forward, and took the photo.

“Watch out,” Krista shouted.

The ground slid beneath Toby’s feet. He cried out as he lost his footing and fell an entire body length before landing in gravel. He dropped his camera and scrabbled to slow his descent. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. Branches and twigs blurred out of reach. Stones skidded beneath him, scraping, bruising, accelerating his fall. He saw the tree only seconds before he reached it, an old, twisted Mallee. Yelping, he veered away from it, but his leg hit it full on. Pain seared through his thigh. His vision darkened.


Take 5: Incorporating Details and Tone:

Toby knew the edge was unstable. He inched forward at just the right angle and pressed the shutter release. Old fashioned photography with its film speeds and f-stops may well have taken him weeks to master but, at that moment, he knew he'd gotten everything right. His photo of the coastal plain with its tangled forest would be stunning, not because of some pre-programmed setting, but because of choices he’d made himself. It would win him the prize, maybe even earn him the publication he was aiming for.

“Watch out,” Krista shouted.

The ground slid beneath Toby’s feet. He lost his footing, cried out and fell an entire body length before landing on gravel. Stones skidded beneath him, scraping, bruising, accelerating his slide down the face of the escarpment. He dropped his camera and scrabbled for a handhold. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. Branches and twigs blurred out of reach; except for the Mallee tree that looked old enough and stubborn enough to block a tornado. Yelping, he tried to veer around it, but his leg hit the tree full on. Pain darkened his vision. He caught a final glimpse of his camera, broken in two – film spooling out like ribbon – tumbling down the slope, overtaking him.

Admittedly the fifth piece still needs work, and if it were a real story, I’d let it sit for a few weeks before getting back to it. But it’s just an exercise, so I’m going to stop here, hoping that it shows some of what I’ve learned about incorporating emotion into my stories. Here, I purposely avoided words that *told* emotion, and instead tried to *show* it in the details and in Toby's ambition to get that photo just right. The addition of the symbol of the broken camera mirrored the broken leg (which the reader will learn about in the next scene) and also added an element of disappointment and irony to an already unpleasant situation. Furthermore, I’m hoping that the image of the film unspooling, and destroying the photo, will show the final insult that made Toby’s pain transcend the physical.

But this is just my own attempt at writing emotion. It’s certainly not the best example, and master writers are much better at it. Click here for an excerpt from Jeanette Winterson's novel The Passion where the perfect amount of showing is balanced with the perfect amount of telling to convey the tension and horror of a gambling match ending badly.

If you have any other thoughts on writing emotion, your comments are most welcome.

--
Carol

Aussiecon 4: Carol's Epilogue

I arrived at Aussicon 4 (my first) with many expectations including the will to listen and learn from this rare gathering of experts in the field of speculative fiction. I knew I would be dazzled by the Hugo and Ditmar award ceremonies, and of course I was. I also knew that I would have the opportunity to speak to writers whose work I have read and admired over the years. To this end I was not disappointed.

I had also signed up for three panels and from the very start felt daunted at the prospect. But my fears were quickly dispelled when my fellow panellists proved thoughtful and generous. I not only learned to voice my knowledge confidently, but also learned many new ways of understanding the topics we were discussing. I’d like to thank Juliet Marillier, Trudi Canavan, Richard Harland, Leanne Hall, Ellen Kushner, Rani Graff, Helen Lowe and Ben Chandler for giving me the opportunity to work with them. You all rock.

My only complaint about the panels (it’s actually a compliment to the organizers) is that there were too many to choose from, and for every panel I chose to listen to, there was one or two running at the same time that I wished I could attend also. But for me, the panel that helped the most with my writing was The Steampunk Playground with John Berlyne, Richard Harland and Jay Lake. I went into it expecting to learn about the direction that steampunk was taking and was not disappointed. But something else happened for me as well. I started thinking about the novel I am still second drafting and, as John, Jay and Richard spoke about the mad science factor and the attraction of Steampunk’s visual elements, it suddenly dawned on me how to make my novel not just work but really work. Thanks to this panel, I am now on a much better footing to get this novel finished, knowing exactly where I want it to go and how to get there. I thank John, Jay and Richard for that. Their panel alone made Aussiecon 4 a worthwhile venture for me.

One of the most daunting aspects of the con for me was the twenty-five minute reading slot I signed up for. I decided before hand that I would read from something published – something safe, that I knew more than one reader would approve of. However, at the last moment, I decided that I’d take a risk and read from my novel instead, and hopefully gauge genuine listener reactions to it. So I read the first chapter – one that has been redrafted several times over to the point where I cannot think how to improve it. I began, terrified that people would walk out. But when they stayed till the end, I felt confident that yes, this novel is starting to work. And yes, I will finish it. Huge thanks to everyone who came and listened to me.

Finally the fun part of Aussiecon will be as memorable as the work aspects. I am infinitely grateful to all the generous, amazing people that talked to me, dined with me, partied with me, as well the new friends and old friends who made me feel like I belonged at Aussiecon. For me, this convention was one of those life experiences that will always remain up there with the best.

KSP Speculative Fiction Awards

The winners of the 2010 KSP Speculative Fiction awards will be announced on Sunday, 15th of August 3-5pm at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, 11 Old York Rd, Greenmount. It promises to be a fun two hours with the awards presentation, readings from the winning entries and judge's report. Special guest, best-selling author Juliet Marillier will also be reading from her latest book and talking about her career as a writer. Afternoon tea will be available for a gold coin donation. So if you're in Perth at the time, you are very welcome to come along and join in.

Open to writers Australia-wide, the KSP SF awards have been held annually since 1998.

Ferret's Six Guidelines to Good Critiques

As a Clarion attendee, Ferrett feels very strongly about the benefits and lessons he learned during his time at Clarion, and is trying to put some of these hard earned lessons out there for discussion.

Ferret's Six Guidelines to Good Critiques

These guidelines are excellent. They focus on the TEXT rather than the author, the author's intent, or the critiquer's opinion. A good crit is worth gold, and it's a techniques that needs to be learned.

At the KSP we encourage people to use the Milton method of critiquing:

* What's It About?
* What worked
* What didn't work
* What Happens Next?
* Notes

- Suggested method the 'Milford Method' (explanation by Lee Battersby):

1. What It's About- the critiquer gives a short description of what they thought the story was about (A man wants to marry his girlfriend, but then she reveals that she's a mermaid, he leaves her but falls into the river and almost drowns, she saves him, they reconcile and have an underwater wedding). This enables the author to see whether the story and narrative they *thought* they were writing is actually being received by the readers.

2. What Worked- the critiquer outlines those technical elements s/he felt were the strong points of the story. Note: that's NOT the things they liked, emotionally, but whether the elements worked in writing terms: you may *hate* the drunk paedophile villain of the piece, but if you were supposed to hate them, well, that element is working.

3. What Didn't Work- the opposite of section 2: the critiquer focuses on what elements didn't work, or which let the story down (The hero states he grew up in France, but then didn't know the difference between a baguette and a croissant....). Again, it's not an emotional response, it's a decision regards what technical matters need improving.

4. What Happens Next- the critiquer offers an opinion regarding what the author needs to do with the story, whether that be "combine all three bad guys into one so the hero has a stronger focus and the reader doesn't get confused" or "Hey, it's perfect, get it in an envelope" The goal here is to give the author a plan of action.

Lastly, if you're especially confident, and definitely if you've got a group that communicates well, give the author a right of reply at the end of the critiquing circle (ie: after everyone else has spoken). It gives everyone a chance to expound on points the author may wish redefined, or for the author to open a dialogue regarding what they were trying to do, and whether it was successful.

Often when I am stuck, I will cut and paste the header text and use that as a tool to critique some one's work. Critiquing is a fine balance of helping to make a text stronger, but not to over power that need by offering too much suggestion, or too much opinion, or too much detail. A crit is not an edit. It can be a lot of fun, as long as you are working in tandem with the author, not against them.

--
Sarah

Editing is Creative Writing Too

Dear Sarah,



Please don't forget that editing (at this level) is as much a creative process as is the initial creation of the novel.



Lots of love, 


Sarah

I don't often email myself, or every one else by accident, but I did the other day. I have a lot of confidence issues about my work. I have a lot of angsting and whining as go through each stage of writing. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's less so.

This email to myself was an epiphany. I had spent four working days (child free days) and a number of non-child free days wrestling constantly with the fact I need to drag my novel into the next draft. The Egoboo group have been wonderfully supportive and inspiring, but let's be honest here. I read one of the crits and it was so happy and positive and warm and generous I cried. That's right. I cried because I got warm, positive, happy feedback.

And it took me about 2 months to even consider reading it. Even after I listened to all the warm, generous, positive things people had to say, I still had some mental block that meant I couldn't start to learn and do until I'd scaled it.

So have I scaled it?

I think that moment when I realised the editing process can be as creative as the writing process was the first chink in the wall. I have a toehold. I can get my fingers in the cracks. The part where I put my weight onto my fingers and toes is coming, but now I feel like it's possible.

Part of this is undoing my own indoctrination on how I think the writing process works. Some subconscious part of me thinks that you write a story, cut it into shape, and play with the words, and that the writing part is 'fun' and the editing part is 'work'. Reaising that the next draft of this book is going to be equally creative is a breakthrough for me. I need to tie off threads, add threads in, rewrite scenes... all of this needs me to be alert creatively, on the ball linguistically, and thoughtful plot-wise.

This is a chance to make the ideas and the storyline awesome. And that's why it's worth all the self-learning and revelations and ephiphanies. They're hard won, and they're going to be reflected in this book which will be the best I can make it.

Maybe next time the letter will read:

Dear Sarah,


You're working hard on making this the best book it vcan be. Well done, it's going brilliantly.  Keep up the hard work.



Lots of Love, 


Sarah

Eagle Bay Critiquing.

We’ve had some enquiries about how we Egobooers went about critiquing for the retreat so to answer your questions…

It can be difficult for the inexperienced critiquer to realise what is involved. There’s no doubt in my mind that critiquing is an art. Anyone can read a piece of writing, look at a painting or listen to a musical performance and say ‘I didn’t like it’ or ‘I loved it’. They are both quite valid comments in the context of personal reactions – but they are emotional responses, not a critique. A critique is a critical assessment of what you have experienced as a reader and that includes the good and the bad. By all means, if you didn’t enjoy a story you can say so but you must be able to say why – and this is when it becomes hard.

As far as the Egobooers go in terms of critiquing experience we're a mixed group. Two of us have attended Clarions (a great source of honed critiquing skills), one is an editor while the other two are less experienced. It didn’t matter. The range of experience in fact brought fresh approaches and different perspectives which added to the experience.

Some focussed more on the technicalities of language like grammar, structure and language usage; others on plot structure and coherency of ideas or characterisation. While we each brought something unique to our critiques, though, we all also brought a commonality of ideas. While I was sitting there, condemned to silent listening as my fellow Egobooers went through their comments, I was struck by how often the same issues came up. I had fifteen repeated points by the end of my session.

Despite our differences our critiques all followed a similar pattern – a short comment of what we liked most about the story followed first by what worked for the reader and then any areas that didn’t work with suggestions to be considered as to how this could be improved.

We found that while we hadn’t set out any specific criteria (although some of us did ask for particular aspects to be looked at) we all tended to comment on the usual important areas, those that make up the framework of a story of any kind - things like the opening, plot, point of view, writing style, character and characterisation, dialogue, setting and repetition and so on. If you go to any of the many excellent articles online or in books on writing you will find lists of what to look for when you are tackling a critique. They are a great source of detailed reminders of what you need to think about.

But that is the technical side. Beyond that there were certain basic precepts we all followed.

1. We were honest. This is not always easy to do when you are eviscerating someone’s darling in front of them but it is essential.

2. We were gentle. It is possible not to be brutal even if what you are saying is harsh.

3. We aimed at helping but not rewriting. The suggestions we made were just that – suggestions.

4. We made it clear that we respected the work we were critiquing. In every novel there were original ideas and great writing. Our aim was to help the writer improve on that.

5. We never criticised the person only the writing in its many aspects.


While these were not spelled out but came from our respect for each other I think they were an essential part of the success of the Eagle Bay retreat.

There is more to critiquing, of course, and I will look at some of those skills in another post.

Creative Flurries and Writing Addictions

 I felt like pointing us all to Subnormality:

http://www.viruscomix.com/page473.html

(For those with vision impairments, it's a comic about a man who pays a woman to write/make up a story for him, in the vein of hiring a prostitute. It's a horror story, and when he's had his terrors, they chat on the way back to her street corner about why she accepts cash to write trash. She says writing is an addiction, and tells of how she started writing casually in school, and now she's totally hooked and has to feed her addiction somehow.)

I find it interesting to liken writing to an addiction because when I'm in the zone, it is totally addictive. Everything that drags me away from the PC gets balanced against the loss of the creative spark in that window. If something falls below that mark, then I cancel it/ignore it and stay on the PC. I try to keep it under control, because I can ignore everything when I am in a creative flurry, and I get very excitable about interruptions. Having two small children isn't good for an interruption free writing career! I also don't want their memories of their mum to be of me yelling at them to leave me alone! So, I try to keep my 'creative flurries' in the safe zones - when they are not around.

At the same time, I am aware that writing is not a true addiction. The destructive nature of a true addiction is an awful, awful thing to be a part of, be close to, or be near. Hopefully writers are a bit easier on their friends, spouses and children! I like creative flurry as it indicates the chaotic nature of my word production; and a certain sense of speed or urgency.

How do you describe your creative flurries? Do you find it addictive? What other words would you use to describe the way you feel about your creative flow?

--
Sarah

Thoughts on Writing Cross Gender.

When I first started novel writing in my early teens, my protagonists were always women. I didn’t feel confident leaping into the mind of a man because, although I had a fair idea of how men acted and spoke, I had no idea how they thought. My father would talk to me about science and science fiction, but not much else. My brother was into things mechanical, but I was too girlie and too bookish to be interested in fixing up old cars.

So how does a woman writer figure out how men think? Do men necessarily think like men? And do women necessarily think like women? Better still, is it possible that both genders secretly think like each other?

The obvious answer would be to go out and interview a few men. Not just fathers, husbands and brothers, but men from all walks of life. The problem with doing this, however, is that you don’t know if they are telling you the truth or if they are telling you what they think is supposed to be the truth.

Fortunately for women, there are a lot of books written by men about men. Over the years, these books have given me a good idea of how some men might think. One thing I learned very early was that not all men think alike – a lesson that was later backed up in real life.

I once knew a guy who loved extreme sports. He also liked to impress his girlfriends with his knowledge of women’s designer-label fashions. I knew another guy who liked to knit. His wife didn’t teach him. He taught her. Of course, I’ve met a lot of stereotypes as well: the men who won’t eat quiche, the ones who won’t cook, won’t cry in front of anyone (ever), or even talk about women’s business, let alone take part in it.

I once knew a guy, who at fifty, had no idea how to change a light bulb. I knew another who stayed home and looked after four young children while his wife worked full time. He loved being a house dad. He was an ex-soldier.

Some of the stereotypes were proud of their behaviour. Some weren’t. The same went for the rebels. Some kept it to themselves, others didn’t.

Recently, I set myself a challenge. I had this story I liked, but it was clichéd. I puzzled over alternative plotlines for months. Then it hit me. It wasn’t so much the plot that needed changing, but the two main characters. So the man became a woman and the woman became a man. Suddenly, the story took on a whole new meaning.

Once I got started again, it wasn’t just a case of dressing the two main characters differently or swapping their names or changing the shes to hes and hims to hers. Body language needed fixing. As did the way each character reacted to each other when they first met. Then there were the obvious things like, when the girl had to move something heavy, she had to get someone to help her. When the guy moved something heavy, he just did it. On a more subtle note, where the girl had woven a vine to make a sling, the guy ended up knotting it.

The girl scrambled down the hill. The guy loped. Not that girls can’t lope and guys can’t scramble, but the guy’s legs were longer. Nevertheless, the change still bothered me because, although it suited his physique better to lope, it also suited his personality. Probably, it would have suited the girl's personality too.

When things were going smoothly, the dialogue mostly worked well for both genders. But when conflict arose, things got tricky. When I put the guy’s words into the girl’s mouth, it made her confidently assertive. I liked the character much better this way. When I put the girl’s words into the guy’s mouth, he sounded not so much whiney, but afraid to say important things out straight. It’s not that guys aren’t allowed to be whiney or indirect, but I hadn’t noticed it when he was female. Male or female, this character deserved better.

On a different note, when the girl was asked to do something unpleasant, she flinched. In contrast, the guy didn’t flinch at all and said, “Gladly.” Though in reality, he didn’t mean it.

Is it really like that in real life? Was I trying to be character specific and failing? Or just cynical? Worse still, is this a sign that, as a writer, I’m sexist? Or is it a sign that I tend to be too black and white with my characterization? Should I instead be treating my characters merely as people, rather than as men or women, or either/or.

I’m still thinking about the answers to those questions. I suspect there may not be a correct one to any of them. However, the exercise wasn’t only useful in making my newer draft better than the original. It also taught me to think harder about how I represented gender – not just the opposite gender, but both.
--
Carol.

From Then to Now - a Writing Journey

There was a theory when I was very young that it was a bad thing to teach children to read before they went to school. I’m not sure why unless it was to make the teacher’s task easier. This was probably was a valid concern but it meant nothing to me so, with no encouragement from home, I proceeded to teach myself. When I went to school and was given my bright, new reading book – “Old Lob and His Friends” (all about an English farm and yes, you’d have to wonder about its relevance to an Australian child even then) I brought it home and read it in a few minutes – and I can still remember the shock when I found out that it was intended to be learned from for the rest of the year.

Fortunately, once I was at school, my parents felt free to let me read and when the next year a public lending library opened locally I was allowed to range through the children’s section and borrow books. They also bought a set of Richards encyclopaedia, an atlas with a large section on natural history and geography in it and a huge Webster’s dictionary that was so heavy I had to put it on the floor so I could look up words. When I had finished my permitted library borrowing of two books a fortnight (even a child I was a fast reader so this library imposed rule really irked me) I turned to these books, especially the encyclopaedia, and began to read them from start to finish.

In them I discovered archaeology, science, history (ancient and modern) and geography among other things but best of all was Volume Fourteen of the encyclopaedia. Packed with fairy and folk tales (mostly European but with a smattering of African and Asian), stories of water nixies, selkies, boggarts, pixies, fairies and much more, the whole of the Arthurian cycle and the myths and legends of the gods, goddesses and heroes of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, it also held more nursery rhymes than I have ever seen anywhere since. I was in heaven.

My fascination with fantasy, which eventually grew into writing speculative fiction, began there, but when I think about it, I’ve been making up stories all my life. I started telling my brother stories when we were quite little and continued with the bedtime stories I told my own children. Then the children got older and, while the stories still buzzed in my head, there was no-one to listen.

I was fortunate in 1994 to find the late Pam Steenburgen was running a creative writing class at the local community centre. She was a gifted teacher and through her I broke away from the straight jacket of academic and report writing I'd become enmeshed in and rediscovered the delights of story telling. Pam introduced me to the Karrinyup Writers Club and I owe a great debt to her and all the writers there who shared their knowledge and time to help a newbie develop.

In 1996 I entered my first major short story competition with Pam’s encouragement and was stunned when I won. For the next few years I honed my skills and entered literary and poetry competitions with some success until a flying pig landed on the page one day and I had my first adult fantasy story. I had so much fun writing it that others followed. I’d always loved science fiction and fantasy and read widely in the genre even when I was a child and, although I still write literary stories and poetry, my greatest love is speculative fiction.

Strangely,I’d never even thought about writing a novel until one day a few years ago during a writing marathon a unicorn-like creature walked into a forest clearing and bonded telepathically with a girl - and after that visit he kept coming back. Before long I had a succession of stories about the same characters and realised that they were part of something much bigger. The first novel about them is currently having what I hope is its final edit thanks to the Egoboos WA critiquers, and the sequel is over the half way mark. The time I spent as an Emerging Writer in Residence at Tom Collins House Writers Centre last May and the writing race with Carol Ryles and Glenda Larke a few months ago added immensely to the number of words on the page. If you’re interested you can read about both on my blog.

I’m still writing short stories too, of course. They are a very different skill set and it’s a good change of pace and style from novel writing. Besides I learned so much about short story writing by going to Clarion South in 2007 I’d hate to waste it. I have a whole file of story ideas to work my way through yet but when something really stirs my passion nothing works better than a poem to express my feelings.

This writing journey I’m on has taken me to places I would have never expected, both physically and mentally, and along the way I have met some amazing writers and editors who have shared their knowledge and enthusiasm generously. The Egoboo WA group is the latest in a long line of supportive people without whom I would not be writing as I am today.

What next? Well, it's to keep on writing, aiming at making my novels and stories the very best they can be, and then sending them out into the world in the hope those who read them will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Five Opportunities That Keep You From Writing

Ripley Patton has put up a very interesting list about the things that can walay the writer, distracting them from the act of writing while still feeling like 'work' in a writerly sense.

http://rippatton.livejournal.com/35995.html

In the comments are a very interesting points, and I wanted to talk a little more about finding balance and setting limits.

I think I'm a very lucky person, in that I am good at setting my own limits, and keeping to them. Not only am I lucky, but I'm also quite rare! However, my ways of determining what I want to do and what my limits are is a constant process in my life. I believe that every second of the day takes choices which can be unconscious, and every day I make firm efforts that all of my choices are the best they can be.

I have a very clear goal in my mind. This means that when something comes up, I can look at it and think "does this decision move me towards my goal?"

If the answer is no, but I'm still interested, I need to ask myself: "What cost does this have?" Every response has a cost. The question is how much of your time/mental energy/stress levels are you willing to assign it? Every minute spent working on something costs something else. If I'm working on editing, I'm not putting out a new story. If I'm writing, then I'm not polishing. It helps me to be aware of the costs of any decision I make.

I'm also rare in that I know that I need to balance my urge to work hard with my urge to play hard - and finding times and places to do exactly that. I need downtime to balance and recharge the uptimes, and this is when Bejeweled comes in handy, or reading books by authors I love. The more I learn about editing and writing, the more I understand why I love some of the authors I do. I sometimes feel like I am relaxing into their arms, safe in the belief that the book I am reading will be well written and well edited, and won't jar me from the story at any point.

The Five Opportunities that Ripleys lists are all things that I have looked at with longing eyes int he past few years. A nice, clearly defined job with a start and end would be something I would love. However that's not the game right now. I just have to keep the loftier goals in mind, and remember what it is I am going to do. Real Life is probably the big Zero that keeps you from writing, as it goes before all others. If you can get Real LIfe into line, then I'm sure you can get the rest of them to fall in line too.

--
Sarah

How We Started

The house turned out to be an added incentive...

Perched in bushland on a hillside at Eagle Bay with a panoramic view of the Indian Ocean, it gave us a perfect vantage point to view migrating whales. We could hear the surf pounding below and watch native birds feed within touching distance. We were far enough away to escape everyday distractions and close enough for the drive to be an easy one. In all, a beautiful place to visit…

We were led there by a common interest – a need for space enough to talk about our novels without having to rein ourselves in out of fear of boring the pants off our friends.

We are members of the active and well attended Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Writers’ group, which still provides us with fantastic online opportunities for critiquing short stories and novel chapters. However, each of us has completed at least one novel and needed longer and more comprehensive critting sessions than the group could provide. We wanted to critique our novels in their entirety rather than as fragmented chapters over a matter of weeks. We also saw we had mutual compatibilities in terms of genres and interests, and a need for more intensive training. Furthermore, we were prepared to devote a great deal of time and effort to each other’s work – a grand total of 610,000 words – which we read closely and critiqued over four weeks prior the retreat.

After valuable feedback from the masters of retreat critiquing, Ripping Ozzie Reads we decided to give ourselves three days away. We wrote up our critiques beforehand and allocated three hours of critting time per novel. This enabled each critter to have a maximum of half an hour to have their say, while the author remained silent until the end. We finished each session with an hour-long discussion, which mostly became a brainstorming exercise where we mooted alternative plot trajectories and outcomes. Sometimes suggestions turned out to be not quite what the writer had in mind but, after consideration, became catalysts for the discovery of new ways of improving aspects of plotting and characterisation they had not thought about.

Our expertise is varied, which turned out to be a bonus rather than a problem. The more experienced critters helped train the less experienced ones, while the less experienced critters provided useful comments, not only as readers, but also as students practising their newly acquired skills. Even when differences of opinion did occur, we reminded ourselves that every critter’s comment is a valid reader response deserving, in the very least, to be listened to. This made for a friendly and supportive environment that enabled us to improve our writing and to critique thoroughly with respect and trust. Not once did we reach for the box of strategically placed tissues on the critting table.


With the day's critting over, we finished up with food, drink and movies. One would think that three vegetarians and two omnivores would complicate things, but our menus were unplanned. Kudos for the sushi, gourmet salads, beetroot chips, cheese selections and guinea figs. Kudos again for the valuable plotting lessons gleaned from the movies, made even more enjoyable with a good dash of Baileys.