July 9, 2021 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Dogs by Jan Stobbaerts

Jan_Stobbaerts_-_DogsTitle: Dogs

Artist: Jan Stobbaerts  (1839–1914)

Date: between 1858 and 1914

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: Height: 36.5 cm (14.3 in); Width: 45.5 cm (17.9 in)

What I like about this painting:

These dogs have the run of the house. They’re not too well groomed and probably spend a certain amount of time roaming the neighborhood. Both dogs have personality, and both are unrepentant ruffians.

This is a pair of canine hooligans bent on having a good time.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia [1]:

Jan Stobbaerts or Jan-Baptist Stobbaerts (18 March 1838 – 25 November 1914) was a Belgian painter and printmaker. He is known for his scenes with animals, landscapes, genre scenes and portraits or artists. With his dark-brown studio tones and forceful depiction of trivial subjects, Stobbaerts was a pioneer of Realism and ‘autochthonous’ Impressionism in Belgium.

While in his early works he painted scenes with pets in kitchen interiors in which the genre and anecdotal elements prevailed, from 1880 onwards stables and barns became a dominant theme in his work.[5] The compositions in this period were painted with an almost photographic realism.[8] His sober monochrome palette developed to a more balanced color scheme and he gave more attention to the effect of light.

Around 1890, Stobbaerts’ style underwent a considerable change likely under the influence of his discovery of Impressionism and his personal search for resolving the problem of light. Stobbaerts abandoned the detailed realism in favour of a very personal sfumato of light. His style became velvety, his brushwork looser and the paint more fluid. His paintings of the 1890s depicting scenes around the river Woluwe were made with an opaque, somewhat transparent paste. The artist concentrated on the effect of light and the forms, while they remained recognizable, became less clear as if seen through a soft-focus lens. The subject matter itself became less important. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Stobbaerts – Dogs.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Stobbaerts_-_Dogs.jpg&oldid=354839586 (accessed July 9, 2021).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Stobbaerts,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Stobbaerts&oldid=1025124429 (accessed July 9, 2021).

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July 7, 2021 · 6:00 am

Fundamentals of Grammar: seven basic rules of punctuation #amwriting

Mark Twain famously said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

MarkTwainEatAFrogQuotLIRF04042021Many authors  are just beginning their careers and trying to self-edit their NaNoWriMo manuscript. The problem is, they don’t know how to write a readable sentence or what constitutes a paragraph. If they are hoping to find an agent or self-publish, they have a big, ugly job ahead of them.

Most public schools in the US don’t go into depth in teaching creative writing, so the majority of students leave school with only a cursory understanding of basic mechanics.

We know good writing when we read it, but when we are just starting out, getting our thoughts onto paper so others enjoy it eludes us.

Learning to write in your native language involves work and means you must educate yourself. As Twain would say, this is a multi-frog task.

The biggest frog to swallow is gaining an understanding of basic punctuation.

Punctuation is the traffic signal that keeps the words flowing and the intersection manageable.

Trying to learn from a grammar manual can be complicated, but I learned by reading the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the rule book for American English. Most editors refer to this book when they have questions.

However, you don’t need to know everything that is in that book, because the basic rules are simple. If you know these seven laws, your writing will pass most editors’ tests.

What follows is a quick guide, a “How-To Guide for Basic Punctuation.”

Punctuation seems difficult because some advanced usages are open to interpretation. In those cases, how you habitually use them is your voice. Nevertheless, the foundational laws of comma use are not open to interpretation.

If you consistently follow these rules, your work will look professional.

First:  Let’s get two newbie mistakes out of the way:

  1. Never insert commas “where you take a breath” because everyone breathes differently.

  2. Do not insert commas where you think it should pause because every reader sees the pauses differently.

Commas and the fundamental rules for their use exist for a reason. If we want the reading public to understand our work, we need to follow them.

Second: Commas join two independent but related clauses.

The independent clause is a complete standalone sentence.

  • Edward worships the ground I walk on, but his adoration tires me.

Dependent clauses are unfinished and can’t stand on their own. Join them to the sentence with a conjunction.

  • Edward worships the ground I walk on and brings me my coffee. (And is a conjunction, a joining word.)

You do not join unrelated independent clauses (clauses that can stand alone as separate sentences) with commas as that creates a rift in the space/time continuum: the Dreaded Comma Splice:

comma-spliceComma Splice:

Boris kissed the hem of my garment, the dog likes to ride shotgun.

The dog has little to do with Boris, other than the fact they both worship me. The same thought, written correctly:

Boris kissed the hem of my garment.

The dog likes to ride shotgun.

The dog riding shotgun is an independent clause and does not relate at all to Boris and his adoration of me and should be in a separate paragraph. If you want Boris and the dog in the same sentence, you must rewrite it: Boris and the dog worship me, and both like to ride shotgun.

Third: A semicolon in an untrained hand is a needle to the eye of the reader. Use them only when two standalone sentences or clauses are short and relate directly to each other.

Some people (and Microsoft Word) think they signify an extra-long pause but not a hard ending. The Chicago Manual of Style says that belief is wrong. DON’T blindly accept what Spellcheck tells you!

Semicolons join short independent clauses, which can stand alone but which relate to each other. These are short sentences that would be too choppy if left separate.

  • The door swung open at a touch. Light spilled into the room.
  • The door swung open at a touch; light spilled into the room.
  • The door swung open at a touch, and light spilled into the room.

All three of the above sentences are technically correct. The usage you habitually choose is your voice. I usually suggest avoiding semicolons except under those circumstances, as they’re the gateway to run-on sentences.

When do we use semicolons? Only when two clauses are short and are complete sentences that relate to each other.

If the independent clauses don’t relate to each other, revise that passage. Use common sense and rewrite them, so they aren’t choppy. An example of a semicolon done wrong:

Boris attempted to kiss the hem of my garment; my boot was in his face.

The first clause is one whole idea: Boris adores me. The second clause is an entirely different idea: my boot was someplace inconvenient.

Two separate standalone clauses done right, assuming the mention of my boot is essential:

Boris attempted to kiss the hem of my garment, but my boot was in his face.

I don’t dislike semicolons as some editors do, but I generally try to find alternatives to them. I think they are too easily abused because Microsoft Word and most people don’t know how to use them.

Fourth: Colons. These head lists but are more appropriate for technical writing and are rarely needed in narrative prose.

Fifth:  Oxford commas, also known as serial commas. This is the one war authors will never win or find common ground, a true civil war. When listing a string of things in a narrative, we separate them with commas to prevent confusion. I like people to understand what I mean, so I always use the Oxford Comma/Serial Comma.

If there are only two things (or ideas) in a list, they do not need to be separated by a comma. If there are more than two ideas, the comma should be used as it would be used in a list.

We sell dogs, cats, rabbits, and birds.

Why we need clarity:

I accept this Nebula award and thank my parents Ralf and Maggie Jasperson and Poseidon.

Rumors abound regarding my demigoddess-like beauty and possibly heroic background. Could Poseidon be my father? Mother refused to talk about it, so the mystery remains unsolved. However, a comma after Jasperson would eliminate confusion.

virtually golden medallion of mayhem copyI accept this Nebula award and thank my parents, Ralf and Maggie Jasperson, and Poseidon.

Sixth: We use a comma after common introductory clauses.

After dark, Boris would change into his bat form and go hunting for insects.

Seventh: Punctuating dialogue: All punctuation goes inside the quote marks.

  1. A comma follows the spoken words, separating the dialogue from the speech tag.
  2. The clause containing the dialogue is enclosed, punctuation and all, within quotes.
  3. The speech tag is the second half of the sentence, and a period ends the entire sentence.

“I agree with those statements,” said the editor.

The editor said, “I agree with those statements.”

What do these seven rules mean? Punctuation tames the chaos that our words can become. It is the universally acknowledged traffic signal, signifying a pause or a joining to the reader.

If you follow these seven simple rules, your work will be readable. If your story is stellar, it will be acceptable to acquisitions editors.

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July 5, 2021 · 6:00 am

Successful Self-Editing #amwriting

Books are machines, comprised of many essential components. If one of those elements fail, the book won’t work the way the author envisions it. So, what are these parts?

no_graceful_way_outLIRF02212021Prose, plot, transitions, pacing, theme, characterization, dialogue, and mechanics (grammar/punctuation).

As an editor, I’ve seen every kind of mistake you can imagine and written many travesties myself. This tendency to not see the flaws in our own work is why I have an editor. I need someone with a critical eye to see my work before publication.

I am in the process of revising my Accidental Novel, prepping it to send to my editor. I have a three-part method, using specific tools that come with my word-processing program.

Phase one: the initial read-through. This stage is put into action once I have completed the revisions suggested by my beta readers. At this point, the manuscript looks finished, but it has only just begun the journey.

I use Microsoft Word. On the Review Tab, I access the Read Aloud function and begin reading along with the mechanical voice. Yes, it’s annoying and doesn’t always pronounce things right, but this first tool shows me a wide variety of places that need rewriting.

ReviewTabLIRF07032021I use this function rather than reading it aloud myself, as I tend to see and read aloud what I think should be there rather than what is.

  1. I habitually key the word though when I mean through. These are two widely different words but are only one letter apart. Most miss-keyed words will leap out when you hear them read aloud.
  2. Run-on sentences stand out when you hear them read aloud.
  3. Inadvertent repetitions also stand out.
  4. Hokey phrasing doesn’t sound as good as you thought it was.
  5. You hear where you have dropped words because you were keying so fast you skipped over including an article, like “the” or “a” before a noun.

This is a long process that involves a lot of stopping and starting, taking me a week to get through the entire 90,000-word manuscript. By the end of phase one, I will have trimmed about 3,000 words.

Phase Two: The Manual Edit

The_Pyramid_Conflict_Tension_PacingThis phase is where I find my punctuation errors most often. I look for and correct punctuation and make notes for any other improvements that must be made. Usually, I cut entire sections, as they are riffs on ideas that have been presented before. Sometimes they are outright repetitions, which don’t leap out when viewed on the computer screen.

  1. Open your manuscript. Break it into separate chapters, and make sure each is clearly and consistently labeled. Make certain the chapter numbers are in the proper sequence and that they don’t skip a number. For a work in progress, Baron’s Hollow, I labeled my chapter files this way:
  • BH_ch_1
  • BH_ch_2
  1. Print out the first chapter. Everything looks different printed out, and you will see many things you don’t notice on the computer screen or hear when the voice reads it aloud.
  2. Turn to the last page. Cover the page with another sheet of paper, leaving only the last paragraph visible.
  3. Starting with the last paragraph on the last page, begin reading, working your way forward.
  4. With a yellow highlighter, mark each place that needs correction.
  5. Put the corrected chapter on a recipe stand next to your computer. Open your document and begin making revisions as noted on your hard copy.

This is the phase where I look for what I think of as code words. I look at words like “went.” In my personal writing habits, “went” is a code word that tells me when a scene ends and transitions to another stage. The characters or their circumstances are undergoing a change. One scene is ending, and another is beginning.

In fact, all info dumps, passive phrasing, and timid words are codes for the author, laid down in the first draft.

Clunky phrasing and info dumps are signals telling me what I intend that scene to be. In the rewrite, I must expand on those ideas and ensure the prose is active. I must cut some of the info and allow the reader to use their imagination.

I look for all of the eight forms of the verb “be” and change that passive phrasing to make it active if possible. The forms of “be” are subjunctives and are tricky words. They’re necessary in some cases, but not always and can become crutches.

Be_Eight_Forms_LIRF05122019Passive phrasing does the job with little effort on the part of the author, which is why the first drafts of my work are littered with it. Active phrasing takes more effort because it involves visualizing a scene and showing it to the reader.

For example, when I see the word “went,” I immediately know someone goes somewhere. But “went” is a telling word and is passive phrasing. I ask myself, “How do they go?” Went can always be shown as a scene. Loretta opened the door, gave Burt the finger, and strode out.

By the end of phase two, I will have trimmed about 3,000 more words from my manuscript.

Phase three is the step that only works if you have an understanding of grammar and industry practices. Currently, at this stage in our technology, understanding context is solely a human function.

You may have found that your word processing program has spellcheck and some minor editing assists. Spellcheck is notorious for both helping and hindering you.

Tools like spellcheck don’t understand context, so if a word is misused but spelled correctly, it probably won’t alert you to an obvious error.

  • There, their, they’re.
  • To, too, two.
  • Its, it’s.

In the third phase of prepping my work to send to my editor, I go over each chapter one more time, this time using Grammarly. I have also used ProWriting Aid. Each one has strengths and weaknesses.

Context is critical. I am wary of relying on Grammarly or ProWriting Aid for anything other than alerting you to possible comma and spelling malfunctions.

If you don’t know anything about punctuation, don’t feel alone. Most of us don’t when we’re first starting out, and if this is your case, your best bet is to avoid these programs.

chicago guide to grammarUse that money to invest in a book like the Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation and learn how grammar works.

Good editing software is not cheap. But for my specific needs, it has been a worthwhile investment. If you do choose to invest in some, use common sense when reviewing the program’s suggestions.

This three-part process can take more than a month. When I’ve finished, I’ll have a manuscript to send my editor that won’t be full of distractions. She’ll be able to focus on finding as much of what I have missed as is humanly possible.

Hopefully, between the two of us, I’ll have a decent book to publish early in 2022.

 

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July 2, 2021 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Dawn In The Hills by Julian Onderdonk 1922

  • Julian_Onderdonk_(1882-1922)_-_Dawn_In_The_Hills_(1922)
  • Artist: Julian Onderdonk  (1882–1922)
  • Title: Dawn In The Hills
  • Date    1922
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Height: 76.2 cm (30″); Width: 101.6 cm (40″)
  • Collection: Private collection

What I love about this painting:

Onderdonk captured the surreal essence of early morning near San Antonio, Texas. The mists are rising in the hills, slowly revealing the riotous splendor of deep blue wildflowers. It is a rolling sea of bluebonnets, with the occasional white of the blackfoot or fleabane daisy mingled in.

The artist perfectly conveyed the mystical quality of that singular moment of the morning when the air is still and golden, and the day ahead is full of possibilities.

I could spend hours in this place.

About this painting:

Art historian Jeffrey Morseburg writes, “In the fall of 1922, as he was just entering his prime, Onderdonk was rushed to the hospital with an intestinal blockage. He failed to recover from the emergency surgery and died on October 27, 1922. His sudden death created an outpouring of emotion for the man who had become “The Dean of Texas Painters.” Just before he died, Onderdonk had finished a beautiful early morning view of a Texas hillside carpeted with Bluebonnets titled ‘Dawn in the Hills’ and another work, a bold fall scene titled ‘Autumn Tapestry.’” [1]

About the Artist, Via Wikipedia:

Julian Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, a painter, and Emily Gould Onderdonk. He was raised in South Texas and was an enthusiastic sketcher and painter. As a teenager Onderdonk was influenced and received some training from the prominent Texas artist Verner Moore White who also lived in San Antonio at the time. He attended the West Texas Military Academy, now the Episcopal School of Texas, graduating in 1900. His grandfather Henry Onderdonk was the Headmaster of Saint James School in Maryland, from which Julian’s father Robert graduated.

At 19, with the help of a generous neighbor, Julian left Texas in order to study with the renowned American Impressionist William Merritt Chase. Julian’s father, Robert, had also once studied with Chase. Julian spent the summer of 1901 on Long Island at Chase’s Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. He studied with Chase for a couple of years and then moved to New York City to attempt to make a living as an en plein air artist. While in New York he met and married Gertrude Shipman and they soon had a son.

Onderdonk returned to San Antonio in 1909, where he produced his best work. His most popular subjects were bluebonnet landscapes. Onderdonk died on October 27, 1922 in San Antonio.

President George W. Bush decorated the Oval Office with three of Onderdonk’s paintings. The Dallas Museum of Art has several rooms dedicated exclusively to Onderdonk’s work.

His art studio currently resides on the grounds of the Witte Museum.

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Julian Onderdonk, An Illustrated Biography by Jeffrey Morseburg, © 2011 https://julianonderdonk.wordpress.com/tag/julian-onderdonk-biography/  (accessed March 4, 2020).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922) – Dawn In The Hills (1922).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Julian_Onderdonk_(1882-1922)_-_Dawn_In_The_Hills_(1922).jpg&oldid=278966540 (accessed March 4, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, “Julian Onderdonk,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julian_Onderdonk&oldid=882101452 (accessed March 4, 2020).

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June 30, 2021 · 6:00 am

Random Thoughts on Writing #amwriting

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t review books I don’t like. So, without naming names, let’s talk about why some books are not on my review list.

WritingCraft_lazyWritersPassive phrasing: If you watch them in real life, people don’t “begin” to pick up that knife. They don’t “start” to walk away.

They reach for the knife. They take the knife from the drawer.

They walk away.

We’re thinking and writing the story as it falls from our heads. Because we get into storytelling mode, the dog begins to bark, and the neighbors start to complain. In real life, the dog barks, and the neighbors complain.

When you write with a passive voice, it’s easy to use too many quantifiers, such as “it was really big” or “it was incredibly awesome.” It becomes easy to “tell” the story instead of showing it: “Bob was mad.”

Then there is the opposite extreme, showing far too much.

Some authors have been told their prose is passive and are desperate to avoid that. But they have a lot of detail they want to convey, so they resort to clumsy lead-ins and awkward descriptions. This only announces that a lengthy exposition is forthcoming. 

Please, don’t use a phrase like: “She felt her eyes roll over her host’s attire” and then follow it with a paragraph describing the host in microscopic detail. That unfortunately phrased sentence is one of the less obnoxious lines from a book I was unable to finish reading several years back. It stuck with me because the paragraph that followed it was so awful.

Nothing gives me the creeps more than a 250-word description of eyeballs independently rolling up and down and all over a purple velvet suit of dubious origin. I could see what the author was trying to say, but the host’s suit was the least of the travesties in that train wreck: most people’s eyeballs do not leap from their head and roll over anything.

Instead, they could have written the entire 250-word encounter this way: Vincent wore a suit of purple velvet, threadbare, and looking as if it came from his grandfather’s closet.

It’s a struggle sometimes, but we must try to slip descriptions into the narrative in less obvious ways.

Some authors swamp the reader with minute details: “Marge’s eyebrows drew together, her lips turned down, and her cheeks popped a dimple. Hate glared from her eyes.”

Some authors ruin the taste of their work with an avalanche of prettily written descriptors: “-ly” words.

Others may want to show their characters as human, so they have them natter on about nothing: “Remember when….” If the memory doesn’t pertain to the story or explain something about a character that has been a mystery, it doesn’t advance the plot. Rather than showing them as human, it pads the word count, stalls the momentum, and the reader stops reading.

ClicheDefinitionBingLIRF06282021Use of clichés. Speaking as a reader, please don’t use the word alabaster to describe a woman’s skin. Make an effort to find a different way to describe her appearance. It’s an easy word that says smooth and pale, but it’s an overused word that has become cliché.

As a matter of reference, it’s not usually necessary to describe a character’s skin other than with broad generalizations because you want the reader to imagine them for themselves, and we all have different ideas of beauty.

Clichés and catchphrases will appear in the first drafts of our work, but they are signposts for the second draft. They tell us to spend some time finding a creative way to show a person or event.

Events that occur for no reason and take the story nowhere: I loved “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series of books written by the late Douglas Adams.

The books detail the adventures of Arthur Dent, a hapless Englishman traveling the galaxy in his pajamas. He and his friend are transported off the earth just in time to miss the destruction of the planet by the Vogons, a race of unpleasant and bureaucratic aliens, to make way for an intergalactic bypass.

Douglas Adams’ work is a little bit “out there,” but he understood that there must be a reason for the protagonist to leave his home wearing his pajamas and a robe. He used that opportunity to show the cozy, comfortable environment Arthur was about to be thrust out of.

Adams understood he first had to show Arthur in his happy home, and then his protagonist had to be quickly yanked out there and placed on that Vogon Constructor Ship.

For me as an author, the easiest part of writing is inadvertently slipping some clumsy bit of phrasing into my narrative, having an action scene go hilariously (and impossibly) wrong. I don’t usually notice the awkwardness until my editor points it out.

The_Pyramid_Conflict_Tension_PacingAs a reader, things will pull me out of the narrative, and I will probably stop reading at that point. Most of these issues are the result of lazy writing habits.

Research: Using real science requires research, which is time-consuming. Writing true history, writing medical dramas, and using police and military procedures involves effort. You must glean research from more sources than Wikipedia and old CSI episodes.

If you are writing historical fiction, you must read many books on your subject. Make notes as you read each, noting the book title, the author, and the page number where you found the info—you may need to know those things later. It’s work, but this is a job where you can’t skimp.

If you are writing speculative fiction, you will accumulate science or other background information in your world-building process. You will want to keep it organized, and this is where the style sheet or storyboard comes in handy.

What the style sheet/storyboard should cover:

  • All names, created or not: Aeos, Aeolyn, Beryl, Carl, Edwin, etc.
  • Real and created animal names: alligator, stinkbear, thunder-cow, waterdemon
  • Created words that are hyphenated: fire-mage, thunder-cow
  • All place names, real or created: Seattle, Chicago, Ragat, Wister, Sevya, Arlen, Neveyah
  • Any research note you have accumulated.

See my post, Designing the story for more on how to make a storyboard or style sheet.

good_stories_LIRFmemeKeep your notes/stylesheet in a clearly labeled file, and back them up on a thumb drive or file them in the cloud via Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Docs. I use and work out of a file-saving service, so my files won’t be lost no matter what happens to my computer.

Turning those notes into your story is an integral part of the writing process.

Plagiarism – this is most important: never copy lines from another person’s work and pass them off as your own. That is plagiarism, and you never want to be accused of that. If you must quote someone verbatim in your book, contact their publisher and get their legal permission to do so, and credit them by using proper footnotes. If you do not receive written consent, do not use their work.

Keep this written permission on file with any other legal papers that pertain to that book.

An excellent article on this can be found here: Cite Unseen: 3 Bits for a Better Bibliography

 

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June 28, 2021 · 6:00 am

Designing the story #amwriting

July is Camp NaNoWriMo month. If you are interested, join Camp NaNoWriMo to take on any writing project, novel or not, and set a word-count goal of your own. Yes, any goal, any project.

Words-And-How-We-Use-ThemI think of stories as if they were ponds filled with words. A pond has layers, and so do good stories. I see the three layers of a story as:

Surface: The Literal Layer; the what-you-see-is-what-you-get layer. Characters live, and events happen. These are reflected in the surface of the story. We change the look of the surface layer by choosing either realism or surrealism or a blend of the two.

Realism is a common form of storytelling. It is the what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of story. The setting can be anywhere and told using the tropes of any genre. The reality of that world is solid and never changes.

Surrealism takes the feeling of a real world and gives it a slightly hallucinogenic twist. Everything feels real, but on the surface, it makes no sense. One must find understanding in each small increment rather than the larger chunks we are used to absorbing.

Beneath the story’s surface lies the middle: This is the area of unknown quantity filled with cause and effect: events and reactions. We see why these characters’ lives are important enough to be portrayed and why events happened. This is where emotions muddy the waters. It is a layer where inference and implication come into play.

Bottom: The Interpretive Layer. This level is not only foundational; it contains and shapes the story:

  • Themes
  • Voice/style
  • Messages
  • Symbolism
  • Archetypes

The words in this pond behave like the waters of a pond in nature. While close scrutiny reveals that the waters of a pond are separated into layers by temperature, salinity, microbial life, or by the sheer weight and pressure of the volume of water, the overall structure is one large, important thing: a hole filled with water.

Without water, a pond is a depression in the ground filled with possibilities only. The same is true for a novel.

If you want to write anything, it’s best to sit down and get that first draft out of you while the story is fresh in your mind. You’ll spend a year or more rewriting a novel, but if you don’t get the original ideas and entire story down while they’re fresh, you’ll lose them.

Many people say they intend to write a book. They begin, get a chapter or so into it, and lose the thread. They can’t see how to get the story from the beginning, to the crisis, to the resolution.

I draft a story plan in four acts. First, I tell myself how I believe the story will go. This only takes half an hour and gives me finite plot points, destinations where each section of the story will end. Once I have the four acts, I know where the turning points are and what should happen at each. The outline ensures there is an arc to both the overall story and to the characters’ growth.

A good way to discover what you are writing is to “think out loud.” Divide the story into four acts. Acts two and three are really one long extension of each other.

short-story-arcAct 1: the beginning: We show the setting, the protagonist, and the opening situation.

Act 2: First plot point: The inciting incident.

Act 3.: Mid-point: We show their dire condition and how they deal with it.

Act 4: Resolution: Let’s end this misery in a way that feels good.

Take a moment to analyze and plan what needs to be said by what point in the story arc. This method works for me because I’m a linear thinker.

PostItNotePadI have mentioned before that I use a spreadsheet program to outline my projects, but you can use a notebook or anything that works for you. You can do this by drawing columns on paper by hand or using post-it notes on a whiteboard or the wall. Some people use a dedicated writer’s program like Scrivener.

Everyone thinks differently, so there is no one perfect way to create that fits everyone.

In Excel, the storyboard for my ideas works this way:

At the Top of page one: I give the piece a working title.

If it’s an idea for a short story, I include the intended publication and closing date for submissions (not needed if it’s for a novel). I make a note of the intended word count. Having a word count limit keeps me alert for unnecessary backstory.

Page one of the workbook contains the personnel files.

Column A: Character Names. I list the important characters by name and list the critical places where the story will be set.

Column B: About: What their role is, a note about that person or place, a brief description of who and what they are.

Column C: The Problem: What is the core conflict?

Column D: What do they want? What does each character desire?

Column E: What will they do to get it? How far will they go to achieve their desire?

On page two of the workbook, I create a page that outlines the projected story arc chapter by chapter.

Page three of the workbook is most important—it is the list of made-up words, names, and places. The way they appear on this list is how they should occur throughout the entire story or novel. This page ensures consistency and keeps the spellings from drifting as I plow along, laying down prose.

Update the glossary page anytime a name is added or changed, or new place or made-up word is added.

Page four will have maps and a calendar for that world. The calendar is a central piece that keeps the events happening in a logical way.

The workbook shown below is the stylesheet for the Tower of Bones series and has been evolving since 2009.

screenshotStyleSheetLIRF06262021We never really know how a story will go, even if we begin with a plan. The plan serves to keep us on track with length and to ensure the action doesn’t stall.

If you know the length of a book or story you intend to write, you know how many words each act should be and how many scenes/chapters you need to devote to that section.

As you write each event and connect the dots, the plot will evolve and change. You begin to explore the deeper aspects of the story. Emotions, both expressed and unexpressed, secrets withheld, truths discovered—all these details that emerge as you write will shape how the characters react to each other. In turn, these interactions will alter the shape of the larger story.

Creating a project for Camp NaNoWriMo is a good way to get into the habit of writing new words every day. When you write every day, you develop strengths and knowledge of the craft. Give yourself the gift of half an hour of private writing time every day.

You’ll never know what you’re capable of until you try.

Credits and Attributions:

DangApricot (Erik Breedon), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File:PostItNotePad.JPG’, Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, 26 August 2020, 17:42 UTC, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:PostItNotePad.JPG&oldid=443715836> [accessed 26 June 2021]

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June 25, 2021 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello

paolo_uccello_stgeorge_and_dragonArtist:  Paolo Uccello (1397–1475)

Title: Saint George and the Dragon

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: Height: 57 cm (22.4 in); Width: 73 cm (28.7 in)

The above painting by Paolo Uccello, from around 1470, is a surreal, stylized retelling of the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. The legend tells of the knight slaying a dragon that demanded human sacrifices. With the slaying of the dragon, the hero has saved the princess who was chosen to be the next offering.

Nothing looks real except the dragon which is nightmare come to life. I love the hyper-heroic way Uccello portrayed horses. The people are pallid, with no personality to their features. The dragon and the horse are alive, as if the scene is about them only. All the passion of the moment converges in the dragon and the horse.

Done in oil on canvas, the painting was one of the last of Uccello’s creations.

According to Wikipedia, the Fount of All Knowledge: The narrative (of Saint George) has pre-Christian origins (Jason and Medea, Perseus and Andromeda, Typhon, etc.), and is recorded in various saints’ lives prior to its attribution to St George specifically. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. The earliest narrative record of Saint George slaying a dragon is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century. [1]

About the Artist (via Wikipedia)

Born Paolo di Dono, his nickname, Uccello (of the birds), came from his fondness for painting birds. He worked in the Late Gothic tradition, emphasizing colour and pageantry rather than the classical realism that other artists were pioneering. His style is best described as idiosyncratic (eccentric or unique), and he left no school of followers.

With his precise and analytical mind, Paolo Uccello tried to apply a scientific method to depict objects in three-dimensional space. In particular, some of his studies of the perspective foreshortening of the torus are preserved, and one standard display of drawing skill was his depiction of the mazzocchio.

In the words of G. C. Argan: “Paolo’s rigour is similar to the rigour of Cubists in the early 20th century, whose images were more true when they were less true to life. Paolo constructs space through perspective, and historic event through the structure of space; if the resulting image is unnatural and unrealistic, so much the worse for nature and history.”

The perspective in his paintings has influenced many famous painters, such as Piero della Francesca, Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Paolo Uccello 047.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Paolo_Uccello_047.jpg&oldid=308602797  (accessed January 18, 2019).

Wikipedia contributors, “Saint George,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_George&oldid=1029544183 (accessed June 23, 2021). [1]

Wikipedia contributors, “Paolo Uccello,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paolo_Uccello&oldid=873078862  (accessed January 18, 2019). [2]

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June 23, 2021 · 6:00 am

Fundamentals of Writing: delivering the backstory #amwriting

Every story has a past, a present, and hopefully, a future. The past is what forms what we see as the here-and-now and shapes the characters. Because they have a history, they are fully developed the moment they step onto the first page.

bloatedExpositionLIRF06202021New writers know the backstory is important. They sometimes feel it’s necessary to inform the reader by placing a wall of history at the novel’s beginning. It seems like logical thinking: “Before you can understand this, you need to know this.”

Don’t drop the history in the first five pages. Those are the pages that acquisition editors look at and decide whether or not to continue reading the submission. For those of us planning to go the indie route, those first five pages are what the prospective buyer sees in the “look inside” option when buying an eBook.

While the backstory is necessary for character and plot building, too much outright “telling” halts the momentum, freezes the real-time story in its tracks.

And most importantly, beginnings must be active. The first lines must step onto the stage in such a way that they are original, informative, and engaging.

The passages that follow must reflect and build upon the tone and cadence of the opening pages.

Walls of fictional history muck up the transitions and negate your hooks. They block the doors from one scene to the next.

So how do the professionals deliver the backstory and still sell books? First, they consider what must be accomplished in each scene and allow the backstory to inform the reader only when and if needed to advance the plot.

Look at the first scene of your manuscript. Ask yourself three questions.

  1. Who needs to know what?
  2. Why must they know it?
  3. How many words do you intend to devote to it?

Dialogue is the easiest way to dole out information, and it is also a great way to fall into an info dump.

strange thoughtsDon’t give your characters long paragraphs with lines and lines and lines of uninterrupted dialogue or internal monologues. We don’t want our conversations to deteriorate into bloated exposition.

We’re all familiar with the term ‘flatlined’ as a medical expression indicating the patient has died. When the story arc is imbalanced, it can flatline in two ways:

  • The action becomes random, an onslaught of meaningless events that make no sense.
  • The pauses become halts, long passages of random info dumps that have little to do with the action.

A good way to avoid a flatlined story arc is through character interaction. Your characters briefly discuss what is on their minds and bravely muck on to the next event.

Short moments of introspection offer opportunities for doling out new information essential to the story. If you go on for too long, your reader will either skip forward or close the book.

These moments open a window for the reader to see who the characters think they are. Their introspection shows how they really react and illuminates their fears and strengths.

It shows that our characters are self-aware.

Timing and pacing are essential. The moment to mention information in passing is when the character needs to know it in order to go forward. That way, you avoid the dreaded info dump, but the reader can extrapolate the needed backstory.

In the most gripping narratives I have read, character introspection is brief. Internal monologues are featured but are kept minimal, addressing only what is essential. They serve to illuminate a character’s motives at a particular moment in time.

So, conversation and introspection are where we only deliver information not previously discussed. Repetition is boring and pads the word count with fluff.

Consider the most popular genre: Romance novels. These things fly off the shelves. Why?

Because the path to love is never straightforward. It speeds up (a small reward), and then it is slowed (dangling the carrot). Then, it goes a little ahead (slightly larger reward) but is slowed (enticement) until finally, the two overcome the circumstances and things that have barred the way to their true happiness.

Romance novels average 50,000 to 70,000 words. In shorter novels, there is no room for backstory. Instead, information and backstory are meted out only as needed through conversations and internal dialogue/introspection.

All obstacles to the budding romance are followed by small rewards that keep the reader involved and make them determined to see the happy ending even more.

As a reader, I can say that a longwinded rant is not a reward.

This holds true in every book and story, no matter the genre: enticement, reward, enticement, reward. In all stories, complications create tension, and information is a reward.

The combination of those elements keeps the reader reading.

Right now, I am working on whittling info dumps out of my current manuscript. It’s difficult to see them in my own work, but one trick I have found is this: word count.

strange thoughts 2I look at each conversation and assess how many words are devoted to each character’s statement and response. Then, when I come to a passage that is inching toward a monologue, I ask what can be cut that won’t affect the flow of the story or gut the logic of the plot?

Even with all the effort I apply to it, my editor will find places to shave off the unnecessary length.

Sometimes we write brilliantly, other times not so much. Sorting the diamonds from the fluff is hard, but your readers will be glad you made the effort.

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June 21, 2021 · 6:00 am

Fundamentals of Writing: Power Words #amwriting

When we put the first words of a story on paper, the images and events we imagine as we write have the power to move us. Because we see each scene fully formed in our minds, we are under the illusion that what we have written conveys to a reader the same power that moved us. Once we’ve written “the end” it requires no further effort, right?

I don’t know about your work, but usually, at that stage my manuscript reads like a laundry list.  

usingpowerwordsLIRF06192021The trick is to understand that, while the first draft has many passages that shine, more of what we have written is only promising. The first draft contains the seeds of what we believe we have written. Like a sculptor, we must work to shave away the detritus and reveal the truth of the narrative.

One way we do this is by injecting subtly descriptive prose into our narrative. Properly deployed, power words can be subtle and serve as descriptors, yet don’t tell the reader what to feel.

Think of them like falling leaves in autumn. On their own, they weigh nothing, feel like nothing. Put those leaves in a pile, and they have weight. When we incorporate subtle descriptors into the narrative, they come together to convey a sense of depth.

These are words that convey an emotional barrage in a succinct packet.

Let’s consider a story where we want to convey a sense of danger, without saying “it was dangerous.” What we must do is find words that shade the atmosphere toward fear.

Power words can be found beginning with every letter of the alphabet. What are some “B” words that convey a hint of danger, but aren’t “telling” words?

Backlash

Blinded

Blood

Blunder

When you incorporate any of the above “B” words into your prose, you are posting a road sign for the reader, a notice that “ahead lies danger.” Mingle them with other power words, and you have an air of danger.

As authors, it is our job to convey a picture of events.

But words sometimes fail us.

oxford_synonym_antonymThe best resource you can have in your personal library is a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. Your word processing program may offer you some synonyms when you right click on a word. However, to develop a wide vocabulary of commonly understood words, you should try to find a book like the Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms.

It’s important to keep your word choices recognizable, not too obscure. When a reader must stop and look up words too frequently, they will feel like you are talking over their head.

Even so, readers like it when you assume they are intelligent and aren’t afraid to use a variety of words. Yes, sometimes one must use technical terms, but I appreciate authors who assume the reader is new to the terminology and offer us a meaning.

Sprinkling your prose with obscure, technical, or pretentious words is not a good idea. As a reader, I find it frustrating to have to stop and look up big words too frequently.

Let’s look at the emotion of discontent. How can it affect the mood of a piece? What words can we incorporate to shape the mood of the narrative to reinforce a character’s growing dissatisfaction? A few words that most people know might be:

Aggression

Awkward

Corrupt

Denigrate

Disparage

Disgust

Irritate

Obnoxious

Pollute

Pompous

Pretentious

Revile

How we incorporate words of all varieties into our prose is up to each of us. We all sound different when we speak aloud, and the same is true for our writing voice. We can tell the story using any mode we choose but the first line of any piece must let the reader know what they are in for.

I meant to run away today.

If that were the opening line of a short story, I would continue reading. Two words, run away, hit hard in this context, feeling a little shocking as an opener. The protagonist is the narrator and is speaking directly to us, which is a bold choice. Right away, you hope you are in for something out of the ordinary.

That line shows intention, implies a situation that is unbearable, and offers us a hint of the personality of the narrator. Who are they, and what is so unbearable?

Here are lines from a different type of story, one told from a third person point of view:

The battered chair creaked as Aengus sat back. “So, what’s your plan then? Are we going to walk up to his front door and say, ‘Hello. We’re here to kill you’?”

This is a conversation, but it shows intention, environment, and personality. Battered is a power word, and so is creaked.

And here is one final scene, one told from a close third person point of view and showing yet another way to incorporate subtle power words into the prose:

Sera saw the vine-covered ruins of Barlow as an allegory of her past. A part of her past had been burned away. She’d been destroyed but was coming back to life in ways she’d never foreseen.

The power words are: ruins, burned away, destroyed. The stories we write come from deep within us. Words sometimes fail us and we lean too heavily on one word that says what we mean. This is hard for us to spot in our own work, but if you set it aside, you may notice repetitious prose.

A friend of mine uses word clouds to show her crutch words. In a word cloud, the larger the word, the more often it appears in the text. Since I am notoriously short on words, let’s see how this post looks as a word cloud.

It came out surprisingly colorful!

powerwordsWordCloudLIRF06192021

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June 18, 2021 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: The Spirit of War by Jasper Francis Cropsey 1851

The spirit of war

Title: The Spirit of War by Jasper Francis Cropsey  (1823–1900)

Genre: landscape

Date: 1851

Medium: painting

Dimensions: Height: 110.8 cm (43.6 in); Width: 171.6 cm (67.5 in)

Collection: National Gallery of Art

Place of creation: United States of America [1]

What I love about this painting:

The Spirit of War by Jasper Francis Cropsey is one of a two-part fantasy that Cropsey painted in 1851; the other is the Spirit of Peace. During Cropsey’s lifetime, these two paintings were his most celebrated, but now he is known more for his ethereal paintings depicting autumn scenes, several of which I have featured here.

This painting was inspired both by the aftermath of the Mexican-American War and the looming threat of the American Civil War. It shows the young artist’s love of Arthurian tales and demonstrates his ability to deliver a story. His signature luminism is still in its infancy here, yet one can see the seeds of what would become a mastery of light and illumination.

Cropsey contrasts light and shadow as if they were good and evil. He paints godlike mountains that reign over deep valleys and strongholds. In the foreground, a strong fortress represents prosperity, her richly attired knights riding out to do battle. In the distance, a citadel burns, the smoke of raging fires billowing toward the darkening sky.

This is a powerful painting, one that tells a story and shows an entire novel.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School.

Trained as an architect, he set up his own office in 1843. Cropsey studied watercolor and life drawing at the National Academy of Design under the instruction of Edward Maury and first exhibited there in 1844. A year later he was elected an associate member and turned exclusively to landscape painting; shortly after he was featured in an exhibition entitled “Italian Compositions”.

Cropsy traveled in Europe from 1847–1849, visiting England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. Cropsey was a personal friend of Henry Tappan, the president of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 1863. At Tappan’s invitation, he traveled to Ann Arbor in 1855 and produced two paintings, one of the Detroit Observatory, and a landscape of the campus. He went abroad again in 1856, and resided seven years in London, sending his pictures to the Royal Academy and to the International exhibition of 1862.

Returning home, he opened a studio in New York and specialized in autumnal landscape paintings of the northeastern United States, often idealized and with vivid colors. Cropsey co-founded, with ten fellow artists, the American Society of Painters in Water Colors in 1866.

Cropsey’s interest in architecture continued throughout his life and was a strong influence in his painting, most evident in his precise arrangement and outline of forms. But Cropsey was best known for his lavish use of color and, as a first-generation member from the Hudson River School, painted autumn landscapes that startled viewers with their boldness and brilliance. As an artist, he believed landscapes were the highest art form and that nature was a direct manifestation of God. He also felt a patriotic affiliation with nature and saw his paintings as depicting the rugged and unspoiled qualities of America. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:The-spirit-of-war.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:The-spirit-of-war.jpg&oldid=565046310 (accessed June 17, 2021).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Jasper Francis Cropsey,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jasper_Francis_Cropsey&oldid=1018920537 (accessed June 17, 2021).

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