Every week I'll post a writing exercise.

September 23, 2013

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was:

PYBIACASW.

Now, I don't plan on giving away that secret just yet. I will, however, give you some ideas on how to develop your writing skills so that the manuscript you have hidden away that no one knows about, might eventually see the light of day.

Check back here weekly and you will find some fun activities to guide you in your pursuit of writing. I cannot guarantee that book deal, but perhaps you will be inspired or encouraged to continue in your writing efforts.

Monday, November 18, 2013

LESS IS MORE...

This one is a little more advanced.  A lot of first-time novelists have trouble pitching their story, should they be lucky enough to find themselves in front of an agent.  This can help.

Write a 250 word synopsis of your novel.  When that's done, and you don't have 253 words, let it breathe for a day or two.

Next, do it again, only this time cut it to 150 words.  Not easy, but nothing worth having is, and you're trying to reinvent yourself as a writer. Make the hard cuts.  Let it breathe.

Do it again...fifty words, this time.  You're trying to pare this down to make it dynamic, and not waste the time of the agent.  Trust me, they hate that.  Plus, you need to know the foundation bricks of your story, as well.

Last step, I promise.  Twenty-five words.  Tell them the idea in twenty-five words and you will get their attention.  You will look not only smart, but prepared.  The ancillary benefit of this exercise is it will teach you about editing your own work.  You will learn to kill your darlings. Don't underestimate the need to do that because in the end, less words is more better.

Monday, October 28, 2013

IDEAS - THE THING THAT KEEPS A TYPING CHIMP FROM TAKING MY JOB

There was, one night long ago, a discussion among some mystery writers about whether or not trained chimps could replace us. Ideas might be the one facet of my job that will keep me safe from The Planet Of The Apes style takeover.

One of the questions most asked of me by non-writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?”

The easy answer would be Max Allan Collins.   He does, after all, present most of the ideas that become our novels.  But even those ideas are sifted through the process I’m going to try to explain in a moment.

The more realistic answer to the ideas question is that they are everywhere.  Seldom do they come to you full-blown and ready to go, but the kernel, the seed, those are everywhere.

Which brings me to my two favorite words in the English language…what if.  Six letters, two words, but they are filled with magic.  A great deal of this writing gig is craft., learning to use the tools in your toolbox.  But there has to be that spark...that magic.  That’s where “what if” comes in.

For the sake of this exercise, let’s use an example of an idea that has been floating around in my head.  It comes from a news story shared with me by my wife, the former English teacher.   The story concerned a male high school student found dead in a rolled up gym mat.   Horrendous enough, right?  The gist of the story concerned the following facts, though.  The coroner ruled the boy’s death accidental.  Weird.  But when the boy’s body was returned to the family for burial, after an autopsy, it was discovered that the young man’s internal organs were missing.  Weirder, still.

THAT is the seed of a story, but it’s a long way from BEING a story, at least for the fiction writer. Missing organs, odd manner of death, a family that isn’t getting any answers on how any of these things happened and is grieving their lost son, yet the hook for me is the fact that he was a high school student. I have a protagonist that  I have been looking  for a way to introduce to the world, and he happens to be a high school student and amateur detective.  So, that becomes the prism through which I see this story.

Now, what if.

What if my protagonist is the one to find the body?

What if the missing organs are not for sale on the black market (becoming a cliche), but were removed to hide the true cause of death, or for some other reason?

What if the coroner wasn’t the one to remove them?

What if the dead boy was a drug dealer?

What if the dead boy was a straight A student and a goody-two-shoes?

The questions go on and on.  I can what if this into several different stories.  The truth is, this idea doesn’t seem like a novel to me.  It could be, the intro, anyway, but in my eyes, this is a short story, and that affects how I look at it, too.

Here’s your exercise:  Look around, observe more closely, find a situation, a story, or even a person (character-driven is a cool place to start), then play what if and see if what you’re looking at doesn’t morph into something completely different.  I’m guessing it will.

Enjoy the magic.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Let's talk about wordiness.  If ever there was a hole full of pungi sticks covered by palm fronds, wordiness is that trap.  Here's an obvious example: He rode a three-wheeled tricycle.  Easy, right?  Tricycles have three wheels, but there are less blatant examples that have tripped up all of us at some point.

Yes, even professional writers fall into this trap.  I've read more than one novel where a character has had a cold chill run up his spine.  Ever had a warm chill?  Me, either.  Red, scarlet, or crimson (pick your synonym of choice) blood gushed from the wound.  Unless we're talking about Wookies, Romulans, or other aliens, this is redundant.

Wordiness is a sneaky booger. It creeps up when you least expect it.  In a first draft, no one cares, but when you're revising you have to be vigilant about catching these critters before they cost you a sale.  More than one successful writer I know reads their manuscript aloud, more than once.  Your ear is a better editor than your eye.  You might not believe it, but it’s true.

Here are a couple more examples:

He was strangled to death on the mattress of his bed.

We have a very unique offer for you.

The first one is easy, right?  Mattress and bed is redundant, but did you catch the other one?  The definition of strangle includes the word death, look it up.

As for the second one, telemarketers and sportscasters use the phrase “very unique” to describe all sorts of stuff from a shortstop’s fielding skills to the new Vinnie Barbarino Chia Pet.  The thing is, unique means one of a kind.  Would you say, “Very one of a kind?”

I also try to avoid empty words...cute, for example.  Cute is a word that means different things to different people.  I use it in dialogue because it’s a word people use a lot, but one person’s cute kitten is another person’s fleabag cat.

We’re after clarity here.  When I’m writing a novel, I’m watching a movie  in my  head.  I want the movie you see when you read the story to be as much the same movie as the one I saw when I wrote the book.  Given, of course, that every reader comes to the novel with a different set of life experiences.

Here’s an example…

When Max Allan Collins and I wrote the first J.C. Harrow novel,  YOU CAN’T STOP ME, I envisioned Harrow as a cross between Pierce Brosnan and John Walsh.  Collins saw Dennis Farina.  Though we wrote one book, we saw different people.  When I asked a reader how she saw Harrow, she replied, “Chris Noth.”

Not exactly the same, but this was acceptable because all those guys are sort of a type and sometimes that’s enough control for me.

One last thing about words and clarity...choose the right word.  Don’t say anxious when you mean eager.  There is a difference.  If you’re anxious about the test tomorrow, my guess is you haven’t studied.  If you’re eager, you’ve done your homework.

Stop back next week, we’ll be talking about ideas both here and in my blog.