Bird By Bird (A Backlist Book Review)

Never has a writing book been more recommended to me.

Never has a writing book been pressed into my hand with greater fervor than this one.

Every professional writer I know has this on the shelf or has at least read it and probably been among those who tried to get me to read it.

Every one of these since the first one has been met with the secret handshake, the knowing smile, the nod: I write shitty first drafts too and I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve read Bird by Bird. And if you want to be a writer, so should you.

Since it was first published in 1994, author and writing teacher Anne Lamott has given us permission to be writers and for writers to be human. We don’t have to feel isolated and alone, sitting at the table in the café or in the corner of our garret apartment, wrestling with our demons as pencils and typewriters and laptops fight our attempts to get it all down on the page before it escapes. Anne’s got our backs.

All of the best writer’s guides have been at least one part literary memoir and Bird By Bird is no different. With humor and grace, Anne takes us through her unorthodox childhood with her writer father and his writer friends. When she finally finds her voice as a result of his fight with brain cancer, we are there with her as ghosts at her side as she struggles as all of us have to find the words to encapsulate the strange humor of the dying and the absurdity of life. From that absurdity of life, Anne draws her inspiration and her humor. And in the process she teaches us so very much about both writing and life as a spiritual journey.

Anne’s iconic tips for writing range from the empty 1 inch picture frame that reminds us to write in small assignments to the aforementioned permission to sit down and write a shitty first draft even if it seems all the other writers in the world are taking dictation from God. Get it all down, make it pretty later. Odds are that the people whose final drafts seem dictated from Beyond had a shitty first draft too.

With frank language and the humor of the sensitive soul behind the words, Anne draws us into her life and her classroom. She dwells on the fears and outright neuroses that all writers deal with, makes it ok for us to feel that way, reminds us we’re not alone in that regard either. There are others out there doing the same.

This book serves a larger purpose as well. She reminds us that we are all mortal. Each and every one of us is dying a little each day, and though she understands why we do it, procrastination is a sin. Every day you put off writing is one less day that you will have to write. And so much of the damage we wrestle with is self-inflicted. Perhaps the best advice she gives she is passing on from her father. She reminds us that no matter how big the project, no matter how big your subject or how daunting the research ahead of you, no matter many birds crowd your narrative, you don’t have to write it all at once -- just take it bird by bird.

If you only read one article this week, this should be it...

Pearls Before Breakfast - WashingtonPost.com "Joshua Bell is one of the world's greatest violinists. His instrument of choice is a multimillion-dollar Stradivarius. If he played it for spare change, incognito, outside a bustling Metro stop in Washington, would anyone notice?"

Art is something we should think about. Something we should appreciate and celebrate. How we value it should be more than a sum of what we paid for it, or the venue in which it has been presented. How would I have reacted? My sister is a concert oboist. I grew up so surrounded by her music that I wasn't even aware of how much of it sunk-in until I was years out of the house and a thousand miles from home. Which is to say that I have a better than average appreciation of music, but less than my sister's (of course). How would I have reacted walking by this guy, funnelling his heart through the strings of a Stradivarius? Would I have recognized his talent? His skill? Would I have stopped to appreciate it? Would I have dropped a dollar in his violin case? I like to think I would, but I honestly I don't know. In an acoustically imperfect venue, amid the noisse and bustle of the rush hour crowd... I just don't know. Music, they say, if food for the soul. On this day, in that venue... it is also food for thought.

Literary Newsday...

Saturday is newsday apparently... Lev Grossman - Time book critic and author of The Magicians and Codex - has an article in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the revolutions in literature are coming from the ranks of popular authors rather than trickling across the border from the avant garde. I don't necessarily agree with him on every point, but the overall thesis seems sound and well-argued. Well worth the read. Reading By the Numbers is a startling op/ed from the New York Times about the so-called "Renaissance Learning" software that assigns numerical values to books. Children in schools that use this software are required to read so many points' worth of books. The manner in which these points are assigned seems haphazard at best, for instance Hamlet is worth fewer points than the most recent Gossip Girl book. The whole thing is faintly appalling and hopefully the publicity can help get some things changed. If nothing else, the software designers really need to re-think how the frigging points are assigned because they seem to be missing the whole point of reading as a transformative experience rather than an exercise in cramming more words into our students' heads.

Caveat Scriptor

Fellow writers take note. Publisher's Weekly says the popular blog "Writer Beware" has been busier than ever of late. If you're a writer and you're not aware of this valuable research tool for sussing out the various scams floating around the publishing world... well, you should be. Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin are out there fighting for you, putting the bad guys on-notice that this kind of crap doesn't belong in an industry of culture and ideas. Read the full article here.

Role to hit...

I learned to tell stories from my dad, who was quite the raconteur when the mood struck him. I learned to love stories by reading a lot of them. I learned about characterization and what made a story drag you to the edge of your chair by participating in them. As if I haven't already made it clear that I'm a nerd, today I shall remove any lingering doubts. Today we're going to talk about... (deep breath) role-playing games.

I'm sure I have a pocket protector around here somewhere.

A table in a basement surrounded by young men, soda cans and empty pizza boxes. This raucous gathering was sterotypically the smarter kids from their school who found common cause in their esoterica. Mostly young men, they gather to breathe life back into a faded mythos governed by obscure rules and the chance roll of polyhedral dice... role playing games. About the only legal activity in the high schools of America circa 1980 that had any air of mystery about it. Movies and news reports tried to link role playing games to all sorts of satanic pseudo-mystical nonsense while most of the players viewed it in much the same way their fathers viewed Friday night poker games.

Most people know about Dungeons & Dragons, but there were far more than that: Top Secret, Vampire the Masquerade, Ninjas & Super Spies, Shadowrun, Battletech... the list seems virtually endless and at one time or another and I played them all.

What does this have to do with storytelling?

Everything and nothing.

It's axiomatic that the story looks different from the inside than it will look from the outside. I can tell you stories about things that really happened to me in the back-country during my mountaineering and backpacking days and make you laugh every time. Stories that were frightening, uncomfortable and dangerous when I was living them. I can tell you stories about bad guys thwarted, secret plans stolen and dragons slain in imaginary games and get much the same reaction. But in neither case - the real or the imagined - will it be the same for your reader if you re-tell my story to someone else. It's inherently different because I was there. I was standing in front of that bear or staring over that ledge or slaying that imaginary dragon.

The dramatic tension comes from the experience. The story would not be the same had I not subjected myself to the whims of chance, the roll of the die. And since you didn't experience it except through my narrative, you will tell it differently and with less immediacy than I.

That isn't to say that I want you to run out and throw yourself in front of a bear, or get buried in an avalanche. You don't need to do that in order to write about them. Nor do you need to put together a role-playing game based upon the novel you're writing.

Roleplaying games taught me to have an experience that didn't really happen, to watch it unfold through the eyes of a fictional character. Even if I didn't know what it felt like first-hand to stare down the snout of a black bear or free fall into nothing on the end of a bungee cord, I could create a semblence of that experiencve because I've learned the skill of putting myself into the head of a person that does not exist.

In Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, Lawrence Block talks about how finite even the most compelling life is in terms of storytelling potential. Even if you lived a life of danger as an international jewel thief, you are still - as Block puts it - sitting on a raft in cold waters, chopping bits off the back-end to feed the fire you've started at the front. At some point you will run out of boat. Being able to live through the eyes of an imaginary person allows me to build a bigger boat, feeding the fires with imaginary planks.

One last thing about lessons role-playing games can teach us and then I'll shut up about them...

In Across the Crowded Marketplace, I dwelt on the definitive archetypes, the roles your characters play in the stories they inhabit and how important it is that your readers be able to recognize them on a cultural level. At the core of that is a crucial understanding of your character and what role they fill in the story.

Part of this is the ability to play them consistently through the entire story. If one ear is lower than the other on page one, then on page 220, those ears had better still be assymetrical. I keep track of this using something else role-playing games taught me... the character sheet. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, ethnicity, skin tone, education, distinguishing features, idiosyncrocies... all on an easy-to-reference sheet of paper. This sounds fussy and even anal, and I suppose that it is. It also keeps my legendary absent-mindedness from sidelining my writing while i search the manuscript for some tiny detail from the first chapter.

Role-playing games take place in worlds that are fully-realized entities apart from ours, a shared landscape of the imagination replete with maps, politics and adventures in the offing. they are a place where we can step into other skins and other lives. A similarly-realized world should unfold each time I open my laptop and type "Chapter One" at the top of a page.

I owe it to my world and to my characters to know them well enough to be able to tell their stories as if I'd been there too.

---

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines. Contact Me: swalkerperkins@gmail.com

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PC World on e-Books

"Sony Wireless E-Book Reader Proves Kindle Was On Target" from PC World Magazine PC World has an interesting analysis of the business & manufacturing underpinnings that make the darn things cost so much... at least if your want wireless compatability. This side of the e-book market is under-reported and explains why Sony has been forced to match Kindle's price-point despite earlier efforts to undercut it as recent as two weeks ago. Good article!

Thought for today:

Writing's a lot like skinny-dipping. It can be cold, embarrassing and uncomfortable to be naked among strangers -- but sometimes it's the bracing bite of the cold water on your skin and the weightless embrace of the medium as you open your eyes to a new green world where everyone else is naked and embarrassed too.

Celestial Navigation

Source: Hubblesite.org

"I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night" -Galileo Galilei

Today is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's introduction of his telescope to the Venetian Senate. 

Contrary to what you may have been taught, he did not invent the telescope. By 1609, relatively weak telescopes had begun to trickle across Europe. Many claimed credit for the invention and none rightly know who first stuck a couple of lenses in a tube and turned it skyward.

It is a matter of some controversy, as laid out in the popular history Stargazer: The Life & Times of the Telescope. The claimants to the title range from an early British surveyor Leonard Digges & Son (who failed to capitalize on their invention if indeed they ever built one) and Hans Lipperhay who has the advantage of being among the first to file for a patent (which was denied, according to Stargazer because even then his was not the only telescope knocking around).

All the same, we honor Galileo's telescope today largely because of the man who built it and how he put it to use. It is noteworthy that when Galileo sat down to make his telescope, it was apparently an artifact of which had had only heard descriptions: Two lenses in a tube that can view far away objects as though they were close-by. With his native intellect and knowledge of optics, the Pisan scholar assembled his telescope as a variable-focus instrument and presented it before the senators.

It was not long before astronomers everywhere were pointing their lenses skyward. It began before Galileo even built his famed stargazer, but as we know it was Galileo overtook the pack and who eventually led the way. His observations of the surface of the moon, that other celestial bodies also had satellites and that the sun has a bad complexion forced a reassessment of the received knowledge of the ancients. The moon was - at the time - supposed to be smooth and perfect. The Medician Moons of Jupiter were a shock, for it proved that not all bodies orbited the Earth. Sunspots marred the perfection of old Sol... the Ptolemaic model of our universe was crumbling.

Paired with the precise measurement of the heavens taken by Tycho Brahe (without a telescope, incidentally) it was readily apparent to all observers that the planets did not move in neat concentric rings. And Earth could not possibly be the center of their oblong orbits. The movement of the Earth itself was the only explanation for the aberrations, the movement of Earth around the sun.

"The scriptures tell us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." -Galileo Galilei (attr.)

The vastness of space opened before us, a universe that went about its business with little regard for humans.

In the end it was not the position that the Earth held in the universe that brought the full weight of church and state down upon Galileo, it was the position of man in that vastness that doomed his research. The orthodox view held that mankind was the center of God's plan and a vast stretch of infinity filled with planets and stars moving of their own accord did not fit into that equation.

We all know what happened next. In a familiar pattern, the dispute became a matter of politics more than faith and Galileo had made few friends among his peers that would risk all to stand at his side. His views ran afoul of the counter-reformation, a movement fighting to keep Mother Church united against the forces unleashed by Martin Luther and those who came after him.

Galileo's views could not be tolerated and he came into the sights of the Inquisition.

In such a climate, even his powerful patrons among the d'Medici could no longer protect him. It was all they could do to keep him alive. The orthodox viewpoint brooks no rivals and Galileo was forced to recant his position and abandon his research to live the rest of his life in obscurity.

It was a low point for both church and state, an orthodox viewpoint scrambling to keep enough fingers in the dam to hold back the waters of the coming enlightenment. Coffee houses soon replaced the taverns and the minds of men, awakened from the (quite literal) drunken stupor* of the previous age were not eager to return to a time when the darkness drove them indoors. The whole of creation had shifted ever so slightly and humanity was scrambling to keep up, to find its place in a universe where mankind was a part of the plan, not necessarily at its center. The telescope was out of the bag and those whose eyes were turned Earthward could not darken the lenses turned toward the sky.

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei

Further reading: Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
Stargazer: The Life & Times of the Telescope by Fred Watson
The Galileo Project online at Rice University

Great Big Meanies (A backlist book review)

I must confess: I'm guilty of book-rustling. Last week, someone left a book lying around the break room at work and I couldn't find anyone who would claim it. (I did try to ask permission before borrowing it, honest!)

I really do try not to judge a book by its cover, but Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies strikes me as a deliberate attempt to provoke an exquisitely-erudite riot. Surely I was doing a service to my fellow grammarians by removing it from the writing center for the weekend.

We wouldn't want the grammar snobs to riot, now would we? (Though I admit that the image of disapproving grammarians toting well-punctuated picket signs tickles me somewhat.)

All seriousness aside, newspaper copy editor June Casagrande has made grammar funny again. She has written what I can only describe as the anti-Eats Shoots and Leaves by lobbing the verbal hand grenade back across the lines.

It seems impossible that someone can teach you the difference between the subjunctive and indicative verb forms and effect the pantsing of the entire English language establishment in one go, but Ms Casagrande manages it. Not only does she manage it, but she makes it funny.

At risk of cliche I must say: This is not your father's grammar guide. In fact, if you want to test Fitzgerald's axiom about first-rate intelligence ("...the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function") then you should read this book back-to-back with the humorously-fussy Eats Shoots and Leaves. You would be surprised to know that it's possible without your head exploding, but only just. (I just did it and the headache lingers.) Somewhere between Lynn Truss's call to take up arms in the fight against the Decline and Fall of Western Punctuation and June Casagrande imploring us to get a grip lies the battlefield where most of us live.

Think of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies as a survival guide for those of us caught in the combat zone. Casagrande has provided a strategy guide for those put-upon by the free-roaming grammar snobs in our midst.

"It's time, oh yes, it's time for the rest of us to stand up to these snobs--to call their bluff. If not for our own edification, if not to gain a better command of the language and all the doors it opens to us--at the very least we must learn a little about grammar and usage for the sheer thrill of taking down these grammar tyrants, one at a time, just to watch them fall."

Each chapter is targeted at a specific common error that is harped-upon by those who wish to polish their linguistic credentials on the foreheads of those less fortunate. Casagrande makes her hyperbolic stance work by using self-deprecating anecdotes and a liberal dose of dark humor. She makes short work of the Oxford Comma, the predicate nominative, semicolons, punctuation within quotes and a host of other issues that define the linguistic battlefield. In fact, by staking out the two ends of the grammar spectrum, this book and Eats, Shoots & Leaves work remarkably well together.

You might want to keep them apart of your bookshelf though, lest you have to break up a fight.

This is a highly-recommended addition to your reference library and a darn fun read. How often do you hear those two things in the same sentence?

Speak the Speech

There are a lot of writers out there who refuse to write for the stage.

 And it is a dangerous thing, the stage. The words your wrote will not be spoken the way you heard it in your head. Writing for actors and directors requires an especially thick skin because they have the utter temerity to think that their creative process should also come into play. Dammit, why can't they just speak the words you wrote for them and then exit gracefully?

(Actually, I feel that way about characters all the time.)

In this visual age, the words you write will be played out in the mind of the readers with imaginary actors cast in the roles of your characters, speaking the words you write for them. Your dialogue will echo in their minds... how is it going to sound?

Thriller writers certainly are not writing for Friday story-time. Books are not speeches and not every writer can or should write for the stage. But dialogue is a conversation between two or more characters, and that means you are writing words to be spoken out loud. If they don't sound like it, then you might want to fix that. Take a section of your dialogue, find a willing friend, and divvy up the parts. Read them out loud to one another.

 Don't know any actors? (Really? How did you manage that?) It doesn't have to be the Royal Shakespeare Company, or even high school drama class; you're not trying to impress the critic from the Times, just get some words into the air.

 Listen when your 'actors' speak the lines of dialogue. Where do they fumble with the line? Real speech has a rhythm to it, something we all recognize automatically. When we watch a play, a television show or movie, we recognize instantly when dialogue sounds fake. Listen for that with your own work. Watch for the places where the dialogue lags or is too short, or just doesn't sound right. (Most of what your ear objects to will probably be exposition, because that's the way this seems to work. That's fine, it just means you need to rewrite it or move it...) I always tell people who want to write that they should read, read and pay attention to how the writer created their story. See how the other guys do it, the more successful they are, the better. I don't generally like to read plays. Just as a novel isn't a play, a play isn't a novel. But writers should attend as many plays as possible, listening and watching the way the lines work... or don't. What sounds good and what sounds stilted and false? How does the dialogue work? What's happening when it doesn't? Incidentally, I say plays instead of movies or television (I'll talk about those another time) because on the stage you're getting the dialogue without the interference of editors. Raw, uncut dialogue sounds different than what comes out of the end of an editing suite after multiple takes are spliced together. Successful children's writers seem to spend a bit of time thinking about the parent who will be reading the story aloud somewhere down the road. Writers creating fiction for adults often think dreamily of their books being turned into movies or TV shows. Too little do they really think about what it is to have your words spoken aloud. Every book is a play that will unfold on the stages of your readers' minds. The words your characters speak will echo in the minds of people you have never met... it behooves you to take an extra moment to reflect on how they will actually sound.

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines. Contact Information Email: swalkerperkins@gmail.com Blog: Pages to Type Before I Sleep

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Quote of the moment:

"Being in the dictionary is not a badge of honor. People aren't limited to words I've managed to capture and pin down. A dog doesn't have to be registered with the American Kennel Association to be a dog. It still fetches your slippers; it just isn't pedigreed."

—Erin McKean, Lexicographer and Dictionary Evangelist

The scent of burning paper...

I was reminded this morning that banned book week is fast approaching. It will begin September 26th and will feature the books that have been banned and/or challenged this past year.

Geoffery Chaucer, Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Joseph Heller and JD Salinger have all been banned at one time or another. Many continue to face challenges from those whose reality cannot encompass the ideas that these writers explore. The desires of a moment or a person are too often allowed to outweigh the long-term good of a culture, and it is this that led all of the authors I just mentioned to face the fire.

Books of religion and history and science have all disappeared from the shelves at one time or another, victims of narrow minds and ideologies that brook no challenge. This is why Charles Darwin sits alongside the authors of the Bible, the Quran, and the Torah on the most-banned lists. Some of the greatest minds and most influential works ever to pass from pen to page have all been censored, blocked, burned and banned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challenged_books_in_the_U.S.

 I challenge you to read something between now and Banned Books Week that someone didn't want you to read. Read anything from 1984 to Huckleberry Finn, to Hamlet or A Wrinkle in Time. Then come back during the week beginning September 26 and tell me about it. If you can, try to read a book you haven't read but only heard about. Then come back and tell us if what you had been told was at all accurate.

I have accumulated a stack next to my chair of books from various banned lists and I will be reading through them as quickly as ever I can and I'll let you know how it goes. Of course, there's no way I can finish them all between now and September 26th, but the reason for having a commemorative week is to remind us that we need to do this every week.

Read.

Read what you want to read. Read what challenges you. Read what people don't want you to read. Read because like muscles and brains, your freedoms will atrophy if they're not exercised. Feel free to recommend great challenging books to your fellow readers in the comments section!

Across the Marketplace (Cross-Pollination Pt I)

Commedia del Arte is a form of theater designed to be performed by a limited number of actors in a setting that is less than ideal for theater: The Renaissance marketplace. Each actor wears a specific mask and adopts certain prescribed poses that are universal to the form.

The characters bear Italianate names like Pantalone, the unscrupulous and grasping old man; Capitano, the strutting braggart; Arlechinno, the clever and (more or less) innocent servant... The iconic masks, poses and well-defined characters allowed the actors to perform amid the bustle of marketplace and festival in a time before microphones. The cavernous noses of the masks have even been alleged to magnify the voices of the actors.

Even if you could not hear every word or see them clearly, you knew who was doing what. Even from a distance, there was no question which actor was playing which role, so well-known were the archetypes they portrayed. Even today you would recognize them whether you realize it or not. Harlequin came from commedia. Punch & Judy as well. Shakespeare borrowed shamelessly from his Italian counterparts. Your pants are called "pants" as a short form of 'pantaloons' named for the costume worn by Pantalone. In more theatrical and modern(ish) terms, The Marx Brothers, Monty Python and the Muppets all owe an enormous debt to their frenetic forbears in commedia del arte.

But lest I lose you, I didn't come here to give you a lesson in the history of Western theater. The reason I bring this up is that what Groucho, the Pythons and Jim Henson all understood is the power of the iconic character.

So too can the form translate into written fiction, comedy or drama. You don't have to be writing screwball comedy to learn from the masks of the commedia. Falstaff and Hamlet are both iconic characters that resonate on a cultural level.

When I was a kid, we were taught that all fictional conflict could be summed-up as "Man -vs- Man, Man -vs- Nature, and Man -vs- Himself." In the time I've been alive this has broadened quite a bit and become gender-neutral, but the central premise remains the same: even as broad as it's become, there's a limited number of frameworks within which we can fit a story.

Yet, if that's true, why do we all find it so difficult to sum-up our books in a paragraph when we're pitching them to agents and publishers?

Because we tend not to think about our frames, or (worse yet) imagine that they're not there. Recognizing them allows us to identify places we can push at them without it collapsing. Seeing beneath the masks our characters wear is one thing, but seeing the mask itself is important too.

There's a term bandied about quite a bit in New York and Hollywood: "High Concept" -- put in simple terms this means your story can be explained in simple terms. It doesn't mean you're necessarily telling a simple story or that the book is lacking in complexity. At it's best, it simply means that you made good use of the iconic.

That your characters and story can be recognized across the bustling marketplace.

32 Most Commonly Mis-used Words & Phrases

This morning the Tattered Cover bookstore posted a link on their news feed over on FB that lists the 32 most common screw-ups in written English. As far as I'm concerned, it's required reading for anyone who wants to write. (So is Elements of Style by Strunk & White, which is much the same, but fussier and charmingly old-fashioned.) By now you know that I advocate that you split boldly the infinitive and mercilessly dangle that preposition when need presents itself. The tale is the master and the language servant to the need to get your point across. But there are rules of usage that cannot be set aside so easily. The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases Found on the "Help! Educational Blog" by the Help! Tutoring service. I haven't looked at this blog in awhile and it's generating some nice content.

Cross-Pollination

I've written novels, news stories, weddings, plays, speeches, op-eds, short stories, one-act farces, puppet shows... the list seems endless. In my book, describing one's self as a writer requires a nimble pen and a willingness to take on something new.

Sometimes I throw my words out there and they fall to the ground unheard. Plays get written but don't get performed. Blogs go unread. Op-Eds get cut or cut-down. From the wedding that three dozen people hear to the play that never got performed, from the short story that wins an award to the novel you've all been hearing about, one thing unifies them all... I learned and moved on to the next project.

And I'd wager that my writing was better for the experience.

A screenplay is not a novel. A play is not a short story. A wedding is not any of those things. Yet they all play well together and inspire one another all the time. The wedding drew heavy inspiration from Shakespeare's sonnets. Many successful movies are adapted from novels, short stories and plays. Writers talk about adapting what they learned writing literature, genre fiction and poetry to other modes all the time. But rarely do I hear about how writing other forms and modes inform and improve fiction writing.

Novel covers may describe the writing as "poetic" or "theatrical" to get across elements of plot and pacing before you crack the spine, but how often does the writer talk about how it got that way? Does writing poetry improve your fiction? Does writing for the stage improve your dialogue? It should and I would wager it does on both counts. It certainly did for me.

Even if I don't put my poems out there, or if the plays are performed in a children's theater, or on the dirt at a festival, there are lessons to learn. "Aha!" moments where the poetry constrains description and word-painting or the actor turns to you and says "This sounds wierd, let's say this instead..." The poet is creating images within metrical constraints and the playwright is hearing other people speak the character's words aloud. This changes our perception as we view other moments of description or dialogue. Also there are pacing elements, characterization, meter, word and time constraints that teach you innumerable lessons applicable to other forms of writing.

Movie novelizations aside, too often we view the novel or short story or poem or play as the station that all trains leave from. The novel inspires the movie. The short story inspires the play. The poem inspires the wedding. The play inspires the film. While each form or mode requires an understanding of the constraints and expectations of the audience, none stand alone. We should not think of our mode as the station with all travelers leaving for other climes but as Rome, the destination of all roads.

The next few posts on Pages to Type will be on this theme. These are things I apply no matter where I point my pen. And I submit that these things are something that any writer or reader in any mode would do well to keep in mind. As always, I would like to hear from you as we go along. How does the theater inform the novel? Take it as far afield as you like. How does culinary arts influence the stage? How do the paintings of Rembrandt influence the direction of your blog? How do other arts inform everything else that passes across your page?

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines. Contact Information Email: swalkerperkins@gmail.com Blog: Pages to Type Before I Sleep

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The Fourth "W"

The first three, of course, are who, what and when.

I am often told that setting is the soul of a novel. But what of the setting of writing of the novel? How important is location for the author? There are writers whose writing studio, garage office, garret apartment or table at the cafe are as important to their work as the gardens of Giverny were to Monet.

This morning I had a business meeting in the cafe where I usually write. This is a smallish cafe near the school where I work. It's communal, convivial, funky and all the things a coffee shop should be. It's also a bustling local hangout, an intersection of writers, musicians, book groups, poets, priests and politicians all of us bonding over a cup of caffeine.

One of my colleagues looked around and said: "You write in here?"

I looked at her for a moment and then shouted "Sorry, what?"

I'd never noticed before how noisy the place was. But to be honest, I like it. The first question I ever asked my readers was "Where do you write?" As I said then, I like to have people around when I write. Rather than a distraction, the boisterous atmosphere of the cafe reminds me not to be a hermit, that the writers who have a breakout hit and then retreat to an isolated cabin to compose the Great American Novel are usually never heard from again. The people around me inform the narrative, pour their energy into the words.

Because it's been awhile and I have hopefully attracted some new readers since I first asked this back in February I thought I'd ask again and expand upon it a bit...  

If you're a writer: "Where do you write?" Does the boisterous energy of the masses distract you? Or does it help you? What makes the ideal place for you to partake in the written word? Does the setting have to fit the piece? Or is it a mixed bag: does the crowd around you help with scenes that bustle, but take you out of your groove if you're trying to write something lonesome?  

If you're not a writer: "Where do you read?" Does the setting help or hinder the narrative? One of the first things I did when I got to Seattle was read everything I could find that was set here. If I'm traveling somewhere and I know there's a book on my shelf that's iconic for my destination, I'll grab it and take it with me. When I was driving across the US, I read 'Lost Continent' by Bill Bryson in the hotel room every night before bed. I discovered Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels when I was in Los Angeles. Leave your thoughts in the comments section! I really want to know.  

Today's Quote of the Day:

"Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris."

-Laura Lippman Read in the Washington Post Online

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Custos Librarium

By now you know that I'm a big fan of librarians. The are the guardians at the gates of our world culture, they fight for the inclusion of all and the exclusion of none. Librarians will (and have) go to court and even jail to protect the privacy of their patrons. When the USA PATRIOT Act extended the writ of the federal government's surveillance efforts into the nation's libraries, the librarians and the ALA fought (semi-successfully) the legislation in the name of their library patrons. Internet search providers have a long and troubled history when it comes to privacy concerns. This is most notable in China where dissidents have been turned-over or exposed by their internet email providers. They have proven time and again their focus isn't on the privacy of their users, but on the aggregation and sale of their site-views. These are businesses and must pursue profit. Libraries are not businesses, they are a public service where free public access to information is protected. This morning, NPR asked: If Google is allowed to become the world's librarian, how will they match up to the librarians they will be replacing? (listen) (read)

Grammarians at the gates...

My friend Rebecca is a high school English teacher. The other day she posted this on her Facebook page:

Punctuation, grammar and spelling are like traffic signs. They smooth the flow of communication and you may be cited for an infraction. And they can and will change without warning. But they are not a Moral Issue.

That's a great quote. There followed a lively back-and-forth in her comments string involving Oxford commas and the murderous passions that we have seen inflamed by grammatical debate. (It occurs to me that I have a gloriously nerdy circle of friends.) Her point is excellent. Punctuation is the servant of the sentence, not the master. Pacing and traffic flow are paramount and punctuation must serve this need and not hinder passage nor cause a pileup. Professional writers should learn from this lesson aimed at high school students. Especially the 'morality issue'. Every writer should bone-up on punctuation and grammar and keep their Bedford Guide or Hacker close at hand. There are rules of usage and words mean certain things. As Rebecca noted, some rules are enforced unevenly and you may be cited for violations. If you choose for stylistic purposes to avoid or ignore rules, it should be conscious and it should be consistent. Ever read Cormac McCarthy's The Road? Goest thou and do likewise. But it's not a moral issue. Not knowing or not following every rule doesn't make you an evil person. In my view, there's nothing wrong with having rules of the road, but when those rules constrain or restrain you beyond your ability to tell a story, set them aside. Let the children (and their teachers) lead them. Tell your story as clearly and concisely as you can. If you need to break a rule, do it. Don't let the semicolons boss you around. Put the pedants on 'pause' and let your morality rest easy -- when you are writing a story, you are answering a higher calling.

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines. Email: swalkerperkins@gmail.com Blog: Pages to Type Before I Sleep

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10 Rules Redux

Last week we talked about the Ten Rules Elmore Leonard proposed for great fiction writing. Whether you're a reader or a writer, surely you too have some rules of thumb. Some measure of what makes writing good or even great... So what are your ten rules? Answer in comments.

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules

Three presenters at the PNWA conference last weekend told us to go look up Elmore Leonard's column from the New York Times's late and sadly discontinued "Writers On Writing..." feature. So here it is for everyone, some of the best, most succinct advice I've ever seen on writing great fiction. (For copyright reasons, you'll have to click the link to read the whole thing)

Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
By Elmore Leonard

Published: July 16, 2001

"These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over..."

Hooptedoodle. You have to love any headline with "Hooptedoodle" in it.

If you're curious about the rest, you can read some of what he left out (because 13 rules didn't sound as cool, I guess) at his blog: ElmoreLeonard.com or in his book on writing also called Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules on Writing. (Sadly, the hooptedoodle was apparently left out of the book.)  

Caveat lector! Something I think about this every time I recommend a book on writing, whether it's Larry Block or Anne Lamotte or Stephen King. Reading about writing doesn't make you a writer, writing makes you a writer. There's a point where you have to stop reading books (or blogs) about how to write and actually sit down to do it.

---

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of humor & suspense. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.   Email: swalkerperkins@gmail.com

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Cursive Writing

Sometimes my characters cuss and generally act in a disreputable manner. (Sorry mom, you might want to skip this one.)

Actually, I try not to use epithets or cursing when I write. This is partly stylistic, but mostly this is because I feel that the curse word has lost its power in the world. In the microcosm of the novel, I feel that is certainly true, as evidenced by the fact that once I'm a few chapters into an Elmore Leonard novel I stop noticing the words and start really grooving to what he's talking about. This is cool because it means his writing is working, but it also means that a character saying shit no longer has an impact. It's just how (many if not most of) his characters speak, how they express every thought, not just the extraordinarily passionate ones.

No one uses vernacular cursing better than Elmore Leonard. It lends authenticity to his streetwise characters. It's part of his 'voice', that ineffable part of us that differentiates writers and allows us to tell stories in our own way. It's part of why two writers could write the same book and you might never realize it because as long as those two writers know their voice they won't tell the same story the same way.

It's not right or wrong, it's just an observation. In both writing and life, I come down on the side of the equation that says "do more with less". I don't eschew cursing entirely, but I want it to be an expression of passionate feeling. The fewer times a word appears, the greater its impact. And I want any word I use to be evocative of the feeling it's expressing. "Oh crap" takes you immediately back to a time when dropping the top scoop from your ice cream cone is the worst event you can imagine. "Oh shit" doesn't do that -- at least not for me. It doesn't have the power of it's adolescent substitute.

There's a famous comedy routine by the late George Carlin that discusses the seven words you cannot say on television. The most famous portion of the routine is where he rattles off all seven in rapidfire succession, but I find that in the focus on the profanity, his thesis gets lost. Here's the part of the lead-in that gets lost in the discussion...

"I love words. I thank you for hearing my words, I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid. Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words."

-George Carlin "Class Clown EP"

As with anything, there's a right way and a wrong way to curse in fiction. The right way is epitomized by Elmore Leonard. The heavy use of slang and earthy expression adds depth, pathos, and reality. Robert Parker's Spenser novels are another good example of how to do it right. The wrong way to do it... well, I won't single anyone out, but like Potter Stewart said about pornography it's difficult to define but you'll know it when you see it.

My feelings about profanity are mixed. All too often, it's not a Leonard or Parker quality of characterization but an overused device that thinly veils bad writing just as all too often it's a beard for unfunny comedy. Shock value will only get you so far before someone wants you to back it up with content. In this as all things, content and context share the throne.

Carlin said "Be careful with words". Every writer should write that on the wall above their writing space. In real life and fictional, words have power and should be used with caution. Used properly, the right words - even curse words - can help your story, but the wrong ones at the wrong time will kill it.

Copyrights

You'll notice that I write a lot about copyright issues here. Part of that's because it's important to me for the work I do at the writing center, which includes some work facilitating the transition to a Creative Commons structure for our educational materials. This is bringing us in line with the draft Washington State technology plan for higher ed, which includes more "open source" materials for classrooms and students.

Which brings us back to copyright.

I'm not a copyright expert, but one of the things I have to do everyday is evaluate how something we're doing falls within the spectrum of "fair use". Last weekend at the writer's conference it came to my attention in conversations with others how poorly-understood fair use and copyright law is. The laws are byzantine and the things you most want defined aren't, or rather they are defined by a dizzying array of legal precedents and caselaw. So we need tools to help us.

Are your derivative works or inspired critiques going to run you afoul of US law? Don't ask me, ask the experts. When I have a question I can't answer from native knowledge and experience (and sometimes even then) I go to the following sources, which I now share with you, my fellow writers...

The Copyright Advisory Network tracks and actively participates in discussions of copyright law. "The purpose of this site is to encourage librarians to discuss copyright concerns and seek feedback and advice from fellow librarians and copyright specialists. The Network is sponsored by the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy."

The Fair Use Evaluator is and other tools are available from the American Library Association offering helpful advice on evaluating of the murky issues of fair-use. Neither of these sites are going to provide you ironclad legal opinions. They are a part of doing what is legally known as "due diligence" when you are stepping into unfamiliar territory.

Will it keep people from suing you? Maybe, maybe not. Nothing will provide you with Teflon coating, but you can and should always do your best to limit your exposure.

Dialogue

Since I find myself gifted by the company of the erudite band of people in my general digital vicinity, I was hoping you could help me with a hole I've found in my memory regarding a theater company and a play they performed. The trouble is, it's a really short play. I saw it some time ago, probably nine or ten years ago in either Chicago or Milwaukee. It's a short one-act play and was part of a night where many of them were performed in succession. I'm trying to track it down. Trouble is, I can't think of the name of it. It was was performed by a man and a woman interacting in the following manner...

M: "Tenuous overture" F: "Noncommital Reply" M: "Hopeful Comment" F: "Encouraging response" M: "Suggestive comment" F: "Affronted objection!" M: "Furious Backpedaling" F: "Stony silence!" M: "Nervous Laughter."

And so forth. The entire play was quite short but it was entirely about the tone of voice and delivery since there was no real dialogue, just leading two-word "writerly" descriptions of what was being suggested and acted out by the players. It was a great little play, and I do mean a little play. I remember snippets and bits but can't find the play, the playwright or the theater company that performed it. Google's no help at all. Anyone out there heard of this? Did I imagine it?

Wordless Wednesday - Coffee In My Skull

See More Wordless Here

e-Booked

Amazon's Kindle has some competition brewing as the e-book industry continues to grow and diversify. Two weeks ago, B&N launched an e-bookstore to compete with Amazon that features e-Books which can be read on most computers and wireless devices. WIRED Magazine reports that Sony will be introducing a reduced-price e-reader at the $200 price point. The newest Kindle actually got more expensive, but they reduced the price of the basic Kindle by $60, so I would look for a reduced-price (perhaps stripped-down) Kindle in the near future. Early next year, Plastic Logic will debut a Kindle competitor, which will be allied with the aforementioned Barnes & Noble site. It will reportedly boast similar features to that of the Kindle, including wireless data transmission, apparently hosted by AT&T. It remains to be seen whether Amazon is going to open up to cross-platform e-booking or if they will pursue an Apple iTunes structure and rely upon their colossal name recognition and industry-leadership to stay on top and allow them to continue to issue content via a single channel. It worked for Apple and Jeff Bezos (chairman and founder of Amazon) is nothing if not a quick study. Love it or hate it, the e-book is what's next. The more that the field diversifies, the more avenues that authors and readers have to communicate. That's a good thing for the publishing industry as a whole... assuming publishers can figure out how to make it work. I suspect that - in a familiar pattern - more consolidation will happen and new spunky and well-capitalized and internet-ready start-ups will take the place of those who fall. (That's a lot of hyphens in one sentence.) It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

We few, we happy few...

PNWA wrapup... I'm trying to get back into the groove of my real life. It's so cool to dive into a crowd of people who think and talk in the same terms you do and realize that as much of a wonk as you are, there are other people out there caring just as passionately about the same obscure topics you care about. A convention of like-minds. By comparison with the rest of society, writers are an odd lot. A happy band of rivals that are simultaneously competing for the attention of the same few agents, jockeying for the ever-decreasing number of slots available on a publisher's press... yet always happy to help another writer out. From the New York Times bestsellers who walked among us to the most gobsmacked first timer (cough-like me-cough) there was never a hesitation to help. We shared our pitches, advised others on word-choice and phrasing and honed our ability to pack a lot of information in a tiny paragraph that we could shoehorn into a conversation with any agent or editor that crossed our paths or (poor souls) walked into our elevator. I cannot lie... I joined the Pacific Northwest Writers Association because it was my local writer's association and attended this conference because it's close-by. Turns out it's one of the largest writing conferences in the country and one of the best by reputation among the pros (or so the pros told me). Writers, agents and editors are turned away every year. And there I was. You already know that the keynote was delivered by Terry Brooks. There were also amazing talks given by Joe Finder and James Rollins about getting into the biz and writing thrillers and pull back the curtain on agents and publishers. Robert Dugoni and Sheldon Siegel deconstructed their genres. The often circuitous path these guys took to get to where they are today is heartening to those of us who are too far along the path to turn back, but not far enough to see the heights ahead. The closing address was given by a guy named Chris Humphreys, who is a British/Canadian writer of historical fiction and young adult books. He's a Shakespearean actor and fight choreographer and spoke passionately about authenticity in historical fiction, voice, research, what to put in, what to leave out and his fascination with reenactors. He wrapped with - I kid you not - the St Crispin's Day speech from the end of Henry V ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...") which garnered a standing ovation. What amazing, funny speakers, writers at the height of their powers. Writer's conferences are a bi-polar experience filled with amazing enthusiasm and a great deal of frank and daunting honesty. Lots of emotional highs and lows. Incidentally, a comment I made in one of the sessions had what seemed like the whole conference debating how I should overcome the fact that there are so many Scott Perkinses out there, one of whom is already a writer. (The general consensus was the same that I have already arrived at, which is to say using my middle name and first initial) But the funny story of discovering that not only could I not get scottperkins.com but that there are two Facebook groups devoted to getting the Scott Perkinses of the world to coalesce into one super Scott Perkins caught people's attention and I was constantly hailed in the halls "Hey! Scott Perkins!" which was an interesting experience. Anyway, I'm still a bit high from it all and trying to focus on giving my manuscript a final polish before sending it off. I'll take a page from Chris Humphrey's and wrap this with a bit of Shakespeare from the beginning of the same play. The prologue of Henry V has always whispered through my head as I begin a project or when - God forbid - I am struck with the sort of self doubt that whispers that my subject is too big for me to encompass in my pages. "... but pardon gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object: can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? or may we cram within this wooden 'O' the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?"

-Henry V, prologue

-- Scott Walker Perkins writes literate thrillers and novels of suspense, set in the modern era but woven from the threads of history. You can read more about his current projects here or at swalkerperkins.googlepages.com.

Who is Scott?

In case you're new here we should get to know one another a bit. Scott is:

• someone who dreams big and sleeps little.
• ready to accept what you think he said if it's cooler than what he really said.
• usually just acting like he knows what he's doing.