Story Prompt :: Writing through the Monday doldrums

No matter what you've heard, not every picture is worth a thousand words.  Just cruise through Flickr if you don't believe me.  Among the many thousands that are worth many thousands of words, there are all too many that simply are not.


Many of my stories were inspired by a photo.  The main character in my next book was inspired by a photo I saw at my wife's grandfather's funeral.  He was in training during WWII and rolled a tank.  The photo was of this young (and by all accounts quite wild) guy standing atop the belly of this upside down tank, grinning like a hunter who'd just killed the biggest bear in the land with a toothbrush.

Some photos beg the imagination to run wild. 

One of the things I do if I get stuck is go looking for a photograph to tell a story about.  Beyond describing the photo, these tales can be the story of someone else finding it in an unexpected place, or a story of the people just outside of frame. Sometimes it's just a setting, but a photo can anchor a thousand daydreams.

Today I invite you to join me in a writing exercise to shake off the Midwinter Monday doldrums.  Take a photo, any photo that fires your imagination, and tell a story about it.  It can be your photo or you can use the one below.  If you want to insert an element of gambling to exercise, >>click here<< and choose one of the random Flikr photos that appears.  Your story has no limits except that it must in some way deal with or spring from the photograph -- it can range from a one-liner to a thousand words or more if the mood strikes you.


I'll post my story here on Wednesday and I encourage you to post yours somewhere along with the photo that inspired it if you can.  See you then!

Cursive Writing :: Choose your words carefully

Welcome to Flashback Friday.  This post first appeared 6 August 2009 and came to mind recently as I searched for my 'voice' with a new character who is not quite a choirboy...
 
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Sometimes my characters cuss and generally act in a disreputable manner.

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.

Happy Blogthday?

I'm such a guy!  I went and forgot my blog's anniversary. And now my little corner of the internet is entering its terrible twos... which I guess means that this year it get to throw tantrums and occasionally break things.

Seriously.  How much fun is this going to be?

Last year, I decided to share my work with the world as I was writing it and learned a thing or two at the same time.  In some small way, my zany romp through the world of science fiction has struck a chord with readers.  Someone sent me a note to tell me she read it to her kids.  A man in Nebraska started telling people reading his blog that Howard was a good kid and worth following through his adventures.

I also discovered that happiness was convincing a fake science institute that my mad scientist character was worthy of a personal letter of recommendation.  Then fooling Google into bumping your imaginary rare book repository above the real ones in the search listings.

I'm not sure how I feel about that last one, to be honest.

I also put my face in space.  It will be transmitted into outer space on the last space shuttle mission.  It's not too late, you have until 7 March if you want to join me sending my mug into the void.

The coming year has a lot to live up to.


Simplify, Simplify, SimplifyHave you ever seen a blog with an image in the background where it wasn't distracting?  I never liked the background images in my blog layout, so I've done away with them.  The entire layout is simpler and cleaner and that's the way it's going to stay.

At least until I change my mind again.

Post Haste
This is not a blog that has a lot of posting rules.  I'm not making a living off your pageviews, and I don't really post unless I have both the time and something to say.  This is one of the many reasons why there aren't any ads.  The other reason is because even though I advocate treating writing as a business, this is where I come to write just for fun.


I want to keep it that way.  This will remain the place where I come to decant in the late hours when my brain gets too full.  When the night gets dark and deep, these are still the pages I have to type before I sleep...

However, now that there's a sizable archive to draw from, once in awhile I will start posting older pieces and essays that I don't want to get lost and don't want to cannibalize for a new post.  I'll try to do this on Fridays, but you might want to reference that earlier paragraph where I mentioned that I wanted to keep things free-flowing and fun.

Beyond Borders -- The Borders Bankruptcy as Seen by this Former Bookseller

It may surprise you to note that I haven't yet said anything about the Borders bankruptcy.  In part this is because I've been focusing my writing on other things than chasing the latest business debacle down the rabbit hole.  Honestly it was mostly because it's just too painful to think about.

As most of you know, I've worked for both of the major bookstore chains at one time or another and spent the longest time with Borders.  I worked for them in various capacities for the better part of nine years, mostly as a manager in one of their larger stores.

It was unlike any other job I've ever had.  I loved and hated it.  I formed friendships there that have persisted well beyond the walls of the bookstore and I formed ideas about books, publishing and bookselling that I carry with me to this day.  I also acquired the bulk of the library that currently weighs-down my house.  I think every writer should serve such an internship.

It genuinely pains me to see what is happening now.

I was in my local Borders last night.  My friends and I meet there weekly in the cafe to decide where to take our wandering 'supper club'.  They're closing our local store, meaning there won't be a bookstore of decent size within easy driving distance anymore. It's sad to see a town lose its bookstore.  Chain or independent, bookstores are the repositories of our cultural aspiration to be well-read and literate.

My wife and I usually buy a book or at least a magazine while we're there -- sometimes with a coupon, sometimes not.  Last night I picked up a nice book about cheesemaking and another one about gardens and a baking book I'd been thinking about getting anyway, and for the first time in a very long time, I had to wait in line to pay.  A friend of mine works nearby and she stopped in on her lunch break and she said at that time, the line stretched out the door.

A line at a bookstore that stretches out the door.  Imagine such a thing.

And here's the thing: the discount was only 20%, which is less than the weekly 30% off coupon that Borders has sent out to subscribers to their email list every week in recent memory.  Obviously people still value books.  They were shoveling them off the shelves with an impressive zeal.  And they were paying more for them than they would have a week earlier if they were really paying attention...

I wish I could tell you what that means, but honestly I don't know. Probably that people don't value something until they lose it, which is both cliche and true.

The other day, the Writer Beware blog posted a link on their Facebook page to an article written by a former Borders CEO which listed several systemic failures to manage resources and people and then argued vehemently that this wasn't management's fault.  Oh, and the dog ate his homework too.

Follow the link.  Read his story and tell me what you think.

To summarize his argument: Borders made a series of disastrous decisions that positioned them poorly to compete in the changing market.  They built a business to compete in the 20th century and not the 21st.  But it's not management's fault?

It's the same song we've been hearing from collapsed banks and other failed corporations.  Apparently that "Not Me" ghost that used to haunt the kids in Family Circus cartoons went back to school and got his MBA.  I hate that.  Those were management decisions and management failures.  You screwed up, own it, learn from it, make corrections and keep fighting.

If I had a publicist, I'm sure they would point out to me that it is ill-advised for an aspiring author to take a swipe at what will still (theoretically once they come out of bankruptcy) be a significant distribution node for my books.  Maybe.  But I started this blog to give my unvarnished take on publishing, writing and writing culture and here we are.

I hope Borders emerges from bankruptcy as a stronger, leaner and more agile company that learned from past mistakes.  Looking forward, I don't know if there's an ongoing place for bookstores the size of barns stocking enormous stacks of whatever the next Harry Potter novel will be.  I think probably not. While I don't think that print bookstores are the equivalent of buggy whip emporiums as some commentators are depicting them, I think that the day of the massive book barns is over.  If the national chains have a future, I believe it means getting to a smaller, lighter, faster vision of bookstores that encourages the passion and expertise of their booksellers and makes that their mantra.  Which means upper management that knows the book trade, not the grocery trade as Borders did.  Books aren't just another product, they're a thing unto themselves and those who do not 'get' that are not destined to succeed in this peculiar business.

As a bookseller, I saw the first signs of the approaching wave in the droves of browsers who used the booksellers' knowledge and expertise to find the book they wanted and then put it back, saying "Cool, I'll go order it from Amazon."

I'm still in contact with one of my former store managers and he said his partner had to talk him out of standing at the top of the escalator and shout "Where were all you people six months ago?!"   The answer, of course, is they were at their computers, pointing and clicking.

Last night, as I watched people shoveling books into baskets and hauling them up to the counter at Borders like they were stocking-up for the apocalypse, I wondered what it would take for a bookstore to inspire that kind of zeal all of the time...  but no answers came to me.

Pardon our dust...

Once again, I find myself up to my ears in remodeling projects and since I insist upon doing everything myself... well, I suppose that it means budgeting my limited time in other directions some weeks.

The engineer and I were told recently by a top-notch immunologist and allergist that Lego head could possibly be happening (at least in part) as a result of our sleeping conditions. No textiles, we were told, should be in the bedroom unless they can be tossed in a washing machine.  So the carpets had to go.

He actually wrote me a prescription for hardwood or tile floors.

So the Engineers and I decided that instead of flowers and chocolates, we would remodel the bedroom to help keep the Lego head at bay. Which is where I've been.

Alas, for the poor words that flutter about my head like a halo, looking for a place to alight. They must wait until I have someplace to sleep before I will sit still and build them a proper nest of paper...

And in other unrelated news, here's an enchanting bit of video of Neal Gaiman talking about buttons...

10 Places to Find Stories Waiting to be Told

Where do Ideas come from?  It's the question every writer dreads and emphatically answers with "I don't know".  Honestly, I suspect that for most writers that's a bit of a fib -- we may not know where ideas come from in the cosmic sense any more than we can tell you the meaning of life, but we generally know where a specific idea came from, or at least what prompted it. 

If you put enough of those answers together, you begin to see major features of the landscape of this mythical land of ideas forming in the fog.  But I suspect that in truth we don't like to talk about it because either we're all a bit superstitious, or because we're afraid that these private reserves should be held for us alone and anyone caught visiting there treated as poachers of the King's deer. 

Probably a bit of both.

Culled from conversations with hundreds of writers, books on writing, and my own private hunting grounds, here's my list of ten places where unused ideas scamper and play, just waiting for you to snatch them up and turn them into stories:

1. Have a Nose for News.
   Subscribe to news alert services of every political stripe.  Online or on the television or in one of those old-fashions thingies that leave ink on your fingers, I think they're called "newspapers", the news is chock full of ideas.  The other day I got a news release from DARPA about the formation of a committee to promote interstellar exploration within the next 100 years.  My wife sent me a story about a kid who accidentally bought a retired RAF Harrier Jumpjet on eBay!
   
   Case in point: On one day several years ago there was a front page story in the Seattle Times about the University of Washington arguing that they didn't need military-level protections on the lab where they would be studying the 1918 Spanish Flu virus that killed half the country.  On page three of the same paper was a story about a clemency hearing for a militant environmentalist who had expressed repeatedly the idea that humanity should be eliminated from the ecosystem by any means necessary.  That's an eco-thriller waiting to happen.  Or perhaps a great backstory for a dystopian post-apocalyptic epic.  Find the connections that everyone else missed.
   
   
2. Watch TV
   We've all done it.  We were watching a show and thought we knew how the show was going to wrap up, or said "I wouldn't have done it that way".  Guess what: that was a story idea you had there.  The moment your version of the story moved away from what was actually happening on screen, it became a new idea.  I'm not talking about fan fiction; I'm talking about finding a story in someone else's premise that they missed. 
   
   OMG, Seriously, Is that okay?  Yes.  It's not plagiarism because the idea is yours, not theirs.  And ideas cannot be copyright protected anyway.  (Characters can, at least their names and likenesses can anyway.) You're not stealing their intellectual property because your idea will call for significant changes and different characters (you don't want their old characters anyway) and you are going to put it in a new setting and when you're done there will be no doubt in anyone's mind that it has nothing to do with that episode of Grey's Anatomy that annoyed you last night.  Right?  Right.
   
   
3. Talk to People.
   Not just your friends, but people.  On airplanes, in coffee shops, in the queue at the checkstand, you are constantly surrounded by people whose lives are fascinating and diverse.  Develop interviewing skills and employ them.  If you read an article about someone who does something that fascinates you, make a phone call.  The worst they can do is say no, but in my experience, if you are honest with them about what you're doing, they usually won't.  If you use what they tell you, remember them in the author's note or afterword.  Don't rip off someone's entire biography, though, we're talking about idea generation, not literary cloning.
   
   A brief aside about talking to people: Every time I hear of some writer getting their royalty check and retreating to a cabin in the back woods of Maine to write their next Great American Novel, I know that I'll never hear from them again.  Much like technological innovations, with very few exceptions, the great stories and compelling novels come from the field, not from the laboratory.
   
   
4. Daydream.
   It has been said that the greatest difficulty a writer faces is convincing their spouse that staring out the window is work.  Your entire life someone has been telling you to knock it off.  I'm here to tell you they were wrong.  Don't knock it off.  Develop the habit.  Call it meditation and buy a mat and some incense if it makes your loved ones feel better, but however you do it, make it pay for itself by writing them down.
5. Look at photos.
   Whether you go to your mother's closet and take down a photo album or go to Flickr and start clicking on random images and coming up with the stories that are behind them.  I've been known to buy old copies of Life magazine just to page through them and imagine the stories behind the photos.  Sometimes you'll get a character, sometimes you'll find a setting, sometimes the story will spring from the image, whole and ready to be told.
   
   Honestly, this works better for me if I don't know the story behind a photo, so I avoid doing this with family albums unless the photos are so old that even the oldest family members are uncertain as to who they are or what they're up to.
   
   
6. Buy a Map
   The map may not be the territory, but it is a source for many, many stories. I've spent so much time poring over old maps and daydreaming about them that it's practically a second vocation.  I cannot count the ideas that have been generated in that way.  Here, there be dragons.
   
   My second-favorite store in Seattle is Metsker Maps.  It's a source of infinite ideas because they sell not only current maps and travel guides, but also classic and reprints of historical maps, but the local history rooms at your local university or public library are an excellent place to start.  Call ahead, though, sometimes you need an appointment.
7. Read, especially the classics
   Stephen King says (and rightly so) that if you have no time to read, you've neither the time nor the tools to be a writer.  Literary culture is defined as a culture because it feeds itself, evolves and progresses and has specific defined movements.  In part, this is because we get ideas (similar to what I was talking about with regard to TV shows) by thinking about how we would do this differently, or because some throw away aside in one book sparks an idea in your mind and a book of your own.  I say 'especially the classics' to acknowledge that in many ways, Harry Potter is David Copperfield with wizards and wands. Oh Brother Where Art Thou is an unabashed retelling of The Odyssey.  This sort of thing happens constantly and with good reason.  Certain stories are good for all times.  Certain stories just work.
   
   Beyond the current meme for grafting zombies or robots into classic novels, there are story elements to be harvested there that are rich enough to blossom anew in the light of the modern world.  No matter how many times a story has been done, there's always a new twist to be found for the reader/writer who is alert for ideas.
   
   
8. Phone a friend.
   When a bunch of writers bands together, one of two things usually happens: they're just catty and competitive and tear one another down or they form their very own Algonquin Round Table.  When you get a good group of different creative types around a table, people who are receptive, open and witty, ideas just seem to appear out of nowhere and you'll find yourself trading them like baseball cards.
   
   I've experienced this several times in my life in one form or another and when it happens, have your notebook ready and be ready to have so many ideas that you're giving them away.  I've given many ideas away that simply weren't of a variety that I'd be willing or able to bring fully to life and received many others in return.  If you want to do this, chose your circle carefully and do not limit it to just writers if you can help it.  If it's just writers, it will turn into a critique group and in many ways that's a separate thing.
   
   
9. Take it on the road.
   Some of my favorite ideas came to me while I was traveling.  Most of the best came as a result of some odd moment in a road trip, but even if it's choosing to walk instead of driving to school or work or the coffee shop, there's something about the act of traveling that tends to stimulate ideas.
   
   This is number three on my list of writer's block remedies and it's here for the same reason.  Just as a stagnant scene can be renewed by moving it to a new setting, so too can the writer's mind be refreshed by a change of scenery.  Just remember to stop before you get more than ten miles from home.
10. Put it down on paper. 
    This is the oldest writing advice in the world and it's relatively simple: unless your memory is far better than my own, you need to jot down those ideas that spring fully-formed into your brain at 3 AM, or when you're sitting in a boring business meeting.  I sometimes like to imagine all the terribly rude people who are tapping on their Blackberries through every meeting rather than listening to the speaker have just had a great new idea for a story.  Sometimes we forget that this doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive -- for carrying around, I like Moleskines as much as the next guy, but the notebook on my bedside table was bought for $.50 at the local supermarket.
    
    Oh, and one more thing...  I've more than once awakened to find a few meaningless wandering lines of ink on my bedside notebook and wondered what wondrous idea they were meant to capture.  Consider turning on a light or investing in a headlamp if you've someone sleeping next to you.

None of those should come as a galloping shock to you.  Or at least I hope not.  But often it's seeing someone else write it down or admit to it that makes you feel less anxious about the generating of ideas and get on with the writing.  If nothing else came out of that list, I hope you remember this: They really are just day dreams until you write them down.

Do you already have your idea?  Are you wondering where to go from here?  

Try this post from last February: Ten Tips to Get Your Novel Started

Tree Octopus II :: The Internet Is Made for Suckers?

Someone at Newsy.com sent me a great note about my musings on information literacy regarding the Tree Octopus and how the media reported the wrong story the wrong way.  The end of the email pointed me to a great summary of their own, and I liked it enough to post it for you.

pp

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Howard Carter, Part II -- The Impossible Boy

When last we left Howard Carter, his friends and his family were captured by the Wartime Advanced Research Directorate and locked away in their secret base under the dormant volcano.  Part II - The Impossible Boy picks up with Howard finding his bearings in the peculiar society of suits, scientists, and technicians that are forcing him to help them build an army of giant robots.

But are the mechanical wonders being created in WARD's secret factories coming to protect the earth, or to conquer it?

Howard is all alone and far from home as he tries to help out in the war efforts as more and more visitors from the past and the future drop by to interfere.  Because really, the biggest pain of living at one of the key moments in human history isn't the pressure of making the right decisions... it's the tourists.

Interlude: The Making of an Old Suit
Chapter 22: Play Dumb
Chapter 23. Volunteers Wanted
Chapter 24. The Dream Factory
Chapter 25. Only a Matter of Time
Chapter 26. A Robot Too Far - Redux
Chapter 27. Impossible Things
Chapter 28. King for a Day
Chapter 29. Live Long & Laugh Maniacally
Chapter 30. Too Many Howards
Chapter 31. Doubled, Toiled & Troubled
Chapter 32. Casus belli
Chapter 33. Keep Calm and Release the Giant Robots

 

Generating Ideas :: Something from Nothing, Part One

As I near the end of the first draft of Howard Carter, I'm already noodling with the next idea in the back of my mind.  I've been jotting down new character and story ideas for the past week or so and preparing a reading list for the next novel as well as preparing myself mentally to begin revisions on the one that's been maturing in the desk drawer.

Which might explain why though I talk a lot about how ideas germinate and how to avoid writer's block and how to get unstuck if you can't, I spend precious little time talking about how to get started in the first place.

Getting started isn't something that I find difficult; usually stopping is the hard part.  

So I don't tend to think about it much.

However, since this blog is about what's on my mind, it might be worthwhile to think about it a bit more than I usually do.  Not only what am I going to do next, but why I chose that idea and how I went from abit of ink on a coffee stained napkin to the beginnings of a story...

Though I have some chapters of Howard Carter to get on the page before I can really focus on the next novel, so here are some past thoughts on the subject, hand-picked for Your Reading Pleasure:

10 Ways To Get Started On Your Novel (A List)

Writer's Block Redux  (Or: I get by with a little help from my monsters)

Writer's Block (The Illustrated Website Edition)

The Octopus Problem :: Information Literacy & You

Yesterday, the Daily Mail ran a story about an American Study of information literacy where a bunch of researchers asked a bunch of middle schoolers from across the state of Connecticut to evaluate a website advocating that they help save the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus from extinction.

Photos of this curious arboreal cephalopod are shown as well as a light treatment of this strange creature's life in the tree-strewn slopes of the Olympic Peninsula along Washington's Hood Canal waterway.  Apparently the Tree Octopus lives on bird eggs that it steals from nests and its primary predator is the Sasquatch.  If you insist upon donating to its survival, the site suggests you walk out into the forest and hold up paper money, stock certificates or other soft currency and the octopus will descend from the tree and take them from your hand and scuttle away to use the money to feather its nest.

I am sincerely hoping that by now you've sussed out that the whole thing is a hoax, or perhaps more charitably something of a prank that's been knocking around the internet for quite some time.  If you've never heard of it, then hie thee to that website, netizen!  It's a hoot.  We'll wait for you.

The reason the Daily Mail thought the story newsworthy (and so did I) was that the kids -- every last one of them -- fell for it.

Hook. Line. Sinker.

Here's the U Conn Study study if you want to check out the summary.

Naturally, this led to quite a bit of academic head scratching, followed by the usual finger pointing.  After all, these are kids who are so-called "Digital Natives" the kids who have never known a world without an internet.  Who look at you funny if you try to describe listening to a Walkman or tell them that MTV used to play music videos. Kids who ostensibly know that not everything you see on the internet is real.

Which is to say that people are people, even if they did grow up with an iPod and not an eight-track.

But this begs a lot of questions about something called "Information Literacy", which is the ability to evaluate a source of information to see whether or not someone might be pulling your leg.  It's one of the most important skills you can have in a society where you are expected to be informed about issues before you vote them into law.

If you can't see how this relates to writing, then you don't do the kind of writing that I usually do.  At the very least, I hope you see how this relates to thinking.  It certainly relates to how our society tends to grab something and run with it instead of taking a moment to be sure we're right before you go ahead.


There's a project underway at the University of Washington (where we know a tree octopus when we see one) that has been evaluating Information Literacy in college students and adults to see how we evaluate and weigh data from different sources.  It's simultaneously troubling and comforting to know that those of us who are out of high school aren't as gullible as the kids in the U Conn study, but are nevertheless susceptible to more subtle sorts of information biases.

Unfortunately, the subject is too big for one blog post, but it's something all of us should be thinking about.

Oh, and one more thing...  The article in the Daily Mail made merry with how bad the kids were at evaluating online sources all the while miss-attributing the website, its images and content to the University researchers rather than to the actual originator, Internet humorist Lyle Zapato.

Irony, thou art an octopus.