Wednesday, January 25, 2012

MM Update

So I'm spending way less time than I wanted to on my story. I did finish the research stage and now I'm in the "finish plotting the plot" stage.

Winters are decidedly hard. Mom says it's totally normal for people to get a little depressed during the winter months because there's less sun. Now I'm starting to look at tanning beds as something other than cancer slates. There may be something to aging your skin and emotional happiness. Oooo, brain wave, so then aging is actually good for your emotional health while trying to look 20 for 30 years is actually bad for you. Hmmmmm food for thought.

Away, researching myths and urban legends is fun. I've discovered that if you want to find something truly creepy you need only look to history books. A book called, "Dreadful Fates," by Tracey Turner is full of little gruesome gems of untimely demise that actually happened. I invented a whole knew character because I liked the story of, "Doctor Death," so much.

Sometimes, all you have to do is look at recent history. In England there's a murder case going on right now involving a teenage dead girl on the Queen's Sandringham's estate. No conclusive details yet apart from the fact that girl had been dead four months previous to the royal holiday and that they were hunting just yards from the body. It wasn't discovered until after they left and the park is open to the public. Mysterious....my Agatha Christie bones are all a shiver!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Brother Allen's 7 Rules to "Show Don't Tell"

1.) Write IMAGES instead of GENERALIZATIONS, ABSTRACTIONS, or JUDGMENTS.

Example: I will do all I can to fight this ruling. VS "I will fall like an ocean on this court." -
Arthur Miller The Crucible (Feeling deja vu? You are not crazy, I quoted this two posts ago. If it works why change it? This quote was my teachers favorite example.)

2.) Value SCENE over SUMMARY.

A scene is in real time while a summary is review. A balance of both is good to have in any piece of literature, but when it comes to showing something, scenes are always better.

3.) Write images that are CONCRETE (use the 5 senses) and SIGNIFICANT (show emotion).

Example A: "She has a face of a cabbage."

This carries specific details with a significant emotion. How would you feel about someone who had the face of a cabbage?

Example B: "350lb man" (concrete) VS "350lb man chasing me" (concrete/significant)

4.) Remove FILTERS.

A filter is anything that blocks the readers ability to experience a scene or emotion with the focus character.

Beginning authors often make the mistake of telling the story "at" the character as apposed to telling a story "through" the character. Audiences love to BE the character. So let them. Don't write phrases that put the audiences at arms length from the characters. Watching people kiss is no fun. Kissing, however; very fun.

Example: "John walked faster. He could sense someone was behind him." VS "John walked faster. Someone was behind him."

5.) Emphasize ACTIVE over PASSIVE.

This is where grammar becomes the writers best friend. Linking verbs have a habit of being very passive. Be verbs make it too easy to use non-discriptive words.

Example: "Tina was angry." VS "Tina's face turned red."

VERBS TO AVOID IN CREATIVE WORKS

am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, have, has, had, can, could, shall, should, may, might, must, etc, etc, etc.

6.) Use SPECIFIC words over GENERAL.

Not just for "images" anymore. (Fighting that deja vu again huh?)

This is where the Thesaurus becomes your best friend.

Eating = garble, devour, munch, num, num, num
Danced = leaped, cha-cha'd, waltzed
Walk = march, canter, wander, strut

Remember, the mind goes to the laziest place first. Try to use the most specific words possible. Some slight variance in the definition makes each of these examples perfect for unique situations. This is where just writing a scene, becomes writing craft.

FINALLY

7.) We control the SPEED of our prose.


This is more of a "how to write a good scene" tip. Generally in writing you want to carry the suspense or tension for as long as possible (a.k.a the moment before the train hits.) but once you hit a certain point it's much better to speed things along (a.k.a. the moment after the train hits.)

RECAP

Slow = before impact Fast = after impact
before the kiss after the kiss

Cinema Example : Inception

Slow = before the van hits the water Fast = after the van hits the water

My Bonus Rule

This should be common sense, but if you bother to show it (scene it), it needs to have some kind of significance. Some bearing on the overall plot. If a scene doesn't move the story forward, it's not worth anyone's time. And no, simply adding to a character's ...well...character is not enough reason to write a scene.

Example: A chance encounter leads a detective to a key clue/observation that helps to solve the murder. This happens a lot in Agatha Christie novels.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Baboons Need Coffee Breaks Too

One part I liked about having two writing classes this last semester is that I got to have such a wide perspective of my field in such a short space of time. From craft to publishing, I experienced it all. In Brother Allen's 318 class I learned about the birth and creation of writing. In Brother Babcock's 418 I learned about the sweat and trouble of the publishing world.

By far the scariest day of last semester was when I had to read a piece out loud in 418. I've never read something of mine out loud before. My face quickly became hot and bothered and I lost my nerve half-way through the reading. Maybe it was because I knew that it was the most wonderfully ridiculous piece of nonsense I had ever written? When I was composing it I had thought it was the perfect opportunity to practice humor. What could be the harm? It was late at night, and the piece was due early the next morning. Why would he call on me the one time I didn't put my heart and soul into the work? He never called on me before and with twenty other people in the class I should have been fairly safe. Who would have guessed that my roommates choices between hamburgers and baboons would be put on public display?

(for those who don't know, sometimes creative blocks can be over-come by asking a second party to pick between two unlikely objects. They have to be physical, and you only need to ask as many combinations as you need to get juices flowing. Then you have the write the piece including the chosen objects. Once the work is done, you don't have to keep the object.)

The whole thing was a spoof on heroic journey stories. Basically I got to make fun of the chosen one (or my name for it) the fate weaver. Anyway, while trying to read this piece I could feel my face growing steadily hotter, my words became more shrill. I had written perfect crap and I knew it. It was supposed to be funny, but because I was so bothered I wasn't even aware if anyone was laughing. I found myself praying that the teachers timer would go off but no such luck. I was reading so quickly that I almost skipped over a simple typo.

fat weaver

The class busted their guts all over the floor. It was messy. I think some even shed a few tears. Then my teacher praised it because he said sometimes typos are the things that our make pieces brilliant. Especially if you're trying to capture humor.

Here's the strange part. My teacher only picked pieces to be read in class that he liked (aka thought was worth our time/liked the best.)

So why did he pick my ridiculous piece about baboons and Jimmy Johns employees? He put this question to the class and we were all puzzled. It was obviously not a piece of good literature. It was so bizarre and random and so unlike the serious deep pieces he'd chosen before. Why mine?

Students guessed "good culture references" or "good character voices" before he finally told us.

Sometimes, he said, he got so sick of reading the same kind of story over and over again that my humor piece was a much needed breath of fresh air. Not all good literature has to be about abusive fathers or dead babies and dogs. Not all of them have to be lyrical comments on the morality of mankind either. Some good literature is simply entertaining.

What saved my piece he said (because it did need a lot of work) was the movement. While deep pieces have their place they tend to be boring, slow, nothing really actually happens physically to the characters. While my piece managed to move from a sandwich shop too another dimension full of goblins, castles, and sacrificial alters, and back to reality with-in ten pages. Furthermore, it compelled him to keep reading because he wondered what happened next.

Normally, he said, he hated the fantasy stuff. To him it was blah. He did prefer real stories. Then he got this light in his eye. You know the kind people get sometimes when they're having a realization and they can't wait to share with someone even though they don't know how to say it until they've said it? That's the face he had.

He said that being a good writer was easy. You could please your typical audience that usually liked your style of work. It takes a great writer to create something that's enjoyable for someone who doesn't usually read that type of work.

Oh yes, I was happy. Being embarrassed was totally worth that kind of comment. I knew I had a decent grasp for action. But to be good enough to interest a teacher in something that even I consider a bad piece of fantasy? Awesome!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Brother Allen's Ten Rules to Good Fiction

1.) GOOD FICTION IS ABOUT DESIRE. Desire adds tension to the story. If you're struggling with you characters desire simply follow this formula.

Once upon a time there was a __________ and what (they) wanted more than anything in the entire world was _________.

A good character is someone who WANTS.

Class example of a BAD desire.

Once upon a time there was a lame squirrel and the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to climb up his tree.

This alone does not make a story, thus we have rule 2.

2.) GOOD FICTION IS ABOUT TROUBLE. Simply add this sentence to the formula.

But there was a problem. They couldn't have what they wanted because_____.

Class example of a now good desire.

Once upon a time there was a completely whole and healthy squirrel and the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to climb up his tree. But there was a problem. A big fat squirrel lived in that tree and he would eat anything that came near it. Dogs, mailmen, cats you name it, but especially other squirrels. Cannibal Squirrels! (And just then another teacher walks in and wanted to know what was going on. Classic, had to be there.)

3.) GOOD FICTION IS CAREFULLY STRUCTURE. If you haven't seen this formula before you've obviously never had to take an English class. All stories follow a basic structure.

Picture a triangle reading these words left to right while climbing and then descending the triangle. Conflict, Exposition, Rising Action, Crisis Action/Climax(peak, one final choice), Falling Action (very short), Resolution.

"Good literature doesn't happen to characters, but because of characters." - Brother Josh Allen

At this point we talked a little bit about character chance vs character choice and how the best stories are less about fate and more about characters taking responsibility for what happens to them. All good fiction has a balance of chance (opportunity) and choice (reaction).

Example of an all chance: Worm Boy story. Guy with a miserable life is sitting in a bar drinking, a girl walks in, most beautiful girl he's ever seen, straight from his dreams, she sits down next to him and starts talking to him. He doesn't even say hello, watches her walk out of the bar, now curses his crummy life. NEVER WRITE A WORM BOY STORY, IT'S A STORY ABOUT SOMEONE WHO DOES NOTHING. THEREFORE, IT ISN'T A STORY AT ALL.

4.) GOOD FICTION EARNS IT'S CLIMAX'S. Usually because the characters final choice causes the climax. The character created their destiny, it isn't thrust upon them. Even if the bad guy is the one causing all the trouble the character must be the one to decide if he/she is going to do something about it.

Avoid Deus Ex Machina, or the God out of the machine who fixes everything. It makes a very unsatisfying end to otherwise thrilling story.

5.) GOOD FICTION DEMONSTRATES REBIRTH. In other words the character changes or grows into a new character in someway.

Example: Flynn Rider from the Disney movie Tangled. (Which PS, was a princess movie made for dads. The story is totally more about Flynn Riders growth, not the princess. He becomes Eugene Fitsherbert.)

6.) GOOD FICTION BELONGS TO ONE OF THE CHARACTERS. The whole story revolves around them and gives a focal point for the action/tension/story to take place.

7.) GOOD FICTION PRESENTS AT LEAST ONE ROUND CHARACTER. Meaning a character that doesn't exactly fit into a High School drama or stereotype. Someone who has more facets and angles than you'd expect.

For Example: Southern man in the country sitting on his front porch with a gun across his lap and a dog at his feet. When he speaks, he had a very clear British Accent. Suddenly he becomes a lot more interesting, yes?

8.) GOOD FICTION PRESENTS AT LEAST ONE DYNAMIC CHARACTER. Meaning a character who is flexible and changes through the story. Somehow he has to grow either positively or negatively. He's not a worm boy who walks out of the bar as the same guy who walked in. Something has to change, some tiny thing has to change. Or the climax becomes meaningless, pointless, unimportant because the experience had no effect on the characters soul.

9.) GOOD LITERATURE COMMUNICATES THROUGH CONCRETE IMAGES, NOT ABSTRACTIONS. The classic rule of "SHOW, DON'T TELL." A child will put his world into his mouth, so the audience needs to put the characters world into their mouth. In any powerful moment you need at least three senses on the page.

Example: "I will do everything I can to fight this ruling."
vs "I will fall like an ocean on that court." - Arthur Miller "The Crucible"

10.) GOOD FICTION AVOIDS CLICHES. Duh, cliche's are boring because we know how the story ends. Remember the squirrel who wanted to climb his tree vs the squirrel who couldn't get into his tree because of the cannibal squirrel? Cliches are the deja vu's of the literary world. And because of that they kind of kick your reader out the story your trying to write and back into the real world where they remember where they've read that sentence before. It's much better to be new than ordinary.

Example: Once upon a time there was a college freshman girl and what she wanted more than anything else in the entire world was....

Cliche
- To get married
- To be invited to that party
- To impress parents
- To get a 4.0

These are Better
- To drive alone across the country
- To be free of her religious teachers advances
- To cut down the tree that endlessly scratches at her window at night

Remember

"Your mind goes to the laziest place first." - Brother Josh Allen.

SO FIGHT IT!

His advice. Write ten obvious things down so that by the eleventh thing you are no longer writing cliches.

Coming up, more notes from Creative Writing 318.