Category: basics

April 27, 2017 / 3 Comments

Read it ALL! Every Page!

Okay, not going to talk about editing. For a couple reasons I decided to push that back a bit. If anyone really wants it sooner rather than later, please feel free to say something down below. I’m flexible.

Anyway, new topic.

Bad movies.

I’ve mentioned once or thrice before that I tend to do long Twitter rants most Saturdays about whatever (anonymous) bad movie I’ve dug upon Netflix, SyFy, Comet, or… well, sometimes from my own collection. Terrible characters, wince-inducing dialogue, eye-rolling motivations, bad pacing, awful reveals or twists. Sometimes the movies are fun-bad, and other times…

Look, on Saturdays my liver earns its keep. Let’s just say that.

A lot of folks follow along, and at least every other week somebody’ll make a comment about my masochistic tendencies. Or my willingness to suffer. Or ask why I don’t just watch something, y’know, good.

Here’s the thing, though. I kind of like the bad movies. Yeah, they’re kind of painful sometimes, but they’re always at least mildly entertaining. Even if it’s in a Mystery Science Theatersort of way.

Plus, they’re kind of educational. And a great exercise for the imagination. Yeah, I know that sounds bizarre, but… it’s the truth.

Let’s be honest. We probably all know somebody who refuses to watch bad stuff, right? Or to read it. They’ll shut it off half an hour in or toss the book across the room, usually with a snide comment or three about how bad it was.

Quick test, though… can they say why it’s bad? Can they cite specific examples? Anyone can say “this sucks,” but it’s a lot harder to explain why something sucks.

Better yet… can they suggest ways to fix it? How would I go about improving the plot structure? The dialogue? The motivations of the hero and the villain?

These aren’t ridiculous tasks. As writers, we run up against them all the time. There are scenes I’ve rewritten a dozen or more times because the dialogue just didn’t ring true. There are times I’ve gotten halfway through something and realized it would be a lot better if I structured it a different way. There are times I’ve guided everything towards Yakko doing something and then realized “wait a minute… why the heck would he do this?”

Then I solve these problems. Because that’s my job. I’m a writer.

So in that sense, every bad movie or patience-testing novel is a chance to flex those muscles. They’re exercise that I can do while I’m geeking out a bit. Sometimes they even inspire a rant or three.

That’s kind of important. The exercise bit. We all need to exercise. No, not just because we sit in a chair for a good part of the day. Well, yes, because of the chair, but also because exercise is how I get better… stronger… faster.

That holds for physical and mental exercise. I have to do it. I have to do it regularly. And I need to challenge myself with it. If I’m following the same workout routine now that I was a year ago, it means I haven’t moved forward at all. I’m going easy on myself.

I know a lot of folks who pride themselves on not reading bad books. “There’s no time for that,” they say. “Why would I waste a day reading something awful?” They’ll proudly tell me how they’re re-reading something by Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood or Michael Chabon or some obscure piece by Gertrude Stein or Faulkner.

And there’s nothing wrong with reading any of these writers. They’re all just fantastic. Their words are wonderful to read, and it’s almost frustrating how easy they can make it look.

But this shouldn’t be easy. If it’s easy… I’m probably doing something wrong.

Y’see, Timmy, there’s only so much I can learn from the good stuff. If it’s the only thing I take in, then I’m kinda limiting myself. I’m not giving my brain a chance to exercise–to stretch and flex and try to do its own thing. Following a perfect, well-laid path is great, but if it’s all I ever do, it’s all I’ll know how to do. And if it’s a path that 90% of all English majors and would-be writers have followed at one point or another… I’m not going to find anything new or surprising at the end of it.

It’s like if I said I wanted to explore the whole world, but I never wanted to go off a paved road. Paved roads are great, yeah, but the way I’ll find stuff—especially new stuff most people haven’t seen before—is by traveling down the dirt roads and off road. And sometimes getting out and wading through thigh-deep muddy water.

…oh, man, I hope that’s mud…

I’d never say avoid the good stuff, because we want to surround ourselves with great material. To bathe in it. Take long moonlight swims in it. But… we all know what happens if you stay in the pool too long.

Don’t be scared of reading something bad. Or watching it. Have fun with it. Force your way through. And figure out why it’s bad. Where did it go wrong? What does it need? How could it be fixed?

And then… go write.

April 7, 2016 / 4 Comments

Looking For Something To Lean On?

Wow. This is so crazy overdue. My sincere apologies, and many thanks to the six of you who’ve hung around this long waiting for a new post.

Alas, I’m going to be touching on an old idea, and doing it with an old story. But it’s all kind of relevant…

So… true story time.

As many of you know, I worked in the film industry for many years as a prop master. What some of you may not know is that about… wow, seventeen years ago I was working on an alien invasion film and messed up my knee. Ruined it, really. I was running up a staircase with a case of props for the alien autopsy scene and turned too fast on a stairwell landing. Well, I turned. My knee twisted. It actually made a bubble-wrap noise.

I spent about an hour that night in a quiet part of the set crying into my arm because the pain was so bad.

After that, I spent two and a half months walking with a cane and dry-swallowing painkillers before I got in to have my meniscus rebuilt.

On my 30th birthday.

No, seriously. Think of all the many things you could do/did on your 30th birthday. Not for me. No booze, no party, no sex, no presents. I had a friend who drove me home from the outpatient clinic and dumped me on the floor of my apartment. And then three months of rehab after that.

I finally got back to full mobility, got back to work, and guess what happened? Less than five months later, I damaged the other knee on a straight-to-DVD movie. This time it was three months of waiting for workman’s comp to schedule surgery.

At least the cane was broken in by this point.

After almost a year and a half of sitting around doing nothing… I’d put on some weight. And when I say “some” I mean it in the same way some folks say “yeah, Jeb Bush could’ve done better in those early primaries.” To be blunt, I’d packed on almost fifty extra pounds. And I am not a tall guy, so fifty pounds really shows on me.

Fortunately, an actor I was working with knew I was trying to trim some fat and shared a few tips. He also had a great personal trainer. Jerzy—said trainer—showed me a few exercises, offered some diet tips, but for most of those first two hours we just talked. And one thing became very clear.

There would be no hand-holding, no prodding. Jerzy wasn’t a “shout at you to do crunches” kind of trainer. I would get the instruction book, the rules, and then I’d be left on my own for a month. This was all my responsibility. After all, if I was going to lose this weight, the only person that could really make it happen was me. Jerzy gave me his home phone number, his cell, and his email. “But,” he said with a shrug, “if you really need me to tell you ‘don’t eat the chocolate cake’… you can’t be that serious about losing the weight.”

See where I’m going with this?

With the Writer’s Coffeehouse, this ranty blog, random messages on Twitter or Facebook, I’d guess every three or four weeks I get asked something along the lines of “how do you do it?” How I manage to sit down every day and pound out a few thousand words? How do I exercise the self control to plant myself in front of my desk and write?

The answer’s simple. There’s no trick to sitting down and writing. None at all.

You just do it.

Y’see, Timmy, if I’m serious about this, I shouldn’t need to find some clever reason or inspiration to get myself in the chair every day. I should want to be there. The real problem should be getting me out of the chair.

Which brings me back to Jerzey. I lost sixty pounds in fourteen months working with him. And in about two weeks I’ll be starting my tenth novel. That’s tenth published novel, to be clear. Published by someone else. Who gave me money for the right to publish my work.

I’m not saying that to brag or to disparage anyone else. I’m saying to make the point that one of the main reasons it happened is because I sit my butt in a chair and write. Every day.

And nobody needs to tell me to do it.

Oh, while I’m thinking of it, this Sunday is the Los Angeles Writers Coffeehouse! Noon to three at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. We’re going to talk about mysteries and twists and reveals. It’ll be fantastic, it’s free, and all you have to do is show up.

Next time—and next time will be very soon, I promise—I think we need to talk about what’s at stake.

Until then… go write.

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January 2, 2015 / 2 Comments

Syllabus

I decided I was pretty much recovered from last night’s festivities and it was time to get back to work. So I pulled open my current draft, glanced at the time (and date, just to make sure I hadn’t reallyoverslept), and realized it was Thursday. The day I’m supposed to post new things. And I know I just posted the end of the year wrap-up yesterday, and I’d said I probably wasn’t going to post anything today.

But then, in the immortal words of Doctor Emmet Brown, I figured… what the hell.

(see, clever and relevant pop culture reference…)

Anyway, I’d like to continue my tradition of starting the year by explaining the ideas behind this page and what I’m trying to accomplish here.

A better way to look at it, though, is what are you hoping to accomplish?

This is the time when we all make a lot of promises to ourselves. Resolutions, if you will. We’re going to eat better, drink less, exercise more, quit smoking, visit Europe, and maybe finally get some work done on that manuscript. Get it finished!

Now, we all know the truth behind a lot of these resolutions. Most people don’t follow through on them. In fact, gyms make a ton of money off people who sign up for a one year membership in January and then stop showing up in… February.

And we don’t think less of most of these folks when they don’t follow through. If Wakko says he wants to lose ten pounds this year and then finds out he’s getting a promotion and he’s going to be a dad, well, his priorities are going to shift a bit. We all get that and understand it. Likewise, going to Europe is something Dot always wanted to do, but there’s nothing terribly urgent about it. If it doesn’t happen this year, maybe next year.

The real question, in my mind, is why does someone want to do these things?

Let’s say Yakko also wants to visit Europe, but he’s doing it as part of a career move. Being able to talk knowledgeably about Edinburgh, Paris, and Berlin can make or break his promotion chances, and he wants that promotion. This may just be a vacation for Dot, but for Yakko it’s going to affect the next twenty years of his life. They’re going to approach it in very different ways.

They should, anyway.

I’ve already seen a ton of folks making writing resolutions. To finish a screenplay or a book. Maybe two books. There were even a few daring people who wanted to get three books finished this year.

But why? Do I just want to write a screenplay because I’ve always wanted to try it? Or am I hoping this could lead to a career in the film industry? Am I writing this novel just for myself, or am I maybe looking to…well, make some money off of it? And if so, am I looking at this as a nice hobby that will pay for some LEGO models, or is this something I’m hoping will be a full career? Like a paying-all-the-bills career?

I started this page many years back because I couldn’t find any good, practical writing advice anywhere online. It was all either after-the-fact stuff about what to do with a completed manuscript or kind of vague, not-all-that-useful stuff like “read a book of poetry for inspiration, or try watercolor paints.”

A good chunk of the advice I could find that actually pertained to the act of writing was kind of… questionable. Always follow this structure. Always write at least 1000 words a day. Don’t worry about spelling or editing. Never use common words. Never use said. Name every character. It all just seemed to be either something people were pulling out of the air or repeating after it had gone through a twenty-iterations version of the telephone game.

And, as I mentioned, a lot of my own experience found this to be questionable.

So that’s what I’m trying to do here—to fill a gap for people who’d like to improve their writing and move it toward something they could actually sell to a much larger audience and maybe not just… well, a hundred people they know on Facebook.

That being said, there’ll be some harsh facts now and then. Also some very firm rules. Some folks will argue with these (some folks always do) because some of those harsh facts and ugly truths are going to go against a lot of the “special snowflake” ideas they’ve based their writing around. Others will be upset because some of the things I say might indicate they’re not quite as far along their career path as they thought. Or maybe they’re not on it at all.

I apologize in advance if this ends up being you. It’s nothing personal—it’s just the facts as I see them after about thirty-five years of trying to do this professionally. If it makes you feel better, there are very, very few screw-ups someone can make that I didn’t beat you to ages ago.

I’ll also offer up some much gentler tips and advice (some of which you may have heard before as facts or rules…). Some of these suggestions will work for you. Some won’t. Part of my job as a professional writer is to figure out what does and doesn’t work for me and to sort my tool chest accordingly. If you want to be a professional, that’s part of your job, too.

And, again, if writing’s just something you like to dabble with on weeknights because you enjoy it… cool. Maybe you’ll find some stuff here that makes it more fun for you. Or maybe you’ll just show up to laugh at those of us in the publishing rat race. That’s cool, too.

So…that’s the basic idea behind this page.

Next time, on a semi-related note, I’d like to talk to you about your choice of friends.

Until then, go write.

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January 3, 2014

Wherein I Ramble on About What I Ramble on About…

2014! Welcome to the world of tomorrow! Just with no flying cars. Or jetpacks. And far less moonbases than Space: 1999, Inherit the Stars, or 2001: A Space Odyssey led us to expect.

Wow. We’re only two days in and 2014 is kind of a letdown so far.

Anyway, as I often do at the start of the year, I’d like to take a minute or three to talk about this page and the kind of stuff I babble on about. And touch on a few of the things I don’t.

And to do this, I’m going to dip my toe into a potentially controversial subject. So hopefully I won’t offend anyone too much

Maybe it’s just the circles I travel in, but I tend to see a lot of “after the fact” material. It’s on pages I get links to or I get spammed with messages about it. People with blogs about how to self-publish and why traditional publishers are dinosaurs. About how to get past those evil “gatekeepers” and why they’re pointless. Which ebook platform is best. How to format for said platform. Where to find a good agent. Where to find a good artist for my cover. How to network. Good places for self-promotion. How much I should self-promote. How much I should pay for that promotion.

The reason I call this “after the fact” material is because it skips a major step. Every one of those issues is about getting my book in front of readers. None of it addresses the important question…

Shouldmy book be in front of readers?

Is my book ready to be published, by me or anyone else? Does it deserve to make it past those gatekeepers? Do I have something worth promoting?

And that’s what I don’t see a lot of out there—help to get past that first step. Because the best chef in the world can’t do anything with no tools and an empty kitchen. If I don’t have a full, polished manuscript, all those other tips are kind of useless.

This is why, in my opinion, self-publishing still has—and probably always will have—a stigma hanging over it. There are some absolutely phenomenal self published books out there, and some authors who are making great money as self-publishers. But the ugly truth is that, statistically, most self-published material is bad. Now that it’s so easy and cheap to self-publish, I’d even say that these days the vast majority of self-published stuff is awful. There’s a lot more good stuff than a decade ago, absolutely, but by the same token there’s tons and tons more bad stuff.

So, that’s what I want to do here. I try to help with that first step. Every week I toss out some advice, tips, and observations on how to improve a manuscript and turn it into something people want to buy and read. Things I was told or stumbled across (or learned the hard way) in the thirty or so years that I’ve been stringing words together.

Now, the two main things you’ll find here is advice on writing and ruleson writing. Yes, there are rules. No, I don’t care what he said. No, I don’t care what she said either. There are rules that have to be followed. Bear with me.

Adviceis optional. When to write. Where to write. What to write. How to develop characters. How to edit. How many drafts I need to go through. What kind of structure a particular story should have. What point of view to use. I’d say the ranty blog is about 60-65% advice.

This is the kind of stuff that’s going to be individual to each writer. I like to write in the afternoon, but you might be more productive in the morning, and she’s more productive after midnight. I tend to plan a rough outline in my head, but you might need three really detailed pages before you begin, and he might be fine with a dozen notecards taped to the wall. I might need music to write but you need absolute silence and she can’t write unless she’s outside and wearing a Ren Faire outfit. The thing about advice is that it’s rarely wrong, it just might not be advice that works for me or you. That’s one of the main tenets here, my golden rule.

It drives me nuts when I come across someone insisting advice must be strictly followed. I think a lot of would-be writers get messed up by this, and these are the folks who end up staring at a blank page every morning in a silent room, wondering why they can’t write the opening of the goth-witch-lit novel they have no interest in but were told is going to be the new big thing. They often get stuck wearing an itchy corset, too.

Y’see, Timmy, rules are the real non-optional stuff. Spelling. Grammar. Structure (you have to have some kind of it). Likable characters (not necessarily good characters, but someone my readers won’t mind following) with believable arcs. Flow. Coherency. This page is maybe 35-40% rules, at any given time.

Most of us had at least five or six teachers during our lives who tried to teach us the rules of writing—the basic mechanics of how words go together to express ideas. If I want to make a living at this, I need to know those mechanics. If I don’t know how to spell, if I don’t understand structure, if commas and apostrophes are baffling to me, if I can’t sense how my readers will react to something… well, it’s going to be very hard for me to have any success as a writer.

The flipside of what I mentioned above, it’s also very damaging when some folks try to insist that rules are just loose guidelines, that it doesn’t matter if I follow them or not. I think a lot of that comes out of folks who see the rules broken by an experienced professional and assume they can be ignored from the start. They point to the exception and use that as their reason to not learn the rules. This kind of deliberate ignorance leads to poor writing and bad habits, and it means a lot of potentially good writers never improve.

Y’see, Timmy, if I don’t understand the rules, I’m not going to know how to break them. A good writer can break some of the rules, but it’s like playing Jenga. I can’t pull out all the blocks holding up the stack, and if I’m going to pull out this one I need to make sure that one is rock-solid. If I don’t understand the basic rules of how the tower stands, I’m going to bring it crashing down on my second turn. Maybe even my first.

Actually, that’s an even better analogy. Breaking rules is like demolishing buildings. It looks simple, but the folks who do it actually need to know more than the people who built it. They need to understand which walls are load bearing and which beams are supporting, but they also need to know how the material’s going to break or crumble or shatter and how much explosive is needed for each result without there being so much that the building collapses out rather than in.

Because it might look really cool and fun when the building collapses out across the city, but it doesn’t get a lot of repeat customers.

What else, what else, what else…

Do I repeat myself here? Well… yeah. Especially if you’ve been following along for two or three years. I try to come up with new ways to approach the same problem. Sometimes I’ll hear something new and clever that I’ll try to share, or maybe even expand on. At the end of the day, though, this page is more like a mid-level class on writing. You can take the same class twice and get more out of it, but by the third of fourth time there’s a serious case of diminishing returns. I’m not saying any of you long-time followers should leave, but don’t be too surprised if I end up talking about dialogue or character voices or something like that.

Speaking of which, next time I wanted to talk about dialogue and character voices.

Until then, go write.

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