Grumble.............

[wornoutkeyboard]

As a few of you know about me from PMing me, I am a freelance writer of magazine articles (trade, hobbiest & enthusiast mostly) and after a few years of basically being the prostitute of the writing industry (don't let us zine writers fool you...i'll write about your dog's bowel movements if it pays) I have decided that I need to spend more time on my true writing love: fiction.

Unfortunately, I am feeling a bit discouraged these days. After writing magazine article after magazine article, I have found that my writing style has begun to conform to that 1000 word or less, trite and cliched shit that makes us pay $3.99 for a magazine and instantly regret it. It is shallow and glossy, with just enough rhetoric and evasive skirting to make you think that there might be sustance only to be duped in the end.

Why...oh why... has ALL my writing become like this?!?

I write two pages, scan back, and realize that I have just written an adverb infested romance novel.

I am longingly and voraciously hopingly awaiting some advice. I would just sit and do some writing exercises as though I were in a college frosh writing course...but DAMNIT... I am an experienced writer. I shouldn't be going thru this.

*Grumble*

~WOK

 

[raphy]

My advice: Read. Anything that isn't magazine article-esque. It'll get your brain out of the literary rut, I would think. You're probably just too used to seeing things in that format.

 

[Weird Harold]

Why...oh why... has ALL my writing become like this?!?

I write two pages, scan back, and realize that I have just written an adverb infested romance novel.

I am longingly and voraciously hopingly awaiting some advice. I would just sit and do some writing exercises as though I were in a college frosh writing course...but DAMNIT... I am an experienced writer. I shouldn't be going thru this.

Almost all of my writing experience prior to writing my first story for Lit was Technical Writing -- checklists, performance reports, progress reports, etc.

I found that I had to relearn how to tell a story in order to write fiction.

Your problem is NOT your writing skills, it's your ability to tell a story.

There are some writing skills that aren't used much in your professional writing that make story-telling easier, and youprobably need to relearn those tricks and skills. However, you're way ahead of someone like me who had to relearn writing and story-telling at the same time.

 

[Guest]

My advice: Read. Anything that isn't magazine article-esque. It'll get your brain out of the literary rut, I would think. You're probably just too used to seeing things in that format.

That would be my advice as well.

BUT I was thinking you should also have sex.

Lots and lots of sex.

Because if there is anything that could get most people out of a rut . . .

 

[raphy]

That would be my advice as well.

BUT I was thinking you should also have sex.

Lots and lots of sex.

Because if there is anything that could get most people out of a rut . . .

Goddamn, now why didn't I think of that solution, too?

Oh, maybe it's because it's been far too long since I had sex... Har.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Sure, you're an experienced writer.
BUT
You're experienced writing certain things. Drivers with
years of experience driving in the USA are more dangerous
on English roads than new student drivers who grew up in
England.
Similarly, when you start to write something, you write
what you're used to. OTOH, some of the skills you have
developed are transferrable. You can spell and type and
know how to produce copy instead of waiting for
inspiration.
Now, you might need to do a few writing exercises. When
the discussion of flash was going on, I wrote one story of
fewer than 600 words for each sense. Some of them were
utter crap, but the readers of ASSM rather liked the one
on the sense of smell.
You might try that, or something else. Try writing a
story without any adverbs, a few which are all dialogue,
I wrote one story consisting of 97 two-word sentences,
another was one run-on sentence.

 

[Madame Manga]

You've just overdeveloped certain muscles and let others atrophy. Experience can be a pitfall rather than an unmitigated advantage, as you've found out, and it certainly doesn't mean that you have to beat yourself up when you don't achieve perfection on the first try. You know what the problem is already--you are several steps ahead of a novice in that alone. Don't worry, it will come to you with practice. Exercise is good for everyone.

Though I'd vote for the sex thing too.

MM

 

[Omni]

I write two pages, scan back, and realize that I have just written an adverb infested romance novel.

Writing erotica with loosely based romantic novel style can sell. It is basically what I do, adverb infested with lots of graphic, more adverb infested sex! <laughs>

I do not know if it helps, because I could not tell if you personally hated that style or just thought no one would like/read/ buy it.

But, the ladies reading traditional romance novels last year was 51 million, selling over a billion dollars. Hmmm, I just know some of those 51 million are wishing for more over the top sex than they can get in main stream.

Dreaming about a piece of the pie.........

Omni

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

I have a feeling...

This is going to be a hurculean journey for me.

I have to write magazine crap or my cats and son starve (no one cares about DH... he'll fend for himself)....so I can't cut it out all together. I wish they made the "patch" for bad writing.

Worst of all... (which I failed to mention before).... I am a satire writer. Not exactly conducive to steamy sex. I'm trying to shove my "evil make fun of everything" imp into my pocket and work on approaching the subject seriously, but its just not working out as nicely as I would have hoped.

Maybe I am gonna have to go back and start performing the dreaded dance of the ameture: writing exercises.

*grumble*


I suppose before I sharpen my razer and step into the bathtub, I should at least re-consider those things that are int he "positive column" that you have all so kindly pointed out.

1. I can write on demand.
2. I have a clue. (It took me seven years to find it, and I'm still not sure what to do with it...but posession is 9/10 of the law)

*****
Omni-

If there is one step lower on the writer's food chain than zine writers, its romance novelists. Any lower and they could actually be food for amoeba.

Nothing against ya if you like to write it or read it...but I have suffered enough humiliation in my life.

*wink*

As to your question... adverbs are generally considered to be the bane of any good writer's existence. (Note..I say generally... I don't need anyone pulling out any faulkner on me or nothin). They TELL the reader that something is happening rather than show the reader.

It is generally assumed (with many notable exceptions such as "slowly") that if you have to tell someone how something was done by use of an adverb (eg- "she said cautiously") then you have not properly developed the situation and/or the character. One should know that your protagonist would broach that subject cautiously rather than brazenly.

I guess zine writers are particularly anal about this as very few adverbs will ever make it past a blood thirsty editor's desk (I have found a few faintly breathing collected at the bottom of a waste basket once tho).

******

Now to pull out my college text books and weep....

~WOK

 

[Seattle Zack]

Elmore Leonard, one of the greatest crime novelists of all time, described the technique he uses on a PBS interview I saw a few years back.

He writes his book, then goes back and removes every adverb and adjective possible, every extraneous passage, reworking the dialogue to get the points across instead. He said he cuts his book in half by doing this.

Then he goes back again and does it again, removing another 1/3 of what's left.

If you've ever read Leonard, he can write three pages of dialogue between four people without a single he said/she said and you never lose track of who's talking.

So, maybe you should just write the damn thing and cut out those adverbs later -- sometimes your internal censor is your worst enemy.

--Zack

P.S. I'm sure you have hundreds of writing books, but I'd recommend Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block. He's another fairly famous crime novelist, it's a collection of his essays from Writer's Digest, really good stuff.

 

[ffreak]

from wornoutkeyboard:
They TELL the reader that something is happening rather than show the reader.

Ah, maybe you've hit upon the delicate hammer of the solution.
My method is to construct the story (I like Jon Franklin's book: Writing for Story) and then working within the confines of my defined structure, to try to keep my own voice out and let the characters tell the story (I don't always succeed). Of course there is the part that everyone calls writing - the first draft, and then there is the re(al) writing, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite...

Fortunately you've hit on a perfect place to practice. You can write vignettes to your heart's content, playing with your writing skills, and submit them to a wide audience which will respond anywhere from being disdainful to encouraging, to critical to insulting. Kind of like editors.

Then you can hit us with a story you feel good about and we'll dutifully feel awed and become silently envious. Probably the only real sign that you've begun to achieve your mark.

-FF (give us a try - we like fresh meat, uh, I mean new voices )

 

[Guest]

Hi Keyboard. I think there's plenty of good ideas above. Try this too:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=99931

regards, Perdita

 

[jfinn]

Re: I have a feeling...

Worst of all... (which I failed to mention before).... I am a satire writer. Not exactly conducive to steamy sex. I'm trying to shove my "evil make fun of everything" imp into my pocket and work on approaching the subject seriously, but its just not working out as nicely as I would have hoped.

Maybe I am gonna have to go back and start performing the dreaded dance of the ameture: writing exercises.

...If there is one step lower on the writer's food chain than zine writers, its romance novelists. Any lower and they could actually be food for amoeba.

Nothing against ya if you like to write it or read it...but I have suffered enough humiliation in my life.

...Now to pull out my college text books and weep....

~WOK

My suggestion would be to shelve the satire for now and try something completely different from anything you've ever written before. A POV you've never actually had yourself; a genre you've never really explored. I did that myself when I was worried I'd lost my ability to write fiction (Too many promo's, too many grant requests...) and it seemed to do the trick. I was so worried about getting the first person narrative (gay male--I am neither) that I seemed to forget about being self-conscious about the writing and the words started to come naturally.

Once that worked I found that I could go back and write other things without falling into stilted business-ese or TV patter. There was a surprising bi-product too. I figured if I could pull that off, I could try just about anything. Some of it has worked some hasn't, but it's all been fun.

Uther's suggestion was also something I think is good. There are a lot of challenges here at Lit and at other places like ASSM. Give those a try. Again, it's a way to do those exercises you seem to have a morbid fear of in the least painful way.

BTW, I don't agree that Romance writers are all that low on the food chain. Not when they command thirty percent of the market and not when so many bestselling writers (Iris Johannsen and Janet Evanovich come to mind) got their start in that genre. Even the writers who stay in that field are much better than say fifteen years ago. Barbara Cartland is dead and so for the most part are the bodice rippers she was so fond of writing. Just my two cents.

Jayne

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

I was speaking of the....

respect food chain and not the cash food chain (or market share food chain...etc). Hell, I make more in a year than two of my friends who are mildly successful novelists (before you jump...its still nothing to write home to uncle Sydney about).

Making money and being read are unfortunately not the criteria that most professional writers use to judge their success (or more appropriately the success of others).

Hey...if you wanna be rich... write best selling romance novels. If you wanna be respected... write stories about the angst of black youth.

I don't make the rules, I just assasinate those who do.

And yes... some do transition out of the romance genre. About as well as Tracy Lords transistioned into a serious acting career. They sell a lot of books (or tickets if you will) but they don't exactly stand out as the paradigm of their genre. (Don't make me whip out the JD Robb novels.... *shudder*)

I don't want to give the impression that I am anti-heaving-breast. Certainly this pot would never lecture the kettle.

However, I am in full realization that what I write is banal crap and that I do it purely for profit and that I should be damn happy to be making a living at writing on any level.

I would never try to pass of my writing as literature or as earth axis changing. Some writing is literature. Some of it is fluff. All I am trying to say is that "War and Peace" wears leather and a thick binding.... "Romeo's Last Stand" wears a fuzzy fringed negligee.

OK.... *picks up train and sits it back properly on its rails*

I think the suggestion of trying a POV I have never done before or that is completely foriegn sounds like a great suggestion.

Now if I could turn off my evil imp for a few moments I will be able to come up with a few that don't involve turkeys and hillbillies.

~WOK (Attempting to be serious, and failing miserably)

 

[A7inchPhildo]

I am not one to discuss how or what you write. I rather give you a brief on to me. Right or wrong I write by the nickelodeon theme I place in a five cent piece and pull the handle I watch the scene play out then I try to recall as many details as possible that just occured in my mind. I put all the mini movie discriptions in sequence then fill in the conections to make it smooth as possible.This way I can see the dress flow as she moves across the floor and if I recall it it must have been important to the overall picture I am trying to paint.

Phildo