Tips for the Novice

[SecondCircle]

I think you're right on this, but for me? I used to read an insane amount. I'd buy three novels on a Friday night and be back for three more the following weekend.

But when I started writing I stopped reading. Yes, a big part of that was time consideration, but mostly I found I did not like having other people's words in my head. I would compare my ideas to theirs, sometimes feel "I can do better" other times "Man, why am I bothering, I can't match this"

But mostly it seemed if I were writing a piece and then read something it would affect what I was doing and throw me, like a speedbump. So I read very little now. Even lit stories I only read them here and there when I'm taking a couple of days off between writing projects.

So I see reading as a negative to my creativity now. But I'm sure over all the years I read anything I could get my hands on there is a lot of stored up inspiration and ideas and styles built up to draw from.

Mileage usually varies. (With anything actually.)

I think we have to gauge any advice or tips or anything with our own scale. Too often tips on any artistic craft is taken too literally. I try not to view anything in a "step by step" instruction manual sort of way. You just have to look at stuff and take it all into consideration and do what works for you.

This "write more/read more" conundrum for instance. By saying "read more", I don't think anyone is saying you should set up a schedule every week to read 3 books of different genres and different styles. There doesn't have to be an actual scientific study or a stategic breakdown or anything. Just that, if you read you'll be exposed to writing of all different types and styles. You can see how others did it, and decide what stories you really enjoyed or what you didn't. You don't have to copy what others did or avoid what they did poorly. But you can gain inspiration to apply your own technique based on what you like to read and write.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

When I worked in mental health we had a contract with the school board to assess problem kids. The assessments were part of my work load. I possess a natural talent for diagnoses. I'm almost never wrong (that is, the brainiacs always agree with me). I got plenty of referrals from the health department, too.

So the schools sent me learning disabled kids, and I identified his problem. All of us process experience in different ways. My official IQ is borderline retarded because I cannot process experience as most of you do easily. So when I see 2+2+? on a test, I have no idea what I'm looking at. But I will kick your ass on tests to identify patterns. And I sense patterns in people. I know if you put out on the first date.

At mental health I taught the newbs how to sort the grain from the chaff when they assessed folks. People are transparent, and hiding your depravity is as futile as hiding your weight or height.

My point, in case I strayed into the swamp, is: The writer must know who she writes for.

 

[Handley_Page]

If I might tender a tip or two to a novice:-

Forget a plot dealing with someone under 18 unless they are Very peripheral.
There is no 'wiggle room' in the age rule.

 

[Hypoxia]

My thought is many people reputed to have wonderful language skills often write in a manner that is dense and impenetrable. It often lacks colour and life. I hate it. It's not at all clever.

Popular writers I admire don't write dense, dark, dead prose. Who do accuse of such?

I think writing should reflect the language that is spoken.

Ordinary speech, transcribed, is often fragmentary and convoluted. It needs to be cleaned up to work well for reading. Think of the difference between presidential candidates. One meanders disconnectedly; one speaks complete sentences and paragraphs. Undisciplined speech certainly has its place in dialog (but not too much!) and not in narration. Characters must sometimes spew but I usually try to make them sound like they've thought about what they're saying. The story is more comprehensible that way.

 

[weftandwarp]

Popular writers I admire don't write dense, dark, dead prose. Who do accuse of such?

Ordinary speech, transcribed, is often fragmentary and convoluted. It needs to be cleaned up to work well for reading. Think of the difference between presidential candidates. One meanders disconnectedly; one speaks complete sentences and paragraphs. Undisciplined speech certainly has its place in dialog (but not too much!) and not in narration. Characters must sometimes spew but I usually try to make them sound like they've thought about what they're saying. The story is more comprehensible that way.

Thank you. I'm not going to accuse any one. But I point out that "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Catcher in the Rye" were both built on a persona in their narration. There are so many. In a way it's like a car. It's difficult to repair the body of the car but it's easy to repair the nuts and bolts.

Spew - you mean vomit? So many ways to say it. Technicolour yawn? Perc? Emesis? Chunder? Big spit? The variation is a wonderful resource in developing character.

Characters should have character- that's what I hunt for. I'm still exploring/ hopefully learning the weft and the warp.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Some thoughts on writing that I offer into the ether after answering an e mail requesting a bit of advice. What follows are merely my opinions and (unlike those held by some others) they are in constant flux. Make of them what you will.
Of course one must start with the mechanics of language, such as grammar, syntax and spelling, the nuts and bolts if you will. It is the necessary but often dry matter that teachers attempt to impart early on. While such basics as the role of the adjective versus the adverb are timeless some past rules have evolved.
Take the case of the dangling participle. Many notable authors were caught with their parts dangling when it was still a sin. The evolution of looser styles and reader acceptance has eroded many strictures. A sentence such as “Being familiar with most of the dives along the wharf, I recommended Darcy’s as an establishment where a clean whore might be found.” This is now perfectly acceptable as long as an author abstains from repetitious dangling.

The author you quote has refrained from dangling here—that's certainly an awkward construction, but the structure of the sentence makes it very clear what the participle ("Being") modifies. The (far too long) participial phrase is right next to the pronoun it modifies…just as things belong.

Having studied a good many grammar texts, I recommend “Oxford Modern English Grammar”. Oh crap, I fear I’ve just dangled again!

That's not a dangler, either. It isn't the length or the clumsiness of a participial phrase that turns it into a dangler—it's where the writer puts the phrase in his sentence.

If you want a dangler, try "I can recommend this author, having read his work."

And, regardless of the loosening strictures you mention, careful writers don't allow their participles to dangle.

 

[oggbashan]

I think you're right on this, but for me? I used to read an insane amount. I'd buy three novels on a Friday night and be back for three more the following weekend.

...

That's not an insane amount. I used to be a speed reader. According to my wife I still am but I'm much slower than I was in my 40s. Then I was commuting to work by train. I would read The Times newspaper and two novels on the way to work and three novels on the way home - 5 novels a day for five days a week = 25 a week just travelling to and from work. An average novel would take me about 30 - 35 minutes.

I would read another 10 to 20 in the evenings and weekends as well as masses of written material at work.

My wife would take a week to read a novel and what irritated her, and still does, is that I could recall MORE of the novel than she could.

Now I'm slower. It takes me twice as long to read The Times as it used to but I still tend to read two or three novels a day.

Does it help my writing? Not any more. Perhaps it did when I was studying English Literature at school. I would have read ALL the set books and much of the background material before the academic year started. When I was studying a particular Shakespeare play I could put it in context of all his plays - because I had read ALL of them and the major historical criticisms of ALL his plays.

In the last couple of years I have given masterclasses for A-level (University Entrance) on two Shakespeare plays - King Lear and The Tempest. I had read both and numerous books of criticism about both. The students hadn't read as much as I had. In each case I had two weeks' notice to prepare the class. That was enough for my background reading. I can still read a Shakespeare play in 20 minutes.

 

[Hypoxia]

Spew - you mean vomit? So many ways to say it. Technicolour yawn? Perc? Emesis? Chunder? Big spit? The variation is a wonderful resource in developing character.

'Spew' as in word salad. Masses of mixed vocabulary whizzing past my eyes & ears. Masses of incoherent but very human expression. Rant / rave / spew / astonish with fervent verbosity, no, verborrhea.

ObTopic: My advice for newbies is:

* Learn othrography -- grammar, spelling, punctuation. The basics of the word game.
* Read stories and note how they're put together and how they aren't. What works?
* Soak up a style sufficiently that you can write a dead-on parody that sounds real.
* Write. throw it away. Write some more. Throw that away too. Repeat for 8 years.
* When you're happy with what you've written, post it and see if anybody vomits.

Oh, and don't forget the heroin. All the best writers are junkies. Trust me.

 

[TamLin01]

Advice? How about: Stop worrying about your story's score. There is nothing you can do to raise the score. There is nothing you can do to prevent anyone from lowering the score. There is nothing you can do to protect your story from ever, ever being read by someone who might dislike it. There is probably no terrible conspiracy against your story's score. Even if there was, there wouldn't be anything you could do about it. And definitely do not make a grand, dramatic gesture of deleting all of your stories or swearing you'll quit writing forever and throw yourself down a well because of your story's score or a nasty comment or whatever else you imagine is very, very important that happened today.

Instead, take all of the time you might spend obsessing over story scores and spend it writing new stories instead.

 

[KayceeCharles]

FWIW, if you have Amazon prime, there's a couple books you can download free for "Prime Reading" (not Kindle Unlimited) that are about writing, esp. "Plot Unlimited". It's more for writing novelas and novels, but still worth something.

 

[oggbashan]

FWIW, if you have Amazon prime, there's a couple books you can download free for "Prime Reading" (not Kindle Unlimited) that are about writing, esp. "Plot Unlimited". It's more for writing novelas and novels, but still worth something.

There are some writing titles on the free download site Project Gutenberg along with thousands of classics. (gutenberg.org)

 

[oggbashan]

Advice? How about: Stop worrying about your story's score. There is nothing you can do to raise the score. There is nothing you can do to prevent anyone from lowering the score. There is nothing you can do to protect your story from ever, ever being read by someone who might dislike it. ...

I would add to that:

There is nothing to stop anyone stealing your story and posting it elsewhere. Once you have written a hundred stories or more you could spend all your time chasing thieves and producing DMCA forms. If you post your stories for free reading, free stealing is almost inevitable.

 

[Hypoxia]

There are some writing titles on the free download site Project Gutenberg along with thousands of classics. (gutenberg.org)

PG have been my font of words for years now. Especially PG Australia -- Ozzies have a different sense of time, so much from the 1930s is public domain there already. Some years back, we drove across Guatemala on a frightening road (*). We holed-up in a remote refuge for a few days; I had my PG downloads to entertain me. I read of early auto-era drives much worse than ours. Made me feel good. Hey, we survived!

(*) Frightening road: steep mountains, huge potholes and mud pits, thousand-meter drop-offs, oncoming chicken buses and overloaded semis, vague tracings across the map, etc. And the cop said National Highway Eight was a good road! Better than the track east from Huehuetenango, I guess.

 

[Sara_Hawkes]

Ordinary speech, transcribed, is often fragmentary and convoluted. It needs to be cleaned up to work well for reading.

This is golden advice.

Mine (and I still consider myself a real novice) is to write, write and write some more. Even if, as in my case, it's not erotica.

Oh and write some more! Go!

 

[Hypoxia]

Ordinary speech, transcribed, is often fragmentary and convoluted. It needs to be cleaned up to work well for reading.

This is golden advice.

Thank you, thank you. [/me buffs nails on lapel]

I remember the day quite well -- almost exactly 20 years ago. My sisters and I had divided the estate of our recently-deceased father. We decided our youngest sister in New York deserved Dad's Jeep; I volunteered to drive it out from Los Angeles. That day, I bought a small Sony reporter's audiocassette recorder to capture thoughts and sounds. I wanted to write realistic fiction so I set the recorder to tape conversations in adjoining booths at every cafe stop, to catch how people actually spoke. My transcriptions were a mess because people talk messily.

Note: That recorder and its successors have been my constant companions ever since. I dictate ideas, notes, lyrics, plots, reminders -- and record (often stealthily) others talking. Not admissible in court but often handy, heh heh.