The final week is coming up

Dear Writers,

I had intended to use this week for conferences. I have some drafts but not nearly all of them. I will give everyone a markup by email. This will give you time to make some revisions.

A couple of points. Some of you have sent manuscripts without your names on them, and without a title. Not professional. I hate to be a scold, but I posted directions below: “How to Type a Draft.”

Always sign your work, and always provide a working title. The title might change. But have a title. You’ve got to figure out what the story is about and a title helps a lot.

The big general problem I’m having is that too often the stories are emotional outpourings that are vague about what caused the emotions. You have got to learn to write with specifics that allow the reader into the story. You must set the story in time and place.

Think of The One Left Behind and All Aunt Hagar’s Children. The writer lets us know when and where we are. The reader needs to be prepared for the emotions of the story by getting the background.  Edward P. Jones introduces his narrator by having him explain he’s back in Washington after serving in the Korean War and he has a headful of plans about going to Alaska. But first he has to solve a family murder.

That’s action and reaction.

Pershing has left his family, house and job to drink himself to death. Why? We will learn why. A part of him has died and he has never recovered.

Let’s make it a short evening and catch up.

Some writing tips for revisions

Elmore Leonard started out writing westerns, then turned his talents to crime fiction. One of the most popular and prolific writers of our time, he’s written about two dozen novels, most of them bestsellers, such as Glitz, Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, and Rum Punch. Unlike most genre writers, however, Leonard is taken seriously by the literary crowd.

What’s Leonard’s secret to being both popular and respectable? Perhaps you’ll find some clues in his 10 tricks for good writing:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.”

And I excerpted this from a blog called Writing Classes.com.

How to type a draft

First of all, write a title for your story and add your by-line. By-line is journalism slang for the name of the writer as in By Michael Berryhill.

Write it in Word and use space-and-half instead of double spacing.

You might add subtitles for the sections, or put extra space between the sections, the way it’s done in magazine layouts.

Once you’ve written the draft, let it sit for at least half an hour or better, three or four hours, and then come back to it. Run spell check. Better yet, run Grammarly.

Read the story out loud and see how the sentences sound. If the sentences don’t feel right  when you speak them, revise so that they are plain and natural. (That’s what Elmore Leonard means when he says if it sound like writing, revise it.)

If you have a friend, get him or her to read your draft, and do the same in exchange. That’s not cheating. That’s what writers do. We help each other.

I found a short feature I wrote ten years ago for Runner’s World magazine  in my computer that would give you an idea of what a manuscript should look like. Notice that I provided links to the sources so the magazine editors could easily fact-check my piece. The story, you will see, is about an athlete who is battling cancer. The title is “Finisher.” Also notice how I set the story in time and place.

Finisher revised

Explore this website

http://www.openculture.com

Free movies and books. Check it out.

Some advice about writing

Write in paragraphs. Each paragraph should emphasize a facet of the story.

Only use quotation and dialogue if it advances the story. Don’t use it for trivial stuff: how are you feeling? I’m glad to see you.

Think in terms of action and reaction, especially in the opening.

Don’t be sentimental. Be factual. Let the facts tell the story.

Keep the time element straight. One way to do this is to begin a section with something like this: In 2000 I was living in a small fishing village on the Texas coast, going through a divorce and trying to write. The divorce wasn’t that hard but the writing seemed impossible.

See what I mean? Action and reaction, and time and place.

Block out your story in sections. Make sure you are writing about what happened, not about how you felt. Stories are not about feelings. They are about actions that give the reader a chance to empathize. The feelings grow out of what happens.

When the pediatrician held my seven-month-old baby in her arms and pressed against her legs to see if she would push back, a look of concern crossed her face. (that’s action and reaction.) She pressed again and frowned again. Something was wrong with her muscle tone. But the real problem wasn’t going to be her muscles. The real problem was the possibility that her brain was damaged.

Keep it simple.

Elmore Leonard: 10 Rules for Good Writing

Elmore Leonard started out writing westerns, then turned his talents to crime fiction. One of the most popular and prolific writers of our time, he’s written about two dozen novels, most of them bestsellers, such as Glitz, Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, and Rum Punch. Unlike most genre writers, however, Leonard is taken seriously by the literary crowd.

What’s Leonard’s secret to being both popular and respectable? Perhaps you’ll find some clues in his 10 tricks for good writing:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Excerpted from the New York Times article, “Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle.”

And I excerpted this from a blog called Writing Classes.com.

Where are you now?

Remember to start as late as possible. Don’t start at the beginning. Plunge us directly into the theme of the story. If you know what the story is about, and start there, it will be much easier to finish.

Let’s review a simple outline.

Set up the story with a significant action.

Don’t write a stream of consciousness piece. Don’t make it all internal. The reader needs to see characters in a place with action and reaction. A narrative is about characters in a place doing and saying things. The characters need to have histories and needs.

Let’ go over some of the basics. It can’t be a description of feelings. We have to see the characters in action and reaction.

Review of a book that is honest and painful