posted
Story ideas come easily to me. Too easily. Like Vesuvius, these are erupting from my troubled subconscious after being suppressed thirty years while I dedicated my energies to my profession and (sadly to lesser degree) my family.
Writing stories, writing well, I find is hard, extremely difficult, frustrating, even painful. I am impecably disciplined in the practice of my medical profession, but in my writing I feel I'm attempting to herd flies. The worlds, characters, even story plots inevitably and invariably wish to go further and deeper than my original conception of a simple tale.
As a would-be writer, I'm like a child suffering from ADHD who cannot sit still, dreading how the words and sentences will need be pulled from me slowly, so slowly, and as pleasureably as removing shrapnel from a gut wound.
How many times do I write and rewrite a sentence or even a single word to capture on paper my incompletely formulated vision while striving to ensure the words flow pleasurably and do not grate and puncture the mental feet of the reader who traverses them?
Then before I can fully expunge the vision, exorcise it completely onto manuscript, Vesuvious erupts yet again. Like a modern Sisyphus I start all over again, surrounded by messy stacks of unfinished works.
But... (exhaling)... when I do finish a story, there is that brief thrill of accomplishment! A joy that echoes the glow, the pride, of being a new parent!
"To the ass or the sow, their offspring appears the fairest creation"--[Latin proverb].
As a story ages, however, as the glow fades, its inherent (inherited) flaws become apparent--not only to reviewers and editors with their kind or frequently expressionless rejections, but also to myself.
And yet, however flawed, one always maintains affection for one's own creations, albeit wistful and nostalgic in recollection of the great vision that has now fled and the transient but keen moment of joy in seeing it newborn and complete.
I admire you masters of prose who diligently and professionally can construct story after story, command words to allign and be ordered, select characters and plot devices from well-stocked shelves and fit them togethger like well-oiled cogwheels; story complexity and length determned businesslike by your intended market, by word count, by prompt, or by contemporary audience appeal. Here lies authorial success.
Contarily, I feel doomed to create stories as they direct. I'm a slave to them, a solitary menial with many mistress muses each simultaneously demanding my time and attention and always more banging at the door.
“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”--[Charles Dickens]
Ugh! I hate/love writing!
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
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posted
Hey, Osiris. Don't cast sunshine on the dark and dreary night of my literary-inclined soul.
Let me enjoy my rant.
But in answer to your question: Yes. I create an outline after every moment of inspiration. It is a roughly shaped thing, a golem...or if successfully completed, a "Pinocchio".
Most of my stories have themes that I perceive and in which I take delight, but they need be sculpted into revelation through the crafting of word and character and scene. Thus, my outlines are mere skeletons of successive plot elements divided into acts with their characters, settings, and conflict progressions.
As I shared, I do not construct stories, stacking block upon block, nailing plank to plank, I craft them, create them. And creation is an evolutionary process of revelation.
"This tale grew in the telling..."
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
Ho
[ March 18, 2013, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: History ]
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posted
A doctor of my acquaintance (a surgeon) once told me that the hardest thing for him sometimes was to know when *not* to do anything. Sometimes it's best to stay one's hand, which requires almost superhuman self-discipline.
What I do when the story tries to run away from me is keep a separate piece of paper, or a separate word processor window open, and use it to jot down the ideas as the pop into my head. It may come to pass that I can use them later. If not in that story, then in another one.
But I write stories like painting a house. A base coat, then go back and add another coat (more detail and plot points), then another coat, and so on. One of the hardest things is knowing when to stop, especially when it's all still new.
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ADHD isn't just for kids you know. Us rabbits can have it as well. Also, I would like people to stop using the word suffer as the goto verb when talking about it. It's not a wound or a disease. Tell people they are supposed to be suffering and they will.
Perhaps for you writing is your brain's way of relaxing from an otherwise regimented lifestyle. Enjoy it.
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Jane Yolen was the guest of honor at a convention I attended several years ago, and her speech was basically a "rant" about people who seem to think getting ideas is the hard part of writing.
So you've discovered that the writing part is the hard part? Congratulations!
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Came up with a brilliant idea in the car on Friday, forgot all about it by the time I came home, remembered I had the idea this morning, but could not remember what it was. I've said it before, I'm a big fan of the idea that if it was any good at all, I'd remember it, so I shouldn't need to write it down. But it's frustrating not to remember. (And I couldn't've written it down in the car anyway.)
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Sorry, but I will be relentless in encouraging any writer who will listen.
Construction and creation are not mutually exclusive. It is to the benefit of the writer to find a harmony between the two. Construction without creation is the purview of tenement architects and cinder block manufacturers. Creation without construction yields work that only the artist will appreciate. It is the marriage of the two, however unhappily they may be together, that yields enough structure to be universally appealing and the artistry to stand out from the crowd.
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quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: How's this for sunshine?
Jane Yolen was the guest of honor at a convention I attended several years ago, and her speech was basically a "rant" about people who seem to think getting ideas is the hard part of writing.
So you've discovered that the writing part is the hard part? Congratulations!
Oh. It is not a new discovery for me, Kathleen.
My first novel idea (which was my first Rabbi Cane Kabbalist story) struck like lightning and 108K words flowed from my fingertips slowly but steadily over the course of a year, and accelerated to quick completion (in fear I might not complete it) as I awaited stenting of one of my coronary arteries.
I had not written fiction in 30 years, nor had concern for "how to write" or about the do's and don'ts extolled by authors and editors and fellow Hatrack members for would-be writers. I just wrote.
My first two short literary pieces were bought in mere days. Easy. I could write. Retire early.
It is only when I thought I might write fantasy and sf for publication that I began to re-study the craft in greater earnest. I sought to learn from all those who had advice and wisdom to give (and to learn from my accumulating rejections). Thus I began to focus more on the "constructive" elements than simply my creative inspiration.
As Osiris and extrinsic have noted, adapting my works to appeal (potentially) to others, and not just myself is what makes a writer an author. What I have discovered is that, for me, this has been the equivalent of dissecting a unicorn. One gains understanding but loses the magic.
My new metaphor is to envision a wonderful new clock and build it from scratch, even forging my own small springs and cogwheels where necessary. I do gain a greater command of storycraft thereby, 'tis true, but a clock is not a unicorn.
Writing is hard. I do expect I'll get better with persistence and repetition (i.e. I dream of retirement and writing daily). I just never wish to lose the magic.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
P.S. I greatly admire Jane Yolen. I was deeply touched by her The Devil's Arithmetic and Briar Rose, as you may imagine. Of relevance to this discusson, I hope she will not mind if I share her thoughts on how she perceives writing:
"I generally do not think out plots or characters ahead of time. I let things roll along. Organic is the word I use for this. But actually I do it because I am a reader before I am a writer. I want my own writing to surprise me, the way someone else’s book does. If I think out everything ahead of time, I am–in Truman Capote’s words–'Not a writer but a typewriter.'"--http://janeyolen.com/for-writers/
I think I should buy her 'Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft'. Don'tcha think?
P.S.S. Another writer whose fantasies leave me in awe is Patricia A. McKillup. What she shares regarding the writing (and rewriting) of her most recent novel, The Bards of Bone Plain I also find encouraging. And the theme is close to my heart:
"Bards of Bone Plain was an exhausting book to write. It took a long time and very hard work, over the course of about four years. The original idea for it didn’t involve the kind of mirror imaging I ended up using. The central theme was simply to explore the idea that yes, things fantastical matter: fairy tales matter, symbols matter; they speak to us in very intimate ways, and if we need them they are there."
posted
The book by Jane Yolen that I remember best was a biography of George Fox. (Unless my fallible memory has failed me again.)
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posted
I share your frustrations Dr Bob, however I've found solace in the book, The Art of Dramatic Writing, by Lajos Egri.
I still don't completely understand what he has to offer, but it has given me the incentive to 'structure' the way I write. Get an idea, develop it, toy with it, then find what's really at the heart of your story: What is it *really* about. Sometimes referred to as a story's Premise.
Once I have that, and only then, can I start to truly develop my characters. You know, the people that drive the plot of a story.
posted
There's also the actual writing process and how little the words on paper (or screen) actually resemble the brilliant story that dances around my head. What are the characters saying? What does it look / feel / sound / smell / taste like? Why didn't I just write that down instead of what I did? (An unhealthy case of that burns through the last two finished rough drafts in my body of work.)
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quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: The Art of Dramatic Writing, by Lajos Egri.
I just read the first chapter online. Egri espouses principles similar to Aristotle's and Gustav Freytag's. If they differ, their differences are about approaches to the kernel of a narrative. Egri favors a plot approach. Aristotle favors a character approach. Freytag favors a theme, or idea, approach. They all emphasize the importance of a dramatic structure supporting a narrative's aesthetical flesh.
In terms of setting's influence, Orson Scott Card's milieu as part of the M.I.C.E. quotient emphasizes cultural elements. Event, perhaps Jack M. Bickham's, author of The Apple Dumpling Gang, emphasis on causation in Elements of Fiction Writing: Scene and Structure and his colleague Dwight V. Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer. Discourse is emphasized in Seymour Chatman's Story and Discourse. Each, though, overlaps into other top hierarchy elements of creative writing that cover the gamut of SPICED: setting, plot, idea, character, event, and discourse, all of which Aristotle includes in The Poetics.
Not included as much in the others as Egri and Aristotle do is argumentation principles and artfully packaging them into dramatic works. On the other hand, Egri indicates his strong preference for classical Aristotlean tragedy as do Aristotle and Freytag. Aristotlean comedy isn't given much attention in any of their works. And none of them appreciates in any way a new dramatic form that came after them, that of bildungsroman, where the action is both tragedy and comedy: personal growth commensurate with and through personal loss.
quote:Originally posted by Robert Nowall: There's also the actual writing process and how little the words on paper (or screen) actually resemble the brilliant story that dances around my head. What are the characters saying? What does it look / feel / sound / smell / taste like? Why didn't I just write that down instead of what I did? (An unhealthy case of that burns through the last two finished rough drafts in my body of work.)
A universal complaint. The objective is to fight your way into mastery of the language in order to draw ever closer to the elusive goal of doing that. The more thoroughly you make the English language your bitch, the close you come to being able to make the reader see what you see, hear what you hear, smell what you smell, and feel what you feel. Of course, they will never match up with you exactly, because they are different souls.
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extrinsic, you might think from reading the first chapter online that he does focus on plot rather than character. However, Chapter two, which is three times as long as chapter one, focuses on developing three dimensional characters.
As I said, it's an interesting book and has helped me in deciding to go from writing by the seat of my pants to a more structured style. Which is actually hard work. However, even in the first instance, it has provided me with fresh insights into how I can write a story. And, best of all, in giving me a destination and a purpose in the story, I can dismiss the extraneous and concentrate on that story.
posted
Egri in commentary elsewhere is cited in opposition to Aristotle as believing plot is of greater importance than character for dramatic works. Aristotle favors character approaches. I think both are contingent on each other. Jerome Sterne talks about starting somewhere, anywhere, and seeing where the start leads, be it setting, plot, idea or theme, character, event, or discourse. But yes, Egri's premise principle I find a valuable, noteworthy approach. Ayn Rand espouses a similar principle, though she calls it a theme-conflict, which is also similar to my understanding of dramatic complication. Egri's is nearly identical to Rand's from basing a thematic and dramatic premise upon motivations and stakes and an outcome.
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posted
As I recall, Egri expressed an interesting attitude toward characters in that he felt if a character wasn't doing what the author wanted in a story, then the author should "fire" that character and put a new character in its place.
Which isn't surprising when you consider that the book is more for playwrights than for fiction writers, and if an actor isn't working in a play production, it is easier (and makes more sense, most of the time) to get a different actor for the part, than to rewrite the play.
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Personally, I am enchanted when a character "becomes a real boy" and reacts to the setting and plot in unexpected and often truer ways than I initally imagined.
In my six decades, I have learned that I am not always right. And I should listen more.
Just ask my wife and daughter.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
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My own take on Egri's ideas is that once I've found the premise of my story, I then create the characters I need to prove that premise is true. During the creation process, I'm finding that an organic approach works best for me. I know what I have to prove so, as I create my protagonist, I find that I am constantly having to re-imagine milieu, plot, structure and supporting cast.
For instance, the premise for one of my stories is: The more deeply you understand a situation, the fewer choices you have available to you. In my original draft, I'd started in medias res, but that can't work now. In the 'Premised' story, I need to show that my protagonist has full freedom to choose whatever she wants. As the dramatic complication (as extrinsic would say) is revealed, at every crisis the choices available to both the protagonist and antagonist are reduced in number. At the climax, both the protagonist and antagonist have only two choices; to act in the only way possible to them, or not to act at all. Acting has dire consequences, so does not acting.
Egri's argument is that you create the characters you need to prove your premise. I can see how that's possible while still having a character driven story.
quote:Grumpy old guy posted: The more deeply you understand a situation, the fewer choices you have available to you.
As a premise, in Egri's vernacular, does that fully realize the premise, the outcome anyway? Fewer choices might leave variables open that don't close in an ending, leave open-ended an ending. Until one inevitable choice is left closes an ending. A premise like an eager man will dash upon his ambition seems complete in Egri's sense of a premise for a tragedy.
The more deeply a man understands his desparate situation, the more he knows there can only be one bitter end.
As a reader coming to know that, I'd hope a hero doesn't confront the bitter end, but allow it's inevitable, and be pleasantly surprised by an abrupt and profound discovery and a reversal that saves the hero through his own doing at great personal cost, for a comedy.
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posted
I wrote that premise in those words because they worked for me. I could have written: Complete knowledge leads to complete certainty. To me, it means the same thing. However there are nuances contained within my original that are prompts for me as I develop character and plot.
And, the premise isn't genre specific and does not necessarily lead to a 'bad end'. In a romance, for example, as the two characters learn more about each other, their union becomes inevitable. In a mystery, once the problem is solved, the protagonist is left with only one choice: turn in the antagonist or let them go.
Anyway, that's my take on it at the moment. However, as I learn more, that may change.
posted
To quote Mr. Spock, "There are always alternatives."
Two people might know each other perfectly, yet still choose not to be together because it would be morally wrong. In a mystery, once you (for example) find a killer you can turn them loose, or kill them yourself, or blackmail them, or turn them in anonymously so you don't have to testify, or turn them in and claim a reward, etc.
Unless, of course, the murderer is a hit man for the mafia and you have a family that is vulnerable to retaliation. In which case you have the choice of leaving, or framing someone else for the report and letting the mob go after them for revenge. Etc.
The number of choices are determined by the ethical code and mindset of the character, and their physical ability.
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Which is more important, plot or characterization. What does that question even mean?
In this conversation, it seems to be a vague way of asking this question: if a conflict between your preconceived character and preconceived plot arises in the course of drafting a story, which should take precedent?
I see no reason to choose a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. The answer should depend on circumstances. If you are writing a Sherlock Holmes story, obviously the character of Sherlock Holmes can't be monkeyed with to make your plot work. If you are writing a historical novel about the final fatal flight of Amelia Earhart, you can't change the end of the story because it's inconsistent with your concept of the characters.
Most cases will fall in between these extremes, and it doesn't matter how you resolve a conflict so long as it doesn't appear in the final product.
The question of which takes precedence should ultimately be moot. You want *both* your plotting and characterization to be top-notch, and to work with each other. From a practical viewpoint, bad plotting happens to be more immediately fatal to a book than bad characterization. First, you can't always tell the characterization is flat until the story is substantially complete. And it's quite common for novels with weak characterization to be commercially successful, so long as the book is a "page-turner".
But I consider a book with weak characterization to be at least as great a failure as a book with weak plotting, although it might be easier to read.
My theory is that plotting ties into a human trait of arranging events into a predictable narrative. It's a powerful survival instinct. I think of a book's plot as a kind of software program that erects a narrative structure in the reader's mind; if the pieces feel like they're coming together that drives the reader further into the ms.
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Exactly, rcmann. In order to prove your premise you have to create characters who will do it using their own world view and value system. These detirmin on the choices available to the character.
MattLeo, according to Egri, if you do a good job of creating your characters in such a way that they will prove your premise, the outcome of the story, and hence the plot, will seem inevitable to the reader. The premise has nothing to do with the plot, rather it is about the theme. So, finding and using a premise is in essence, plotting and creating characters at the same time.
posted
I don't know if Egri explores the art of misdirection. I haven't encountered any recent poetics writer who does, maybe Damon Knight scratches at the edges of the idea in Creating Short Fiction, 1997. E.M. Forster does to a degree in Aspects of the Novel, 1927. Though many readers and writers and critics express how an artful twist, a misdirection, major turn of the anagonoris and peripetia varieties, can make a narrative ring a profound and resonant peel.
Except Aristotle and Freytag do to a degree explore artful misdirection. And H.P. Grice, a linguistician, explores principles of misdirection and straightforward dialectics in his treatises on implicature, Cooperation Principle, and the Gricean Maxims.
One manner of artful misdirection poses an intangible though accessible meaning through a tangible meaning. Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" is a strong example of artful misdirection. Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains" is another. K.D. Wentworth's "Kaleidoscope" too. O Henry's "Gift of the Magi" is a different though nonetheless artful type of misdirection. A short story I most admire that involves artful misdirection of a folklorish type is Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been." Except for "Kaleidoscope," they all can be accessed online free.
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That's an interesting thought, Phil, but it presumes a more linear mode of working than I use. It is true that premise firms up before plot and characterization do for me, but there's a kind of conversation that goes on first between the characters and the premise, and the premise often shifts radically.
For example I came up with a premise which was to write a satire of Ruritanian Romance in which a cynical and selfish young Ruritanian who despite his best efforts keeps getting mixed up in old-fashioned Prisoner of Zenda style adventures. After writing some test scenes, the problem with this premise became apparent. To make it funny, the anti-hero's unpleasant characteristics have to be overblown to the point where he's a bit repulsive, and his cynical values undermined to devastating effect.
What the protagonist needed was a foil, someone who embodies all the old-fashioned, heroic virtues he rejects. But introducing such a character changes the center of balance of the story. It's no longer just about the young anti-hero, but the anti-hero's excruciating friendship with someone he loves and admires, but resents for making him feel painfully inadequate. It became a redemption story. That's more the kind of premise that fits with my writing style.
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So once again, characters take the bit between their teeth and go galloping across the countryside, with the hapless writer clinging to the saddle horn and screaming, "Whoa!"
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MattLeo, my take on your complaint would be that the story you thought you wanted to write wasn't actually the story you were writing. It took me a year to come up with my premise, after writing a 90,000 word first draft. While I liked that first draft, with the *right* premise, I like the way the story is looking now a whole lot better. And, it has a better internal structure.
Most likely it is as rcmann says: The plot and characters are the tiger, we're the fools with our hands gripping its ears.
As for misdirection, I'm a bit afraid of it. Oh, I've used it, I think, very sparingly on occasion, however I get the feeling that modern readers may feel as if they've been duped.
Phil.
PS: I think we've hijacked Dr bob's post. Soooorry.
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quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: Could you include the crow in the same category as the bitter herbs?
Tov meod! Possibly, Kathleen, possibly.
Though this would be more analogous to the current period of suffering in not knowing if one will or will not be among the three WOTF winners, a decision that may take weeks (or even months!) Nick T kindly shared with me today.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
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This is a love day. With this an "off" week, I'm on the slopes and/or on my netbook typing away at my newest WIP endeavor.
And as much as I too often fail to take good advise, like Ms Woodbury's "Do not revise the beginning until you reach the story's end" (I won't share the hours I at time will spend reconsidering and revising a single sentence, only to consider omitting it as being "too much verbage"--oy!), I've tapped out 2K new words so far today!
I may even finish the completed firstish draft by Thursday (kein en horah--Yid. "ward the evil eye"), over a week before our Hatrack Group 2013 WOTF Q3 first draft deadline.
Wouldn't that be something.
If it weren't for the need to earn a living, and the continued lack of publication, I could really enjoy this writing thing.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
[ April 01, 2013, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: History ]
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Publication is up to you. The only thing that getting published by someone else tells you, is that you happened to find a particular individual at a particular time and place who was looking for your particular type of story. Which is nice for the ego I guess. But so is tossing it out there like a fishing lure and watching total strangers snap it up. The choice is yours.
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I have no bias toward self-publishing, rc. I do have bias against self-publishing crap and am versed in Sturgeon's Law.
I have yet to develop an internal editor who can make this determination with my own stories with sufficient accuracy.
I do so enjoy my own tales...at least until time passes and I can then objectively view my newborn children absent the self-blinding joy experienced at their birth (and smell their diapers in various states of distention).
It is the independent reviewer from whom I receive the best sense that I have something to offer, and the more "professional" their credentials, the better the inspirational bounce I receive.
Even so, I suspect I may self-publish some of what I perceive as the better of my passed-over work someday. I'm not getting any younger.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
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I am blessed with both friends and family who hold degrees in science and in teaching, and who hold not the slightest mercy in their hearts toward my screw ups. The longer I continue writing, the less patient they become. If this continues, I may yet write something worth reading.
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You know, there's no earthly reason not to epublish a short story or two on smashwords or amazon. Just to get your feet wet and see what happens. The worst that can happen is that nobody reads it, and nobody is reading it now are they? How are you any worse off? You might get hooked.
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That suggestion intrigues me enough that I might actually look into it. Might be an improvment over posting my rejects every-so-often on my website...
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So have you got any links for it? A quick search on Amazon-dot-com directed me to assorted books and e-books to purchase on the subject...maybe it was there but I didn't see it.
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There are online help files at both sites. I personally find Smashwords to be more user friendly for a beginner. Plus it offers a couple of free books to help get you started with formatting, and some tips for marketing.
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Dr. Bob may have other ideas but since he is doing better at the moment--with his writing and hopefully with his body--I thought I might take this over.
Decided I needed to rant at my writing.
I just can't get past that plateau I've been on for the last four years, as I have said before but I'm still there. Stuck half way up that mountain--again I thought I was making headway and again haven't moved. Need to my voice again or stop doing the same mistakes I keep making.
Thought I would send another story to F&SF this weekend but it is longer and needs more work than I remembered. Of course it needs work--lots of it but I mean work I can do on it. Give Scott P. there a longer break which he might appreciate even though he probably doesn't read my stories all the way through anyway.
Thought about sending that story Scott rejected cleanly but can't figure out where to send a just under 10,000 word story. I just sent one to IGMS.
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LDWriter2, having read most of your posts over the last few weeks, I get the feeling that you are trying too hard to follow other peoples advice. Btw, I'm great at giving advice, and it's worth exactly what anyone pays for it: not much, if anything at all.
Right at the moment I'm wading through the 'advice' of Aristotle, Freytag and Egri; acknowledged by quite a few as Master of the craft of writing. If I tried to implement everything they're telling me I should do in my own writing, I'd be a real mess.
I think you should go back to basics, keeping in mind what you've learned so far, but being extremely skeptical about including it in your own writing. Start a new story and keep it simple; starting with character and milieu, then add the dramatic complication that starts the hero/heroine on their journey, add a bit of danger/intrigue, and then a bit more until you're at the height of tension and want, then, resolution and the hero/heroine triumphs. Or, if you're into tragedy, you can add the sudden reversal where everything that seemed good was, in fact, bad, and the hero is now a broken fool.
And now the disclaimer: My advice is worth exactly what you see in it and nothing more.
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