Storytelling At Its Best

I recently had a lovely chat with a reader who found my book via the national novel writing month website, NaNoWriMo.org.

We got to talking on Skype, and he confessed this that I was the first author ever tried to contact. Mario is also someone interested in writing. He was surprised to find out, from reading my blog, that I was raised in East Los Angeles. He said he could recognize that in retrospect in a lot of my stories, even though as he was reading them from Catania Italy, in his mind the character’s accents were more like his than mine… He had visited the states in the 1980’s at a teen and he’d spent a summer in Los Angeles.

One of the things we spoke about was how to take that leap from giving the facts of what you want your character to do on the page, and actually getting them to do real things on the page , as Mario put it,

“That are worth a reader watching for the entirety of the story.”

And that’s when I told him that the answer to his dilemma was right there in his question. He used the word watching. And that,  I told him, is what a good storyteller is capable of doing.

Not telling his reader the facts of his character’s life. But showing them that life visually, viscerally, and physically; line by line in what he chose to omit and include.

That took us to the topic most dear to my heart. What we storytellers omit.

image borrowed from Classira Draper’s website

I tried explaining that his favorite story, Going to Emergency, was an exercise in brevity. The object being, how fully could I tell Rikki’s story in the least amount of words. And the trick to it, was not to be brief and all in the first draft.

That first draft, had close to 1,800 words that I had written and then decided could be dropped to create the finished version of the tale.

That’s what turned it into the story that led him to contact me and talk about the craft of writing.

Imagine yourself writing a single story that causes someone halfway across the world to decide to reach out and speak to you about it.

Storytelling at its best. Thank you Mario.

I’m Back, and Thank You

Before beginning today’s blog, I’d like to thanks the 200 readers who downloaded Claiming One in e-book  form when it was offered free on Amazon.com. It was such great news to know the book had made that kind of dent.

For any of you taking the time to read this blog, if you’ve already read any of the stories in Claiming One please try to find the time to post a review online.  Also, the Inspired Quill marketing team is working on a blog tour next. I’ll keep you posted on those events as they’re set up.

 

 

  Why Author blogs sometime bog down…

 

 

 

As you may have noticed it’s been a bit since I’ve posted my last entry. The only reason for this is that I’ve been doing other writing. For one thing I participated in April’s Script Frenzy from those wild and crazy folks at The Office of Letters and Light. Although my personal goal was a script of 120 pages, I did make it up past 100 though not to my goal. Some years it just doesn’t happen. But there’s so much joy in making the trip anyway.

For another thing I’ve started in on my 2nd book, which is a How-to for novice fiction writers, modeled after my website Bridge to Story, which is being proofread this summer and all typos will be eradicated. It’s never easy being lysdexic, Luckily I use a dictation software for a bit more accuracy now.

So. Between Script Frenzy, the new book, and life in general, the blog posts have been lagging. My apologies, especially since the blog stats show that  folks in 15 various counties are making visits here, thanks go out to all of you, but specifically to  India, Malaysia, Germany, Finland, Turkey, Bangladesh, Rep.of Korea, Italy, Australia, Bulgaria, and Saudi Arabia readers for your interest in my work.

If any of you following this blog or simply coming here to read it for the 1st time, would like me to post specific topics about writing you’d like to read and comment on please post your suggestions in the comments, I’d love posting about topics which you’re most interested in reading.

That’s my update for today. It’s good to be back. And thank you all.

The Good Stuff… and a B’Day Treat

Getting to the Good Stuff

What A Great B’day Favor – A Free e-book!

My Publishing house, Inspired Quill is 1 year old this month. And to celebrate, Sara Jayne Slack, owner, is setting aside April 7th to give away Claiming One in e-book form.

Log into Amazon this Saturday, head over to the Kindle store and grab a free copy on us.

Now, about that Good Stuff…

Writing: Disappearance at High Noon

photo from Susan Reep Photo Art

Disappearance at High Noon  was a story that was easy to write but hard to figure out.

We have a lost girl. Someone in distress who is set among others who will to make that distress even more harmful to her.

She’s offered help, but the wrong kind for dealing with her plight. The harshness is told in dreamy ways; the best way to avoid the truth of it all. A way to soften it, to let that distress disappear. 

And these characters find more than one way to disappear. Drugs, insanity, delusion, guilt. The hard part of writing this was asking myself what I meant with the ending.

Then it dawned on me.

The reader gets to figure that out. If they see things one way – that’s the ending they bring to the piece. It’s the individual reactions that make the story -open-ended.  But I have to tell you, that’s really something to let go of: that bit of your story that tells the reader where they should be going. Where they are being pointed to.

Letting it go is very weird.  It’s not ‘freeing’, it’s scary. But then, that’s what makes the story one I like so much.

 

For novice writers out there. Are you shoving your readers toward the endings? With the ‘point’ you’re trying to make with your work? Try letting go with the explaining and  stage direction. See when letting go takes you. You may ned up in a scary place, but maybe, so will your readers.

And it might be a good thing.

 

 

 

 

Claiming One IS now in Paperback

It’s here!

Check out Amazon (either the UK or US stores)… Claiming One is now in paperback, as well as Kindle.

I got an email I thought I’d share, from someone who took a chance, read the whole book, and reached out to tell me what she thought:

Your Own Editing Kit (Thanks Kate!)

 

Your Own Editing Kit

 

Blog commenter Kate Warren offers us her exercise  to let me show you all how to create your Own Editing Kit, a few questions you can ask yourself about your 1^st Drafts.

The cool things about these questions, is that you can try them with any of your work or use these ideas for asking more questions of your own making.

But anything you want to revert to is still saved off in your 1^st draft. This is a way to stretch your writing ‘What if’s’ in a structured way.

Kate Warren, commented:

I tried the exercise and wrote from the point of view of a man (always a challenge).

Here’s what I got:

“I dreamt of someone I once loved; of her soft brown hair, sliding through my fingers, the feel of her skin beneath my palm, the changing colors in her eyes, following the shifts of her mood.

I dreamt of the wonder we shared, discovering life together, of the happiness we felt for oh, so brief a time.

Then came the end, swift and violent. A torrent of burning feelings, made worse by the raging storm outside, trapping two hurt and angry people within too small a space.

I dreamt of the frantic longing to keep her with me, the struggle to decide whether I could sacrifice myself, my truth, to appease the fury within this woman I had grown to feel I needed as I needed breath. Terrified of failure, I said nothing. When the rain stopped, she walked out of my life. I have not seen her since…except in dreams.”

Here are some editing questions to ask yourself when you’re looking at work in a voice that’s not your own – in Kate’s case, a male narrator. Her goal is to save off a new draft for asking these questions. Her 1^st draft remains untouched.

• How people talk:
  • Do you know about the way men talk compared to how women do?
  • Did you know they sometime use fewer words than women to express themselves?
  • Did you know they use fewer pronouns?
  • A woman might say: “I like that shirt on you. That’s a good colour for your eyes.” When a man might say: “Nice shirt. That colour works well.”

Can Kate edit for sentence length considering this narrator is a man? (Kate’s example is 152 words long, 8 sentences, and average words per sentence: 19)

Can she keep all these feelings, but express them in fewer words per line?

• Who is being spoken to:
  • Speaking of this Male voice – who do you see him speaking to?
  • Is he narrating to the reader?
  • Telling his tale to an unseen presence?
  • To himself?

Knowing this allows Kate to step closer to speaking these words with a purpose.

We speak to different folks in different ways, depending who they are to us.  Think of that with this next point:

• Bringing in a second voice:
  • What would happen if Kate used this 1^st draft as notes and rewrote so that these things from 1^st draft were in the narrator’s mind, alluded to, but not all spoken outright?
  •  If she, the author,  tried to shift this monologue into a scene where her narrator is struggling to get this info across to 1 of 3 persons?
    •  (Kate’s choices):
      • His distant cousin, or someone who he’s sitting with on a boat, tied to a dock, while at a large family reunion. (this puts narration into scene & dialog and offers a character in action/motion)
      • His landlord, or someone who is standing at the door, while the narrator is drunkenly trying to write out a check for late rent. (this gives Kate a chance for injecting strife that can be watched (showing), not just told to us (telling).)
      • A woman, who loves this narrator and so is willing to hear, once again, about this lost love.  (brings in plot opportunities – with this woman the Male is narrating about, the male himself,  we add in the woman now listening to him – we have a triangle – prefect for plot advancement)

A cousin would know some of this and might be embarrassed to hear it, so all that is thought of would have to be constrained or held back a bit.

A landlord, might allow your character to ramble, showing more of his state of mind.

A woman would bring in all kinds of opportunities – because men speak to women differently than they do to other men.

Like Kate, take your own 1^st draft and try building your Own Editing Kit. Show us some 1^st draft  and edits exercise drafts in the comments.

Happy Writing!

I Dreamt of Someone I Once Loved

Where to begin?

If I were to ask you to take the title of this blog post and run a writing exercise using it as your prompt, a line to get you started writing, do you think you could do it if you couldn’t write about yourself? Do you think you could shut off your own life and get something down on the page that had very little to do with your own current or past circumstances?

If you are a married person, could you come up with something that has nothing to do with your spouse or your history together? The best work comes from you looking outside yourself, while still looking inward for sense memories. And it’s an easier thing to do than you’d think.

Empathy. That’s what’s required to take yourself out of your own way so you can write work that isn’t all about you. Think of it as sharing the feelings or situations of someone else.  When you look at the synonyms for the word ‘share’ (go on look it up. I’ll wait) one synonym for it is divide.

Think of that; divide as in split. As in only using half of you and coming up with something that isn’t you for the other half of what you are writing.

As in, writing about how someone else would react or feel about a given premise: like dreaming of someone they once loved.

We talked last time about how it takes a moment of leaving yourself to really get a voice of your characters on the page.

Being yourself, you’ll get a lot of ‘you’ in there until you let go enough to hear only ‘them’ in their words.

Well, in a way this is continuation of that point.

Most novices, given any type of prompt will fall into writing about themselves. And their work is very journal-like. Journals about you are a form of autobiography. And autobiography is not fiction. I started a pretty solid story with a prompt I was once given in a writing workshop. I managed to get two paragraphs down before time was up. And then we went around the group for folks who wanted to read their work out loud. Except for one person and me, everyone had written about themselves.  It’s a natural way to begin. But it’s not fiction.

The prompt was ‘First thing in the morning’ here’s something like what we kept hearing around the table:

First thing in the morning all I have to do is get up and write my page. I tell myself this every morning and yet I can’t seem to ever follow through. I reassure myself I will tomorrow and I’m building up to it. Am I lacking the will or am I unable to do it at all? Instead of doing what I need to do or want to do I end up wandering into the kitchen, getting some coffee and then I’m off and running through my day.

89 words and 11 were, I, my, or myself, and not in a character’s voice either. Not much sharing, as in divide or split, there.

• Does the above look or feel like your writing?
• Want to bring things more to life?
• Want to get away from exercises like this and get into telling a story?
• Want to hear a prompt like “First thing in the morning…” or “I dreamt of someone I once loved” and end up with something that isn’t about you, but is shared-fiction (isn’t all about you) about a story you want to tell (laced with your sense memories)?

If you ask yourself these following questions, you may come up with responses kind of like these, here’s an example.

Does the paragraph mean anything?

No, it doesn’t mean much now, at least not the way I left it, at least nothing I can see.

 Can you use this for a character Study?

I can probably use this for a girl who is bored with her job, but can’t let herself take up writing for a living. Or a guy who got a new journal from his girlfriend for his birthday -maybe she’s a real artsy type—and he’s trying to score.

Can you mold it into a piece of Dialog?

It might work for internal dialog, how she talks to put herself down on the way to her sister’s house or hey—how about what she says to a shrink or a best friend? Yeah.

 Can it be expanded into a scene or a hunk of narrative?

The wandering into the kitchen and getting coffee is a good part. I can show more with descriptions. How the kitchen looks, things like that. Maybe the guy can be talking to his girl over coffee on the weekend, when they’re together and she gets on his case ‘cause the journal she gave him is still empty.

After reading this blog, try the prompt in the title.  Let’s hear from you in the comments if you feel you’ve made any kind of breakthroughs over your usual first efforts. Heck, let’s hear from you even if you’re frustrated, and not sure what you’re doing yet, too.

I’m Not Really Here (a writer’s confession regarding poetry in her work)

 

If you live firmly in the ‘real word’ how well can you write fiction?  Where does the poetry of it come from, when you’re feet are steadfastly on the ground? If you have a story idea and stick to the facts that brought the idea first to your mind, how free can you allow yourself to be, writing words, scenes, or dialog that will move folks? Writing that moves folks calls for more than just setting down bare factual lines, a bit of poetry is required.

As Walter Mosely wrote,

Poetry is the nexus for all writing, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, screenplays or plays. Maybe some poetry lives in a rarified atmosphere that leaves most readers a little dizzy. I don’t know, but I do know that a fiction writer must be able to breathe that air.

The mastery of language is our duty. We enter this world by placing one word after another in comprehensible and unique ways.

- W. Mosely, The Writing Life, Washington Post  11/20/05

It takes a moment of leaving yourself to really get a voice of your characters on the page. Being yourself, you’ll get a lot of ‘you’ in there until you let go enough to hear only them in their words. You have to allow yourself to not be there.

A lot of eye-rolling might have just happened with you reading those four paragraphs. Yes?

Of course.

You want to write good strong fiction – not poetical fluff. But think a moment of this example: a scene where a young woman, in the Navy, whose tried to hurt herself is now being moved from one Naval Psych facility to another one upstate. She’s been though a lot. She’s still confused and depressed and now the military is hustling her from one site to another. Can you get poetic with that scene?

Here’s one first draft attempt you might come up wtih:

Waiting, I know stand out from the other sailors. I’m smaller than the guys.  My four-day-old black eye makes the guys stare. Gauze on my wrists. Everyone in the row waiting all look the same in the same green hospital pajamas.

Here’s another: (this  bit is from my short story “Disappearance at High Noon’)

 If someone snapped our photo, I’d be the one who stood out from the other sailors; small and separate —the way your thumb does next to the rest of your fingers. My four-day-old black eye still draws looks. Gauze encircles both wrists. For once, my outsides are mirroring my insides.  That we all wear the same green pajamas makes the line seem like a row of fun-house mirrors reflecting one broken person again and again.

 

See the chance for poetry, even in non-poetical places?

Think about that poetry element after you’ve written your first draft. Take a long look at what you’ve got down, then leave the real world for that other place where poetry is found.  That’s what editing is for. Don’t be here with both feet on the ground.  Go.

Go there and bring back the gems you find.

So It Begins (aka My Life Writing)

Alright. I’m published now.

Mari Tellez, a reader I know who believes in me, waited very patiently on Saturday, checking Amazon again and again.

Till she e-mailed, a bit put out:

“I have been looking for it forever! Like an hour. 
By the way congratulations!
Aaahhh! I am so excited for you!”

Then,

“I bought it! I am so excited to start reading it tonight!!!”

 

And then, She sent me this photo of her and her sister’s iPads,

Two Reader' Downloads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

saying,

“Woo Hoo! My sister is going to start reading it too!”

To coin a phrase, I was Dead Chuffed  to get those emails.  US translation:  ~ it just means very very pleased ~

Mari and her sister seemed to be the first two US buyers, with Joanne Jordan, the first, to make a purchase in the UK!

I’ve told as many people as I know (and can email) about my book. In the two month run-up to Claiming One’s release date over 400 views have been racked up on this blog.  And as my contract and Publisher remind me often, I, as ‘the author’, am responsible for maintaining an internet presence.  But Mari’s excitement made my week. We spoke about writing when we connected on the phone. And how she and others are following this blog, I told her how excited I was, too.

But

 The idea of simply posting week after week, to say “Hey – look! My book!” would leave me decidedly not Dead Chuffed.   So while you will read about the upcoming Blog Tour, and if reading dates are in my future, I’ll be posting mostly about Writing.

Writing,

How to Write,

Why We Write.

Topics which the rest of my life will be dedicated to.  Oh, yes. And I’m certainly dead chuffed about that!

 

Claiming One cover art

Claiming One on Amazon:  Amazon UK, Amazon US

 

Role and Models

A little girl from East L.A.

 

Two of the stories from Claiming One, ‘Secrets of the Days and Nights’ and  ‘Dead For Awhile’ are culled from one of my in-progress novels. The small main character is Duffy, and I like her little universe.  Writing Duffy’s world is easy for me. I’ve seen models for her life and watched roles like hers, in neighborhoods I’ve grown up in, in families I’ve known.

The physical models for the kids in these stories come from two places.

On one East Los Angeles block, down from our house, there lived a family of kids, their mother was from Tennessee or South Carolina I think; a red-harried, freckled lady, set down there in L.A. with a family whose last name was Martinez or maybe Garcia, I forget. Even at age seven, I saw a story to tell there. The two oldest daughters, Maybelline and Tammy where freckled red-heads like their mother, and the smallest, a boy, Danny-Ray was a tow-head. But the second to youngest, Wendy – she had dark brown hair and Mexican skin like their father, Windy– who she was kind-of-named after.

Then, in a city to the East, two or three years later, there lived another family of blondes; a girl and boy. I can’t remember her name, but her little brother was named Chance.

And these children stayed with me.

When it comes to writing, we fiction people seem to soak up so much around us that the sense memories, the models and the roles are just waiting within us, to be plucked, like fruit from a low hanging branch, and mixed into the confections we whip up.

These children. Their faces and colorings and dynamics stayed with me and in the intervening years have morphed into story-children in my work of fiction.

I’m not writing Chance or Wendy’s lives – the two have never met.  And I never saw them beyond the one or two  years they lived on the same blocks I did.

I’m creating something out of my writer’s mind, the one that is constantly asking me to detail and sketch in the what if’s — that mind that asks and asks and asks; until I find an answer and put it to the page.

As a novice writer, let yourself observe and gather. Let yourself move the echoes of the people you’ve come across around a chessboard only you can see.  Populate the playhouse in your writer’s mind. Tell a new story from old remembered shapes.

Ask ‘What if?

And when you get an answer to that – capture it, expand on it, and turn a remembered reality into fiction.

Just remember, at some point you might need to add:

 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are

the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BOOK NEWS UPDATE:

Claiming One‘s upload happens today, it can take anywhere from 4 to 36 hours to show up on Amazon.

And the Paperback version following will show up in 3 to 7 days.

Notes:

Paperback version will have The Book Club notes included and a ‘look inside’ display from Amazon on the page.

e-book – no book notes, because feedback from users of Kindle and other readers show it’s too unwieldy,trying to flip to the same page when everyone is on a different resolution/font size display.

To make up for that, when the Publishers (Inspired Quill) get their refurbished website up, my ‘Author Page’ will have the Book Notes there for readers to download.