Finishing up your fiction

Tags

Grammar, Grammar checker, Writers Resources, writing

I am currently creating the finishing touches on my story “Forbidden Decent.”  That what I would like to talk about today.  How can you take your story and make it better(other than using the spell checker)?

I found a really cool program called WhiteSmoke.  It’s a little expensive($79.99 for a one year license) but it is amazing as to what it can find.  Yes, it does check spelling, but so much more!  Grammar, punctuation, style, and structure checks as well.  I use MS Word as my word processer.   It tells me immediately when it detects errors.  But after one use of WhiteSmoke (its trial ware) I was convinced it was worth it.

All you do is highlight a section you want to check and press F2.  It will find errors neither you nor Word realized where there.

It’s not perfect though.  There have been a few occasions where it will suggest I change a word.  So I change the it and then it says to change it back to what is was in the first place.  Silly.

The other tip I would like to pass along is a book I have found.  The art of stylizing sentences by K.D. Sullivan and Ann Longknfe.  It has some introductory grammar stuff where people make most of their mistakes and then spends the rest of the book describing sentence patterns.  It shows a writer how to elegantly use colons and create some amazing sentences.  Each pattern is detailed with a short explanation, several examples, amazing professional examples.  (that was pattern # 4)

I haven’t read the book cover to cover, I have just paged through it and found some patterns that really seem to fit well in my story.  Here is a line from my story that I felt needed help.

“As I opened this door, I was assailed with the stench of feces and ammonia.”

Yeah…not so wonderful.  But how about after using pattern 7a:

“Upon opening the door, I was assailed with a foul stench–feces and ammonia–that made my stomach churn.

Using this pattern gave more meaning to my story and made it more entertaining to read.

My writing process

Tags

Draft document, Fiction, Short story, writing

In writing these articles for my blog, I intentionally do not do any research on the Internet.  I think about what I want to say for a week and then compose and edit it.  These articles are my opinions, plus a little more.  These articles are what I have done or thought that have produced good results in my writing.  They are hardly sage advice, but merely chronicles of how my brain works.  This week I am going to open the door, invite you in, and show you the process of what I have done to create the story I am writing, “Forbidden Descent.”

In my fiction writing class, many of the students seem to sit down and write sequentially.  They come up with a premise and see where the story takes them.  This can be good practice to develop ideas, but it seems to me this can only take you so far.  I feel that planning, and organization is a key skill that can take your story to then next level.

My story for my fiction writing class started with an image of something trying to get out of a cellar.  I spent a few weeks thinking about my story.  I ran through different scenarios as to where the story could go.  Each time I would make little changes to the story in my head and then I would logically think about what effect it might have on the rest of the story.  I took some notes, but for the most part, when I sat down and described the sequence of events that take place in my story I had very little written down.

Next I wrote a rough draft of the story.  I just pounded it out.  I did not worry too much about grammar or colorful words.  Then I realized that I had some issues with my character’s motivations and decided that I had to make even more changes.  The third and fourth drafts I added details, better words, and increased the pacing to make the story more compelling.  The fifth draft I worked on examining my character’s point of view.

I am now on the seventh draft, and the story is really starting to look nice.  I am far from done though.  I have more characterization to do.  I need to streamline my point of view (that is I need to do more showing instead of telling).  I plan to go through each line of my story and stylize each sentence to the best of my ability.

It’s a lot of work, but so far everyone I have shared the story with has really enjoyed it.

Who Are You Writing For?

Tags

Audience, Author, Fiction, writing

This term at Western Oregon University has been a blast.  I am taking two writing classes.  The first one Writing 460: Advanced Fiction Workshop has made me really think about writing.  I spend each week thinking about different topics as to how I can improve my fiction.  And poof my weekly blog assignment for Writing 414: Writing for the Web is spawned.  In creating these blog posts, I refine these topics even more, witch reinforces what I have been thinking about in the first place.  Everything I do in each class reinforces the other!  How cool is that?

Anyway now for what I have been thinking about recently: audience.  The story I am crafting for my Fiction Workshop class, Forbidden Descent, has always had one goal; entertain the reader.   I was recently with another member of my class discussing their work.  This person did not have much written yet and was struggling.  The author was trying to figure out how their piece should end.

I asked, “Who is your audience?”

“Myself, I guess,” was the reply.

“Are you planning to share this story?” I asked.

“Well, I have to share it with the class.  But, getting it published would be really cool.”

“Do you think others would like to read this?”  I asked.

“Probably not.”

I suggested to the author to examine what the readers of this piece might want in a story.  That one cannot exactly determine who their audience is, but examine the elements that have been successful in the past.

One shouldn’t literally be formulaic of course (God knows the world doesn’t need more Twilight copy cats).

If an authors main goal is to entertain, one must ask, “What entertains?”  For me it was easy.  Conflict with a capital C (not just because it is the first word of my sentence), tension, and the protagonist must be put in a situation in which they suffer (I promise I am not a masochist!  It’s just what has entertained me.  For example: If Harry Potter had gotten along with everyone had no enemies, faced no danger, would those novels been entertaining?  For some maybe, but not for many.

To sum it up, a writers story has two sections that must be pleased:  The readers and the author.  If you write only for yourself it is likely that the audience will abandon you by page 5.  If you hate what you are writing, then you will go watch re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond.  A balance must be found between the two.  Think of yourself and your audience as a circle.  These two circles intersect at some point.  You must write for the green area in between.

The Nature of Fear pt III: The Final Chapter!

Tags

Fear, Horror, Lovecraft, subconscious, writing

The Nature of Fear pt III: The Final Chapter!

Last week, I was getting to the root of what causes fear: the subconscious mind.  However, I did not list any concrete means of how to accomplish this in writing(which is what I set out to do).  The truth is, I did not yet have the means to express my thoughts.  To examine this and also fulfill my promise of describing characterization, I will describe my adventure in writing my short story “Forbidden Descent.”  First I will examine characterization.

Along with Writing for the Web, I am also taking Advanced Fiction Writing.  I set out to create a Lovecraftian Horror story so I created a character that takes a job as a housekeeper at an old mansion during World War I.  She starts feeling invasive thoughts that compel her to explore the cellar.  This cellar, as you can imagine, is full of scary stuff that is intended to scare her and the reader.

After reading it to my professor/mentor, we realized I had a big problem with my story.  Any sane person who has thoughts placed into her head by someone or something would avoid the cellar and probably just get the hell out of there.

Story Plot:  Lady gets job as housekeeper.  Lady hears voices in her head.  Lady quits her job and moves in with her parents.

I know moving back in with your parents could be quite a scary story for many of you, it is not what I had set out to do.  In my story, my heroine needs to go into the basement.  It can’t be a flippant whim or be what may seem to be an illogical conclusion.  Her need to explore the basement is as important – if not more important – than what is down there.  Anything else and the ability to suspend disbelief is ruined and the reader will not forgive you!

Story Plot: Jeff needs to go to Japan to complete his Mobile Suit Gundam action figure collection.  His parents say no because he is twelve and too young to travel alone.  Rather than use ebay, he builds his own Mobile Suit Gundam Mecha and flies there anyway.

Stoopid…Unrealistic…and flawed I know.  But why?  The idea of a kid building his own giant robot suit is actually kind of cool.  It’s because he builds it for the wrong reasons!  So no.  My housekeeper cannot justifiably go down into the basement.

But what if she wasn’t really a housekeeper?  I gotta thank my instructor for the sprout of this idea.  She said, “What if the neighbors hear the voices too?”

Story plot:  In 1916, Members of a church in Ithaca, NY start complaining to their pastor that they are hearing whispers of pleas for help in a certain neighborhood.  Fearing ghosts or perhaps demons the church starts an investigation in the matter.  All houses in the area are checked except for a mansion owned by a retired professor of medicine.  When asked, the man rudely refuses to cooperate and acts like he has something to hide.  Mia Grisby is tasked (if she chooses to accept) to pose as the Doctors new housekeeper and investigate the house.

Wow.  I submit that is a lot more compelling.  A female investigator in the early twentieth century looking for ghosts/demons!  Since I came up with this, the details have really flown about this character as well.  Her faith (I won’t preach I promise), her investigation, as well as what she finds have dramatically changed and blossomed.  It will also help me come up with a more satisfying ending.

Does this help it make it more scary?  Definitely.  She now has her need to go down those stairs in a believable manner.  This will help with the suspension of disbelief.

Here is an excerpt of my story:

My candle did not illuminate more than ten feet in front of me and because of the steepness of the stairs, I could not see where I was stepping at all.  Since there was no hand rail to stable myself, I leaned against the wall with my free hand.  The surface was sticky and as my hand dragged against the wall a buildup of this substance began to coat the tips of my fingers. I was taller than Dr. Rossbach by about three inches.  Where his head had never been, I encountered cobwebs that stuck to my hair.  I was so unsteady I did not dare brush them away.

Is this scary?  A little bit.  There are a lot of uncomfortable details that put the reader in our hero’s shoes.  If you can respect, relate, and believe the character (see above), these details can get into a readers mind and subconsciously set the mood.

Atmosphere is everything!

Thank you for reading, and I really love to read the comments.  Keep em coming!

Related articles

• The Nature of Fear: How to Write Scary Stories. (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)
• The Nature of Fear pt II: Fear’s Revenge! (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)

The Nature of Fear pt II: Fear’s Revenge!

Tags

Fear, Lizard Brain, subconscious, writing

Creating Fear in Fiction.

Years ago I spotted a friend of mine at a bookstore.  She was standing facing the shelves and reading a book she had selected from the shelve.  I walked up behind her and hovered over her.  She realized that someone was there, placed the book back, and started to walk away.  “Karla!” I yelled out to her.  She turned around surprised, “You really got me there.  That was good!”

Fear is said to be the oldest emotion.  It is housed in what is called our “Lizard Brain.”  Thinking I was a stranger really spooked her out for a time.  But when she knew it was me she was relieved and exhilarated.  I believe that is why people like to read horror.

But how can this example be achieved in fiction?

Story Plot:  Boy sneaks up to his brother and grabs him from behind!  (Dramatic Cord)

Nope.  That doesn’t work.  Why is that?  Well first of all we obviously see what is going on.  We read that the boy was sneaking up to his brother.  Next, there is no menace.  A boy is not likely to harm his brother, much.

If we change it to the brothers point of view and describe how he is concentrating on shining his shoes to a mirror like finish so he can then peek under a girls dress with the reflection and….A giant three toed sloth bites him in the arm!

Eh, still not scary.  Why?  Well first of all he was being bad!  We have to like the characters and relate to them. (I am planning my next column on this subject by the way.)  Also we are still missing an important aspect of fear.

It is because reading that does not activate our “Lizard Brain.”  Well, how do we do that?  You say?  I will explore this by describing some situations in which my Lizard brain was activated.

When I was about ten years old my Father took a pair of my pants, stuffed them with newspaper, put my boots on the end of the pant legs and placed it all in my room.  I later entered my room and saw a pair of legs sticking out from under my bed.  Before I had a chance to THINK my “Lizard Brain” took over and in that instant, my heart stared beating faster and I was forced to take a deep breath.  A mere second later I realized that something was up and investigated.  I left my room leaving the pants there.  I came back five minutes later and it happened again!  My “Lizard Brain” took over and I repeated the whole process.  I KNEW instantly that it was just a stuffed pair of pants, but my subconscious did not.

Could the key be writing to a readers subconscious?  I believe so.  This is very problematic though.  How is this attained?

Another time I remember activating my lizard brain was when I was driving.  I saw a pink piece of fiberglass insulation on the road.  Before I could process what I was seeing though, I thought I saw a body!  It looked nothing like a body.  But my subconscious interpreted it as one.  So for a second I sort of freaked.

Can one write a story in such a way that the subconscious interprets what is happening in a different way?  I believe so.  But it seems very difficult.

The last story I will share is the time I was in the garage goofing around.  I was about eleven and had just seen the movie “Alien” for the first time. I had a golf ball and like any other boy would, I decided to take it apart.  I placed the golf ball into the vice and started sawing away at it with a hack saw.  I had to tighten the vice a lot to prevent the ball from slipping.  I had just cut through the outer layer when I started hearing, “crack–crack–crack,”  The hairs on the back of my neck started to raise as the speed of the sound became more frequent, “Crack-Crack-Crack-Crack,”  Suddenly the cut I made started to open like a mouth!  Little strands of sinew and green liquid started oozing out of the orifice I had created, “CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!”  Suddenly, A lump emerged from the center and shot out of the shell hitting the ceiling!  “POP!”  I fled for my life from that demon egg I had broken!

Obviously, It wasn’t anything supernatural.  But it remains one of the most supernaturaly fearful events of my life.  The explanation is simple really.  You just have to understand the construction of some golf balls.

The construction of that golf ball was as follows:  In the center there was a ball larger than a marble that had a cork-like texture to it.  Inside that ball was some sort of liquid.  Lots of rubber bands were wrapped around it and outside of that it had a hard plastic outer shell.

The pressure of the vice had forced the ball, rubber bands, and liquid out of the outer shell.

What is the lesson here?  For one it was definitely my scariest example yet for a reader I believe.  The detail and sounds is what I believe is responsible for this.  The other reason is that I described an ordinary object and described what can occur in a unique situation.  Without experiencing this, I could never come up with this let alone write about it.  In other words:  Write about what scares you!  Write about what you know!  And write it with detail!

Related articles

• The Nature of Fear: How to Write Scary Stories. (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)
• The Nature of Fear pt III: The Final Chapter! (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)

The Nature of Fear: How to Write Scary Stories.

Tags

Fear, Horror, Lovecraft, Poe, writing

For my fiction writing class I have decided to write a story of a suspense and scary nature.  I have been thinking a lot about what is scary and what makes a story scary.  I thought opening a discussion on this subject would be beneficial and interesting.

I am a big fan of horror classics such as Edger Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.  Modern tales just don’t do anything for me.  The only thing I find scary about books by Steven King, for example, is the picture on the back cover.  Well, that and the price tag.

What separates these classics from modern tales?  I’m not sure.  It could possibly be the fact that these stories took place in another time.  A time where people were a thousand times more superstitious than the present.

One of my favorite scary movies is Signs directed my M Night Shamalalala.  It was effective because they did not show the aliens till the very very end.  Their was a scene where Mel Gibson encounters one while peeking under a door and cuts of its finger.  This was a very creepy scene.  What could be more scary than the unknown?

What do I find scary?  Losing family/friends.  Being so far in debt that I cannot afford to live.  Losing my cats.

Story Plot #1:  Man has lots of bills to pay and on the way to the bank to deposit his money is robbed.  On his way home he learns his entire family, friends, and cats were killed in an auto accident!  He…

Yawn.  That obviously does not work.  I suppose it could if done right, but it might be a difficult task and probably would not become the Great American Novel.

What else scares me?  Disease.  That one perks my eyebrow.  Darkness.  Ooooh, now we are getting somewhere.  Perhaps getting a reader to identify with the character and doing bad things to them?  I think I am on the right track now.

Story Plot #2:  A character becomes infected with a disease that feeds on light.  He must live in complete darkness to avoid becoming sick.  The problem is that wherever he goes someone keeps producing a light of some sort, which causes him to start to wither and lose his sanity.  To survive he resorts to killing people…

This isn’t bad.  It still isn’t perfect obviously.  It would be interesting to write from his point of view.  Speaking of witch, what point of view is best for horror fiction?

Test #1: Jim cautiously walked down the dark hallway.  He wanted to be sure not to walk into whatever it was he was hearing.

Test #2:  I cautiously walked down the dark hallway.  I did not want to stumble into whatever it was that I was hearing.

I submit that being in first person is the winner in this case.  Seeing things directly through a characters mind is more compelling than seeing over his shoulder so to speak.

This brings us to another facet of writing.  Telling vs. showing.  It is obviously a lot more dramatic to describe how the point of a knife surfaces from beneath a man’s chest, he gurgles the blood that has reached his throat, and takes his last step before collapsing than to say:  Ted was stabbed.  He died.

There is a great playwright adage that is definitely pertinent to horror fiction.  “Get your hero up a tree, throw stones at him, then get him down.”  The cool thing about horror stories is that it can be the stone that gets the character down!  How many Poe and Lovecraft stories ended with less than desirable circumstances for the hero?  Quite a few.

To sum it up I will list all that we have learned:

1.  Use characters and a time that fit the situation.  Retelling Frankenstein or Dracula in modern times can be done, but I do not believe that they could be ever as effective.

2.  Write solid characters that the readers care about.  If the hero is a loser that a reader cannot identify with or care about then a reader probably will not care when said character falls and impales himself on the dull scissors he was carrying.

3.  Make internal things happen to the characters that would scare a person in real life.  Delving into traits of the mind such as sanity and superstition are quite effective.

4.  Move suspense slowly to a boil.  Actually we didn’t cover this one earlier.  I just realized that it is worth mentioning.

5.  Write in the first person so readers can be closer to the hero/heroine.

6.  Show what happens in the story, don’t tell.

7.  Don’t be afraid to be mean to the main character and definitely pile on his troubles.

8.  (Related to number 7) Be descriptive in your writing.  Use all five senses (even a sixth one in some cases!)  But don’t overdue the gore!  Leave that to Steven King…

9.  Have some mystery involved in your story.  Have your bad guys do things that are confusing but later make sense.

10. Don’t reveal the evil in its entirety until the very end.

As always I encourage everyone to comment.  Tell me what you find scary!  Tell me what I may have missed!

Related articles

• The Nature of Fear pt II: Fear’s Revenge! (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)
• The Nature of Fear pt III: The Final Chapter! (wr414andmycats.wordpress.com)

Creating Creativity?

Tags

Creativity, writing

I have been thinking about the concept of creativity.  It seems to me that creativity is a technique of taking old ideas and applying new methods to them to create something new.  I don’t think entirely new concepts can be created without “copying” in some manner.  (How many infants with no knowledge have created a masterpiece.)  So it seems to me that in some form or another, all ideas copy in one way or another.

New story plot.  A private detective is hired to locate a maltese falcon.  That is not creative…  How about A platinum falcon?  Nope.  Still not creative.  A silver swallow?  What?  African or European?  Still lame.  At what point does my story become creative?

The closest way I can create something completely original is to close my eyes tight enough so that just a hint of light reaches the rods in my eyeballs.  I then relax and enter kind of a daze and let my brain interpret the images that appear.  Most of these images that appear are mostly blobs or possibly alien life might look like.  But my interpretation of these lights depend entirely upon my prior knowledge.  Therefore it isn’t truly original.

Is creativity a skill?  Could it be a considered an attribute to a person like intelligence, strength, dexterity and constitution?  Or is there more than one type of creativity?  I am not exactly a musically inclined person so how could I possibly be musically creative?

Is creativity a thing people are born with?  Can you improve your creativity?  How would creativity differ between an individual and a group of people.  Is it like the saying to many cooks ruin the soup?  And if that is the case what does the internet mean for society?  Well that’s off topic…

I would love to get feedback on this one.

Ernest Hemingway and my brother

Tags

flannery o connor, literature, meaningful dialog, writing

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway was either challenged or perhaps entered a bar bet that he could write a complete story in six words.  Well he won with the following story:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

At first glance there is not much to see.  But if you ask yourself the question; why is it that the shoes have never been worn? then the story take on more meaning.

A few days ago I was speaking with my brother about short fiction.  I had just read Flannery O’Connor’s brilliant piece titled “Everything that Rises Must Converge.”  It is an amazing story because it’s an interaction between to very unlikeable characters.  Each character on their own would not make a story, but the combination of the two brings out a very meaningful dialog that will stay with you for a long time.

During the conversation with my brother, I mentioned the six word Hemingway story.  My brother was not really impressed and on the spot made up his own.

Sat down.  Couldn’t shit.  Wiped anyway.

The last two words were only added to make it six words.  At first I just laughed.  But then I thought about it.  Why would someone “wipe anyway?”  I can think of many reasons.  All of which I will never put to words.

I congratulated him later for his accidental literary genius.  I think his story Is just as valid as Hemingway’s was as being a six word complete story.

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