Archives (page 363 of 464)

January 10, 2013 / 75 Comments

A Short Rant On The “You Can’t Teach Writing” Meme

I see this meme every so often.

“You can’t teach writing.”

That is a hot, heaping hunk of horseshit and you should get shut of that malodorous idea.

Anybody who puts this idea forward is high-as-fuck from huffing their own crap vapors, because here’s what they’re basically saying to you:

“I’m a writer/artist/creative person and I’m this way by dint of my birth — I was just born naturally talented, assholes! — and it can’t be taught so if you’re not born with it as I most graciously was, then you’re pretty much fucked and fuck you trying to learn anything about it and fuck anybody who tries to teach it and you might as well give up now, you talentless, tasteless, cardboard hack. Now kiss the ring, little worm.”

Writing is a thing we learn. Which means it is a thing people teach.

Writing is beholden to mechanical structure — speech snatched out of the air and put to paper. We cram words into sentences, we mark them with punctuation, all in order to communicate on paper (or on rock walls or carved into a dead hobo’s back or however it is you choose to send messages to other human beings). It is a thing we teach to our children. It is a skill that develops as they get older only if it is fostered by the circuit formed between teaching and learning.

Ah, so you might be saying, “Well, what that really means is, story cannot be taught.”

Ha ha ha ha fuck you.

It can too be taught.

I’ve had plenty of teachers who taught me things about stories that I could not myself see or was not sharp enough to realize. And I don’t just mean teachers as in, school teachers or college professors (though those were critical to my penmonkey development, too). I mean, what about editors? Or let’s not forget how other writers instruct us through their own writing advice or by dint of their own writing — after all, every book is itself a lesson in writing books. Hell, my own father taught me things about telling stories — most of them unspoken lessons but some of them about how a joke is constructed or how a tale works when told a certain way.

Story is a thing both of art and craft: it has mechanics same as language does. Stories work a certain way and fail in other ways. Just because the laws of that land are far more amorphous and uncertain than, say, the rules surrounding the cobbling-together of a paragraph doesn’t mean the act of storytelling is without teachable components.

Do we teach ourselves? Certainly to a degree, sure. The best lessons of writing and storytelling lurk in our own mis-steps and victories, but sometimes we need that outside voice — a teacher, I hear they’re called — to provide context and to offer shape to those mis-steps and victories.

Is divinely-granted talent really a thing? Talent may be, though I don’t know if I care to lend its existence to the power of any deity — but talent is worthless without work and is itself an imperfect, incomplete creature. Talent is just a lump of cold, if precious, metal. You still need hard work and effort and desire and trained skill to turn that inert lump into a mighty blade. It doesn’t just fucking happen. Artists are not born into some “magical artist caste.”

Writing and storytelling can be taught. If you want it bad enough, you can learn it.

They cannot be taught in a vacuum, no. They cannot be taught if you do not have the desire to learn and the discipline to execute on those lessons. But one can teach these things to those who truly want to know, to those who truly want to do. Anybody who tells you different is just trying to shut the door in your face in order to feel better about themselves. But, be assured, anybody who sells you that string of turdballs and calls it a necklace is lying to you: just as you will be taught things about writing and storytelling, so were they, at some point.

Go forth and write. And practice. And work. And learn.

And when you’re done, pass some of what you learned down the line.

As a teacher of others.

January 10, 2013 / 8 Comments

Ten Questions About Your Story

Here at terribleminds, it’s time we do interviews a little differently.

I want to use the interviews to showcase a story rather than its author.

Now, on the one hand, I really like showcasing the author. Highlighting a storyteller of some medium is a fascinating look at who we are and how we all have variant processes — but the change is necessary for, I think, two reasons:

One, I just don’t have the time to craft the individualized questions for other writers and storytellers anymore. It’s not that it’s some epic time-sink, but I’m looking at a year forward where I have meager splinters of time available to me.

Two, and perhaps the more important reason, I want to specifically showcase a project you worked on that people can check out right now. You have a book coming out? Fuck it, let’s talk about the book. Plus, that allows storytellers to come back here multiple times to talk about multiple projects, which is a thing I quite like about, say, Scalzi’s Big Idea posts.

That’s not to say I won’t do interviews crafted more toward a storyteller than a specific project — but those will be far less common, I think. This is the way forward.

Interviews will still post on Thursdays as usual. I’ll do one a week.

You want an interview? Then here’s how it works. (And again I’m cribbing from Scalzi. If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.) The rules are:

1) I’m looking for any kind of storyteller with a project to showcase. I assume this will trend toward books and the authors of said books, but I’m happy to talk to comic writers, screenwriters, game designers, whoever. Open to any genre, too!

2) In terms of authors of books, please know that if you’re a self-published author, your chances are slimmer. That’s not to say I don’t think indie is a valuable and meaningful option in terms of publication, only that when I do these things I receive a boat-load of responses from self-pub authors, many of them demonstrating what could kindly be called “questionable talent and/or story.” A story published by a traditional press, even a small one, tends to have met a certain set of standards that self-published works are not required to heed.

3) You need to hit me up no later than one month before your book drops. The earlier you let me know, the earlier I’ll get you on the schedule. I’ll try to get you close to a date of release/publication if possible, though if the schedule starts to fill up, then THE FATES HAVE SPOKEN. Oh, and yes, you can have an agent, editor, publicist, etc. contact me.

4) How do you reach me? Email me at terribleminds at gmail dot com. The subject header should be in this format: TEN QUESTIONS AT TERRIBLEMINDS [Author Name] [Name of Story]. The body of the email should give me a sense of the book, whether it’s flap copy or something else you’ve written to describe the book. Also: please identify your release date. Er, not “from prison.” I mean, the date your story releases to the world like a flock of doves in a Prince video.

5) If the stars have aligned, then I’ll give you the questions (which can also be found below) and I’ll fit you with a set of shackles — er, I mean, a date your interview will land here at terribleminds. I’ll need the answers to your questions the week before they post (i.e. the Thursday prior). I’d also like a copy of your book. E-copy is fine, though print is preferable.

6) Send me the questions and answers inside a document. I don’t need HTML formatted text or anything — .doc or .rtf will do fine.

7) Make sure to send me along any links pertinent to the project. Got a website? I want that link. Got a Twitter account? I want that, too. Also give me any pertinent “buy” links — Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, whatever. I’ll get them in there at the bottom of your post. I’ll also need a link to your book cover — I don’t need the actual file, as a link to the graphic will do fine.

A few notes:

I prefer to stick to books that are new — meaning, I’m not interested in a post regarding work previously published. Them’s the breaks, word-nerds.

Also, don’t just, y’know, answer the questions and email them to me assuming I’m totally gonna bite. I have no idea how robust the response will be to this, but I can’t guarantee a slot.

It’s also possible you’ll write me and I won’t write back. I’ll try to. I promise. But, time may be against us. Or you may accidentally end up in a spam folder. Or I may be trapped under a heavy object, slowly being pecked to death by starving geese. Shit happens, is what I’m saying.

Why would you want to do this?

Well. Terribleminds isn’t the worst exposure you could have: this past year saw just shy of three million views here, with around 8000 daily readers. And that number is going up, not down. Plus, the readers of this site tend to be other writers and readers who dig storytelling in its myriad forms: books, games, films, comics, pornographic manifestos, what-have-you.

So, there’s the rules. Feel free to drop any questions in the comments.

And here, now, are the tentative ten questions all y’all storytellers will answer:

Ten Questions About [Your Book, Film, Comic, Manifesto, Etc]

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

Give Us The 140-Character Story Pitch:

Where Does This Story Come From?

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing [Title]?

What Did You Learn Writing [Title]?

What Do You Love About [Title?]?

What Would You Do Differently Next Time?

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

January 9, 2013 / 9 Comments

A Sad End To A Small Small Thing

Last year I did some script work for a friend’s documentary — the film, called “Small Small Thing,” details the struggles of a very young Liberian girl who was dealing with the troubling medical and cultural ramifications of having been raped. Further, it framed this struggle in the larger context of Liberia’s own cultural turmoil. It was a powerful story and I was very honored to have some small hand in its telling. Olivia’s on-screen presence was of a girl very animated, very active, and with a bright future ahead of her.

I’m sad to say that the girl has passed away.

As an end note to this, let this be a reminder as to why we need progressive attitudes and legislation toward rape and sexual assault lest we backslide and become a place where rape is a shame put upon the victim, not the rapist.

The press release by the filmmakers is below.

Subject of child rape documentary dies

Olivia Zinnah, 13, of Monrovia, Liberia, the subject of a documentary “Small Small Thing” produced by Take My Picture, LLC, died Dec. 20, 2012, from long-term systemic complications after being brutally raped at age 7.

The documentary, which recently has been submitted to 50 independent film festivals worldwide and will premier this spring, chronicles Olivia’s life struggles and horrific physical complications resulting from rape. Her death is a tragic conclusion to years of unsuccessful attempts at coordinating her care despite being under the wing of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government and the United Nations.

“Olivia was brave beyond her years facing her terrible dilemma with super-human courage,” Liberian U.N. Ambassador Nathaniel Barnes said. “Perhaps her life, though short and tragic, was intended to provide us with valuable lessons.”

The documentary creators agree.

“I hope the release of ‘Small Small Thing’ will pressure the Liberian government to find Olivia’s accused rapist and bring him to trial,” said film producer/director Jessica Vale. “Olivia was Liberian, but her voice is global. How many times, in how many countries does this have to happen for people to pay attention?”

Vale discovered Olivia at JFK Memorial Hospital in January 2009 along with a visiting husband-and-wife OBGYN team from New York City – Ann Marie Beddoe and Peter Dottino. Olivia was suffering from a severe fistula, infections and malnutrition. She was gravely ill and her condition had been deteriorating for two years. Liberian surgeons initially attempted to fix the fistula but botched the surgery.

Her mother, Bindu, did not originally seek medical attention for the girl because their remote tribal village diagnosed her as a victim of “witchcraft.” After two years, Olivia was brought to JFK where Dr. Wilhelmina Jallah, head of OBGYN, determined Olivia’s injuries were a result of rape. At that time, Olivia named her cousin John as her attacker, who was in his twenties at the time of the incident.

The family and John denied the accusations, shunning Olivia and Bindu from their village, forcing them to live at the hospital.

American surgeons operated on Olivia, saving her life. They gave her a colostomy bag and determined the fistula was so severe it could not be fixed until she was 16 years old and her body had matured. Olivia and Bindu were then sent to live at a safe home for rape victims.

January 2006

President Sirleaf was elected the first female President in Africa. She ran on a pro-woman platform. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work on women’s issues, yet rape is still the highest reported crime in Liberia. Approximately 80 percent of the victims are younger than 15 years old and many are as young as a few months old.

July 2009

Sirleaf was made aware of Olivia’s case. Her Ministry of Gender said Sirleaf felt Olivia’s fistula should be repaired, despite U.S. surgeons’ direction otherwise. A Liberian surgeon attempted another repair, and afterward it was publicized that Olivia was improving. However, the surgery only made her injuries worse.

August 2009

Olivia and Bindu were once again living at JFK Hospital. Documentary producers tried to secure Olivia passage to the U.S. The Ministry of Gender agreed to give her a VISA, but only if her U.S. surgeons could get their hospital, Mount Sinai, to agree to provide medical care. Mount Sinai denied all requests.

2010-11

Olivia was living full-time under the care of Dr. Jallah. Olivia’s mother felt she could not properly care for her, and returned to her village with her other children. Olivia attended school and showed signs of physical improvement.

2011

Another surgery was attempted to reverse the colostomy. It is unclear who did this surgery, but it was not her U.S. doctors. Bindu dropped all charges against John, the accused attacker.

October 2012

Olivia returned to live with her mother in their Liberian village.
U.S. surgeon Ann Marie Beddoe is contacted by the U.N./WHO to inform her they have decided to give Olivia a VISA to the U.S. for medical care. Beddoe is told Olivia will be taken “under their wing.”

December 2012

Olivia was rushed to JFK with a bowel obstruction. Dr. Jallah was unable to get approval for emergency surgery. Olivia’s condition worsened and U.S. doctors insisted Olivia receive an operation to save her life. Days later, Olivia finally undergoes a colostomy surgery, but it was too late. She died two days later at 13.

The filmmakers who created “Small Small Thing” hope sharing Olivia’s story will raise awareness that our global rape epidemic affects children as well as adults.

“Unlike so many rape victims around the world,” Offenbac said, “Olivia did not die an invisible death. I hope her fearlessness in life inspires other survivors to break their silence and speak out.”

January 9, 2013 / 26 Comments

Search Term Bingo: The Revengification

I don’t really know what happened, but for a long time, my site stats had a gaping hole where all the weird-ass search terms used to be. Suddenly people were finding this site using mostly-respectable search terms (though still quite a few seeking Dolly Parton’s boobs and Kenny Rogers’ penis). It of course saddened me greatly — and then, suddenly, a hot fresh lunatic spike of totally whacked-out search terms!

So, I’ve been collecting them for yet another…

SEARCH TERM BINGO.

Please to enjoy.

why are you an antagonistic person?

BECAUSE FUCK YOU THAT’S WHY *flails*

harry potter is bullshit

Man, I know, right? I was watching that and I was all like, “Yo, this is a fascinating documentary,” and I told my wife, “I think I want to send our son to Hogwarts, that seems like a pretty cool school and plus it’s like, in England and everybody in England is smart. And oh, they can all do magic and shit.” And my wife looked at me and said, “I want a divorce,” and I was like, WUT. Turns out, Harry Potter is total bullshit. FML.

i serve you in business metaphors

And I serve you in motivational platitudes. YOUR MOVE, INTERNET.

all writers have horrible lives

Entirely true. For instance, my every day:

I write my fingers to the bone, literally, as a sweaty man in a wife-beater who stinks of cigars and hoagie oil lashes me with a thistle branch. Then I get my lunch break, where I scoop protein-gruel into my mouth using a dirty piece of cardboard. By night, my body aches and is covered in suppurating pustules, and I am forced to lick the deodorant deposits dangling from the sweaty man’s armpit hairs. Then I cry myself to sleep on a plywood shipping pallet.

ALL LIES. Being a writer is awesome. Don’t buy all that tortured boo-hoo nonsense. That’s just to elicit sympathy. Here’s what we get to do all day: make shit up. If I want, I can spend my writing hours telling stories about leprechaun soldiers fighting a war against orangutans riding mechanized pterosaurs. I can write a story about a sentient salt shaker who goes on adventures with his praying mantis buddy, Steve. I can write about rainbows and puppies, or buzzsawed heads and looping coils of eviscerated bowel. And I do all of this from the comfort of my own home, where I lounge about sans pants, drinking coffee or liquor or munching on bath salts or whatever. IT IS THE MONKEY’S MAMMARIES, or whatever the kids say these days.

my wife got fucked by a ghost

Are you sure it wasn’t an albino? That’s a thing, now. There’s a whole porn site dedicated to this trend — mywifebangstrendyalbinos-dot-net.

But, okay, let’s say it’s true: your wife has had carnal relations with a specter of death.

First: you need to make sure she’s not preggers with Ghost Babies. Ghost babies are real jerks. They cry all the time. They barf up this hellacious… well, I don’t know what it is, but it’ll strip the flesh off a kitten. Which is perhaps appropriate, since they also eat the souls of kittens.

Second: check to see if you got that on video. YOUTUBE MONEY. That’s all I’m saying.

Third: you should see if she’ll acquiesce to a little quid pro quo and allow you to also have spectral sex with some randy apparition. It’s only fair. She gets to wraithbang. You get to wraithbang. This is just good manners.

Fourth, and finally, call an exorcist.

how do i know if something is a metaphor?

Press a burning match-tip to a petri dish filled with its blood: if the thing is truly a metaphor, it’ll screech and grow spider-limbs and try to eat your face. Or I guess you could just ask it.

people say i should write a book

People say all kinds of nonsense. People are really quite stupid and frequently wrong.

Besides, haven’t you heard about how awful a writer’s life is? Sheesh.

different methods of fuck

Ahh, yes, the different methods of fuck. North-fuck, South-fuck, wet-fuck, dry-fuck, thunder-fuck, corkscrew-fuck, unicorn-fuck, cake-fuck. Really so many to choose from. The ancient Sumerians had 72,000 methods of fuck, which is significantly higher than the 450 methods of fuck allowed by our founding fathers in the American Bill of Fuck (aka, “The Cockstitution,” or, “The Decockleration of Vagipendence”).

does Santa have a big cock?

Big as an elf. Curved like a candy cane. Smells oddly of “reindeer.”

why do writers like whiskey?

Because it numbs the pain of our horrible lives.

Why do you think we like whiskey? Because it fuels our fingers with the warm amber heat of potential. Because in every drop of whiskey is a story swirling. Because it’s what our authorial forebears drank. AND BECAUSE IT IS DELICIOUS.

chinese 5 spice in my penis

Here’s what just happened: I read this, and my penis left my body. It detached itself from its Velcro harness (who knew?), packed a hobo bindle, and hopped a southbound train. I guess he thought I was going to insert Chinese Five-Spice into his one good eye? Can’t ask him now, he’s gone. On the plus-side, I now sing in a very lovely castrati choir!

voodoo doll karate

Perhaps my favorite “method of fuck.”

what does cockwaffle mean?

I DUNNO ASK YOUR MOM

BOOM HAHAHA YOUR MOM

IT’S A YOUR MOM JOKE

THOSE ARE STILL COOL RIGHT

RIGHT

SHIT

SORRY

YOUR MOM SEEMS VERY NICE

I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT HER FEELINGS

I LIKE HER COOKIES

WAIT THAT’S NOT A METAPHOR FOR ANYTHING

COCKWAFFLE IS REALLY JUST A METAPHOR

OH GOD IT JUST GREW SPIDER LIMBS AND NOW IT’S TRYING TO EAT MY FACE

AAAAUUUUGH

TELL YOUR MOM I LOVE HER

noooooooooooo

*dies*

have cloacas

Take two, they’re small.

Also, the full saying is, “Have cloacas, will travel.”

immortal babytown

Ahh, yes, the land of the ghost babies. A town on the edge of forever. An undead babysburg of wailing, gray-cheeked wraith children. Led by their infernal mayor, Earlesque Plasmodium, Esquire. You don’t want to pay a visit to Immortal Babytown. Though, they have a very nice croissant shop at the corner of Phantasm and Eidolon Avenues.

i have very large balls

Everybody on the Internet does.

how to become a proffectinal author

Sounds like you’re already good to go.

spam in my time of dying

This is my most favorite Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.

is the “i got your nose” game mental cruelty?

It totally is. I still have PTSD from when adults constantly stole my nose when I was but a wee-child. These days if anyone reaches for me with a pinching thumb and forefinger, I lose my fucking marbles. I spin around in circles. I pee. I cry. I clutch at my face to protect my nose which always somehow ends up returned to my face as if there’s some kind of nose-returning fairy working on behalf of tortured children worldwide.

So, maybe stop tormenting children with that game, huh?

Though, I suppose it’s better than the “I got your whole face” game.

That one is really traumatic.

cool ways to introduce a monster into the story

Here’s ten quick cool-ass ways to introduce a monster into your story:

Have him drive up in a bass-thumping Geo Tracker.
The monster pops out of a cake, nude.
Give him a clever catchphrase. Like, “Hello, I am a monster, it’s nice to EAT you.”
FOOMP — he explodes out of a t-shirt cannon.
One of the main characters is about to have a baby but it’s not really a human baby but rather a monster baby (ghost baby) and it’s all like, “Holy crap! A monster just came out of my uterus! Ha ha ha, you pulled a fast one on us, you crazy monster.” And then everybody has a laugh and goes to Arby’s.
He surfs on a comet! BOOSH, SUCK MY COMET DUST, HUMANS.
The monster is working the coffee counter at the cafe the protagonist frequents.
The protagonist’s ex- is like, totally dating the monster. “His name is VORSHAK THE EMASCULATOR, and we’re in love, Jim.” Then the protagonist has to race against the clock and against his own selfish instincts to stop the wedding before she marries Vorshak! Dramedy gold!
Friend request on Facebook.
He eats everybody then spends the rest of the story feeling bad about it.

YOU’RE WELCOME. I’ll send you an invoice.

i’m going to enjoy this online porn

And I’m going to enjoy you enjoying that online porn as I hide in your shrubs.

January 8, 2013 / 64 Comments

How Chuck Wendig Edits A Novel

Recently, I wrote a post called, “How Chuck Wendig Writes A Novel.”

Just after writing that, I threw myself into the churning gears of editing and rewriting not one novel, but three — I spoke a little on Twitter about said editing/rewriting, and I got a lot of folks tweeting at me or emailing me questions about my editing process.

Seems now is a good time to sift through the sand of my process, see what baubles turn up.

Now, two quick things:

First, this is my process. You are not me. (OR ARE YOU? MOM, THE DOPPELGANGER IS READING MY BLOG AGAIN.) As such, this is not meant to be a step-by-step Menu For Proven Success. Every writer’s gotta figure out her own process. This is mine, here to serve as an example and a list of possibilities rather than a do this or perish in the cold fires of ignominy.

Second, I believe that this process is as important, if not moreso, than the actual writing of your first draft. A story may be born in the first draft, but anybody with children will tell you, those baby creatures are dopey as shit. They just lay there. Crying and pooping. But time and teaching is what makes the person, and in editing and rewriting your work you’ll likely find that this is where your story grows up. A tale is truly made in this phase.

Put more succinctly:

Writing is when we make the words.

Editing is when we make the words not shitty.

Now, red pens out! No, no, not red penis out. See, that gets an edit. Weirdo.

Let us begin.

Kick The Story To The Curb And Walk Away

The best thing you can do for the work is get to the point where you forgot you wrote it. Give it enough time so that you can come back to it with only a hazy memory of the thing — meaning, you’re reading the work like some other jerkoff wrote it. You’ll come to it so fresh and so clean. You’ll be more clear-headed about its errors. You won’t needlessly love certain parts that suck, and you won’t automatically hate parts that are actually pretty good.

How much time does this take? I’ve no idea. I’m not you. (OR AM I? Okay, no.) I’d say to give it a month if you can afford it — sadly, I can’t always afford that kind of time, what with deadlines and all. With editing Heartland, Book One, I rewrote it many times over the course of a year, and just now did one more rewrite for the publisher — and in this casew had like, maybe five months before I really had to reopen and look at it again. I wasn’t so lucky with Blue Blazes — I had to write it and rewrite it immediately after. (But when Angry Robot returns the book to me for edits, enough time will have passed for me to come at it clear.)

Stare At It Until Its Weakness Is Revealed

Something is wrong with your story.

Repeat: something is wrong with your story.

I don’t know what. I haven’t read it. All I know is, every story has different set of problems, though certainly some writers cleave to problems particular to them (my problem is frequently plot, and my edits are often about punching the plot until it yields to my demands). What’s the problem with your story? Well. Maybe it’s:

Confusing character motivations. Unclear language. Plot holes. Wonky structural issues. Needless exposition. Boring parts. Shit that doesn’t make sense. An addiction to commas. Conflict that doesn’t escalate. Conflicts that are too easily solved. Inconsistent mood. Incongruous theme. Needs more sex. Needs another monkey sidekick. Parts are written in Sumerian for no good reason. The book is only 300 words long. The book is 300,000 words long. Needs more giant eagles carrying the protagonists around everywhere. Needs fewer awful parts. THE STORY IS DUMB AND YOUR FACE IS DUMB AND EVERYBODY HATES YOU.

Or whatever. Point is, you have to sit and figure out why this thing you wrote doesn’t work — either in part or in total. This is a heartwrenching component of the process, because…

…well, because it is. Because you don’t want anything to be wrong. Because you just spent so much of yourself putting the first damn draft on the page. But you know what? Fuck it. The good news is, just because something’s wrong doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. No problem in a novel is too serious. All can be solved with a most merciless edit.

Get Some Perspective

Let someone else take a crack at it. Sometimes, even after time has passed, we’re just too close to the thing. You don’t want to kill your darlings or, maybe it’s the opposite: you just want to kill all of it with cleansing fire. Let someone else confirm or veto your feelings. They’ll also bring new questions and complexities to the table, too (“I did not realize that Captain Redballs the Bold died in chapter three, but then I have him in chapter six making love to a mermaid”).

I have my agent, who is a wunderkind in terms of sussing out a story’s problems. You may have friends or fellow writers who can help. Or copy-editors or editors or wives or a super-intelligent NASA-bred terrier. But find a trusted outside perspective. Don’t let it all fall to your shoulders.

Track Changes Is Your Best Friend

A tiny note: learn to love the power of track changes. Available in fullest form in Microsoft Word.

It is exceedingly helpful to mark all the changes you make. I turn them on when editing but turn their visibility off at the same time — so, it’s tracking all the changes I make off-stage and behind the curtain. But I can view them at any time. And it’s also a great way to track the comments and tweaks put forth by that person of outside perspective I was talking about, too.

And hell, part of it is just the satisfaction of looking at all your changes by the end and being amazed at the level of work you put into it. Suddenly you’re like:

“Man, I really made this pig bleed, didn’t I?”

How cruelly satisfying.

Work With The Multiple Safety Nets Of Redundant Backups

Also, save a lot when you edit.

And back up your work.

Not once place, but in many.

A cloud backup.

A local, external device.

Tattooed onto your back.

Buried in your yard.

Multiple redundant backups are your best buddy.

Gaze Upon The Coming Task With Terror In My Heart

There exists this moment before I edit where I feel completely overwhelmed. This is, quite literally, part of my process. I get this sense of literary vertigo, like I’m staring over the cliff’s edge into the crashing gears of some giant malevolent machine that I cannot comprehend and that I am sure will crush me into my constituent parts. And in this moment I want to back away and say, “Fuck it, I’m not doing this, I’m done, game over, my work sucks, I’m not a writer, I’m just some asshole, I can’t hack it, I can’t–”

And then I leap over the cliff’s edge and let the gears take me.

And that’s when I find out it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

It’s never as bad as you thought.

Re-Outline That Motherfucker

I outline my work prior to writing.

But, when writing, my work inevitably strays from the outline.

If I had to quantify it (and I will, because you keep shoving the barrel of that gun into my kidneys), I’d say about 75% of my draft survives the original outline, and 25% goes completely off the fucking rails like if Thomas the Tank Engine did a bunch of bath salts and tried to headbutt his way through a collapsed mountain pass.

(Sorry for the Thomas the Tank Engine reference. I have a toddler. I am infected.)

So, I like to take the draft I just wrote and re-outline it. Just so I see the entire thing before me — I want to see the forest and the individual trees. And it helps to pull my head out of the big blobby morass of the novel and see it as smaller, more manageable. I can see its shape. Its contours. I can see all the plotty bits and turns-of-the-tale. It’s a map. A blueprint. A cheater’s guide to a video game. Whatever. I want digestible chunks. Hence: outline.

Re-Re-Outline That Motherfucker

Then, yes, I re-re-outline.

The re-outline details the novel I just wrote.

The re-re-outline details the coming rewrites of the novel I just wrote.

The Power Of Excel Compels You

I use the mighty fuck out of Excel to perform this re- and re-re-outlining process.

Here’s how: I make four columns.

Column #1: Chapter number/name. (This is pretty explanatory, yeah?)

Column #2: Plotty Bits. Meaning, what the fuck is happening in this chapter? I don’t go into great detail, here. Just broad stroke events. “Bob dies. Mary lays eggs in his rectum. Her alien hell-shrimp are born in his colon. Mary exits.”

Column #3: Conflict/Changes. Meaning, I want to know what the core conflict is of this chapter. And I want to know how the story or its characters is changing. I want the sense that the story is moving, that things are happening, that the diagram of the narrative isn’t a flat line.

Column #4: Comments/Questions. Here’s me asking myself questions or making marginal comments — “Should Mary flee the scene now or do her motherly instincts prevail over her new insectile litter inside Bob’s moist bowel-channels?”

Then I duplicate the last three columns (plot, conflict, comments) again. This time, for the re-re-outline. This allows me to see both the current state of the novel and the novel I intend to edit/fix/rewrite/asplode side by side. Very helpful, at least for me.

I Am Shiva

Shiva is the destroyer. But Shiva is also preserver, concealer, revealer, and creator. And that, to me, sums up the entire editing and rewriting process: some stuff you kill with an axe. Some stuff needs to be reborn. Some stuff you preserve and keep — other stuff can only remain if you are able to can tease out the essence of the thing (scene, character, sentence, whatever).

What I’m saying is, after I re-re-outline, it’s time to rewrite. Which means destroying whole parts of the story and remaking them. In the Blue Blazes I lost an entire main character. Like, I erased her from the tale. Sometimes with a machete, sometimes with a surgical laser. She just wasn’t pulling her weight and so she had to go, and that means rewriting the story — a stitching of the wound, you will — around the holes where she once existed.

Read It

Once you’re done with the big edits, I reread. (Re-outline, re-write, re-read. Lots of re-re-re.)

I read the draft aloud — which is not to say I sit here in my office bellowing fiction all day, which would drive my family nuts and wake Toddler B-Dub up from one of his blessed naps, but I kind of mumble-whisper the words as I sit here. (Which means anybody looking at me from afar probably thinks I’m some kind of crazy person.) Reading your work aloud will allow you to catch a lot of the rough patches in terms of language. And reading the work in general will allow you to catch any problematic bits that remain. It’s like pouring the broth of your work through a strainer and then through cheesecloth to capture those last gnarly bits.

If Necessary, Do It All Again, But Not Before Weeping Softly And Drinking A Lot

Sometimes you gotta do it all over again. Sometimes some of the cancer remains, which means it’s time for another round of surgery, chemo, and radiation. Hell, sometimes a truly frustrating thing happens: the second draft has more problems than the first. That’s okay, though at the time it’ll feel completely defeating. It’s all part of the winnowing. It’s all progress even when it doesn’t feel that way. Because this is you getting to know your story. This is you getting to know more than just this story, but all stories, feeling your way through what works and what doesn’t. It’s all research and development, man. It’s all one big story-hack.

January 7, 2013 / 49 Comments

Monday Question: The Books Of 2013?

Here’s what I want to know today:

What book (to be published in 2013) are you most excited about reading?

And, of course, the obligatory: why?

If I may add one to your list: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, which I’m in the middle of reading right now and it is a right jaw-dropper of a book. Scary stuff, a thriller so tense you’ll crack your teeth from clenching your jaw. Beukes has a great voice, one that has matured profoundly from the already-excellent Zoo City; if I had to compare it to another author’s writing I’d say that with this book Beukes is like the love child of Stephen King and Peter Straub. Which is not to say it’s like the books they worked on together but rather if both of their minds were smooshed together and this was the resultant prose. But even that doesn’t cover the tension of the tale or the beauty of her writing.

Here’s how I know it’s a great book — I can’t stop thinking about it. Like, I read a lot of books and it’s not as common as I’d like where, when I put the book down, I continue to think about it the next day. With this book, though, I do. I get that ache in the back of my mind, and I find this itch to drop whatever I’m doing and get back to reading the book.

It’s also a book that far exceeds my own writing. And, as a writer, you can have two responses to that: destructive jealousy or the rectal rocket-booster of inspiration. I’m choosing the latter.

So, that’s a book I think you might wanna add to your 2013 list.

Because it’s fucking amazeface. Is that a thing kids say? “Amazeface?”

IT IS NOW.

(You can read the first chapter here.)

Back to the question at hand:

One book.

In 2013.

You’re looking forward to it.

Name it, tell us why.

I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.

CARRIER LOST