Tag: writing (page 11 of 33)

1. A Series Of Word Choices

Here’s why this matters: because both writing and storytelling comprise, at the most basic level, a series of word choices. Words are the building blocks of what we do. They are the atoms of our elements. They are the eggs in our omelets. They are the shots of liquor in our cocktails. Get it right? Serendipity. Get it wrong? The air turns to arsenic, that cocktail makes you puke, this omelet tastes like balls.

2. Words Define Reality

Words are like LEGO bricks: the more we add, the more we define the reality of our playset. “The dog fucked the chicken” tells us something. “The Great Dane fucked the chicken” tells us more. “The Great Dane fucked the bucket of fried chicken on the roof of Old Man Dongweather’s barn, barking with every thrust” goes the distance and defines reality in a host of ways (most of them rather unpleasant). You can over-define. Too many words spoil the soup. Find the balance between clarity, elegance, and evocation.

3. The “Hot And Cold” Game

You know that game — “Oh, you’re cold, colder, colder — oh! Now you’re getting hot! Hotter! Hotter still! Sizzling! Yay, you found the blueberry muffin I hid under the radiator two weeks ago!” –? Word choice is like a textual version of that game where you try to bring the reader closer to understanding the story you’re trying to tell. Strong, solid word choice allows us to strive for clarity (hotter) and avoid confusion (colder).

4. Most With Fewest

Think of it like a different game, perhaps: you’re trying to say as much as possible with as few words as you can muster. Big ideas put as briefly as you are able. Maximum clarity with minimum words.

5. The Myth Of The Perfect Word

Finding the perfect word is as likely as finding a downy-soft unicorn with a pearlescent horn riding a skateboard made from the bones of your many enemies. Get shut of this notion. The perfect is the enemy of the good. For every sentence and every story you have a plethora of right words. Find a good word. Seek a strong word. But the hunt for a perfect word will drive you into a wide-eyed froth. Though, according to scholars, “nipplecookie” is in fact the perfect word. That’s why Chaucer used it so often. Truth.

6. No One Perfect Word, But A Chumbucket Of Shitty Ones

For every right word, you have an infinity of wrong ones.

7. Awkward, Like That Kid With The Headgear And The Polio Foot

You might use a word that either oversteps or fails to meet the idea you hope to present. A word in that instance would be considered awkward. “That dinner fornicated in his mouth” is certainly a statement, and while it’s perhaps not a technically incorrect metaphor, it’s just plain goofy (and uh, kinda gross). You mean that the flavors fornicated, or more likely that the flavors of the meal were sensual, or that they inspired lewd or libidinous thoughts. (To which I might suggest you stop French-kissing that forkful of short ribs, pervhouse.) To go with the food metaphor for a moment (“meat-a-phor?”), you ever take a bite of food and, after it’s already in your mouth, discover something in there that’s texturally off? Bit of gristle, stem, bone, eyeball, fingernail, whatever? The way you’re forced to pause the meal and decipher the texture with your mouth is the same problem a reader will have with awkward word choice. It obfuscates meaning and forces the reader to try to figure out just what the fuck you’re talking about.

8. Ambiguous, Like That Girl With That Thing Outside That Place

Remember how I said earlier that words are like LEGO, blah blah blah help define reality yadda yadda poop noise? Right. Ambiguous word choice means you’re not defining reality very well in your prose. “Bob ate lunch. It was good. Then he did something.” Lunch? Good? Something? Way to wow ’em with your word choice, T.S. Eliot. To repeat: aim for words that are strong, confident, and above all else, clarifying.

9. Incorrect, Like That Guy Who Makes Up Shit When He’s Drunk

Incorrect word choice means you’re using the wrong damn word. As that character says in that movie, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” Affect, effect. Comprise, compose. Sensual, sensuous. Elicit, illicit. Eminent, immanent, imminent. Allude, elude. Must I continue? Related: if you write “loose” instead of “lose,” I cannot be held accountable if I kick you so hard in your butthole you choke on a hemorrhoid.

10. Step Sure-Footedly

Point of fact: the English language was invented by a time-traveling spam-bot who was trapped in a cave with a crazy monk. Example: The word “umbrage” means “offense,” so, to take umbrage means to take offense. Ah, but it also means the shade or protection afforded by trees. I used to take the second definition and assume it carried over to the people portion of that definition. Thus, to “take umbrage” meant in a way to “take shelter” with a person, as in, to both be under the same shadow of the same tree. I used the word incorrectly for years like some shithead. If you’re uncertain about the use of any word, it’s easy enough to either not use it or use Google to define it (“define: [word]” is the search you need). Do not trust that the English language makes sense or that your recollection of its madness is pristine. It will bite you every time.

11. The Barbaric Barf-Yawn That Is Your First Draft

This is not a hard or fast rule (hell, none of this is), but in my highly-esteemed opinion (translation: debatable bullshit mumbled by a guy who thinks “cock-waffle” should be a part of our collective daily vocabulary), you don’t need — or want! — to refine your word choice in the first draft. That initial draft is, for me, a screaming weeping blubberfest where I just want to cry all the words out without any care in the world how they get onto the page. Second and subsequent drafts, however, are a good time to zero in on problems big and small. Don’t spend your first draft scrutinizing word choice.

12. Verbs: Strong Like Bull

For every action you’ll find a dozen or more verb-flavors of that action. You can drink your coffee or you can gulp, sip, guzzle, or inhale it. You can run down the street or you can jog, bolt, sprint, dash, saunter, or hotfoot it. You can have sex with someone or you can fuck ’em, hump ’em, make love to ’em, or ride ’em like Seabiscuit in a gimp mask. (Do they make gimp masks for horses? To the Googlemobile!) Use a strong verb that clarifies the action and makes sense in the context of the scene. A hostage escaping his kidnappers isn’t going to scamper away — he’s going to barrel, hurtle, bolt, or if you’re a fan of not-fixing-what-ain’t-broke, he’ll run like a motherfucker. If the base-level verb gives you maximum potency and clarity, then use it.

13. “I Like Playing With My Cats!” John Ejaculated From His Mouth

Mmmyeah, one caveat to the “strong clarifying verb” thing — it doesn’t apply to dialogue tags. No, no. Don’t resist. Hold still. Stop trying to chew through the duct tape. I know you want to your characters to yelp, blurt, scream, gibber, shriek, murmur, mumble, babble, explain, exhort, plead, interrupt, erupt, exclaim, and ejaculate constantly, but don’t do it. Do. Not. Do. It. Rely on “say/said” 80-90% of the time. You can, when seeking variety and clarification of action, use another dialogue tag.

14. The Verb “To Be”

Am. Is. Was. To Be. Will Be. Whatever. I’m not one of those who will tell you to cut out every instance of the verb “to be” in all its simple-headed forms because sometimes, simplicity is best. And yet, overuse of that verb may weaken your writing. Look for instances where the verb can be replaced by a stronger one or where it adds needless roughage to a sentence. “Barry is playing with himself in the corner” is better as “Barry plays with himself in the corner.” If you say, “It is my opinion that Rush Limbaugh should be stuffed with dynamite and exploded like a beached whale,” you’d be better off with, “I believe Rush Limbaugh…” instead. Oh, and if a sentence starts with “there is” or “it was,” you should attack that sentence with lasers.

15. The Word “Specificity” Is Really Fun To Say

No, really. Try it, I’ll wait. … Are you done yet? Specificity. Specificity. Spehhh-siiiihh-fiiiihh-sihhhh-teeee. Anyway. Moving on. Words help us define reality — nouns doubly so. Creature? Animal? Mammal? Cat? Panther? Housecat? Tomcat? Russian Blue? The North Canadian Spangled Bobtail? There I charted specificity to the point where it became useful and then crossed over into absurd bullshit. If I tell the reader that the cat is a “housecat,” we all get it. But if I say that the cat is a “Lambkin dwarf cat,” only a handful of cat geeks are ever going to grok my lingo. Aim for specific, but realize you can get too specific.

16. The Strong Spice Of Adverb And Adjective

Sometimes, a verb or noun just doesn’t tell the whole tale. I can say “housecat,” but I mean, “calico kitty with a sprightly attitude and a penchant for meowing loudly.” Calico. Sprightly. Loudly. These all modify the verbs and nouns present in order to paint a picture. Adverbs and adjectives provide both a deeper sense of specificity while also providing flavor or color to the world. They’re a strong spice. Use when you need, not when you want. Say what you mean and no more.

17. Adverbs Are Not Your Mortal Foe

Writers often bandy about that old crunchy nugget of of penmonkey wisdom — NO ADVERBS — as if it is bulletproof. As if a gang of adverbs shanked that writer’s mother in the kidneys as she stooped over to water the hydrangeas. Adverbs are not birthed from the Devil’s hell-womb. They’re just words. Did you know that “never” is an adverb? As is “here?” And “tomorrow?” You can rely too heavily on adverbs (and amateurish writers do). You can also use adverbs that are unnecessary or that sound clunky when staple-gunned to the end of a sentence. And adverbs paired with dialogue tags will often chafe one’s taint, but that doesn’t mean you need to hunt down every last adverb with a spear-gun.

18. The Thesaurus Is Not Satan’s Own Demon Gospel

The thesaurus is not a bad book (or, these days, website). I love the thesaurus because I have a brain like a rust-eaten bucket — shit slips through all the time. I’m constantly snapping my fingers saying, “There’s a word that’s like this other word but not quite and OH SHITDAMNIT I CAN’T REMEMBER IT WHO AM I AND WHY AM I WEARING LADIES’ UNDERWEAR?” So, I turn to the thesaurus not to look for a better, fancier word but instead to find the word my feeble mouse-eaten brain cannot properly recall. It is not the thesaurus that is the root of all evil but rather the love of the thesaurus that urges writers to commit the sin of pompous word choice. It is not a crutch; do not lean upon it.

19. Big Words For Tiny Penises

Smaller words are nearly always better than big ones. Big words put distance between you and the reader. Each added syllable is a speed-bump. Don’t use word choice to sound smart. Don’t talk circles around the reader. Your job is communication. Is your story a bridge between you and the reader — or is it a wall?

20. The Jingly Jangle Of Jargon

Jargon is when you rely on technical or area-specific terminology to get across your point. Jargon uses a limited vocabulary to speak to a small circle of people, and this is true whether you’re talking about some aspect specific to knight’s armor, a scientific theory, or the manufacture of space-age dildo technology. The test is easy. Ask yourself, will most people know what the fuck I’m talking about? If yes, carry on. If no, either use plain-spoken language or take the time to explain that shit you just slung into my eyes.

21. The Plumber Versus The Aristocrat

Certainly you have some leeway in terms of choosing the correct words for your expected audience. If you’re writing a novel about baseball, nobody would fault you for using a metric crap-sack of baseball terminology. You’ll certainly write different prose if you expect your audience to comprise plumbers instead of an aristocrats. Still, you’ll find value in reading to be read widely, not just by a subset of potential readers.

22. Junk In The Trunk

I’ll admit it: I love junk words. They are the greasy hamburger of prose, delicious to me and plump with empty calories. Effectively! In theory! Very! Happen to! Point is! You know? They offer minimal — if any! — functionality. Hunt them down with merciless abandon. Stomp them with cleated shoe until they squeal.

23. From The Department Of Redundancy Department

The repetition of one or several words can have a potent effect — but what happens a lot of time is, you repeat words accidentally. “The day was hot and heat vapors rose off the ground. The heat sapped Quinn’s energy.” Hot, heat, heat. A reader will trip on such repetition. And then he’ll fall down some steps and break his coccyx. Man, “coccyx” sounds like some kind of dinosaur bird, doesn’t it? THE MIGHTY COCCYX SWOOPS TO FEAST ON THE BABY TURTLEBUGS. I dunno. Shut up. Don’t judge me.

24. The Sound Of Words Matter

Words play off other words. Together they form rhythm. Choose words that pair well together, like red wine and steak. Or Pabst Blue Ribbon and hipster shame. Or heroin and delicious urinal cakes. Shakespeare knew that rhythm mattered and so chose words that slotted into iambic pentameter. The way you hear the rhythm of the words is to read your work aloud. Do that and you’ll find the flow — or, more importantly, find what’s damming the flow so you can fix it with proper word choice and sentence construction.

25. You Will Be Judged On The Words You Choose

Consider word choice to be a test posited by the audience. Make errors (lose/loose), they will see you for the rube you are. Write by relying on big words, heavy jargon and purple prose and they will see you as sticking your literary nose in the air. The result is the same: they will close the book and then beat you to death with it. They are also likely to violate your pallid carcass with various kitchen implements.

Write to be read. Choose words that have flavor but do not overwhelm, that reach out instead of pushing back, that sound right to the ear and carry with them a kind of rhythm. Write with confidence, not with arrogance. Don’t be afraid to play with words. But be sure to let the reader play with you.

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Recently I’ve been going through a process of “unfucking” a novel — parts of it fired really well, but it just didn’t feel right. Something about it just didn’t hang together, so it was time to break out all the tools a writer has in his arsenal — every scalpel, hatchet, reciprocating saw, Drilldo, and orbital laser I had in my cabinet of madness. The agent was instrumental in shining a light in dark corners on this book.

Thus I thought, “Well, hell, I should chronicle the grand unfucking at terribleminds.”

So, here we are.

This isn’t meant to be a list where you do everything on it. It’s a list where, when you discover your story may indeed be well and truly fucked, you come here looking for ways to reverse the heinous fuckery at hand.

First part of the list is geared toward helping you identify the fuckery.

Second part of the list is meant to help you provide the deep dicking your manuscript may require.

With that in mind, let’s commence to unfucking!

1. Find The Cancer

First up: root out the heinous fuckery at hand. Somewhere, your story went off the rails. The flow has been dammed up by some log-jam, some sewer-clog, and it’s your job to find out where the thing got gummed up. You cannot cure the cancer if you have no diagnosis indicating where it lives. Is it face cancer? Butt cancer? A deep and septic cancer of the soul? You need to know where to aim your editorial laser-knife.

2. Let It Sit And Pickle

Writers need time away from their work. Go at it too soon and you either hate it too much to let it live or love it too much to cut it with your steely knives. You need enough distance from the work to let you read it and believe that someone else wrote it — that distance allows you the cold, dispassionate dissecting the tale needs. Maybe that means you leave it for two weeks, two months, or two years. That’s on you to figure out. But when you dig back in, you’ll be amazed at the clarity a little time has afforded you. The trouble spots will start to stand out like a shadow on an X-Ray.

3. Read It Aloud

Another good way to get a feel for the story: read it aloud. Last week I interviewed author and alpha clone Dan O’Shea, and he said some characteristically smart shit about reading your work aloud: “Writing is just a system humans dreamed up because the sound of speech was transitory. … When you read something out loud, you catch things with  your ears that you don’t with your eyes. All the awkward little constructions that your eyes rolled right over, the word you are repeating too often, the dialogue that’s glaringly bad when read out loud – your ears will catch bullshit that your eyes never will.”

4. Solicit The Help Of A Story Doctor

Sometimes objectivity only comes at the hands of someone who plainly Isn’t You. Agent. Editor. Beta reader. Strange homeless guy who has a cardboard sign reading: WILL UNFUCK MANUSCRIPTS FOR BOTTLE OF RED WINE AND NEW PAIR OF UNDERWEAR. (Which is, for the record, a seriously good deal.) You can’t always WebMD this shit. Sometimes you need a proper story doc to diagnose the patient.

5. Determine Severity Of Fucked-Upedness

Okay, good. You now know that your story is bewitched by fuckery-most-foul. The question now becomes: just how befuckered is the tale? To what depths do the rancidity and rottenness go? I’ll suggest that the condition of the story will demand one of three courses of action (which we will call “The Three R’s”): it may need Refining, Repairing, or Rebuilding. Refining is easy enough — the story’s got grit in its panties and it just needs to shake out the sand. Give it a thorough washing, waxing and polishing and you’re good. Repair means getting handsy with it — move some chapters around, excise a supporting character, tinker with the overall architecture of the thing (“MORE FLYING BUTTRESSES”). Rebuild is… well. No good way to say it, is there? Time to pack the walls with C4 and bring the whole thing down. Only then can the phoenix fly free from the pile of ash you left on the linoleum. More on that last one later.

6. Carve A Prison Shiv From Your Prose

A story can be held back by the language used to tell it. The story itself may be in tip-top fighting shape, but a story that’s poorly-written won’t ever make it to the ring. Refining language is key. Go through every sentence with pruning shears. Cut out junk language like so many fatty tumors. Dead-head your darlings. The goal of a sentence is clarity above all else. (Shameless self-promotion time: 250 Things You Should Know About Writing features: “25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Fucking Sentence.”)

7. Rearrange The Revelations

No, I don’t mean the final book of the Bible — you can rearrange that book however you want, it’ll still read like an eschatalogical acid trip. (“Holy shit, is Jesus karate-fighting a dragon!?”) No, I mean, a narrative progression is about the revelation of your story, and sometimes you need to re-jigger the timing of how you reveal certain things. Put differently: rearrange the sequence of narrative events (also known as: “the plot”). Your story may be frontloaded with too much drama — or not enough.

8. Re-Outline That Sumbitch

I just did this, and Sweet Sally Sugarbottom did it do my story wonders: first, take your story and outline it as it exists. Now you’ve got the story’s bones laid bare before you (perhaps on index cards, if you’re so inclined) and it becomes easy at this macro level to start doing what I just said you should do: rearrange the pieces. But — but! — not only does it help you rejigger, it helps you find problem spots. I literally killed off a handful of chapters and re-outlined new ones. Suddenly, I could see the forest for the trees — and it helped me hunt down the tumor-bedraggled grizzly bear that was eating all my wonderful story bunnies. No, I don’t know what that means. I just wanted to write “tumor-bedraggled grizzly bear.” And “story bunnies.” And also, I ate fistfuls of peyote earlier. So, there’s that.

9. Learn To Be Fashionably Late

You’ve got this whole beginning, right? This whole first act where you establish characters and create exposition and set the setting and — ZZZzzZzzz — wuzza? Whooza? Who are you? Why are my pants undone? Fuck the beginning. Take a chainsaw and lop off the whole first act (er, roughly — the chainsaw is not a precision tool, after all). Start the story as late into the plot as you can possibly manage without completely obliterating reader comprehension. This is true of individual scenes, too — Chris Holm, in his interview here at terribleminds, said: “If there’s a scene you think just grinds the story to a halt, before you go chucking the whole damn thing, try deleting the first and last paragraphs of that scene. I’ll bet you it reads better.” See? Smart dude. High-five to him.

10. The Glue Of The Throughline

Obi-Wan Kenobi, before all that stinky Midichlorian hoo-hah, said something really cool about the Force: “It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the Galaxy together.” (Assuming he wasn’t talking about some bondage fuck-party at some Huttese orgy palace on Tatooine, I guess.) In terms of writing, Obi-Wan could’ve been talking about a story’s throughline. The throughline is everything. The throughline is the element (or several elements braided together) that is found on every page of your story. It’s theme and motivation and idea and conflict bundled up together. And guess what? Your story may not have one. Or, more likely, it may have an inconsistent throughline. Take time to identify a throughline. Then take the time to hammer that nail through the whole of your manuscript.

11. Unearth The Emotional Core

The emotional core is the molten hot heart of your story — but it remains properly concealed, because if unleashed it will burn the rest of your story in a scorching wave of fiery twee pap. (If you say “fiery twee pap” over and over again, an elf will appear and Taser you in the face. True story, try it out. Then film it and put it on YouTube.) That said, while you may not expose the emotional core, it should still power the story like a big ol’ battery. Have you identified the emotional core of the story — and, the emotional core of each character? Do you know the emotional component that drives them? Is that emotion present and keenly felt (if not entirely seen)? You may need to install an emotional core inside your tale. Which makes your story sound like a spaceship. Which is kind of fucking awesome.

12. Tighten The Gooshy Mushy Middle

The middle of your story can feel like everyone is lost in the desert. Like the narrative structure has dissolved into a gallumphing pile of gray, raisin-specked ooze. The middle needs tension. The middle needs structure. Consider a mid-point act break — smack dab in the middle of the story, change things. Pivot the tale. Let the narrative experience a state change (steam to water, water to ice). Make sure that escalation and conflict are continuing through the middle — don’t let the second act play out as a straight line connecting the first and third.

13. Ensure Every Scene Has A Porpoise

If a scene fails to have a dolphin or porpoise, then your story is a bonafide turd-blossom. *checks notes* Wait, that’s not it. Oh. Oh. Purpose! Heh. Hah. Oh. Let’s try this again. Each scene must have a purpose. Test each scene. Weigh it in your hand. Does it have narrative purpose? Meaning, does it just sit there, or does it get up and go to motherfucking work? Does it push the plot forward? Does it reveal something new about the characters? Does it tell us something we didn’t know before? If you can’t find its purpose, kill it. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to replace it, either (though a transition may be required).

14. Speaking Of Transitions. . .

Sometimes, transitions are all you need. A plot can feel inconsistent and inconsequential if you haven’t drawn the proper bridges connecting each event to the next. The opposite can be true, too. You may have too many needless transitions. Don’t spend 10 pages getting the characters to where they’re going. I mean, unless they’re riding jet-skis. BECAUSE FUCK YEAH JET SKIS. *vroom vroom splash eeee!*

15. Blow Shit Up, Boom

Fuck the status quo. Your story got boring, son. Hey, it happens. It settled like a sleepy snake taking a nap in a wheel rut. How to fix? Blow something up. This can be literal (as in Stephen King’s THE STAND, when a writing block in that story led him to blow up half the characters with a bomb), or metaphorical (meaning, you drop a “bomb” that reverberates throughout the entire rest of the story).

16. Not Enough Dialogue

Dialogue is story lube. We hit a patch of dialogue and we glide right over it — it’s textually light, easy on the eyes, and it damn sure keeps things moving. Yet it has great potential to carry forward plot, character, and theme. Look at the actual construction of language upon the page. Do you see lots of description? Great heaving tsunamis of text? Will the audience feel as if they’ve been walled away with the cask of Amontillado? Cut that down, break it up, and add liberal helpings of dialogue.

17. Faster, Pussycat, Write, Write, Write

Pacing is key — you want a story that moves, not a story that lays there like a fat old housecat on the windowsill. That’s not to say every story needs to whoosh forward like it has a bitey ferret shoved up the pooper, but certainly you want to take a long look at a story that has all the momentum of a moth caught in cold honey. How to increase pacing? First, language. Use shorter paragraphs and sentences. Get to the action quicker. Keep things moving — boom boom boom boom. Second, cut out plot fat. Anything that the audience does not absolutely need to know should not be told. Third, chop out heavy description and exposition. And remember that note about dialogue: story lube.

18. Breathe Oxygen Into The Tale

The other side of pacing is that things can go too quick — sometimes you need to cool your heels, hoss. A story needs oxygen. You need to cool down the tension so that the readers get to catch their breath before you push them off the cliff once more. Do things feel like they’re moving at a pace too frenetic? Stretch it out, like taffy. Interject some strong emotional beats to space out the action.

19. Tantric Storytelling

One of the reasons we read is to pursue mysteries. We are transfixed by variables; we are held fast by unanswered questions. So, unanswer some already-answered questions. Withhold revelation. Find those things you’ve already told the reader and pull back. Keep it obfuscated — answer as late in the story as you possibly can. A lot of storytelling is you being a dick and not telling the reader things. You’re promising them, “Oh, no, I’ll answer that question real soon,” and then soon as they dive for the carrot you pull it back another five inches. “Soon,” you say again. Then, just as you’re about to lose them: POW. Mystery answered.

20. Your Characters In Full 3-D And Smell-o-Vision

Your characters might be falling flat. Reason? They are flat. They’re too simple. Too predictable. They have all the depth and breadth of a hot pink Post-It note. Give your characters some complexity. Motivations and fears don’t always need to be so cut-and-dry. Desires can compete. Characters should zig when the audience wants them to zag. They should be able to still surprise us. Pull each character out and give her a good long look. Is she too simple? Too one-note and on-the-nose? Then either fill her with the breath of complexity or throw that boring-ass douche-cookie in the refuse bin. Mmm. Douche-cookies. So vinegary!

21. You’re Being Too Nice

A storyteller must possess a savage cruelty, a compunction to do great harm to both character and the audience who loves that character. Look over your story. Are you pulling punches? Does the story operate at maximum malice? Stop glad-handing it. It’s not your job to be kind. Show your teeth. Sharpen your claws. Let the audience gaze upon the terror of your FUCK YOU IMMA EAT YOUR CHILDREN face.

22. Hot Sub-Plot Injection

We like a layered story, a tale with lasagna layers of meat and cheese and sauce and unexpected spices (“Is this sage? Do I taste… marmoset saliva? Oh! These ivory buttons give it such crunch!”). Sub-plots help give a story added complexity. A sub-dermal love story? An off-the-books heist-gone-wrong? The reconciliation of two best friends long ago separated by one’s preference of cake over pie (the blasphemy!)? Whatever. The sub-plot should bolster the main plot and should offer more of that throughline we talked about earlier.

23. You’ve Lost The Thread

Theme is the argument you’re making with the story. All men are doomed to fail. Or, nature wins over nurture. Or, pie is delicious and anybody who says cake is better than pie is clearly a Manchurian Candidate put here to assassinate our leaders. Right? Right. Sometimes, though, you’ll find parts of your story — scenes, characters, whole chapters — that seem to entirely ignore your theme and go traipsing off on their own. Such portions will stick out like broken noses. Find those outliers. Either tweak to confirm theme or eradicate and put something better in their place.

24. The Disappointing Ejaculation

Your story’s ending is everything. A great story with a real poodle-fucker of an ending feels like a let-down and can take a whizz all over the rest of the story. It’s a grumpy panda playing a sad trombone. The ending might not make sense. It might be too predictable. Maybe you just tapped out early and descended into a flurry of senseless profanity. “And then the three elves went to the old wizard and FUCKDUNKING JIZZFARMING SONOFACOCKJUGGLING NIPPLE-THIEF.” Sometimes a fucked-up story just needs you go back in and hammer out a new ending. So, go do that. I’ll wait here. Shameless self-promo #2: 500 Ways To Be A Better Writer has within its digital folds: “25 Things You Should Know About Endings.”

25. Go All Dalek On They Asses: Exterminate!

When I first wrote BLACKBIRDS, that book was all over the place. It was like some hyperactive child upended his toy-box all over the floor — the tale had no cohesion, the narrative components were everywhere, it was more a “pile of shit” than a “lean mean tightrope walk.” Came a point when I realized I had a good idea — in fact, many good ideas — in there, but the lit-puke I’d yarfed up on the page was never going to cut it. And so I fixed it the same way we’re going to fix civilization after the Mayan apocalypse: I destroyed everything and rebuilt it from the ground up. Meaning, I rewrote it. I scrapped everything I’d done and started over. (After re-0utlining, if you must know.) Then, in a few short weeks, I had a much more sensible, streamlined draft — a draft that would go on to get me an agent, a book deal, a film deal, a moving van full of gold doubloons, and a harem of book groupies with astoundingly loose morals. (Okay, that might not all be true.) Point is, sometimes you have to blow it all up and start over. No harm in that. In fact, it might be the best — if not the most pleasant — thing for your story.

Like this post? Want more just like it? Try these books:

The newest: 500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

The original: 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Only a buck: 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING —

$0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

The biggun: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY–

$4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Or its sequel: REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Seen a lot of folks giving advice to so-called “aspiring” writers these days, so, I figured what the hell? Might as well throw my dubious nuggets of wisdom into the stew. See if any of this tastes right to you.

1. No More Aspiring, Dingbats

Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It’s as ludicrous as saying, “I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor.” Either pick it up or don’t. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper’s full. Take it off or stop talking about it.

2. Kick Your Lowest Common Denominator In The Kidneys

You can aspire to be a lot of other things within the writing realm, and that’s okay. You can aspire to be a published author. Or a bestselling author. Or a professional freelance writer. Or an author who plagiarizes his memoir and gets struck with a wooden mallet wielded by Oprah live on primetime television. You should aspire to be a better writer. We all should. Nobody is at the top of his game. We can all climb higher.

3. Aspiring Writers, Far As The Eye Can See

Nobody respects writers, yet everybody wants to be one (probably because everybody wants to be one). Point is, you want to be a writer? Good for you. So does that guy. And that girl. And him. And her. And that old dude. And that young broad. And your neighbor. And your mailman. And that chihuahua. And that copy machine. Ahead of you is an ocean of wannabe ink-slaves and word-earners. I don’t say this to daunt you. Or to be dismissive. But you have to differentiate yourself and the way you do that is by doing rather than be pretending. You will climb higher than them on a ladder built from your wordsmithy.

4. We All Booby-Trap The Jungle Behind Us

There exists no one way toward becoming a professional writer. You cannot perfectly walk another’s journey. That’s why writing advice is just that — it’s advice. It’s mere suggestion. Might work. Might not. Lots of good ideas out there, but none of it is gospel. One person will tell you this is the path. Another will point the other way and say that is the path. They’re both right for themselves, and they’re both probably wrong for you. We all chart our own course and burn the map afterward. It’s just how it is. If you want to find the way forward, then stop looking for maps and start walking.

5. The Golden Perfect Path Of The Scrivening Bodhisattvas

Point is, fuck the One True Way. Doesn’t exist. Nobody has answers — all you get are suggestions. Anybody who tells you they have The Answer is gassy with lies. Distrust such certainty and play the role of skeptic.

6. Yes, It Always Feels This Way

You will always have days when you feel like an amateur. When it feels like everybody else is better than you. You will have this nagging suspicion that someone will eventually find you out, call you on your bullshit, realize you’re the literary equivalent of a vagrant painting on the side of a wall with a piece of calcified poop. You will have days when the blank page is like being lost in a blizzard. You will sometimes hate what you wrote today, or yesterday, or ten years ago. Bad days are part of the package. You just have to shut them out, swaddle your head in tinfoil, and keep writing anyway.

7. Figure Out How You Write, Then Do That

You learn early on how to write. But for most authors it takes a long time to learn how they in particular write. Certain processes, styles, genres, character types, POVs, tenses, whatever — they will come more naturally to you than they do to others. And some won’t come naturally at all. Maybe you’ll figure this out right out of the gate. But for most, it just takes time — time filled with actual writing — to tease it out.

8. Finish Your Shit

I’m just going to type this out a dozen times so it’s clear: finish your shit. Finish your shit. Finish your shit. Finish your shit. Finish your shit. Finish your shit! FINISH YOUR SHIT. Finish. Your. Shit. Fiiiiniiiish yooooour shiiiiit. COMPLETO EL POOPO. Vervollständigen Sie Ihre Fäkalien! Finish your shit.

9. You Need To Learn The Rules. . .

…in order to know when they must be broken.

10. You Need To Break The Rules. . .

… in order to know why they matter.

11. What I Mean By Rules Is–

Writing is a technical skill. A craft. You can argue that storytelling is an art. You can argue that art emerges from good writing the way a dolphin riding a jet-ski emerges the longer you stare at a Magic Eye painting. But don’t get ahead of yourself, hoss. You still need to know how to communicate. You need to learn the laws of this maddening land. I’ve seen too many authors want to jump ahead of the skill and just start telling stories — you ever try to get ahead of your own skill level? I used to imagine pictures in my head and I’d try to paint them in watercolor and they’d end up looking like someone barfed up watery yogurt onto the canvas. I’d rail against this: WHY DON’T THEY LOOK BEAUTIFUL? Uhh, because you don’t know how to actually paint, dumb-fuck. You cannot exert your talent unless you first have the skill to bolster that talent.

12. Oh, The Salad Days Of College!

Why are the days of our youth known as “salad days?” Is “salad” really the image that conjures up the wild and fruitful times of our adolescence? “Fritos,” maybe. Or “Beer keg.” I dunno. What were we talking about? Ah! Yes. College. Do you need it? Do you need a collegiate education, Young Aspirant to the Penmonkey Order? Need, no. To get published nobody gives a flying rat penis whether or not you have a degree. They just care that you can write. Now, college and even post-grad work may help you become a better writer — it did for me! — though, I’d argue that the money you throw into the tank getting there may have been better spent on feeding yourself while you just learn how to write in whatever mousetrap you call a domicile. You can only learn so much from someone teaching you how to write. Eventually you just have to write.

13. Reading Does Not Make You A Writer

That’s the old piece of advice, isn’t it? “All you need to do is read and write to be a writer.” You don’t learn to write through reading anymore than you learn carpentry by sitting on a chair. You learn to write by writing. And, when you do read something, you learn from it by dissecting it — what is the author doing? How are characters and plot drawn together? You must read critically — that is the key.

14. Here Is Your Tin Cup, Your Hobo Bindle, Your Rat-Nest Undies

You’re going to starve for a while, so just get used to that now. Don’t quit your day job. Yet.

15. Commerce Is Not The Enemy Of Art

If you think commerce somehow devalues art, then we’re done talking. I got nothin’ for you. Money doesn’t devalue art any more than art devalues money — commerce can help art, hurt art, or have no effect. The saying isn’t Money is the root of all evil. It’s The love of money is the root of all evil. Commerce only damages art when the purpose of the art is only money. So it is with your writing.

16. Overnight Success Probably Isn’t

Suddenly on your radar screen is a big giant glowing mass like you’d see when a swarm of xenomorphs is closing fast on your position and it’s like, “Hey! This author appeared out of nowhere! Overnight success! Mega-bestseller! Million-dollar deal!” And then you get it in your head: “I can do that, too. I can go from a relative nobody to America’s Favorite Author, and Oprah will keep me in a gilded cage and she’ll feed me rare coffees whose beans were first run through the intestinal tract of a dodo bird.” Yeah, except, those who are “overnight successes,” rarely appear out of nowhere. It’s the same way that an asteroid doesn’t “just appear” before destroying earth and plunging it into a dust-choked dead-sun apocalypse: that fucker took a long time to reach earth, even if we didn’t notice. Overnight successes didn’t win the lottery. They likely toiled away in obscurity for years. The lesson is: work matters.

17. Meet The Universe In The Middle

My theory in life and writing is this — and it’s some deeply profound shit, so here, lower the lights, put on a serious turtleneck with a houndstooth elbow-patched jacket over it, and go ahead and smoke this weird hash I stole from an Afghani cult leader. The theory is this: meet the universe halfway and the universe will meet you in return. Explained more completely: there exist components of any career (but writing in particular) that are well beyond your grasp. You cannot control everything. Some of it is just left to fate. But, you still have to put in the work. You won’t get struck by lightning if you don’t run out the storm. You must maximize your chances. You do this by meeting the universe halfway. You do this by working.

18. Self-Publishing Is Not The Easy Way Out

Self-publishing is a viable path. It is not, however, the easy path. Get shut of this notion. You don’t just do a little ballerina twirl and a book falls out of your vagina. (And if that does happen, please see a doctor. Especially if you’re a dude.) It takes a lot of effort to bring a proper self-published book to life. Divest yourself of the idea that it’s the cheaper, easier, also-ran path. Faster, yes. But that’s all.

19. No, Total Stranger, I Don’t Want To Read Your Stuff

I really don’t. And neither does any other working author. It’s nothing personal. We just don’t know you from any other spam-bot lurking in the wings ready to dump a bucket of dick pills and Nigerian money over our heads. That’s not to say we won’t be friendly or are unwilling to talk to you about your work, but we’re already probably neck deep in the ordure of our own wordsmithy. (Or we’re drunk and confused at a Chuck-E-Cheese somewhere.) We cannot take the time to read the work of total strangers. Be polite if you’re going to ask. And damn sure don’t get mad when we say no.

20. Your Jealousy And Depression Do Not Matter

All writers get down on themselves. It’s in our wheelhouse. We see other writers being successful and at first we’re all like, “Yay, good for that person!” but then ten minutes later we get this sniper’s bullet of envy and this poison feeling shoots through the center of our brain like a railroad spike: BUT WHY NOT ME? And then we go take a bath with a toaster. Fuck that. Those feelings don’t matter. They don’t help you. They may be normal, they may be natural, but they’re not useful and they’re certainly not interesting.

21. Talking About Writing Is Not The Same As Writing

Needs no further comment.

22. Pack Your Echo Chamber With C4 And Blow It Skyward

Aspiring writers lock themselves away in echo chambers filled with other aspiring writers where one of two things often happen: one, everybody gives each other happy handjobs and nobody writes anything bad and everybody likes everything and it’s a big old self-congratulatory testicle-tickling festival; two, it’s loaded for bear by people who don’t know how to give good criticism and the criticism is destructive rather than constructive and it’s just a cloud of bad vibes swirling around your head like a plague of urinating bats. If you find yourself in this kind of echo chamber, blow a hole in the wall and crawl to freedom.

23. Learn To Take A Punch

Agents, editors, reviewers, readers, trolls on the Internet, they’re going to say things you don’t want to hear. A thick skin isn’t enough. You need a leathery carapace. A chitinous exoskeleton. Writing is a hard-knock career where you invite a bevy of slings and arrows into your face and heart. It is what it is.

24. You Can Do Whatever The Fuck You Want

As a writer, the world you create is yours and yours alone. Someone will always be there to tell you what you can’t do, but they’re nearly always wrong. You’re a writer. You can make anything up that you want. It may not be lucrative. It may not pay your mortgage. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about what’s going on between you and the blank page before you. It’s just you and the story. If you love it and you want to write it, then wire your trap shut and write it. And write it well. Expect nothing beyond this — expect no reward, expect no victory parade — but embrace the satisfaction it gives you to do your thing.

25. The One No-Fooling Rule

Is “write.” Write, write, write, motherfucking write. Write better today than you did yesterday and better tomorrow than you did today. Onward, fair penmonkey, onward. If you’re not a writer, something will stop you — your own doubts, hate from haters, a bad review, poor time management, a hungry raccoon that nibbles off your fingers, whatever. If you’re a writer, you’ll write. And you’ll never stop to look back.

Like this post? Want more just like it? Try these books:

The newest: 500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

The original: 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Only a buck: 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING —

$0.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

The biggun: CONFESSIONS OF A FREELANCE PENMONKEY–

$4.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Or its sequel: REVENGE OF THE PENMONKEY —

$2.99 at Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), B&N, PDF

Around these parts, my so-called “Lists of 25” seem to get lots of love — which means it’s high-time for another collection! If you’re itchy for an avalanche of 500 tips and thoughts on the subject of writing and the writer’s life, look no further — because the next in the series is about to come tumbling down the mountain, smothering you beneath the blanket of its dubious penmonkey wisdom.

For $2.99, you can get your inky mitts on the e-book at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Or, you can procure here (PDF or, by request, ePub/Mobi) by clicking the following:

(Please note that buying direct through terribleminds may take time for fulfillment — ideally you’ll receive the e-book within an hour of ordering, but if Paypal is slow to alert me or if I’m, say, asleep, then you can expect a slower turnaround. You should receive the file within 24 hours — if not, contact me at terribleminds at gmail. Also, you will receive PDF by default — please send a note with your order if you want ePub or Mobi.)

Also, for this first week (ending Sunday, Feb 26), I’m offering a special deal —

You give me $5.00, I’ll send you all three of the “List of 25” books, which means you get 250 THINGS, 500 WAYS, and 500 MORE WAYS (in PDF) for a mere five bucks. Just click the Paypal link below:

What The King Hell Is This?

500 MORE WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER is the sequel to 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER (which is itself a sequel to 250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING).

Nab this book and you’ll find within a series of lists geared toward enlightening you with the short sharp satori smack of dubious writing wisdom. The book contains a veritable horse-choker of writing advice meant to help novelists, screenwriters and other storytellers better understand topics near and dear to the penmonkey existence. The book answers questions such as, “How do I find my voice? What should I know about procuring an agent? How do I find the proper story structure for my story? Where are my pants?”

500 MORE WAYS contains the following:

25 Financial F**k-Ups Writers Make

25 Mistakes To Look For In Your Writing

25 Reasons Readers Will Keep Reading Your Story

25 Reasons Readers Will Quit Reading Your Story

25 Reasons Writers Are Bug-F**k Nuts

25 Things I Want To Say To So-Called “Aspiring” Writers

25 Things Writers Should Know About Blogging

25 Things Writers Should Know About Agents

25 Things Writers Should Start Doing (As Soon As Possible)

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing (Starting Right Now)

25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Structure

25 Things You Should Know About Protagonists

25 Things You Should Know About Rejection

25 Things You Should Know About Setting

25 Things You Should Know About Suspense And Tension In Storytelling

25 Things You Should Know About Your Authorial Voice

25 Things You Should Know About Your “Finished” Novel

25 Ways For Writers To Help Other Writers

Appendix I: 25 More Writing Challenges

Appendix II: 25 Things You Should Know About Me

Several of those are brand new and are not replicated here at the website (Mistakes, Blogging, Setting, Challenges, About Me). Further, none of this is replicated in my other writing books.

The book is ~50,000 words of hot tasty content.

Why Buy?

Because it’s a face full of NSFW (and quite possibly NSFL) thoughts about writing, including how to properly describe your story’s setting, how to write a query without causing a potential agent to run screaming toward the Eject button, how to stop being an aspiring writer and become an actual writer, and how to keep the audience glued to the story you’re telling. The book takes my usual approach with so-called writing advice, which is that I aim to be in some way enlightening. When that fails, I aim to at least be humorous. And when that fails, I aim to dazzle you with creative profanity and repeated bludgeoning use of words like “unicorn” or “poop.” (But not, curiously, “unicorn poop.”)

Or, maybe it’s because you want to support terribleminds. This site has become more costly to operate (the higher view count has demanded a more “top-shelf” hosting plan so the site doesn’t go down), and further, I’m looking into making some changes around here (better comment system, e-book store, some squashed bugs). Doing that requires a little extra green in the billfold. Does anyone use the word “billfold” anymore? I mean, except sweater-clad grandfathers?

Or, maybe it’s because you want to help feed this little dude–

I mean, c’mon. He’s cute as a ferris wheel full of kittens, this kid.

Whatever the case, if you spread the word, I say thank you. If you procure the collection, I say double thanks. I can only do what I do because you terribleminds readers are the best around.

And nothing’s ever gonna keep you down.

*crane kick*