Ruminations On Making Ink

In the past, writers were hampered by the tools of their trade. When books first made their debut, authors had to grind and mix their own ink. Paper was rare and hard to come by. Old, used parchment was cleaned, and then written upon again. As time went on, books had to be hand written into blank journals, and then painstakingly typeset, to put them into print. After that came the typewriter. It was much faster, but corrections meant many, many re-typed pages. The only way to get a copy was to use carbon paper. Now we work on computers. We can type, edit, move blocks of text, and even speak to our computers in order to produce text. Easier means more people can, and do, write.  

It’s great that writing is now an accessible occupation for more people. But, even though we have better tools today, we can’t forget to do a good job. Writing a novel is not like writing a text message. We must spell properly, and format properly. We must still understand the rules of good writing. 

Because it has become easy to write, we all need to devote extra effort to make what we write extra special.

Laurie

Book to Film

As with most avid readers, I’m not generally a fan of the book turned to movie or TV show. As any reader knows, it’s hard to convert the depth of a book into a screen presentation that works quite as well as the original format (print). The reason is obvious. We are not going to get inside the head of a screen character, or at least not to the extent that of author-provided access. So – for someone who has “read the book” a movie often is a disappointment.

Lately, though, I’ve seen several book adaptations that were well done. I felt that the screen writers had somehow taken a different tack and found ways to give the audience the feel of the book by playing the strengths inherent in film making, rather than trying to force a round peg into a square hole. So – instead of skipping over important points for the sake of brevity, or relying on huge action scenes to hide plot problems, I think some screenwriters are finding clever ways to keep book and film in synch.

Examples: The “Game of Thrones” series in book form is awesome, and expansive, and very, very complex. When I heard that it would be made into a TV series, I cringed. How would the screenwriters EVER manage to make me feel the complexities, unless they intended the series to run for about twenty years? The answer is, they cut some minor plot lines, judiciously, which every screenwriter does, but then they used an effective technique to fill in gaps. At times in the film, two characters will simply have a discussion in which they give the audience the needed background concerning plot or character.

The Hunger Games movie used some tricks of consolidating book scenes so that not much was lost in the ultimate dramatization.  

I’m pleased that screenwriters are attempting to make the movie experience a favorable extension of the book. It’s a tricky business to make this conversion and it’s good see that in some cases, the results can satisfy both the moviegoer who has not read the book and the book reader, who cannot help but see the differences.

Laurie

Ye Ole Bookstore

Books are great. I love the feel of a new book. There is just something about the smell of the paper and the feel of the pages as you turn them. When I read a paperback, I turn down the page corners to mark my place. I never do that with a hard cover books. I use the book jacket to mark my place in that case. I’m mildly embarrassed that I turn down the page corners in a paperback. I didn’t do that when I was young, but it’s expeditious and doesn’t involve some sort of bookmark that might dislodge and lose my place.  

Bookstores are sort of magical places, don’t you think? It’s like walking into a place chock full of possible trips into imagination. Open any cover and travel off into another world. I get a min-rush each time I enter a bookstore because the store is the promise of unknown marvels. 

The thing is, in this brave new world of publishing, there are over twice the number of e-books published each year than conventional “books”. That means that most of us are reading books in some format other than paper and binding, and are buying books in some place other than a bookstore. 

Someday, I reckon, bookstores will be rare. It’s sad in a way because going to a bookstore and browsing the aisles results in book finds that I’d maybe never stumble over in an on-line search. As an aspiring writer, I’d love nothing better than to see my novel on a bookstore shelf, but I’m beginning to see that some sort of digital offering is a must.

I do love a book, but I also love my Kindle, which holds a trunk load of books, but fits in my purse on a trip. I also love audio books. I down load them to my phone and play them in the car as I drive. All these options let me have reading material anytime, anywhere, in any format I like. It’s a ‘brave new world’ for publishing. People have many choices for reading/ consuming books. 

 I hope expanded options will not result in a decline in quality. I hope that the decline of paper books relative to digital books will not change the wonder and sensation of reading. 

Laurie

Working Through Hell

I recently came across two quotations from men I admire.  Thomas Edison was speaking to the subject of opportunity and had this to say:

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Sir Winston Churchill wasn’t speaking to opportunity, exactly, but I think his words can be applied to work along with a lot of other aspects of life.  Here’s what he had to say:

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

Now, these two quotations from very different men, given at different times, and for different reasons were very important to me this week because they applied to me in ways I’m sure these learned gentlemen weren’t considering.  These quotations spoke, I felt, directly to my own writing experience.

I am in the midst of another edit of my current manuscript and this one happens to be a fairly significant project.  I’m making some extensive changes to the order of action and contemplating a pretty large change to the personality and history of my main character.  This, my friends, is big stuff for me.  It’s also really, really hard.  

I set aside the novel for a while because my husband and I were remodeling an older house and restoring it to “house” status after more than twenty years as an office.  Since the project was taking up so much of my time and energy, the novel slipped into the back seat for a nice rest while I demolished, patched, painted, built, and a variety of other hard things.  Smaller writing projects such as short stories and micro fiction could be fitted in to my schedule but I just couldn’t pull together the focus for the large scale work I felt I needed to do to the novel.  Now, however, the remodeling is winding down and I’m itching to get back to work.  So, I began to reread the manuscript and make notes to get back into the rhythm of that story.

Oy.

People, I did not like what I saw.  I had begun building in the changes to my main character and it isn’t working for me at all.  It put a hard edge on her that just doesn’t sit well with me.  I spent this past weekend fretting over this and trying to decide if I should take up this mess and fix it or if the time had come to file it in the back of the drawer and begin anew.  

Cue Mr. Edison and Sir Winston.

Anyone who has ever really devoted themselves to writing will tell you that it’s no joke.  It’s WORK.  Goodness knows, you don’t need me to tell you this.  You’re living it.  I think everyone who’s ever written can recall moments when they stared at a manuscript, trying to decide if it stayed on the desk or went into the circular file.  I reminded myself of this and had another look.  My manuscript has its overalls on and is ready to pick its way through the brimstone.  The question is, what do I plan to do about it?  Well, that manuscript isn’t quite ready for the bin.  I’m not entirely sure how I’ll fix it.  Yet.  But I’ve hauled out my own overalls and my asbestos accessories and I’m back at work.   

 Mr. Edison, Sir Winston, I thank you.

~Sandy

Observation

“Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature” Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC)

What is the thing that makes a reader wish to read your story?  There are lots of answers to this question.  The reader is interested in your plot. The reader empathizes with your characters.  The reader feels bound to keep up at book group. (well – it’s true!)

All of these reasons have merit, for sure, but to me, the thing that keeps me savoring a book is the way the writer brings out the sensory elements in a scene, plays with them, and pulls me into that experience, so that I feel I am there.

When I was an under-grad in English Lit., a professor was encouraging me to read Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” It’s not a book for the faint of heart, for to sum it up – it’s a long and windy tale that is conjured up in the mind of the narrator as he recalls the flavor of a bit of cake.  The writing is exquisite, and very erudite. What I recall most from my time with Proust was his description of a girl with  “…eyes like the tides…” WOW! Not – “She had blue eyes”, or “She had eyes that locked on you and pulled you in.” He picked a metaphor that gave the girl’s eyes an unexpected power and magnetism that is memorable – and did it with four little words.

I am blown away when an author can give me a description of a place, person, thing or idea that is so perceptive and so original it makes me stop and relish the image they have created.

“All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread." - Toni Morrison, “Beloved”.  What an image! I have no idea what this person looked like but I can see and smell that bread, and feel its texture.

Or this:

“He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." Stephen Crane, “The Red Badge of Courage.”  To describe a war wound as a red badge of courage is brilliant. It is both succinct and visceral. The best fiction is peppered with eye-opening, illuminating metaphors and descriptions such as these. 

The art of the writer is to give us images that surprise us, and excite us. Inspiration for such textural feats is all about us. An artist is always an observer.  A writer is an artist who works in the medium of words, and words can paint pictures as vivid as any Van Gogh.

How often have you seen tree blowing in a storm, or watched a fire crackle, and an amazing description leapt to your mind. You knew you wanted to incorporate it into your writing. It’s often that moment of inspiration that can turn a common description into something amazing.  So, what did you do about it? I used to make a firm commitment to myself to “remember it”.  That never works, alas. What does work, is to keep a small notebook at hand and jot such gems down as you are thinking of them.  Later – take those notes and create a marvelous picture for your reader to delight in. It’s what writing is all about.

Laurie

On the Shoulders of Giants

When I taught high school General Sciences and Biology back in the day, I remember showing a video to my Gen Sci classes that particularly covered great physicists in history.  The narrator stated offered a dramatic statement at the beginning and again at the close.  We students of the physical sciences stood on the shoulders of giants.  Thanks to the pioneering efforts of amazing minds such as Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, and so on, we were able to build upon what they had learned and greatly increase our understanding of the universe.  The rest of the video was forgettable, I suppose, seeing as I have forgotten it.  But the idea of standing on the shoulders of these great scholars stuck with me.

That idea popped into my head again as I read Laurie’s most recent post on books that she loves and what she feels they say about her as a reader and writer.  I have, of course, read a lot of Laurie’s work and I think she sees herself with great clarity.  “Plot-driven” is the perfect term for her focus when she creates a new world and has adventures in them.  Naturally, this led me to wonder about my own focus and preferences. 

Rather than look to the books I read, I decided I’d have a look at which authors I gravitated toward.  Giants, definitely.  Jane Austen, Booth Tarkington, Helen MacInnes, and Mary Stewart occupy large sections of my fiction bookshelves.  More recently, I’ve added the likes of J. K. Rowling, Janet Evanovich, Rick Riordan, and Christopher Moore.  I’ll even admit to the absolute enormous collection of Nancy Drew mysteries (yes, I’ve even collected some first editions over the years).  Eclectic, my bookshelves.  Plenty of variety.  

But what does it say about me as a writer?  Good question.  These authors, so different in era, style, genre – well, in nearly everything, do share a trait in my mind.  These authors create characters.  Strong, vibrant characters with a great deal to say that extends beyond the compass of their stories.  When I look at my own writing, I can see that I aspire to that sort of power in my characters.

Now, as there are risks to focusing on the plot, there are certainly risks involved in a character-driven story.  Has anyone else heard the criticism that Jane Austen really never had a lot of originality in her stories?  I remember feeling outraged when I first read that.  But after a bit of thought, I realized there was some justice in the statement.  Austen’s stories rely on our connection with the women and men who populate her pages.  We have to care deeply about the Lizzies, the Janes, the Emmas, the Fitzwilliams, and the Edwards or none of it really matters.  What saves this is that we DO care about them.  

In the end, this is the story that draws me.  It isn’t that I don’t want tension and action and excitement.  But I really want to connect with the people.  I want to be drawn into their world and feel as if I know them.  I want it their emotions, actions, and well-being to really matter to me.  I want to care what becomes of them.  

Now, if I can just learn to paint a character that strongly…  Oh yeah, and not lose sight of the plot…  

Whew.

~Sandy

Books I Have Loved

Those of us who are trying to write the next great novel are probably partially motivated to it by the books that we’ve personally enjoyed. We all have a list. I have a list, which I admit, changes and expands as time goes on. Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order) and why:

 

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)by J.R.R. Tolkien because it calls to me in the fall. I want to be out on the open road with Frodo and Sam.

The Harry Potter series(7 books) by J.R. Rowling because of the clever plot and endearing characters, and because it’s gotten so many young people to become avid readers.

A Death in Venice by Thomas Mann because in the narrators description of the boy, lies the heart and soul of art.

Damien by Herman Hesse because it gave me a completely different perspective on religion.

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding because it made me laugh and laugh and laugh some more with its dry wit.

The Stand by Stephen King because the corn field scenes were the most frightening thing I’ve ever read.

A Song of Ice and Fire series (5 books) by George R.R. Martin because it is an amazingly and admirably complex fantasy.

The Name of the Wind / A Wise Man’s Fear (2 books)by Richard Rothfuss because it’s a great tale, where the side journeys of the hero are as important as the main quest. That’s not so easy to do.

The Master and Commander series (20 books)by Patrick O’Brian because it does such a uniquely accurate job of presenting the lives of the sailing men of the 1800’s.

Germinal, by Emile Zola, because it defines repression and the despair that results from it in an eloquent and gut-wrenching way.

Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire because he makes poetry a visceral experience.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco because it’s an amazing mystery wrapped in an altogether unexpected plot.

I could continue listing books I love for a long time, but these 12 are a fair representation of what I like and read. (well - I guess it's more like 45 books in all - but who's counting) My point is, my list tilts toward fantasy and history and decidedly away from romance. That's not a judgement, it's simply my personal taste. I think it says that I like a strong experience from a book. I want it to affect me, stab my psyche, make me laugh, cry, scream, wince, grit my teeth and generally, be sucked down the rabbit hole. I enjoy clever symbolism, but also a very plot driven read.

 

What does your own list of most loved books say about you? Can you use that understanding to help you write better?  Can you use that information to look for holes in your writing?

If, like me, you love plot, you might inadvertently sacrifice character development. If you love description, you might lose sight of tension or pace. So, knowing your own likes, and understanding why, can help you focus on those areas where you may be weakest. Try it for yourself.  Make a list and dissect it. Look for patterns in the books you chose, and think about what sorts of things you didn't choose. Self-knowledge can only help you to produce that next great novel!

Laurie