Getting into Writing

[Colt McCoy]

Which great writer was it that was asked to teach a writing class and showed up the first day and said, "If you want to learn to write, what are you doing here? Get the hell out of here and go write something!"

[Zeno]

Write about what you know
Otherwise - it reminds readers
Of the jam between their toes

-Otis Cribblecross

[Dynasty]

I had a minor in writing in college.

By far, the most valuable experience I got out of it was participating in a writing workshop. In a workshop, you basically come to the workshop/class with a story you've written in advance (and probably copies for eveyrone) and read it aloud to other members of the workshop. After the reading, the other members of the shop offer comments and criticism of the story.

The process of the workshop, both reading your own story and commenting on others, was one of the best classroom experiences I've ever had.

So, I'd advise you to find a workshop in your area and see if you can participate.

[Howard Treesong]

I second the Strunk and White guidance. It provides basic rules. Then go read a few paragraphs of GK Chesterton, not for content but rather for the manner in which he can brilliantly violate all of Strunk's rules and still make sense. Here's a short quote from a Chesterton discussion (appearing in his Orthodoxy, or so I recall) on the difference between reason and faith:

But that transcendentalism by which all men live has primarily much the position of the sun in the sky. We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion; it is something both shining and shapeless, at once a blaze and a blur. But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her name.

[wall_st]

My sister is a literature major at santa cruz and recommended me this book:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

I have read about 1/3, so far it is excellent. I would recommend the book to anyone even remotely interested in writing. Lamott is able to portray the everyday realties and anxieties associated with writing in an amazingly entertaining light. The advice is solid without being overbearing and she has quite a bit of experience to back up her opinions.

[george w]

[ QUOTE ]
My sister is a literature major at santa cruz and recommended me this book:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

I have read about 1/3, so far it is excellent. I would recommend the book to anyone even remotely interested in writing. Lamott is able to portray the everyday realties and anxieties associated with writing in an amazingly entertaining light. The advice is solid without being overbearing and she has quite a bit of experience to back up her opinions.

[/ QUOTE ]

i hated this book. she keeps going on and on about how funny she is, but she's not at all.

[somapopper]

I'm about to graduate from Greensboro NC's MFA program, and I used to read the slush pile for a pretty well known literary magazine (at least amongst the people who know literary magazines) so maybe I'm qualified to talk about this.

Fair warning: I have no publications, but I've written two stories that likely could be published in a mid-tier journal. Most of my friends here have taught classes, I haven't as I've won myself the designation of resident [censored] up.

What do you mean when you say want to approach it seriously? Do you just want to write a couple of stories? Would you like to write well enough to impress girls, well enough to be published, well enough to be in the New Yorker?

All of these goals require different levels of commitment and alcoholism.

Writing fiction is hard. It's hard because everything's already been done. It's hard because everything you write has to be in your story for a reason. And it's hard because unlike say, mowing the lawn, nobody gives a damn if you write a short story or not.

I'm tempted to tell you not to pick up the habit, but if you can't be detered, a workshop may be a good idea. It forces you to write something and smart people will help you with how stories are put together.

I've only taken part in workshops in academic settings, but I have heard of local groups of writers who meet and workshop each other's stuff.

Be prepared to see some really atrocious stuff if you do get involved in a workshop. And you're going to have to find a couple nice things to say about those truly terrible stories. I've never met a person who's not very sensitive about their writing.

As for the actual writing: Conflict is the Alpha and the Omega of fiction writing. Without conflict you don't have a story. There's no single more important thing to keep in mind.

You can tell what most good stories are going to be about from the first paragraph, sometimes the first sentence. Usually you've got the conflict the character and the thematics all right up there. After you've read the story once, you go back to that begining and it should be the essence of the story right there for you, only you didn't realize it because it's clever like that.

A prof once said to me that a story should be the perfect character matched to the perfect situation. Not only do you need to have a great plot, but it needs to be most revealing, rich, whatever, when applied to the specific dude you're making suffer through the plot. Like if you write a story about the Titanic going down, your main character is a guy who never left his hometown because he was living this meek terrified little life and now he's saved up for his one great trip and he realizes he's going to die. Only the good version of that.

Characters have to change. This is kind of a drag, but unfortunately hard to get around. It's the "why today" question. Of all the days in this guy's life, why are you telling me about today? The answer of course is invariably, because something important happened today. If nothing changes it wasn't important. Seinfeld, I think, had two rules: nobody ever learns anything, and no hugging. It's great, and it worked brilliantly for them. It would never work for short stories. The good news is that your stories don't have to have any hugging.

In first person stories, the narrator is almost always in some way unreliable. The tension between what the character tells you and what the author indicates is actually going on (through clever author magic) is usually the reason to write in first person.

Also, in first person stories, there usually has to be a reason for the narrator to tell the story. The "I changed," even if it was a bad change, usually takes care of that.

In 3rd person stories you have to manage the distance of the narrator. It's kind of like a camera starting out at the rooftops of a city, and then zooming in to a closeup of the person's face. "Laura Mitt tripped while walking out of her 2nd avenue apartment" is pretty far away, "She couldn't [censored]-- it was unbelieve these damn Sacks high heels," is close. You can keep the POV steady or you can come in and then stay close. It usually doesn't work to be moving all over the place with it though.

Futuristic vampire hunters do not make a good story. I say this because a friend of mine once had two people turn in futuristic vampire hunter stories for the same workshop.

Assuming you want to write what is normally refered to as "literary fiction" rather than genre fiction (i.e. fantasy, scifi, romance, etc.) here are some other stories that you should stay away from:

stories about funerals, about high school or college lovers, about an American on a whirlwind trip through Europe, about alcoholics being [censored] to the people they love, about groups of alcoholics being [censored] to each other, about a poor abused child, about two people having a conversation in any way related to abortion, about the redemptive power of Christmas, about the redemptive power of love, about the redemptive power of anything, about war (if you've never been), about sporting contests of any kind, about small precocious children that are wiser than the adults who are supposed to be the ones in charge, about a striper, prostitute with a heart of gold, about the supposedly crazy man who is, in fact, not crazy but the most sane, about writers (or about painters which is fiction code for writers), and about [insert your own funny list closer].

Don't use two words when one will do. Flowery description is inherently boring, and when people actually like it, it's usually because it's one of the rare times in fiction where it makes sense and is called for.

Ok, this post is too long. GL James.

[LearnedfromTV]

somapopper you write well.

Thank you for the post.

[JMP300z]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm about to graduate from Greensboro NC's MFA program, and I used to read the slush pile for a pretty well known literary magazine (at least amongst the people who know literary magazines) so maybe I'm qualified to talk about this.

Fair warning: I have no publications, but I've written two stories that likely could be published in a mid-tier journal. Most of my friends here have taught classes, I haven't as I've won myself the designation of resident [censored] up.

What do you mean when you say want to approach it seriously? Do you just want to write a couple of stories? Would you like to write well enough to impress girls, well enough to be published, well enough to be in the New Yorker?

All of these goals require different levels of commitment and alcoholism.

Writing fiction is hard. It's hard because everything's already been done. It's hard because everything you write has to be in your story for a reason. And it's hard because unlike say, mowing the lawn, nobody gives a damn if you write a short story or not.

I'm tempted to tell you not to pick up the habit, but if you can't be detered, a workshop may be a good idea. It forces you to write something and smart people will help you with how stories are put together.

I've only taken part in workshops in academic settings, but I have heard of local groups of writers who meet and workshop each other's stuff.

Be prepared to see some really atrocious stuff if you do get involved in a workshop. And you're going to have to find a couple nice things to say about those truly terrible stories. I've never met a person who's not very sensitive about their writing.

As for the actual writing: Conflict is the Alpha and the Omega of fiction writing. Without conflict you don't have a story. There's no single more important thing to keep in mind.

You can tell what most good stories are going to be about from the first paragraph, sometimes the first sentence. Usually you've got the conflict the character and the thematics all right up there. After you've read the story once, you go back to that begining and it should be the essence of the story right there for you, only you didn't realize it because it's clever like that.

A prof once said to me that a story should be the perfect character matched to the perfect situation. Not only do you need to have a great plot, but it needs to be most revealing, rich, whatever, when applied to the specific dude you're making suffer through the plot. Like if you write a story about the Titanic going down, your main character is a guy who never left his hometown because he was living this meek terrified little life and now he's saved up for his one great trip and he realizes he's going to die. Only the good version of that.

Characters have to change. This is kind of a drag, but unfortunately hard to get around. It's the "why today" question. Of all the days in this guy's life, why are you telling me about today? The answer of course is invariably, because something important happened today. If nothing changes it wasn't important. Seinfeld, I think, had two rules: nobody ever learns anything, and no hugging. It's great, and it worked brilliantly for them. It would never work for short stories. The good news is that your stories don't have to have any hugging.

In first person stories, the narrator is almost always in some way unreliable. The tension between what the character tells you and what the author indicates is actually going on (through clever author magic) is usually the reason to write in first person.

Also, in first person stories, there usually has to be a reason for the narrator to tell the story. The "I changed," even if it was a bad change, usually takes care of that.

In 3rd person stories you have to manage the distance of the narrator. It's kind of like a camera starting out at the rooftops of a city, and then zooming in to a closeup of the person's face. "Laura Mitt tripped while walking out of her 2nd avenue apartment" is pretty far away, "She couldn't [censored]-- it was unbelieve these damn Sacks high heels," is close. You can keep the POV steady or you can come in and then stay close. It usually doesn't work to be moving all over the place with it though.

Futuristic vampire hunters do not make a good story. I say this because a friend of mine once had two people turn in futuristic vampire hunter stories for the same workshop.

Assuming you want to write what is normally refered to as "literary fiction" rather than genre fiction (i.e. fantasy, scifi, romance, etc.) here are some other stories that you should stay away from:

stories about funerals, about high school or college lovers, about an American on a whirlwind trip through Europe, about alcoholics being [censored] to the people they love, about groups of alcoholics being [censored] to each other, about a poor abused child, about two people having a conversation in any way related to abortion, about the redemptive power of Christmas, about the redemptive power of love, about the redemptive power of anything, about war (if you've never been), about sporting contests of any kind, about small precocious children that are wiser than the adults who are supposed to be the ones in charge, about a striper, prostitute with a heart of gold, about the supposedly crazy man who is, in fact, not crazy but the most sane, about writers (or about painters which is fiction code for writers), and about [insert your own funny list closer].

Don't use two words when one will do. Flowery description is inherently boring, and when people actually like it, it's usually because it's one of the rare times in fiction where it makes sense and is called for.

Ok, this post is too long. GL James.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good post. And I second stephen king's on writing. I had never read any of his stuff but flew through this book last week.

I know its obvious but the best advice is to read and write as much as possible. Read a book a week, write at least an hour a day.

Some recent short story collections I've read and enjoyed include Amy Hempel's Reasons to Live, Peter Ho Davies Equal Love, and my favorite, Borges Labrynths.

Also, Pm'd you.

-JP

[GetThere1Time]

James,


Before I left college to play poker, (lol) I had a great deal of writing classes and was interested in pursuing a career in journalism. A couple suggesions:

Read things where the voice has an unusual of flavorful take on mundane circumstances. A primary source of my inspiration were Hunter S. Thompson's newer ESPN articles where he'd take a seemingly boring sport event and put his own colorful twist on things. Attention to detail has always been key to me. When you go into great detail about things that naturally appeal to the senses, but may tend to be overlooked, you learn to create a mental image for the reader that envelops them, which imo is my favorite part about writing; paint an image with words so realistic that its hard not to get engrossed in the text.

I also suggest writing a blog like others have said for similar reasons. Set a goal for yourself to post so many times a week, no matter how drab things might get. When you force yourself to create a story from things that might otherwise seem boring, you stretch the imagination to dramatize and sensitize the most menial things in life.