how to write

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A Gotta-Have Book For Writers And a Rare Tumblemoose Contest

Posted by george on June 22, 2011
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , . 7 comments

I was contacted by a most personable fellow a few weeks back. He had a query about my writing a review for the book on writing he had put together. I agreed to have a look at the book (e-book version) and he sent me the .pdf right away. Having written an ebook myself on writing, I was anxious to see Bryan’s take on the matter. I wasn’t just pleasantly surprised, I was bowled over. To say he and I are on the same page would be an understatement.

Writer on the Side is not just another writing book admonishing you to just write every day and all will be well. Bryan has taken a systematic approach to scheduling your day around what needs to be done in order to write and to be a writer. In the introduction he pleads,

Please, please, please, try at least one of the things in this book. Hell, get a friend at work in a similar boat to do the same thing. Push each other to take some action. Whatever you need to do to get your motor running, make it so!

Pretty straightforward stuff. He wants you to succeed. The thing is, you can tell he means it. His advice is heartfelt and true. As you work through the 60 pages of this book, you may recognize a few tips that are fairly standard but I’ll bet you find a lot more that are original in concept and delivery.

This writing book is not just about the writing. It’s about a writing life. I think that all true writers want the writing life. What that means is probably different for each of us but Bryan puts the foundation in place that is necessary to support a beautiful structure. What that structure looks like is up to you.

Bryan’s done a good job here and I encourage you to check his book out.

Oh, that’s right. I mentioned a contest, didn’t I? Bryan has generously offered to provide a .pdf copy of his book to someone who comments on this review. One week from today I’ll close comments, count ‘em up and use a random generator to determine the winner.

Sound good? I thought so.

Bryan Cohen has published four books, two plays and is working on his first novella. Writer on the Side is available on Amazon in digital or paperback form. Check out his writing blog Build Creative Writing Ideas. He is a full-time author and freelance writer in Chicago, Illinois.”

Entertain The Write Idea

Posted by george on July 21, 2010
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , . 20 comments

Whenever I sit down to write something, I’m often uncertain where it is going to lead.  This is certainly true with any fiction piece (including flash fiction) and more and more it seems to be true for any blog posts that I write.  I’ve been blessed with a sharp titling sense (IMHO) so a lot of times a post or even a fiction piece of mine will start with a title.  Where it goes from there is anybody’s guess.

To entertain the write idea, you do not need to have the whole work flushed out in your head from the get-go.  If you are one of those lucky people who have that ability then I say good on ya and sally forth.  For the rest of us, starting with an idea is plenty good enough.  Either method is okay, and the important thing is that if you are not writing because you haven’t been able to complete the idea then you need to give yourself permission to just go ahead and start.  Have faith that the words and the concept will develop, because they surely will.

If your blog is a WordPress product, then there is a really great tool that you can use to help you through the rough patches of completing a post.  Even if you just have a title and a sentence or two you can just hit the “save draft” button and then each time you log in to your dashboard, there it will sit, staring you in the face and reminding you that you have a job to finish.  Right now, my dashboard has the titles: Going Mobile Nearly Killed My Writing, The Blog Model Is Broken, I’m Not  A Big Copyblogger Fan, and I Will Not Work For Free.

Will those titles ever get published?  Hmmm.  Maybe.  it depends I guess.  I’m not too inspired to complete any of them at the moment although I will say I was all hot and bothered when I first started them.  I reserve the right to finish them.  Or not.  So there.  :-)

An important point about entertaining the write idea is that you never really know how any one article is going to be received.  I’ve written stuff with the intention of sleeping with my phone until the Pulitzer people called.  Others, I’ve thought “Oh well, at least it’s a blog post.”  Wanna guess which ones generate the most traffic and comments?  Hehe.  You guessed it.  The point here is to not not finish something because it is not your masterpiece.  What you think may be useful and what the audience thinks may be two different things entirely.

Finally, it’s best to keep the thought of entertaining in the back of your head while you are writing most anything.  I know that some are more adept at the entertainment aspect of an informational post and for others it’s a real struggle.  I recommend trying to spread your wings just a bit.  The best way to help make things entertaining is to remove a bit of the formality out of your writing.  This is almost always easier said than done but what the hey, it’s worth a try, right?  What’s the worst that can happen?  Comments encouraging you to not quit your day job?  I love those.

How is your writing process working for you?  Do you entertain your writing ideas or do things just kinda fall in place?

Are you destined to be one kind of writer?

Posted by george on July 19, 2009
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , . 32 comments

Listen to the Podcast

  oldbooksI’ve been a very fortunate writer.  The very first article I wrote for my company newsletter – which was the very first article I ever wrote – took off like its pants were on fire and its butt was catchin’.  That led to publication in trade journals and contracts to write textbooks and workbooks and such.  At that time the closest thing to fiction for me was an entry into a literary competition that was based on an EMS call and it got me an Honorable Mention.  I figure, “Yeah, I’ve been pretty fortunate as a writer.”

In the past year or so, since I decided to be a writer on a full time basis, almost all of my writing (and certainly any writing that has brought in money) has been non-fiction.  I’ve been blessed with a writing style and conversational voice that lends itself very well to writing blog posts, SEO optimized articles and lots of “how to” stuff.  I’m happy to do it and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I got no story

As a writer, the crowning jewel of achievement would be a novel that ends up a best-seller.  In my mind, all of the other writing that I do is kind of a prep school for that achievement.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other writers who feel just the same way.

So I’ve got this great writing voice, most of the grammar chops and an understanding -albeit basic- about the business end of things.  Cranking out a novel should be no problem.  That’s what I thought.  There’s only one problem:

I got no story.  None.  Sure, I’ve written some short fiction and a flash fiction piece or two but nothing stands out as remarkable.  I do ok with the short fiction because I can start and finish strong.  Both of my novels however, are stalled at about the 20 page mark.  Why?  ‘Cause I got no story.  Both of them have -ahem- awesome starts.  Great dialogue and I feel like the reader would be captured.  At about 20 pages in they fizzle because I’ve got NFI where to go.  The canvas is too wide open, too broad.

What to do

The way I see it, there are two ways to go:

I could start outlining, get some coaching and use some story organization software.  I’m not sure that would help with not being able to story my way out of a paper bag, but I probably owe it to myself to try.

or

I could resign myself to the fact that maybe some writers aren’t fiction writers.  It may be that writing talent does not universally cross all types of writing.  I could focus on publishing non-fiction books and continue ghostwriting and such.

Which leads me to the title of this post.  Do you think that writers can do it all?  Are writers inherently “gifted” in one particular area?

Tell me what you think. Do you feel destined to be one kind of writer?

Novel writing basics, part two

Posted by george on July 10, 2009
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , . 11 comments

s41089cb107780_35_1In the first post of this writing series I covered (albeit lightly) the topics of genre, protagonist, plot and some length guidelines.  I’d like to continue on today with a little discussion about dialogue and foreshadowing.  Both of these techniques are critical to master for any novelist.  Some folks are lucky and their skills are natural in these areas, most of the rest of us need to work on it a bit.

Dialogue

Good dialogue moves a story along.  It provides rich character detail.  It entertains.  It makes us laugh or cry.

Bad dialogue gets you thinking that maybe Bradbury had it right with Fahrenheit 451.

One of the best (and most quoted) pieces of writing advice is to show – not tell.  Dialogue allows us to do this.  Think about this:  Picture someone in your internet community who you follow.  You read their blog and tweet with them on a regular basis.  Do you know them?  Do you have a picture in your mind of who they are, their traits, their qualities?  Did you learn these things by the person telling you or did they show you through their writing and their actions?  Their blog posts and their tweets are their “dialogue” with the world.    Dialogue is your opportunity to let the world learn about your characters.  See how important it is?

Here’s a great big, fat tip:  Minimize your dialogue tags.  In other words, “He shouted angrily” sucks.  Don’t do it.  Use words to demonstrate the feelings.  Said works best.  Remember that.

I just got through slugging my way through a book by Stuart Woods in which almost the entire novel was written using dialogue.  If it wasn’t for the fact that the dialogue rang hollow and was a bit stilted, it would have been a great way to move things forward.

Final tip:  Go find one of your fav books.  Read through it to see how the author handled the dialogue.  Learn what you can from it, emulate it.

Foreshadow

A foreshadow is nothing more than a hint or a tease about something that may happen in the future.  It’s a great technique to build suspense.  Some folks make it more complicated  than it needs to be so don’t get all jacked up about it, okay?

A foreshadow can be in your face, blatant and impossible to miss.  In that case, it creates some suspense that we keep in the back of our mind awating the fruition of events.  We want to see how the author is going to wrap that little thing up.

Other times, the foreshadowing is much more subtle.  In fact, we may not even realize that the technique was used until we reach an “Ahh, that’s why so-and-so said or did such-and-such!” towards the end of the story.

It’s easy to practice foreshadowing.  Take something you’ve written and work a little tease into the beginning of the piece, pointing to a future event.  See how it changes the flavor and flow of the story.

Just like dialogue, some will have the foreshadowing gene and others will have to work the technique a bit.

Final tip:  Pick a novel that you love and know by heart.  Do a quick re-read of the book and highlight any of the passages or sentences that you believe are foreshadowing.  How did the author phrase it?  Where did they place them?  Pay attention to these attributes and you will see patterns emerge that you can use in your own writing.

Oh, and be careful.  If you foreshadow something early on, you had better address it at some point or your readers will hunt  you down and beat you like the dog you are.

Sorry folks.  Too wordy on this post so point of view will be tackled in part three of this series, along with chapter length.

Comment, please.  Is this series too basic?  Is it too “been there done that?”  Anything in particular you’d like to see included?