Creative Writing 101

Since the post with quotes from famous authors the other day was pretty popular, I've decided to do another one. I found these writing rules from Kurt Vonnegut a couple years back, while I was researching a term paper for a class on contemporary authorship. It comes from the introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box. Vonnegut writes:

Now lend me your ears.  Here is Creative Writing 101:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist.  No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person.  If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible.  To heck with suspense.  Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964).  She broke practically every one of my rules but the first.  Great writers tend to do that.


All of these rules make sense to me, except for number eight. I think that all stories require suspense. I would ideally want the reader to be furious if cockroaches ate the last few pages, because they were that eager to find out how the story would end.


What about you? Do you have any writing rules that you live by? If so, what are they?

THE UNWRITTEN, VOLUME 1: TOMMY TAYLOR AND THE BOGUS IDENTITY by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

 

978-1401225650

I don't read many graphic novels, although Big Chimp introduced me to Neil Gaiman's work a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed the Sandman series. This graphic novel is similar (not surprisingly as the author also wrote the Lucifer series, a spin-off of Sandman) in that it is packed with many literary and historical references, making it more of an adult-level read. The illustrations, done by Peter Gross, are vivid and do a great job of setting the mood of the story.

Tom Taylor is the son of best-selling writer Wilson Taylor, author of a wildly successful fantasy series starring Tom as a (Harry Potter-esque) boy wizard. Ever since Wilson mysteriously disappeared -- leaving his son none of his immense fortune -- Tom has been forced to earn a living making appearances as his magical alter ego, Tommy, at comic book conventions. But suddenly things turn very strange. A cult springs up, members of which believe that Tom Taylor is actually his fictional counterpart brought to life by magic. And lurking in the shadows is a powerful group that seems to control literature for its own sinister ends. Could members of this group be behind the malicious rumors that Tom Taylor killed his father, and was Wilson even Tom's father at all? The solution may lie in Wilson's mysterious map, which marks the geographical locations of all the major novels in the western canon. As crazed fans call for his assassination, and self-professed "characters" from his father's books begin to make contact with him, Tom wonders just how firm the line between fact and fiction really is... and whether it exists at all.

I really enjoyed reading The Unwritten, and I'm looking forward to the next volume. I loved the overload of literary allusions: there was Harry Potter, obviously, but there were also references to Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and Mark Twain. And there was plenty of philosophical discussion about the power and importance of stories, which appealed to me, but the book definitely wasn't short on plot. There was plenty of action, suspense, and just plain gore to go around.

I would recommend this book to anyone familiar with, and interested in, the western literary tradition. You don't have to be a comic book fan to appreciate it. The only real complaint I have is that the cursive handwriting in certain sections is difficult to read. And for those less acquainted with the classics, the long section told from Kipling's point of view might be a bit on the tedious side. Overall there's plenty here for fans of fantasy, horror, and the classics to be excited about, as well as those who are interested in the power of stories and the ways in which they help shape society.

Authors' words of wisdom

I found this post on writing advice from famous authors on the Guardian Book Blog today.

A few of my favorites:

Elmore Leonard:

~ Using adverbs is a mortal sin. [This is one that I sometimes struggle with; for some reason I'm always tempted to over-describe: "She said softly;" "He looked pleadingly at the judge," etc.]

Roddy Doyle:

~ Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Geoff Dyer:

~ Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.

~ Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

Anne Enright:

~ Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

Richard Ford:

~ Don't have children.

Neil Gaiman:

~ Write.

David Hare:

~ The two most depressing words in the English language are "literary fiction." [I'm beginning to think so too... I do like a lot of books that are considered literary fiction, but I've read just as many lately that just seem overly mopey and boring. But maybe that's just me.]

PD James:

~ Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

~ Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.

Michael Morpurgo:

~ The prerequisite for me is to keep my well of ideas full. This means living as full and varied a life as possible, to have my antennae out all the time.

Zadie Smith:

~ Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet. [This is what got me through my MA dissertation.]

Sarah Waters:

~ Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end.

Jeanette Winterson:

~ Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.

~ Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.

Joyce Carol Oates:

~ Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.

Reading Plans Gone Awry

I've become horribly distracted with my reading lately. I had been reading Zadie Smith's White Teeth, as well as Grimoires: A History of Magic Books by Owen Davies (research for my YA fantasy novel). And then the boyfriend (Big Chimp) and  I went to London for a day to see James Earl Jones in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and to patronize our favorite indie cinema, the Curzon. While we were wandering around Soho we went into a couple of those neat old secondhand book shops full of narrow creaking stairs and hidden basement nooks, and in one of those nooks I found a hardback copy of one of my favorite books ever: Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams.

I first discovered Tad Williams as a child when my mom and I read his amazing fantasy novel Tailchaser's Song. And then as a teenager I discovered the Otherland series and was completely blown away. It was such an epic adventure, so fast-paced and exciting and yet with such a unique and diverse set of characters. There are some books that when you read them you can actually feel your imagination expanding, and this is one of those books.

The novel takes place in the near future, when the Internet has become a series of almost endless virtual reality worlds, the realism of which is only limited by the quality of equipment one can afford. But something sinister is going on: a group called the Grail Brotherhood, composed of the richest and most corrupt people on earth, is using the Net to pursue their dreams of immortality, gravely injuring thousands of people in the process. And now an unlikely group of heroes -- including an African college professor, a "bushman" computer science student, and an American teenager with progeria -- are trapped in a never ending array of virtual reality worlds, fleeing from the Brotherhood while trying to find the answers that will both free them and cure those afflicted by the mysterious, VR-inflicted illness.

So that's why I haven't yet finished and reviewed the books in the Currently Reading column. I don't have any of the other books in the Otherland series (well, I do, but they're safely tucked away in my bookshelf in my old bedroom in California), so I'll get dutifully back to my reading list as soon as I'm finished with City of Golden Shadow.

Oh, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? It was amazing, of course.

THE 19TH WIFE by David Ebershoff

ISBN: 9780552774987 (UK)

"It's funny, they call us the lost boys when we get kicked out, but really, we were lost the day we were born."

Another of the books I got for Christmas, David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife is the story of lost boy Jordan Scott, who at 14 is kicked out of the polygamous Mormon sect in which he was raised; left along a desert highway with only a few dollars and a knapsack containing his sacred underwear. Six years later Jordan is eking out a living in California when his father's murder draws him back to the remote desert town where he spent his childhood. Accused of the crime, imprisoned, and possibly facing execution is Jordan's mother -- his father's 19th wife. 

Intertwined with Jordan's narrative is that of Ann Eliza Young, an actual historical figure who was the 19th wife of the Mormon church's second prophet, Brigham Young. Set over a hundred years before Jordan's story, Ann Eliza's story is (somewhat confusingly) a fictionalized version of a book she actually wrote, Wife No. 19, which was published in 1876. The book deals largely with her rejection of plural marriage, and her campaign against it after her divorce from Brigham in 1875.

While Ann Eliza's story, called "The 19th Wife" in Ebershoff's novel, gives a lot of historical information about polygamy and the Mormon religion, which is interesting, I felt that at times the book was too heavily historical, and to me this took away from the more interesting plot line of the murder mystery. There seemed to be several chapters of Ann Eliza's life story for every one or two chapters of Jordan's narrative, which broke the tension of the latter plot line. It felt like Jordan's story wasn't quite enough to make up a full novel on its own, so the historical stuff was padding to prop it up.

There are also many short documents scattered throughout the book: excerpts from fictional websites, instant messages, online discussion forums, church archive records, letters, and Wikipedia entries. These are brief and I think they add to the story in a realistic way, creating layers in the mystery of Jordan's father's murder. However, there is one chapter in particular that is meant to be a graduate-level research paper, written by a minor character who is studying at the Women's Research Institute at Brigham Young University. The paper, far from being graduate level, is a straightforward summary without a thesis statement or adequate citations. It's also written in a horribly informal tone, which would never be acceptable for an academic paper. I found this break in realism very distracting, and it took away from my enjoyment of the novel. I think it's a cool idea to include different sources and points of view in a historical novel, but I don't think the author executed it well in this instance.

That being said, the book was otherwise very well written, well researched, and provocative. I could sympathize with all of the main characters, especially Jordan and Johnny, a lost boy he meets on the road and tries to help. And it was interesting to look into the world of the polygamous enclave of Mesadale (based on the actual town of Hildale, Utah) the "Firsts" (a fictional name that refers to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and their doctrine of celestial marriage. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of the Mormon church and/or polygamy.

eBooks and iBooks, &tc.

So the iPad seems to have launched a chain of events that led to Amazon.com pulling every book published by MacMillan? The disagreement had to do with ebook prices - Amazon wants to sell all ebooks for $9.99 and MacMillan wants to sell them for more - but all MacMillan titles, both ebooks and regular books, were pulled. Since I'm no expert on the subject, here's a good summary of the Amazon/MacMillan situation from the Washington Post. In the end, Amazon relented and agreed to let MacMillan sell their ebook titles on the website for more than $9.99. Which I think is good. I mean, the content of an ebook is the same as that in a hard copy of the same title, right? So why should they be worth less?

Here's what I think would be cool: if you could get the hard copy and the electronic copy of a book in one go. Like with CDs. You buy an album and you get all the cool artwork, and the physical disc, and the case you can put in a plastic tower in your room with all your other cases so that all your friends can see what awesome taste in music you have. But you also get to rip the music to your computer and put it on your portable music-playing device. Wouldn't it be cool if in the future you could buy a physical book that would come with a little chip tucked into the back cover or somewhere, that would allow you to upload the book to your computer and then to your portable reading device? It would be the best of both worlds: you could choose whether you wanted to read the hard copy or the ebook, or you could switch between the two. Oh, and all titles would be universally playable on all portable reading devices. Okay, so it's probably a daft idea that wouldn't work for all sorts of logical reasons, but seriously, how amazing would that be?