Category: #amwriting

I Answer Some Questions about Writing 15

4/2/2021

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The work-in-progress can be unruly....

Yes, still BYOQ....

They demonstrate something about writing that students need to know.
I do.
But—not necessarily autobiographical. Just something you see/hear/touch transformed into a—story.
Flannery O'Connor once said that by the time a person is 17 years old, they have experienced everything there is to experience in life.
(Think about whether or not that is true, or how it might be true...).
We'll stick with imagery and emotion.
But if you want to write a sonnet or a villanelle, have at it....
Go read some writers from @120 or so years ago—someone walks into a room and there's page after page of room description.
Yeah. No. We don't see the world like that anymore.
Look at it this way:
Your protagonist walks into a room.
What do they see?
What do they see that's important?
Focus on what's important.
Gatsby was out of print when Scott Fitzgerald died. Moby-Dick was forgotten when Melville died. They both died thinking they were failures.
Me, History can look after itself. I try to live in the near-future (or the near-past)....
Some cases of Writer's Block are a form of depression and can be treated with SSRIs. Most (way the most) cases of writer's block are merely the voice of the writer's internal editor telling the writer that they are not good enough. We all have that voice. The trick is--to slip past it and get work done....
We can discuss "how-to" as the semester progresses.
For anyone interested in this subject (and I get questions about writer's block all the time), I highly recommend The Midnight Disease, by Alice Flaherty. The best book on writing....
You don't. At all.
Once a story (book, poem, whatever) leaves your hands it's not yours any more. It belongs to whomever reads it.
And—they might not like it. You have no control over whether someone likes your work or not.
What you have control on—total control—is the text itself.
Write for yourself.
Nope, no prescribed topic.
The cw teacher and novelist John Gardener once said that there are only three basic stories:
…the romance/relationship story….
…stranger rides into town….
…hero sets off to find their fortune….
So...you'll end up writing one of those stories. You'll be fine!
I'm glad you asked this question!
When I was young? I wish I’d found a (better) way to deal with depression.
Nope. I wish more students would write horror.
Excellent!
Me, I'd just read the whole thing. It's short....
Yep, you do the readings and writing assignments outside, on your own.
We'll be talking things over—the readings, these questions, stories, poems, weather, whatever....
There are indeed reasons for this—very good reasons, to my mind. But it's easier to explain orally than in writing--
Thanks for asking this question!
The revised edition is fine!
I usually ask for six poems as part of the poetry assignment....
But you can write as many as you want (and probably should...).
Yes—our class is a little literary community. And we Venn Diagram out into the larger Literary Community....
You sure can! Start a conversation! Express yourself--
That's a good thing!
I'm pushing you more towards free verse. But if you want to write a sonnet or a villanelle, that's fine....
It's always good to see other people when you talk to them, and see the occasional cat or dog wandering by....
But if you have a problem with it, that's fine. Put yourself first.
(Last semester a young man zoomed in from a hot tub. He won the semester).
Sure—every text has multiple audiences. Here are some that you will have:
Me
The other people in this class
An ideal audience that you would like to write for
Keep all of audiences in mind. At the same time, write something that reflects your own heart.
It's tricky!
In our zoom meetings, I'll go over these questions and answer some of them at length, and maybe I'll go over a story or two or we'll look at some slides or whatever....
Basically, we'll talk about writing. That's my teaching method....
It's due at 1159pm...
It might be nice to read it before class, but not required....
I sure hope so! But people are individuals, and will react individually to different things.
Maybe an appreciation for the complexity of this beautiful and fascinating and tragic world...?
My fave part changes every semester. My favorite film in this class is "The Big Lebowski," which we'll close the semester with....
Nope. We will press on relentlessly.
The pandemic teaches us to be flexible and resilient. If we have to cancel a class meeting...we'll find a way to get around it....
Usually a work set in the Southwest. Or maybe about characters from the Southwest doing things elsewhere....
But usually—almost always—setting....
Where we live affects how we live. A story set in the gloomy rainy forests of the Northwest will have a different feel from a story set in the arid Southwest...And the characters will be doing different things and have different priorities....
Sure. (See above). Where we live affects how we live.
Maybe 10 days or so....
Just do the work.
I often get this question in my creative writing classes. My usual response is, "You don't have to 'like' something to learn from it."
(That said—it's more fun when you "like" something. Try pretending to "like" something).
You can also make the class into a game, to keep yourself amused. (This is how I got through grad school).
One of the cool things about teaching a class is that I get to choose books/movies I like....
But as the course proceeds you will see, I think, that there are thematic connections between them....
Oh, yes. For one thing, we're online instead of face-to-face. That makes a big difference in how we relate to one another.
And this has caused some changes in material. For example, I use far less visual art than I would ftf. Less emphasis on music and food....
I teach Texas Lit occasionally. There is some overlap between the two courses, since Texas is partially in the Southwest. But part of Texas is also in the South. And while the Panhandle is part of the Southwest, it is also part of the Great Plains....
So—in Texas Lit, I try to represent all regions of the state....
We are going to cover the books faster than I would like (or you would like, probably)....
But the readings slack up toward the end of the semester....
They are essays. I will post three or four prompts, you'll choose one of them, and write an essay....
I'll put the prompt up maybe 10 days before the due date.
There are a lot of places that have used copies of these books—so, shop around.
You will need to purchase the books.
As I think I said upthread, I think you will see themes emerges. The texts talk to one another....
I deal a lot with writer's block—both as a novelist and as a teacher. Most of the time it is merely a writer's Internal Editor telling the writer that what they are writing is not good enough.
I am here to tell you that what you are writing—will write in this class—is good enough.
The trick is to find a way to believe that and integrate it into your writing/studying practice.
We can discuss this in more detail going forward.
One of the best classes I had as an undergrad was "Art and Photographic History of the American West." It was great! And then I got a nice summer gig as a research assistant for the prof, Dr William Goetzmann. Here's his book: The West of the Imagination
My fave visual art—painting, probably. Though photography is great, too.
In class I just run some slides past you....
It's pretty basic—environment, violence, race, family, gender. How do these elements work in the texts we cover...?
The region we're looking at was once part of Mexico, and there are plenty of Latinx people living in it and telling stories....
So, sure--
You can get by just using the class readings, sure. But you might want to dig a little deeper and use other sources....
Sure. I won't offer a detailed written critique (there is not enough time!), but I can give you some ideas in office hours.
Sure, if someone gets close I usually bump them up....
I got interested in SW Lit back when I was the Dobie Fellow—I got stranded out there for five weeks—the low-water crossing was flooded, so I read a pile of books by Dobie and his friends....
Books that speak to me. Books that speak to the diversity of the Southwest. Those are the main criteria....
Grading is the least favorite part of this job! It's WORK!
What makes grading difficult is knowing that so many students place a high priority on their grades....
Basically, go north on I-35 until you hit Wichita, KS. Then hang a left and keep going west until you hit the Pacific Ocean. Everything to your West and South is the...Southwest.....
We might look at some maps on Thursday.....
Yep—at one time Tennessee was the Southwest. (Ohio was the Northwest!)
But you can see how this was formed, right? By someone standing in Boston or New York and looking...West....
How did the people who lived out here conceive of where they were when they looked...east? Or anywhere?
Write a (good) short story. I
And you definitely want to pay close attention to the Christine Granados book--she is a fine short story writer.
This is a tough question! Every writer we read will have an individual style....The style that works best is one that has an encompassing vision of wherever the writer is located in space or time….
You can be several things: I'm an Appalachian Writer, I’m a Texas Writer, I’m a Southwestern Writer....and I'm an academic who is interested in Regional Literatures....
Don't be a perfectionist. Nothing is more deadly to a writer than perfectionism.
Know that whatever you write will be flawed because ALL TEXTS ARE FLAWED.
Accept that, and work to make your text(s) better.
And, most of all: KEEP—MOVING—FORWARD
They are all available at the library. You can also find cheap used copies.
Believe it or not, they are all faves in different ways—they all speak to different aspects of my personality and writerly being....
"Write what you know" is a convention that privileges experience. It's not totally wrong! But it’s definitely not totally right!
Here are two ways to look at it:
There are different ways of knowing. (Physical, emotional, etc).
You can write what you learn. Creative writers do research!

"Is this your text? Do you know it's flawed?"

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I Answer Some Questions About Writing 13

3/5/2021

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The struggle.

As always, BYOQ...

Keeping notes is a really good idea! Most poets I know have overflowing notebooks with all sorts of ideas and inspirations....
Prose or poetry, I write to come to a better understanding of the world I live in....it's an absurd & ridiculous & mysterious place! Writing helps me sort it all out....
I didn't write my first poem until I was 42 or so years old. I was in grad school, and I was working at a really fine literary journal, Callaloo.
The editor was a poet, the managing editor was a poet, and the young woman I shared a workstation with was a poet. And so I started writing poems, just to keep up with them all. And I was so lucky, because the managing editor, Adrian Matejka, is a really really fine poet, and he was around the critique my work. And I got a few poems published right away....
But! My first poems were all narrative poems. They were short stories that didn't work as short stories, and so I stripped them down layer by layer until there was only 12 or 14 lines left. You can do this too!
I don't know. But a lot, I hope, because you deserve a lot!
(All of you deserve a lot!)
We learn from Alice Flaherty's Midnight Disease, my favorite book about writing, that "writer's block" is a real thing, related to depression, and can be treated with SSRIs like Prozac.
But--
—most people do not have true writer's block. They have an interior editor that tells them that their work isn't any good and will not be any good.
All writers have an internal editor. I sure do! As writers we have to find a way to shut up that voice, dodge around it, suppress it.
A trick that works for me: timed writing sessions. Set the timer on your phone for 20 or 25 minutes (no more than 25). Then just—write—until the timer beeps. Do not stop to think! Do not pause at all! DO not take your hands from the keyboard or pen! And when the timer beeps and you're done, go do something else.
This works. I've written several books this way.
You'll have to experiment around and find the best time for you. Me, I write at night, and I'm most productive from @1100pm to @100am.
I'm a huge procrastinator, too. The easiest thing in the world is to not write—this is true for everyone.
I hate getting started. But once I start, I'm fine.
Most of the time we'll never know the relationship of poet and poem. (Or writer/writing of any kind). Once you get to grad school you'll have theory dealing with the "implied author" but until then just assume that the narrator is the narrator, unless the author tells you differently.
Poems tend to be more personal than stories--there are fewer places to hide in a poem.
Poems seem best drawn from any sort of concrete (not abstract) human experience--for experience that is physical and involved with the world....
I would always prefer that students analyze a text rather than talk about their feelings about the text—analysis over autobiography. (I’m thinking this is somewhat of a pandemic problem, since if we met three times a week ftf, I’d be bugging people about this constantly). When a person says that they “like” or “don’t like” a story, they’re not really talking about the story—they’re talking about their own feelings.
(Liking or not liking a text is of course fun when you’re reading like a civilian, but a university class is not a book club).
The discussion of likeability in female characters is something that has been floating around the literary world for the past ten years or so. We can all see that the patriarchy puts constraints on “acceptable” standards of women’s behavior. Many readers carry those constraints over into their reading, and negatively judge female characters in a story or novel or film. Male characters are usually judged far less harshly than women characters, even when they are doing much the same thing.
As writers we might strive to be perceptive, rather than judgmental. To wildly paraphrase Anton Chekhov, ‘I don’t need to say that stealing horses is evil. Everyone knows stealing horses is evil. I want to write about why people steal horses.’
(So…why does Monica behave the way she does? (Hint—whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s not really hypocrisy)).
Roxane Gay has written a terrific essay on this topic. A quote: “In many ways, likability is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be. Characters who don't follow this code become unlikable. Critics who fault a character's unlikability cannot necessarily be faulted. They are merely expressing a wider cultural malaise with all things unpleasant, all things that dare to breach the norm of social acceptability… Why is likability even a question? Why are we so concerned with, whether in fact or fiction, someone is likable? Unlikable is a fluid designation that can be applied to any character who doesn't behave in a way the reader finds palatable.”
In short—as a reader, it’s (mostly, probably) perfectly okay to find the behavior of a fictional character repellent! But as a writer you should be analyzing how and why the author created this character the way they are and how they used language to get the character across….
Having a super-badass character kind of removes any tension to the action/plot or opportunity for character “growth” if you’re interested in that. The character becomes—flat.
The super-badass character is also aspirational for many readers….
The discomfort perhaps comes as we recognize the limits of our empathy and the difficulty of truly imagining the experience of another human. But it can be done! My advice: make your character an individual first, and a social construct second.
Factual aspects of a story can always be researched, and research is always important to a creative writer. You don’t just go around making things up. The emotional aspects of a story…that’s another job for writerly empathy. We can learn this by watching how people behave in different situations, by imagining how we would behave in a similar situations.
Also: Flannery O’Connor argues that by the time you’re 17, you’ve experienced everything there is to experience in the world—love, hate, anger, joy, fear, etc.
Take your knowledge of these emotions and give them to your characters.
Good question!
I would like it if students would “read like a writer.” What's reading like a writer?
It means reading for HOW a text means, not what a text means.
How the writer used language, sentence by sentence, to construct the story under analysis.
How language is used, not necessarily whether it is successful or unsuccessful.
It's reading as perception, not judgement.
dialogue
point of view
tense
setting
punctuation
action
exposition
Every student in this class can learn about these aspects of fiction from the stories we’re reading this semester.
It's maybe like when dreams fade once you wake up. it's probably important to strike while the iron is hot, before the forgetting mind takes over!
I like much of the King book (I like King in general), but I have a few reservations. He doesn't seem to understand that his success gives him a level of privilege that less successful writers do not have. But--many students have gotten a lot from it. Read it and make up your own mind.
Here are two craft books I like a lot:
From Where You Dream, by Robert Olen Butler.
Making a Literary Life, by Carolyn See. (We're going to read her chapter on revision in a few weeks).
When you're bored with what you're doing. When you've accomplished one thing and want another challenge.
When your vision of the world changes. When you learn something new.....
I think this would all have to depend on the writer and where they are at that moment in their lives....
I would strongly advise you to stick with SAID and ASKED all the time. They are inoffensive little words that become invisible. When they are invisible, readers can actually focus on your character's brilliant talk.
Please don't distract your reader.
(For a similar reason, it's a good idea to avoid connecting action to dialogue).
Try skipping the things you're having trouble with. Add those things later as part of the revision process...?
Also—is this writer's block or is it the voice of your internal editor?
Not necessarily. The stranger can certainly be the focal character—the protagonist's first day on a new job, the first day at a new school, a traveler stopping to get gas in a new town....
(All the same story, rebooted over and over again...).
(Also—the focal character doesn't have to be a guy!) (Or a gunslinger/samurai)....
In a short story, you can get by with only one "round" character. You can distinguish between secondary characters by giving them distinguishing physical characteristics. (I learned this from my boy Tolstoy, in War & Peace).
For a long work like a novel, you want to keep character notes just so you don't suddenly change their educational background or eye color or whatever.
You can improvise as much as you like, but keep notes on your improvisation.
I feel pretty confident starting when I know more or less how I want the book to end, and I have an outline that will get me 40 pages or so into the first draft. I will work on and expand the outline almost every day, so that it keeps that 40-page buffer always ahead of me. It's like driving at night with your headlights on....
I use both. I love my little notebooks, and I love my phone.
An advantage of the notebooks: when you're at a meeting (in pre-pandemic times) it's considered impolite to mess with your phone while someone is speaking. But you can write in your notebook and say whatever you feel like saying, even if you're slagging the speaker! It's fun.
Getting any book out is a big deal. After that, you can't control how many people read it, and you really can't control who likes it.
So much of what is considered success is luck. But--you have to work hard to put yourself in a position to have luck.
Research! Creative writers do research! Really, they don't go around making things up....
So—say you're writing a novel set in New Mexico at the time the atomic bomb is being built. You want to stay pretty close to facts, but you could have your (fictional) characters interacting with real people. Or you could have an alt timeline where everything goes off in a different direction. Or....
But still—base your story around research....
Show their character through action. Just like everyday real people show who they are by how they act....
Yes, I think all of us should be writing in response to the pandemic.
This historical crisis we're going through right now is complicated and exhausting—it calls for writers to pay attention to it.
But—you don't have to write about the big picture, and maybe probably shouldn't. Focus on the personal and the small.
Don't make it the last six months--make it 15 minutes out of the last six months....
A student wrote a FANTASTIC story about pandemic roommate conflict....it can be done!
That's what fiction does best—focus on how people live their lives.

People are mysteries....

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I Answer Some Questions about Writing XII

2/6/2021

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The usual sage-on-a-page wisdoms and revelations. BYOQ....

I don't think they have to, but I like it when they do....
I really like, say, Oscar Casares's Brownsville. Stories connected by setting.
Sometimes you can get a novel-in-stories, where there is a connecting arc throughout the individual stories. (The kleptomaniac story we read a few weeks ago is the first "chapter" in Jennifer Egan's wonderful novel-in-stories A Visit from the Goon Squad).
But even when there is no overt connection, a story collection is still usually connected as a representation of whatever is going on in the writer's head at that given time....
Dictionaries and character listings would be a part of the text, and the writer would have control.
Maps? How good an artist is the author? if the map is important and the author is a good artist, they will use the author's map. If the map is important and the author is a lame artist (like me, say) the publisher will use a map and hire an artist to make it (and find a way to make the author pay for it).
(I love maps—I wish more students would use them!)
Authors have very little input on covers. Almost none. The books I edit, I discuss ideas with the writers, but the final decision is by me and the press.
For a previously unpublished writer? Complete. Done. Done and revised until it is as close to perfect as possible. (Close—all texts are flawed).
In the meantime, while you are completing and revising, try to get your shorter work published in journals. Maybe start sharing your work online....
I wrote my first book while working as a cab driver (I actually wrote it in the cab, between passengers). Cab driving is a hard way to make a meager living. I thought—Oh! I'll go to grad school and get an MA and maybe a teaching certificate and teach at a community college or a private school or wherever. And then on the first day of grad school I fell in love with it and decided that first week that I needed a PhD.
I'm very lucky.
I'm seeing these as three different things—needs, theme, life lesson.
Needs. Your character's needs are the holes in the character's heart. How is your character damaged? (Just about everyone in this world is damaged). What do they need to be happy? What are they doing to fill that hole? Look back at Monica in "Fight Like a Man"--what is she doing to fill the hole in her heart? You will learn about your character as you write, but you should be at least familiar with them when you start.
Theme. As you know by now, I am a big believer in outlines. But I also kind of think that you should, at the beginning, remain open and uncommitted on the theme of your story. A general idea is good, but you don't need more than that.
Let the theme emerge organically from the text.
How does that work?
Let’s say you’ve written a successful children’s book, and you want to write an adult story in the same world. You want to write—oh, a quest story. There’s this hobbit that has a magic ring and has to destroy it. The hobbit has to travel a long way—it’s going to be a big book! Okay. You make an outline hitting the important action/plot points along the way. And then you start writing. And as you write along, your themes emerge. You find that your story is about—friendship, and honor, and love, and loyalty, and duty. (And about your unacknowledged colonialist beliefs). And you keep writing. And the plot takes some turns you hadn’t expected. (You update your outline). And the friendships go deeper, and the love comes through, and there’s a layer of intense aching sadness over everything. And then—after four years of writing—you find what you’ve actually written a reflection of your own experience in World War One.
Life lesson. I would caution you a little about "life lessons." Many readers really really really resent heavy-handed "teaching" on the part of writers.
(I’m one of them).
Yep, I sure do. Tom Wolfe, especially, bears down on me. But he's sadly dead now and won't have any new books, so I guess I'm safe.
It's actually pretty common.
Some writers I know will only read things way outside their genre while working on a book—pulp detective stories or pulp science fiction. That seems like a lot of extra work, unless you like reading those things.
Better just to smooth it over when you do revision, like spackle.
(I've actually had students tell me that they don't read ANYTHING, for fear that they will be influenced. Please don't tell me this—I will be disappointed in you).
(Being influenced is good thing).
I guess it depends on what you mean by "success."
But the basic answer is—sure.
Example: My acquaintance XXX XXX is a critically acclaimed novelist and, sadly, their books don't sell enough for to make a living, so they work for the government.
And many, many writers teach.
And--day jobs are a good thing! Think—HEALTH INSURANCE.
The point of the story list we went over a few weeks ago is that any plot/theme can make for a good story—if it's written well.
So perhaps instead of focusing on a good idea, focus on a good character, an interesting setting, and strong beginnings and endings....?
Here are some "plots" from some of my stories:
woman fed up with her boyfriend
man returns home to find wife on drugs
man fired from his job
woman fired from her job
there’s a fish stuck in the toilet
man takes drugs, plays softball
man ignores wife’s (valid) complaints
Kind of boring, right? There is nothing at all exceptional about these "plots." Yet the stories are at least competent because of character and setting and language and they were published....
All your ideas have potential. You just have to find a way to use language to realize that potential....
Well, it's not just like you can just decide to do trad publishing—you have to sort of earn it. Get your name out there, publish in journals, etc.
Anyone can publish through Amazon. But are their books any good? Not just as a text—is the book as an object any good? Covers are especially hard for beginners/amateurs.
This is why I tell students (here I am telling you)—learn some skills. Learn at least the rudiments of Photoshop and InDesign. Get a website up, and a blog. Use twitter. Research book design. Etc.
And then learn some PR—even with trad publishing, you'll have to do much of your own promotion....
There's a lot to this book writing thing—but it's all things you can learn....
I'd have to see some examples, but—very generally--
A lot of the excessive telling I see comes in backstory info dumps. Solution—get rid of backstory. Most stories don't need it.
A lot of excessive telling comes in 3rd person interior dialogue. Solution—switch to 1st person, and the narrator can talk directly to the reader.
Very very generally: try staying in the story-present, focusing on action. (Dialogue is an action).
But, like everything else in life—it depends.
What are your goals as a writer? How much are you willing to work? Will you have to make sacrifices in your personal & professional life?
(I sort of answered this upthread...).
Yes, and I love it. I can disappear down a research tunnel like you wouldn't believe—especially photo archives.
I'm curious—I like knowing things!
Everything I learn has an impact on what I'm writing and on what I've already written. This is one of the purposes of revision....
(One of the purposed of education, too).
I'll repeat here something y'all are probably tired of me repeating—creative writers do research.
So, for mysteries. There is a series called Best American Mystery Stories. Comes out every year. Read the past 10 or so volumes and see what contemporary mystery writers are doing.
While you're reading those mysteries, start going through some newspaper archives and look for obscure, forgotten, and odd crime stories. Small and mid-sized towns are the best. I think Evans Library has a subscription to newspapers.com -- it is very helpful (a place, as per the previous thread, that I can get totally lost in).
And then start thinking about your characters and your setting. Even though plot is more important in mystery than in literary fiction, character and setting are still crucial....
Research research re-research.....
In the next section of the class we will be focusing on sharing your work....
So—social media, blogs. And then start submitting stories to journals.....
Research...general or specific....
I want to see what other people have done. (How can I improve on what they've done? How will my person experience make what they've done different?)....
Then I sit down and start visualizing my outline—and then I write the outline....
I think that just depends on what your personal values are. There's no wrong here—it's just a way of looking at language and looking at a career....
And you will almost surely think differently and writing as you age....
My advice: get good at something now. You can always try something new later....
Go around the wall.
Seriously.
Ideas are very hard to write, which is why I tell students to focus on characters. A character can always do something different and unexpected. They are not hemmed in by a concept.
Your story will succeed or fail based on the quality of the writing, not on the underlying idea or concept....
I'm always looking for new books, poems, stories. That said, I've been using Ordinary Genius and Brownsville for several years now--they're really good and get across the important writing things I want to get across. The stories in the first part of the semester get rotated around....
I grew up in a family of storytellers. It just seemed—natural—to try and take it another step and write....
The process is pretty basic—you send stuff out, and get rejected, and send it out again and again and again....until you hit.
It takes only one person to like your work--but it might take some time to find that person. You have to be persistent.
Right of passage? Sure. Validation is a good thing!
I think it's important to somehow make time to read. Even if it's only fifteen or twenty minutes before you go to sleep....
Yep. I have lots of journals and notebooks and I use them!
I have a daily planner, a daily diary—both of those are hardcopy—and my Pandemic Diary (on my computer)—I update those every day.
I have an evening diary and a dream diary—both hardcopy—I update those several times a week.
I have prose notebooks and a poetry notebook—all hardcopy—I update those as needed.
I have a pocket journal I use when I go out in the world, but it's been unused since the pandemic started....
I can write just about any place that doesn't cause me back pain. Right now—my recliner. I wrote my first novel, That Demon Life, in a taxicab...I wrote Normal School and Burnt House in bed...I wrote most of Professed in a coffee shop....
So—I'm flexible. Except for the back pain part.
In bed.
I came to poetry very late, as I think I said a couple of weeks ago. I was in my 40s...But I already knew how to write—how to make good sentences. So that part came quickly. And I had the great Adrian Matejka coaching me....
Authors that have a unique writing style...? Cormac McCarthy—go read The Road...Tom Wolfe—go read The Right Stuff...Megan Abbot—go read Dare Me.....
Contemporary writers? Megan Abbot (Dare Me) and Elizabeth Hand (Generation Loss) are terrific and I love their work...!!!!!!!!
Good ol Hemingway was the writer who changed my life....
Oh, yes—screenplays operate from a totally different paradigm than prose or poetry. And there are a lot of books on screenwriting.
And—indeed—you can be inspired by movies! I sure am. Go watch Sunset Blvd.....
ABSOLUTELY A SKILL THAT CAN BE LEARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
None.
Because it's not the plot or the theme or the action that makes a story "original."
It's what's in my heart that makes a story original. It's the way I see the world that makes a story original. It's the way I render the world through language that makes the world original.
That's the whole point of this class. I want you—all of you—to encounter the world through the personal lens of your understanding.
You heart is original. Use it.

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I Answer Some Questions About Writing XI

1/22/2021

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Outlines...?
Make a list of 30 things you want to have happen in the novel. Bullet points are fine.
Each bullet point is a day's writing. Then double it--number it 1a, 1b...15a, 15b, or whatever.
Does your bullet point take up less than 800 words to tell? Well, no it doesn't—there is always something more to say about anything.
Don't let your internal editor worry you about continuity and/or "quality"—just keep moving forward.
Eating is a profound rhetorical connection between writer and reader. So—do it. Use eating.
Remember that eating is about memory as much as it is about nutrition. (Watch some shows on Food Network and see how chefs and cooks present their food—very often they start with a memory).
Making coffee becomes an anchor for a memory.
Meals eaten with two or more people are about how the people relate to one another.
Go back to Food Network again and see how Guy Fieri describes food. He's kind of annoying but he's good at what he does. Watch almost any episode of The Sopranos. Read writers to see how they do it. Research is fun!
I always look for new things to try—these Participation Questions are a pandemic adaptation....
I would rather not be confused.
People have lives—they are very busy!
Most writers pay—or at least buy dinner for—their beta readers.
This might sound glib, but—pretend to be confident?
The people reading your work do not and will not know you. So if you pretend to be confident, they will think you're confident.
Writing is about acting as much as it is about putting words on a screen or a page....
Also, I sense a writer's confidence by how the scenes unfold early in a story. The beginning works, then the next scene takes the story another step, then another. The writer shows that they know what they are doing structurally.....
So....maybe pretend to be confident while you learn structure...??
For a long time I subscribed to several word-of-the-day email lists, and any work I found interesting would go into my writing. I particularly liked the one with archaic words. ("carking" made it into my novel). But imagery can be constructed with basic words, too....
I read Lord of the Rings when I was in the 6th grade and I wanted to do what Tolkien was doing. A year later I read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and it changed everything in my life....
I've had a few poems published, though not many. I tend toward narrative poems—stories that have been stripped down to 14 or so lines....
Here's a poem....

The writer should always interrogate themselves about how they are using the character who is unlike them. Is the writer appropriating a story? Is the writer stereotyping or exploiting?
The first step is always empathy. And empathy doesn't come naturally, you have to work for it and learn it.
This is something I do not know! I've had students who are game writers--I assume there are books written about game-writing....
When I started I was in a class like you all, and I just wrote the story as it came out. I did a LOT of reading outside of the classes—I went to the Best American Story shelf in the library and worked through about 40 years or so, and I subscribed to multiple literary magazines. And I wrote a lot, which is also a way of learning. And as I learned more I became more methodical--planning the story with—yes—outlines, and focusing on revision rather than generation.....
I started calling myself a writer fairly late--probably about the time I got the Dobie Paisano Fellowship. Even though I'd been writing for a long time, that was a big external validation....
Keep them simple--only describe what the focal character is seeing/experiencing....
Also keep in mind that fighting is really hard. And exhausting. And most fights are settled swiftly....
I've had students totally turned off by Christine Granados or Oscar Casares because their characters code-switch. But I look at those writers and see that the dialogue is totally in context and understandable. So—make sure the context works....
I love Tolkien and I would BURN those stupid fucking LOTR movies if I could! ha!
But—the Godfather, Parts 1 & 2, is/are the best adaptation ever. The Godfather novel, by Mario Puzo, is very mediocre. But Francis Ford Coppola, in his adaptation, found the inner story and elevated it to greatness. You can buy a book, The Godfather Notebook, by Coppola, which contains his annotated copy of the novel and the shooting script. It's a revelatory insight into the creative process....
Oh, yes! Absolutely! You can learn a whole lot about the structure of narrative by watching film. Film structure is different from literary structure in its details, but the scene-to-scene structure can be really helpful....
Start by knowing that your revision will take multiple passes.
Each pass you will focus exclusively on a different aspect:
character (a pass for each character)
setting
scene transitions
beginning
ending
plot holes
widows & orphans
weasel words
Then read it aloud!
Then read it aloud—backwards!
This is the fun part of writing....
Pre-pandemic I would take a week to 10 days to grade, now with the pandemic friction, it's 10 days to two weeks....
All assignments are good—some are terrific!
I wouldn't worry about plot holes until until you begin revising. As you consider (and reconsider, and re-reconsider) your work, the holes will become more and more apparent....
Maybe...something political and topical? The protagonist's significant other (or father or mother) becomes enveloped in conspiracy theories or fascism or white supremacy. What then to do...?
This is a problem that many, many people are facing right now.
Don't look at your story as a whole. As an entire story. As a plot.
Look instead at the writing.
At each sentence, ask—Is this the best sentence I can write?
Seriously interrogate your work and your writerly self.
You'll find things to fix!
Every semester someone does something truly terrific!
Too many students focus on plot. A story is much more than a plot.
Any plot can make for a good story if it's written well.
If you focus on character and setting and language you'll be successful....
I come up with a character, then find an idea to put them in, then a setting. Then I figure out what will happen (the plot)....
Sometimes that's simple—my current work is a sequel to my last book, so the character and setting are done.
A lot of my stories are set in Austin, so there's a setting I know well. I'm able to visualize my characters doing stuff in the setting....
That's part of the outline. I make an outline and then update it every couple of days—motifs, themes, maps, are all part of it....
Thanksgiving’s my favorite holiday! Because I get turkey and beer! Especially now that I'm an adult (an adult for many years) and can organize things however I want and get all the turkey!
I think I'm going to zoom happy hour with a friend. And then sleep.
What are you going to do?
Well, stories are about characters. They can have objects, or they can interact with objects.
Oh my gosh yes!
Several students have won awards for work they've done in my classes, and several others have been published.
In fact, two stories from this semester are very close to publishable....
Still—personally, I would not feel safe teaching a face-to-face class. And I'm very happy I'll be teaching online next semester.
My guess...is that nationally the pandemic will get worse before it gets better. Cases are going up all over the country right now.
Please keep wearing your masks and doing your social distancing
Yes! In fact, you're going to read one of them a couple of weeks from now.
It's a story that was published and, yes, I was dissatisfied with it, so I revised it while teaching a class of Advanced Fiction Writing, to show students methods of revision....
You'll read the original and the revised version, and you are not under any obligation to like either one!
By looking at the photos, perhaps we become more absorbed into the memory/story...?
I call it a memoir. Or a work of creative non-fiction....
Collapse.
I can get TOTALLY lost in old photos! Sure—I could go on and on.
Women tend to be judged harshly—harsher than men—for marital infidelities.
There are a lot of different thoughts about how to arrange a story collection. I tend to go strongest story first, next-strongest last, weakest in the middle.
A writer writing about a murder in Texas would frame things differently....
This was scanned in—the scanner made errors. Sorry about that! Typos are distracting--
Sure—we can look at the photo, read the text, look back at the photo, contemplate the person as someone who once lived....
Guilty.
Yes—I sure do. They really help to bring it to life....
People often feel trapped. Very often. Trapped by economics, church, gender, family....
So, sure—to a trapped person it might seem easier and quicker to murder your husband than to get a divorce.
Mental health needs to be addressed everywhere!
It’s a tawdry illusion with a rotten core...
No.
To make money.
I'm thinking she was guilty....
Memory is a construct—it's always changing. Incidents get compressed and expanded and rearranged....
There's legal trouble? You need a lawyer. Also in this case, a comfort factor....
I don't think Didion likes this place—she finds it cheap and gaudy and shallow.
That's an interesting question!
My answer is...maybe?
Family cohesion can help people stay strong in a crisis. On the other hand, some families might be lax in social distancing and have a get-together that turns into a superspreader event!
Maybe, sort of...? The Hunter Thompson novel is about the sixties, but it's about drug-induced madness, and not so much about tawdriness and shallowness....
This might make for a good essay question...!!!
Collapse.
The Granados book is set in the right now. But I hadn't considered the time-perspective in the other books....
No, they were just sinners. They believed and fell short....
It's popular across all of literature. Stories need conflict—marital discord is conflict!
Almost all prisoners in state prisons get parole at some point—that's the (theoretical) goal of incarceration—get people ready to reenter society. (Maybe).
Murdering someone for the insurance money is not a good thing.

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Writing and Editings XXVII (Pandemic Edition)

8/14/2020

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Whoa—I haven’t posted in a long time. Yet I live! And I’ve been doing things—teaching writing editing quarantining raging.

I haven’t been to my campus office since March 9. I get my groceries curbsided, get my beer delivered to my door. Pandemic life!

In late March I started a Pandemic Diary, my daily observations on the terrible condition of the world, which I’ve managed to keep up. I begin each day by updating the RAGE/TERROR/HEARTBREAK index:

The scale is open-ended. The ultimate number before this is all over could be—infinite.

I’d like to see all indices go down.

I’ve been teaching online, of course. My zoom room is busy and disordered, just like my brain.

And I've been doing other things, too. Mostly working on the sequel to NORMAL SCHOOL!

NORMAL SCHOOL has a special pandemic back-to-school price!

Buy it read it!

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Writings and Editings XXVI

3/7/2020

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Been doing lots. But there's lots more to do!

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Writings and Editings XXV

1/31/2020

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It's January. Been January for 31 days now. I'm trying to do things....

This fucking thing. The torture chair!

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Writings and Editings XXIV

1/18/2020

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Yeah, I'm doing stuff....

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Writings and Editings XXIII

7/4/2019

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I've been doing stuff, but there is always the creeping neverending fear that I'm not doing enough....

Normal School, Lowell Mick White, academia, higher education, reading, novel, noir, Walther, Kansas, execution, body-disposal

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Writings and Editings XXII

1/26/2019

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I've obviously been spending more time on the NORMAL SCHOOL novel/blog/website than I have on this--my rightful and beloved blog. But I've been doing regular writings and editings--I've started a new book--and I've been crazy busy with teaching. Go check out NORMAL SCHOOL, if you have the time. And then buy some books...and then come back and see what else I'm up to....