These notes are raw and unpolished. They are not comprehensive. No warranty, express or implied, is made regarding these notes. Your mileage may vary.
Key:
TP – Tim Powers
KDW – K. D. Wentworth
LRH – L. Ron Hubbard
Read LRH Article on “suspense.” Key point: “Keep your reader wondering which of two things will happen ? and you get his interest.”
TP: One of the things Budrys says is that you may have a great idea in your head, but since we’re not telepaths, you need to translate story to black marks so reader can recreate story in their head. You want reader to forget writer, forget chair, and be in world of the story. In order to make it a vicarious experience for the readers, you need to picture it clearly yourself. Maybe draw floor plans. Must think about is it a sunny day or a cloudy?
Think about left and right.
Don’t make the readers “rewind” in their minds — explain things so they clearly picture what you are trying to convey. If you leave one option for readers to misunderstand, they will. Don’t leave ambiguity.
KW: 8 deadly words for editor “I can’t figure out what is going on.” Budrys said readers don’t read for words, they read for story. The words are not the story. The words are important; you don’t want them to be clunky or stupid.
Once you reach pro level, main reason for not selling stories is the ending doesn’t validate properly.
Each scene – goal, conflict, disaster. (Dwight Swain – Techniques of the Selling Writer)
Using coincidence in plot: if it hurts our main character, you can use it sparingly. If it helps, you can’t use it. (TP: Any time your characters can say “That’s a stroke of luck,” you’ve gone wrong.
People tend not to be tough enough on characters.
Fiction has to make sense! Real life does not.
TP: Plot is what happens in a story, it is not what happens in real life. It’s tricky to make a plot. One way or another, you have to embrace structure.
Some people can successfully just put characters together and wander and eventually find a plot. That’s fine, as long as you realize some of what you write will not be part of the plot and you will have to cut later. One problem is that this may follow the path of least resistance.
TP likes to organize things in advance, outlines, so as to avoid path of LR.
When outlining, don’t think of themes.
Think into the keyboard. Make “imaginary bets.” Propose things that would be cool in a story. (i.e., A rooftop chase across Paris. A blind guy covered with tattoos.) Need to d it in computer so you can go back to prior idea in the chain. Look for things that are “too cool not to use.”
Try out different characters, different situations, different problems. TP tries not to get firm on character until he has situation figured out. What kind of protag could most effectively be pushed through that situation? What will he know that he needs to know, and not know that he needs to have explained to him FBO reader.
What would character do anything to get, and anything to avoid? Then play them off. Mary can’t get what she wants unless George faces what he wants to avoid. Eventually, each major character must face a terrible choice, and the choice the character makes is the hinge of the plot. Afterwards, they will be changed.
Write on index cards each bit of important events or dialogue or realizations. Lay them on the floor. Rearrange them until you have the cause and effect and plot worked out.
Create a large calendar with when all the bits happen.
KDW: (Lawrence Block, Writing the Novel From Plot to Print, “I don’t outline, I just kill somebody and go from there.”) If you can outline, do it. Some people can’t.
Keep a running synopsis of each chapter. Keep a list of characters. Keep flashes of insight for later use. First third establish the problem, second third complicate it, last third solve it.
TP: Even if you hate outlining, retro-outline so you can easily keep track of what happened. Create the calendar as you’re going along.
KDW: On thing to caution about if you don’t outline is you will hit the wall in the middle of the book. It may last a while, but you can push through it. Can even happen if you do outline.
When you’re really stuck, one thing to do is write down all the things that could happen, no matter how lame they are. Usually what you want is not in the first fifteen items, but you have to write the first 15 to get to the ones that will work. You have to take it as a given that there is a solution.
You have to get the editor part of your mind to shut up, because the editor hates everything.
TP: Making the reader think this is all really happening. Don’t want talking heads in a white room. Good writers give a room an idiosyncratic detail that makes it seem like it’s a real place. Know the light source for the scene. Think position — where are your characters within the room. Who’s standing or sitting. Which hand is the gun in? Will he have to put it down to answer the telephone?
You should have this in mind even if you don’t tell it all to the readers.
“A man got in a car and went to a restaurant and had a meal.” None of those nouns is real, they are just blurs of probability.
Poul Anderson — in the course of a scene, try to invoke at least 3 of the 5 senses.
KDW: Book – A Natural History of the Senses.
TP: For every significant character, want to know what he last ate and when, when he last slept and for how long, and how long he’s worn that shirt. Even if you don’t actually include it, if you know these things, you will write action and dialogue a little differently.
Give gentle reminders of the environment every page or so.
KDW: Plausibility and tangibility – don’t get carried away with how the stardrive works.
If you’re creating an alien culture, pay attention to all the aspects of it. One thing that gets ignored a lot is religion.
Alien cultures should have a different idea of how the universe works. Don’t have the elf teenager come home to the elf mom and complain about wanting to go to the elf mall.
When you’re worldbuilding, remember that planets generally are not only one type of habitat. Everything you change is going to have implications.
“Lazy history” story – generic setting in the past not in particular place. Do the research instead.
Avoid overlong fight scenes.
TP: Even on this planet, we have aliensocieties.
You need to think about implications of magic. You can’t simply say “It’s magic” and dismiss everything SF writers have to think about it.
KDW: How to start?
Research markets.
Adventures from the Slush Pile
1. Don’t send things to inappropriate markets. Sometimes up to 50% of WOTF slush.
2. Don’t play games with the readers. (Withholding information.)
3. Whatever makes this a genre story needs to be on the first page.
4. Avoid overwritten beginning (Dual orbs of sight)
5. Avoid word pictures that force reader to see everything.
6. Avoid characters in high school.
7. Don’t start with chunks of exposition. Prologues can be bad. Fake newspapers stories, etc.
8. Character is not what you look like.
9. Don’t start with character waking up. (Cliched.) Or amnesia. Or tortured. Or naked. Or all.
10. Avoid overworked themes like Adam & Eve, being born, Noah’s ark, the house that has something wrong with it.
11. Avoid unusual, weird viewpoints. Dust bunnies, knife that will be murder weapon.
12. Don’t use bad, over the top metaphors. “Words fell from his mouth like rancid spinach.”
13. Avoid trite conventions of the genre. Elves, vampires, werewolves. (Can be done later in career, but hard when starting out.) Originality is valued in the genre. An original idea can beat a better-written old idea.
14. Don’t write anything that hints at media genre.
15. Use proper formatting. (Courier is the safe choice.)
16. Don’t use overused words. “orbs” “Impossibly.” “Smirked.” Don’t misuse words.
17. Stories in which nothing happens for the first two pages.
18. Villains as heroes/unlikable main characters/irredeemable jerks as protagonists.
19. Another eight deadly words. “I don’t care what happens to these characters.”
20. No serial killer stories.
21. You need to ‘land” the ending. (An airplane in the air doesn’t just stop.)
22. Using the wrong main character. Write from the POV of the character with the most to lose.
23. Don’t start with poetry you’ve written yourself. (OK to begin with a short quote from someone famous, maybe.)
24. Don’t use made-up words with extra apostrophes.
25. Don’t use made-up words that are unpronounceable or have no vowels.
26. Make sure the ending is prepared for in advance.
27. Don’t include a map or illustrations.
28. Don’t base it on a D&D campaign.
29. Don’t write in second person.
30. Don’t say “this is part 1” or “continued” or “excerpt.” Don’t ever make the editor think the whole thing isn’t there.
31. Don’t put copyright notice on the manuscript.
Don’t go overboard on first sentence. We are supposed to believe it. (After I fished Albert Einstein’s eyeball out of my martini,?.”)
Sometimes the key is not to hook the reader, but to keep from pushing the reader out.
TP: Characterization
Don’t have a character look in a mirror in order to describe the character.
“First approximation” is your first idea. First approximation character isn’t good enough.
Don’t do characters just by giving one characteristic. (Smokes a pipe, etc.)
One approach is to write a bio for the character–birtdate, where grew up, schools, parents, friends, taste in liquor. But want to get past first approximation, so ask questions. Is character married? Yes. Why? Because he loves her. No, why really? The first answer is the first approximation; the why really is where you get interesting stuff.
One idea is have character be very good at something that he would rather not do ever again.
What would the characters in the story be doing if the events of the story had not intervened?
One idea is to write a scene involving the main characters, even though you know you will never use the scene. It just gives you more rounded feel.
Find things your characters want.
Think twice about how characters will react to crisis.
Using real people as basis — try using someone you admire for antagonist, and vice versa.
You can write characters who are smarter than you. It’s like pole vaulters can pass over a bar while their center of gravity passes under.
People don’t see themselves as a bad guy.
Give the bad guy something admirable he’s very good at.
Remember that a character can differ from you 180 degrees from you on politics, religion, etc. and still not be a villain, liar, stupid, etc. Don’t assign badguyhood to whole groups.
KDW: Don’t use names with the first same letter.
Mannerism — a little bit of mannerism goes a long way. And don’t repeat them over and over again.
Avoid passive characters.
What character loves, hates, wants and fears.
Make it clear who the main character is.
Really jarring if you kill main character and then continue the story.
TP: Dialogue. Remember that dialogue is not telepathy.
1. It makes noise. It can wake the baby, etc.
2. It reveals things about the character. Way it is said can indicate something. Don’t use dialect, though.
3. It furthers the action. It gives us chess moves we need to know.
But you want dialogue to seem spontaneous and natural.
People have different conversational gears, depending on who they speak with.
Imagine how characters will say heavy emotional sentence. It’s not with simple, direct transparency. Give a bit of emotional torque to it.
If you have characters who are relentlessly helpful in their conversations, then the reader will feel the characters are talking for their benefit. Never let an expository conversation proceed smoothly.
Interrupt.
Avoid forced jocularity. In general, it’s not a good idea to have a character find something someone else says funny.
KDW: Usually if you can’t make a line work, just leave it out.
TP: It’s tempting to end a scene with a witticism, cut it out.
KDW: Dialogue is not an actual transcript of what people say. You need to give the appearance of a conversation; it doesn’t have to be word-for-word.
Give characters different rhythms.
Avoid as-you-know-Bobs.
Avoid said-bookisms as much as possible. Use action tags when possible.
Avoid adverbs for said.
Make it absolutely clear who is speaking at all times.
Try to maintain your level of diction.
Don’t use thesaurus for obscure words.
If you write in first person, whole story is pretty much dialogue because it is filtered through character’s voice.
KDW: Dealing with editors.
Act like a professional. Use proper format. Set a daily page goal. (KDW 3 pages a day.)
There will always be a time problem. You may have to give up something you care about in order to have time to write.
Don’t give up. Success is 50% talent, 50% not giving up. Can’t do much about first, but the second you can control.
Avoid the hunt for magic secrets or secret handshake.
Don’t ask pros to read your work and recommend you to their agent.