The Art of Writing Well

Something I've decided to learn was authentic French cooking from French recipes and what I've noticed is unlike the American versions of the very same recipes, the original French recipes are often long, involved, and take a lot of patience. For example take chocolate mousse. The American version of this recipe is made with very few ingredients and takes no more than forty-five minutes of active cooking time. The result is a nice dessert, but nothing spectacular. However, the French version is much more involved taking a little over an hour of active cooking time. You start with warm cream, then add that to eggs and sugar before heating it to 160 degrees Fahrenheit making something that looks like a custard. Then you slowly melt the bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler, adding sugar and whisking. Once the chocolate is ready, you mix them all together. Now in the American version, you shortcut and add gelatin to give the mousse its texture and stick it in the freezer for an hour or two and its done. In the french, you have to whip cream until stiff peaks form (do not use cool whip, you do not need anymore sugar) than slowly whisk the cream into the mousse and chill for six hours.

The results of this intensive and slow going process is an immensely decadent dessert full of body and rich with flavor. Something that eating only a couple of teaspoons full will satisfy your sweet tooth (which is one of the many reasons french food is served in much smaller portions--its rich and filling) but it's a food that you'll crave more of.

What does this talk of food have to do with writing?

Well, I was illustrating a point. How many times have you stumbled upon a piece of writing, be it a novel or short story, that just seemed hurried and sloppily but together? You'll read it, but it doesn't leave you wanting more.

But a story that's been well crafted, every detail properly measured, descriptions that are rich and used only as needed, characters that are full of body--that leaves you wanting more. That's a story that's worthy of devouring.

The point is this, the art of writing is very much like the art of french cooking, while there may be shortcuts, they're not necessarily good for you. Sometimes you have to take the slow going long road. When you take your time and lovingly put in the effort needed for the entire process from conception to editing, the result is a tale full of body, rich and decadent, that once you get a spoonful, you'll want a whole helping.

Buy books!

Here in the US today, the day after Thanksgiving, is the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. The very best gift for any and everyone is of course books. It's easy to get someone to make up a list of a few books they'd like to have, and easy to order those books online if you don't have the time or inclination to shop at a brick and mortar full of holiday crowds. If you don't have a list of preferred books for someone you can always rely on the trusty gift certificate. Amazon even lets you give Kindle books as gifts now (but if you live outside the US make sure you check into geographic restrictions before doing so.)

I've got far too many fiction books on my wish list to mention here, but there is one non-fiction book I'd love to have. The Secret History of Rock 'N' Roll by Christopher Knowles would be a great addition to my collection of music books. What's on your wish list for holidays books?

Buffy vs Edward

I'm going back to Buffy for this week's post. It must be no secret by now, even to those new to this blog, that I'm a sad geeky Buffy fan.

Non-geeks, however, sometimes make the mistake of assuming if I like Buffy, I also like Twilight. After all, they're both about teenage girls who fall in love with sexy vampires, aren't they?

To a Buffy geek, this is a sacrilege. I could go on at length about why Buffy is miles away from Twilight, without even touching the quality of the writing.

Buffy is an independent minded young woman who kicks vampire butt. One of the main themes of at least the first few seasons is that she's not only the Chosen One, she's also an ordinary teenage girl dealing with the demons of High School. For most people, the demons of High School are metaphorical. Hers happen to be literal.

Yes, Buffy loves a vampire. But in the end she realises that the relationship is going nowhere and she has to leave him (and I am talking about Angel here - I never really believed Buffy was in love with Spike, but we'll leave that argument for another time). On the other hand, I believe Bella ends up marrying her vampire, even though a human/vampire relationship is problematic at best (and I've discussed that on this blog before).

But really, I think the best argument for proving why Buffy is better than Twilight can be found in the wonderful YouTube video 'Buffy vs Edward'.

I present Exhibit A.

A Note, on this, The Witching Hour Release Day

Believe it or not, writing a book is easier than writing a 250-500 word blog post for me. This post comes a bit early because I am both full of nerves and exceedingly excited for what Monday brings.

The Witching Hour, my second novel produced by a publishing house will be available as of midnight 11/22/2010. Yes I am planning promotions for it, including a 24 hour twitter QA session beginning at 12E/11Central, but that's not what's giving me the jitters.

I have the jitters because believe it or not, writing a book is a very intimate and personal experience. Even if your book becomes published, there is still a piece of you that stays with the book. Perhaps its the late nights, the hours spent painstakingly ensuring that every word is the best one to optimally tell the story, or the emails at 2am on the day of a deadline saying its still not right from your editor (yes, I really did get an email at 2am and nearly lost it. I swear I had a temporary mental breakdown at that point and the BF helped me through it). That said, a book is like a little piece of the author--not physically or even spiritually--but its like a tiny fragment of the imagination that's been given a world and domain all its own, for the enjoyment of others. And once its out there, you can't take it back.

The Witching Hour stemmed from an idea that had nothing to do with the book's plot. Lucky Sands, Tuesday Peters and all the other characters that inhabit their world came from conversations with a dear friend over lunches and coffee breaks. I still remember talking about the book's world, which all came from little inside jokes and eventually evolved into much more. And throughout the book, there are hundreds of slivers of those inside jokes, that help make up the dialogue, scenes, and even some of the character's personalities.

The Witching Hour, besides being a story set up to be a modern day myth, is a book of secrets and hidden truths. Its a mystery, a love story, a tale of friendship, and more importantly a story about people thrust into a situation beyond their control only to overcome the odds. Its full of themes that anyone can identify with all wrapped up in a fictional tale.

I hope you enjoy The Witching Hour. You're reading a part of me. :-)

Hatching plots

I've always been what's called a pantser, writing by the seat of my pants without knowing where the story might wind up. That's not working for me anymore. Too many times lately, work on a manuscript has come to a halt because I didn't know what happened next. That was okay when I was writing for my own amusement but now I'd like to get paid for my work, even it's just enough to buy books. One of the best ways to do that is to keep writing and keep publishing. Spending a week or more figuring out how to get from Point G to Point H, in the middle of writing the novel, and probably having to do it again a few more times, doesn't exactly help with that goal. I've tried outlining before but never successfully. I'd get a few steps into it and get impatient and start writing. Only to stop at some point because I didn't know what happened next, or I had a new character to introduce and didn't know enough about them, or some other problem. So I've decided I've got to start preparing complete outlines. I'm going to use the snowflake method and instead of stopping at step two and half, I'm going to complete the thing. And then write the damn book (that would be Step 10 on the list I made for reference.)

Are you a pantser or a plotter? If you're a plotter, what method do you use? If you're a pantser, how do you deal with an uncooperative story?

Writing Lesson #4: Going To Market

I discovered horror in grade 8, when I was 14. I picked up DIFF’RENT SEASONS in the school library. I enjoyed that so much I went looking for more. The next King book I read was CARRIE. That was possibly a turning point. I identified with Carrie, the high school loser with no friends. In fact I rather wished I possessed her ability to instigate the violent and painful death of everyone who gave her a hard time. In any case, I was hooked on King.

I was also in Mrs Riepert’s English class that year, and we were given an assignment to write a horror story. We started with brainstorming titles. As everyone called out titles, mine came suddenly, unprompted, into my mind: TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD. It’s probably the only time in my writing career I have come up with the title before the story – usually the title comes to me at the end. TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD was about ten teenagers who go on a camping trip, and unearth an evil entity that possesses them and makes them murder each other.

I had to read the story out loud in front of the class and it seemed to go down well with my classmates, in particular my science lab partner, Rob Vukovic, who was a fan of the genre. He told me repeatedly that year I ought to write more horror. He’s probably not given me a thought in 25 years or more, but I guess I was listening, because by the time I got to high school I was a horror convert.

I decided to turn TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD into a novel. I finished it when I was 17. I didn’t have a computer in those days (we are talking circa 1987 here). The first draft of TITF was written in pencil, as was my process by then, and then I redrafted it in pen. But my uncle had one of those newfangled devices called a word processor, and he volunteered to type it out for me. I handed over the handwritten pages, and he duly returned the manuscript to me in the form of three printouts and a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk (remember those?) with the files on it.

TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD became the first novel I sent out into the big wide world. I really had no idea where to start. I went to the library and picked up a few books in the teenage horror range – which at that point was still a strange new genre – and looked up the publisher’s address on the title page. That’s where I sent my manuscript- in its entirety. I didn’t know about the etiquette of query letters, or sending only the first three chapters. I’m not even sure if I remembered return postage, although older and wiser people may have pointed out to me the wisdom of doing this, if I wanted the precious package returned.

Those initial queries came back fairly swiftly, with kind and encouraging rejection letters that basically said the publisher was always pleased to hear from young people who liked to write (I had mentioned my age in the cover letter; the publishers had all decided to be gentle), and my writing showed promise, but I needed a bit more practice before it would be ready for publication.

After racking up a few rejection letters, I started to wonder if maybe I was aiming too high. It was getting expensive to keep sending the novel out, and not many publishers were dealing with teenage horror in those days.

Then I thought, perhaps I should lower the bar. So I put TERROR IN TANNER’S FIELD in a drawer, and looked towards my short stories instead. Perhaps it would be easier to start small, and get some of those published first, my 17-year-old self reasoned.

I still had a lot of lessons to learn about writing, and submitting, at that point. But one of the things I learned fairly on was that rejection was all part of the process.