On outlines

Found this bit of advice over at Backspace.

... keep in mind that imagination is limitless. Do not, therefore, reduce your story to outlines and sketches, notes and 3x5 cards. You will make your story finite this way and it will suffer because it cannot grow beyond your outline. Juggle your story: by this, I mean keep eight balls in the air and only two in your hands. Let the story - the eight balls - float free, dangerously so. That's the beauty of watching a juggler: where will those balls fall? Chase your story, believe in your characters and follow them. Do not predetermine every step they take but record what they do, and do the recording breathlessly but with control, as if you just came inside to report an accident or a marvel you have just witnessed.

I loved that. Actually, I liked the whole thing. That said, I am working on an outline of one of the stories I had on my list that I wanted to finish by July. I think it's going well and am excited to see how this process works for me.

More good advice

I've had a bit of a policy since I started this thing. It's not a written policy or anything, just a rule in my head. I don't like to post bits from or link to blogs that I'm not really familiar with. I'd hate for some to read something here and follow a link to a blog that then starts talking about something unexpected.

I am breaking that rule right now. I really liked this paragraph from a longer post in which the language gets a little salty.

No matter what kind of writing you do—short stories, books, children’s lit, screenplays, stand-up bits, whatever—don’t ever approach it as though you’re trying to please an audience. Don’t ever write what you think people want. Don’t ever write about something you think is popular. Because invariably, it will suck. And it will suck hard.

Write to please one person and one person only: yourself.

Which is to say, write the kind of book that you love to read. Write the kind of script that you want to see on the screen.

That came from here and the few other posts I read were good also. Check it out. But be warned, salty.

Advice

Every character has a history, but most don't belong in the story. This is Hemingway's rule.

There's more.

Critique groups

Here's a questions for those writers who may be reading this blog. If you have experience with critique groups, at what stage in a story's progress did you take it to be critiqued.

At the next meeting of my writers group we are to bring 20 pages to exchange. I am wanting to take this monster story with me, but I don't think it will be anything more than a first draft. Is it smart to take a first draft with me, or should I take something that has been edited?

Any help is appreciated.

What's in a question?

Perhaps I am a little sensitive about questions because of my day job. When I was in college and learning to do the things I needed to know how to do to make a living in journalism, I had a professor who concentrated on questions. He stressed the importance of asking the open-ended question. You never want to give an interview subject the opportunity to give a yes or no answer.

A horrible example, but the only one that comes to my head.

Did you enjoy the camp?

Tell me about your favorite part of camp.

See the difference?

Anyway, I like Ally Carter's blog. She writes the Gallagher Girls series. The books are about an elite girls' school that secretly trains its students to be spies. I have read none of them, even though I kind of want to. If they weren't geared so much toward girls I probably would. Heaven knows I am not against reading a book for kids. But my stupid machismo gets in the way.

Still, I like Ally's blog and link to her from the right side. She had a post last year about questions that you shouldn't ask a writer and then follows those with the better way to rephrase your questions. I liked it. You might too. Read it here.

An interesting writing tip

I read this list of tips before and I found the first one interesting.

Never tell anyone the plot of your story until you've finished writing it. Once you've told your story, even in outline, some part of you relaxes. The story-telling urge is fulfilled. You've seen your audience react to it, and actually writing the story then becomes something of a chore, like you're repeating yourself. It's much better to keep the urge alive, driving you on until you've got the story down on paper, and you can then present it to the world in all its glory.

I heard another writer say the same thing today. He was being interviewed and he mentioned to the interviewer that he would have loved to talk about the novel he was working on. He was very excited about it, but if he started talking about it there was something inside of him that would relax and not be as excited about writing it.

I guess there is something in the telling.

A nice reminder

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I struggle with editing myself as I write. Here's a nice quote from Anne Lamott on first drafts. I've never read any of her writing, but this is something I know I need to hear. Other writers might need to hear it too. Not sure if any of them are here reading my ramblings, I assume not. But I will post it just in case. Besides, I can always go back and read it again myself if I save it here.

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really s****y first drafts.

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go — but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

And if anyone is here other than the folks I already know read this, say "Hi" in the comments. I'd love to know that this little outpost on the web isn't populated by just the three of us.