A THICK SKIN

 

 

Hi Everyone:

I don’t think of myself as an insensitive boob, at least, I hope I’m not one and most of the time I think I come off as being levelheaded and sensible. However, when it comes to my writing, I try to be thick skinned.

Few people like criticism, but for a writer, it is as necessary for growth as rain is for flowers. I well recall how after attending meetings of a critique group in the first year of my endeavors, I returned home feeling like a whipped dog. I’d seethe with rage, thinking that my critics had failed to understand my work, had not comprehended what I was trying to accomplish. As time passed, it occurred to me that maybe they were right. Perhaps some of my writing wasn’t clear, or maybe I wasn’t moving my story forward.

 I began to understand that the criticism had not been aimed at me, but at my work. I learned to appreciate the suggestions my fellow writers offered; after all, each critic represented a potential reader. I jotted down their suggestions as fast as I could so that later I’d be able to carefully consider them.

 Did I accept every suggestion—no, after all, I’m still the author, it’s up to me to decide which ideas are right for the work at issue. However, I must admit that I found most, probably 90% , worth adopting because they improved my material.

Over the years, I’ve had an opportunity to observe other writers. Most who attend literary meetings crave suggestions that foster growth. A few are so defensive, or arrogant that they are doomed to stagnate. It is likely that their only rationale for joining a literary group is to hear the plaudits. Sometimes I think that critique groups should advertise: WANTED—THICK-SKINNED AUTHORS.

 

Speaking of critiques, you’ll soon get your chance because in the very near future I plan to post right here, one of my latest novels.  In late March 2011, I began the outline for RAPE. The novel was not completed until August 25, 2012. No publisher has seen it yet. I plan to post one new chapter every couple of weeks in serial form in hopes that my readers will offer their suggestions as to how the work might be improved. (AND IT’S FREE)

In the interim, don’t forget to check my website: joshswritingroom.com.  There you can find info about the author and about the novels that have been published electronically. You can also find a short story to read. (AND IT’S FREE .) The current selection is from that master storyteller, Frank Lohan. It's one of my favorites. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

Plot vs. Theme

 

Hi Everyone:

Recently, a reader asked, “What’s the difference between theme and plot?”

In my opinion, good literature usually contains an over-arching theme or rationale, the basis for the story; whereas the plot is the action, a series of conflicts and resolutions that over the course of the story proves or disproves the over-arching theme.

For example, the theme of my novel, Alex—Peanut Butter—And Me, is that sometimes, the most insignificant act inflicts the gravest wound. The story revolves around the struggles of its main character to overcome the chasm between himself and the 20-year old, intellectually challenged son of his deceased wife’s first marriage.

In my novel, Palm Beach Style, the theme is “Be careful of what you really want, because you just might get it.” The plot concerns a spoiled rich woman, who sets out to prove that she is smarter than her detective lover by committing the perfect crime.

In Stein on Writing, the author points out, “The most interesting stories involve characters who want something badly.

In Kafka’s The Trial, Joseph K. wants to know why he is being arrested, why he is being tried, what he is guilty of.                

In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the central character constructs his life with the sole object of reuniting with Daisy, the woman he loves.

In Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary, her head full of romantic notions, wants to escape the dreariness of her husband and her life.”

Stein points out: “The essence of dramatic conflict lies in the clash of wants.”

Here are examples of common themes:

·        The old ways are best

·        The new ways are better

·        The Champion never gives up

·        Faith will see you through

·        Father knows best

·        Crime does not pay

·        Honesty is the best policy

·        It pays to be frugal

·        As the twig is bent, so groes the tree

·        Technology will save us

·        Technology robs us of our humanity

·        Put duty before pleasure

·        A small slight has huge repercussions

·        Man is the captain of his soul, master of his fate

·        A fool can get away with anything

·        Winning is all that matters

·        Success has a thousand fathers, failure is a bastard

 

I am pleased to provide another short story, titled The Fence. Writing this one made me conscious of the joy one must feel when conquering Mount Everest.

When I began writing, I was only sure of three things:

1.     The antagonist’s name.

2.     That he was overweight.

3.     He was a Fence and planned jewel heists.

 I hope you experience as much pleasure from reading The Fence as I derived from writing it. It is available at my website:  joshswritingroom.com  Just click on the Short Story tab. You won’t make me angry if you also check out my novels.

 

 

CRITIQUE GROUPS AND MORE

 

Hi Everyone:

When you make up your mind to write something, be it short story, novel, or essay, how do you know if it is any good?  When one is both author and critic, it is only natural to favor a positive outcome.

Sometimes, I read material several times while it is still on my computer screen, looking for errors that I can quickly correct, but I find that it is not until I have printed it out that I find some of its more obvious flaws. Just reading it a-loud helps me to locate other mistakes. I often read to my dog, but Pumpkin isn’t much of a critic, she yawns at my attempts at humor and sleeps through suspense scenes.

Some writers read their drafts to close friends and relatives. Unfortunately, many of these merely tell the author what they think he wants to hear, instead of those things he really needs to hear.

i.e. “I loved it!”

Or, “That’s very nice.”

I’m very fortunate, my wife, who is my first reader, has a great eye for mistakes, and often takes me to task when she thinks that something I’ve written is not realistic, or is too wordy.

 I’m also fortunate in that I am a member of an excellent critique group, The Writer’s Studio. I have been attending its weekly sessions for over ten years. Meetings last for about two and a half hours, during that time, writers read a portion of their material and listen as the members offer suggestions as to how it might be improved.  The comments typically include:

 Plot-- (It isn’t plausible);

 Setting-- (Are you sure people in that time behaved that way?)

 Characters-- (Your protagonist sounds one-dimensional),

 Dialogue-- (Your characters need to have different rhythms and vocabularies), and Action-- (Where is the conflict?)

After the meeting, I come home and review my notes. Do I take all of the suggestions? No. I’m still the author; it’s still my work.  I have to decide if the suggestions will make my work better. In truth, I consider them all, and usually find a way to include most of them.

While the large Publishing Houses and some of the smaller Independent Presses employ editors to review accepted submissions during the pre-publication process, some writers employ a professional editor to help polish their manuscripts in hopes of attracting a Literary Agent (the publisher’s gatekeeper) and ultimately a publishing contract.  

There are no professional requirements for advertising as an Editor (and Editors need to charge for their services) so the writer should be careful. In addition, not everyone can afford to pay for the service, making critique groups such as The Writer’s Studio all the more helpful.

You can read Cocoa Baby, a vignette written by Janet Kleinman, a member of The Writer’s Studio and a published author, by going to my website, joshswritingroom.com and clicking on the Short Story tab. Janet recently published Flirting with Disaster, a romantic thriller that includes love, adventure, and enough sex to make it exciting. She is busy working on a family saga. You can learn more about Janet and her novel at livingtheliterarylife.blogspot.com

Lights

Hi Everyone:

Every now and then, one of my friends will ask me, “What are you working on now?” and I reply something like this: I just finished writing chapter twelve of my current writing project. It is historical fiction. I am aiming for an audience of teenage readers, a first for me.

 Now, it bears a working title: The Adventures of Silent Sam, and takes place during the American Revolutionary War.  I have always been interested in history, especially American history, and while I once toyed with the idea of writing a novel around General U. S. Grant’s siege of Vicksburg, this will be a first for me. When I write, there is often a certain amount of research that needs to be done, but nothing like what I am doing now; it’s a challenge.

When it is finished, I shall dedicate it to my granddaughter, Jennifer, who was the cause of my first historical tale and to my daughter, Terry who suggested I use the tale I invented to interest her daughter in American history as a springboard for this novel.

 

“Lights !  Action!  Camera!”

Those are famous Hollywood commands; in writing, we only have one such command, but in a way, we try to obey all three. The reader craves action and we strive to deliver it by our awareness of those things that slow or stop action. We turn on the lights when we are able to keep the reader focused on the action of our story and of course, we, and through us the characters are often the eye of the camera.

When watching a movie or story on television, everything is right there in front of the viewer’s eyes; action, dialogue, and setting are simultaneously experienced. However, even in Hollywood, the story sometimes requires giving the audience information about the past.  To do this, the film editor may insert a sign notifying the viewer, it proclaims:

“3-YEARS EARLIER”

Then what we call: back-story is shown in flawless action giving the viewer what is needed to make the plot more understandable. The next time you see this, note how little it negatively influences your enjoyment of the story. The reason for this is that it is visual and immediate.

Unless handled carefully, two of the things that can stop the action in written form are description and back-story. One way to handle description is to make it part of the action. Here is how I handled it in a short story, Fruits of Labor. Ex-bank robber, Jack Snyder, enters a bank in Brazil to rent a safe deposit box. There, he is escorted to that department by Antonio:

          With a firm grip on his briefcase, Snyder followed the slender, young man past the many teller windows toward the rear of the bank. His professional eye took in the two armed-security men and the half dozen video cameras mounted on the walls. . . . 

          He noted with pleasure, the sharpness of his reflection on the polished marble floor. Beyond the tellers, a soft, dark green carpet cushioned the sound of their footsteps. Snyder observed that Antonio’s trousers were the same color as the carpet. Must be some kind of uniform, he decided. The other guys are wearing beige jackets and dark green pant too. They didn’t do that at the branch of this outfit that I knocked over.

You can read the entire short story on my website: joshswritingroom.com

Another literary problem writers encounter is that of Narrative summaries, the recounting of things that happen out of the readers sight or hearing. While narrative can move from point A to point B faster than dialogue, if it’s long, it stops the action.  For that reason writers often remind themselves, show don’t tell. Narrative summary if kept brief can transport the reader from one immediate scene to the next.

          “Sam jumped on his horse and rode over the hill.”

“Sam jumped on his horse,” is the immediate action, while the last part of that sentence, “and rode over the hill.” is narrative summary, beyond the readers sight. It can be used to transition to a scene on the other side of the hill.

Characters needed

Hi Everyone:

Casey Stengel said; “If you want to play baseball, the first thing you have to do is go out and get a bunch of fellers.”

Casey’s pronouncement also applies to creating a story; you need some characters. Mark Twain, whom many consider the first of the modern American novelists, declared; “If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them—you can’t help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there’s your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.”

Good stories start with interesting characters. A bridge falling down is of interest for a moment or two; it becomes a riveting tale when we learn about the people who were on it at the time. Thornton Wilder’s acclaimed second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, is just such a story. It opens with this line: “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.”

A friar, Brother Juniper, witnesses the event and journeys on a quest to prove that Devine intervention rather than chance led to the five deaths. His quest reveals each of the characters and leads him to uncover the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.

Good authors are aware of the importance of character development. While some of the characters in a story may appear to be normal and therefore believable, they often try to endow a main character with some eccentricity in order to make him or her more memorable. Elwood P. Dowd comes to mind. While fond of drinking, he was no alcoholic, but his closest friend was a giant rabbit, invisible to most, called Harvey.

In my novel, Palm Beach Style, the main character, Dugan, is a pistachio eating detective, who frequently offers to share with those who help him nail the bad guy. This may not be as unusual as a giant rabbit but it sets him apart while letting him function in his profession.  Eccentricity will not, in & of itself, create a memorable lead character; for that the author must endow the fictional protagonist and antagonist with emotional and psychological depth—feelings, passion, and desires. Most of that comes to the author from digging deep within and I believe it is what makes writing an art like no other.

As an author, I find it helpful to develop personality studies for all my main characters (while limiting these developments for minor players).  My descriptions include physical attributes (that I may or may not reveal) as well as mannerisms and in some cases, favorite expressions (allowing the reader to identify a speaker without benefit of a tag line naming the source). Recently there was an interview published in Writer’s Digest. When asked about his 6’5” protagonist, Jack Reacher, the author, Lee Child, who has written seventeen books about him commented, “…I leave him undescribed a lot of the time, I leave him unexplained, and so he can do pretty much what he wants.”  Note the last phrase, “what he wants;” the author knows his character so well that in constructing the story, it is the character that dictates his actions and reactions. Authors often feel that the characters dictate the story.

According to Sol Stein, the author of Stein on Writing, “In a novel it is common and desirable for the principal character to change by the end of the book.” He also states; “A change can be surprising, but it should not seem out of sync with what we know about the character.”

Short story writers face the same challenges, except that conflicts must be resolved, or quests fulfilled in fewer pages. My good friend, Frank Lohan does this so well. I invite you to read Frank’s short story, Don’t Forget Pastrami and see for yourself. You can find it by going to my website at:  joshswritingroom.com

 

 

Opening Lines

Hi Everyone:

          I have always loved movies. Even as a little kid growing up on the East side of Cleveland, I looked forward to going to the Saturday matinee. In those days, theaters used to entice the audience with a double feature that included at least one action film, News of the Day, Previews of the Coming Attractions, a Travel-log, numerous cartoons, and a cliff-hanging Serial. Along with my two older sisters, I went every Saturday. My sisters liked the romance films while I favored the action movie, but none of us wanted to miss the Serial. We just had to find out how the hero survived last week’s big finish.

          As they used to say at the movies, “Time Marches On.” Some things have changed, but not my love of movies. I still favor action films and even they have changed. In the past, the filmmakers first focused on the main characters, allowing viewers to identify with them and their surroundings. Do you remember “On the Waterfront?” The big fight scene where Marlon Brando defies the mob boss didn’t take place until the movie was about over. Now films open with an explosion and after fifteen minutes of non-stop action, the picture fades into back-story letting you find out how all this came about. It seems that the movie moguls have learned that they only have a few minutes to grab the public’s attention.

          The same is true of many readers. Before television, and even before the picture show, authors like Sir Walter Scott introduced their characters and setting before engulfing the reader with the novel’s action.  I believe Somerset Maugham said, ‘There are rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

          Modern authors tend to begin their story where the action takes place. They recognize that they have about three pages, at best, to capture their reader’s interest.  Sol Stein in his excellent book, Stein on Writing, listed three goals of the opening paragraph:

1.     To excite the reader’s curiosity, preferably about a character or a relationship.

2.     To introduce a setting.

3.     To lend resonance to the story.

Do you recall reading The Tale of Two Cities by Dickens? You can probably recite the way his opening lines introduced the setting:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”   

Mark Twain was adroit at capturing the reader’s curiosity. Here are the opening lines from Roughing It : “My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year, and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. . .”

See how Leo Tolstoy gives resonance to the story, and even without mentioning  Anna Karenina, pulls us into his setting:

 “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it.”

Mario Puzo introduces readers to a character and arouses curiosity with these opening lines from The Fourth K:

“Oliver Oliphant was one hundred years old and his mind was as clear as a bell. Unfortunately for him.

It was a mind so clear, yet so subtle, that while breaking a great many moral laws, it had washed his conscience clean. A mind so cunning that Oliver Oliphant had never fallen into the almost inevitable traps of everyday life: he had never married, never run for political office and never had a friend he trusted absolutely.”

If that didn’t grab you how about this from Mitch Albom’s book, Tuesdays with Morrie:

“The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience.”

Authors try to entice the reader to invest time in taking a journey. The writer who becomes so enamored of his prose that he waits until the second or third chapter to inject conflict, or a goal, risks losing his readers before they get to page three.

Here are the opening lines from my novel, Path to a Pardon, that revolves around stolen diamonds:

“In the early hours of a cool mid-October morning, while Miami slumbered under dark skies, they drove the route to the diamond exchange for the last time. The downtown streets emitted the quiet sounds of a hospital zone.

Gus checked his watch as they circled the block and then turned into the little alley behind the building on Flagler Street.”

My detective novel, Palm Beach Style, begins with this dialogue:

“I tell you, Frankie, it ain’t right. It shouldn’t be no even split. I know this thing was Pike’s idea and them other two are gonna help guard the guy, but where are they? We’re out here making the damn snatch for a lousy twenty percent of the take. Right?”

You are invited to learn more about my novels by going to: www.joshswritingroom.com

Hi Everyone:
     It is finally done. After weeks of frustration, I finally managed to upload my short story,
The Man in the Ironed Suit.  THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR READING.  Just go to my website at: www.joshswritingroom.com and click on short stories.