Category Archives: writing

Five simple words to begin a novel

Posted on by under authors, dailies, fiction, Uncategorized, writers, writing

“Once upon a time” no longer works, we are past the fairy tale age, so how and why does a writer start chapter one. Writers are told to make the first paragraph interesting, give a hook, something to make the reader move to the 2nd paragraph. Some writers think that means  a slam bang opening, or beginning in the middle of some compelling mystery. Writers are free to choose their own opening, but . . .

Consider the simplicity of a single sentence. The first paragraph of Charles Bukowski’s “Post Office” is an example. He begins with five words. Bukowski writes, ” It began with a mistake.” Notice he did not say who made a mistake, not he, not her, not anybody, just ‘it.’ So what is ‘it’?  What is the mistake? What was the result of the mistake? How did the mistake affect the characters?  ‘It’ must be an action, don’t you think. Something happened that in the end was a mistake. Could the mistake have  been averted, or was it something innocent that turned out bad? There is no action, there is no beginning in the middle of something, there is no tension between hero and adversary.

Just five simple words.

Those five words bring up lots of questions and aren’t you curious to find out what the mistake was? Something bad is bound to happen, after all there was a mistake.

Writers too often try to overdo everything, including a novels opening. Like a young baseball pitcher trying to impress a manger by throwing too hard with no plan for the pitch a writer tries to hard to impress. Sentences overflowing with steroidal adverbs meant to dazzle, instead fizzle. The best thing a writer can do, the very best thing-yes I just used ‘very’-but it works here-is to get out of the way, not only of your writing, but of the characters, of the story, of everything. Writers should not draw attention to themselves, but be invisible.

Thus the simplicity of ‘It began with a mistake.’ Bukowski was not trying to impress, he was luring you into the story. And that is impressive.

 

Survival for writers suffering with depression.

Posted on by under dailies, writers, writing

Depression is not fun. I know because I have dysthymia, a mild form of depression for which I took a prescribed drug for many years, but I stopped due to side effects and I wanted to battle it on my own. People with dysthymia are apathetic (not always a bad thing), both mentally and physically and tend to be negative and passive. Now blend in two of the four Greco-Roman humors, those being melancholy (analytic and quiet) with choleric (short tempered and irritable) and you know more about me than I want you to know. As you may have surmised that being apathetic, negative, short tempered, and irritable I have no friends. But then I also have a twinge of paranoia.

Let me be clear. Depression is not feelings of sadness. Everyone feels sadness, not everyone is depressive. Depression is a disease. In my case and in most forms of this depression, it is a problem with the flow of serotonin in the brain. “Beating the Blues”, paperback and Kindle was helpful to me. 

Now that you know I have depression and if you a writer suffering with this disease I can tell how I battle my apathy to get going. I try to write everyday, yet I fail. It is not that I have places to go, though sometimes that is true, but there is no excuse other than I can’t overcome my apathy. What does help, though not always, is drinking Chinese tea. I suppose it is the caffeine, but it does simulate my brain. I am writing my third blog today, all drafts that will appear in the next week or two. I may do another draft as my brain is active. In other words, strike when you can. One day, full of Chinese green tea, I wrote 2,410 words of my novel in progress in three hours. I drank three cups of the same tea today and now, as I said, I am working on my third post draft.

One other thing to overcome is the quilt if you are not writing. It is hard to forgive yourself, that you are wasting valuable time, that you should be writing, but can’t. That is the hardest thing for me, as the guilt festers, multiplying the apathy, increasing the feelings of futility. Then you have to forgive yourself for the guilt over the guilt. It can be a never ending cycle.

I can tell you what doctors will say. Exercise the body, you will feel better. When I do that, I do feel better. But being apathetic, like writing, I fall away, not able to keep it up every day. It is interesting in listening to those who do not suffer from depression, who do not, can not, understand it. They say, ”Well just do it,  just sit down and write.” Ah, if only it were that easy. Even with depression and understanding it, I still don’t know why I can’t just sit down and do it.

So if you are a depressed writer, do something to stimulate your brain, whether coffee, tea, exercise, running, walking, swimming, and then remember to forgive yourself if you are not stimulated each and every day. And of course it does not hurt to just sit down and write one sentence and see where it leads. Just tell yourself, just one sentence. You never know, it may lead to another, then a paragraph, then . . .

just keep trying. 

Confusing pronouns confuse readers, okay maddens readers

Posted on by under authors, dailies, e-books, Uncategorized, writers, writing

I won’t mention the novel, nor will I mention the author, as it is not my intent to embarrass a fellow writer. I enjoyed his story even though I got perturbed, mad, and upset with confusing pronouns. 

What I mean about confusing pronouns is when there are two characters in a scene and then a pronoun, such as ‘he’ is used, but the way the sentence or paragraph is written, you do not know which character the author is referring to. Confusion means the reader stops. Damn it, the flow is gone, who is talking, who is doing what, who is ‘he.’

It is an easy mistake for a writer because the writer knows who ‘he’ is. That ‘he’ is in the writers mind, but it is not in the reader’s mind and that is the problem. This problem surfaced a few times in the novel and was frustrating.

All writers know writing is fun and proofreading is torture. I hate proofreading, but finding and correcting, commas, misspellings, inserting missing quotation marks is the least of it. They are more noticeable, though it can-and has-taken me dozens of times to find them all. At least I think I have found those bugaboos. But a proofreader must read word by word seeking clarity in each sentence and to do this the author must have a clear mind. And that is why it is recommended a writer wait six months-at least by some-before proofreading. That way your mind is clear, you have forgotten much, and you are more likely to see mistakes. I tried waiting, but I could go only three months as the itch to publish was itching so badly I felt I needed a cream, but the only alternative was to proofread. I found things I would not have seen before. What I thought was clear in a paragraph became three months later a mess.  I tried to blame it on Word.doc and some sort of self correcting flaw in the software. But I knew better, though I liked to blame the computer. It made me feel better.

The easy thing for a writer to do in correcting confusing pronouns is to simply place the character’s name where he should be. It works better for the reader who wants a good flow, no confusion, so keep the readers  reading.

Though this is my first post on this site, I have had two  blogs for some time. I have one on writing called “The quill, the e-word, and the looniness.” Near the end of 2015 I closed my long time website, terrynelson.net, to create this site for my blogs and my e-Books. So I will have the quill blog up for a while, but if you have followed me on that blog, I hope you will follow, not stalk, me here. At the top of this site is info on who I am and  what my novels and short stories are about. My Seattle Mariner blog  is here. Thanks for reading.