Category Archives: Writing

But the reason I bring it up is because while skiing this weekend, I thought of a great idea for a murder mystery at a ski resort. I told my ski-mates and before I knew it, we were all on the chair lift, brainstorming good murder methods for the story, passing around a flask of peppermint schnapps.

It seemed odd, thinking about such a violent subject while taking in the pristine beauty of the Eastern Sierra. But as a crime writer, you have to take inspiration where and when it comes.

Over the weekend Mick sent me a link to this article in the Guardian:

Ten rules for writing fiction

In it, several famous authors were asked what the "rules" were. Some were quite useful, some were funny, and some I could just ignore. These are the ones that are the most useful in my writing life:

Elmore Leonard:

1) Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line
of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking
his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled",
"gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a
line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go
to the dictionary. (I'd heard this before, but it never hurts to be reminded).

Roddy Doyle

2) Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double
space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small
triumph

3) Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides
his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.

Richard Ford

4) Don't have children.

Jonathon Franzen

5) Never use the word "then" as a ­conjunction – we have "and" for this
purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's
non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.

Esther Freud

6) Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key.

Neil Gaiman

7) Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for
them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what
they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

David Hare

8) The two most depressing words in the English language are "literary fiction."

Hilary Mantel

9) Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. This is especially important for historical fiction.
When your character is new to a place, or things alter around them,
that's the point to step back and fill in the details of their world.
People don't notice their everyday surroundings and daily routine, so
when writers describe them it can sound as if they're trying too hard
to instruct the reader.

Rose Tremain

10) If you're writing historical fiction, don't have
well-known real characters as your main protagonists. This will only
create biographical unease in the readers and send them back to the
history books. If you must write about real people, then do something
post-modern and playful with them.

I'll leave you with the rule by Phillip Pullman, which might be the most useful one of all:

"My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work."

very story has a beginning, middle, and an end, right? That's the easy part. The problem starts when you try to answer the question "Where does my story begin?"

Currently, my novel starts at the beginning of the story; that is, it starts more or less when the actual events of the story begin to unfold. This is an easy, straight forward way to get things moving. But is it the most exciting? Is it the best way to start my novel? My task is to look at my story as a whole and pinpoint the moment when
the novel will start. With so much content, that's easier said than
done.

It's not that I'm unhappy with the beginning of my novel. I'm just not
convinced it's the best possible beginning. And if I'm not convinced, how
can I convince anyone else?

The reality for every aspiring novelist (and even those who are published) is that if your novel doesn't grab the reader (in this case potential agents or editors or whoever might be in a position to get your book published) quickly, your precious pages will go nowhere. Literally nowhere.

I've heard different figures tossed around: grab me in 50 pages. grab me in 5. Hell, if the first paragraph doesn't grab me, forget it. I've heard agents say most writers should throw out the first 5 pages of their book and that's the beginning of the novel.

It's enough to drive a writer a little batty.

We all know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Her mother fixes her a basket to bring to her grandmother. Unfortunately, grandma is gobbled by a wolf before Red gets there. In order to fool the girl into thinking grandma is alive and well, the wolf disguises himself as the old woman. When Red confronts him, he attacks her and a hunter comes and saves her.

This is the traditional way the story is told, but what if we mixed it up a little. What if it began with a chase scene between the hunter and the wolf where the wolf hides out in grandma's garden then peeks in the window and sees the old woman, thinking he'd like a good meal? (Actually this story has been told and re-told so many times I'm sure it has started this way in one rendition or another).

The answer to the question of where to begin your novel may be intuitive. It also depends to a large extent on your genre. I'm writing a mystery, so my goal is set up the crime as soon as I can. There's a lot of facts that need to be laid out as soon as possible, but if you do too much too quickly, there is a chance to confuse, or worse bore, the reader.

I wish I could give you a no-fail way to come up with your beginning, but unfortunately, I can't. Every story has it's own beginning and it's the writer's task to find out where it is. For me, it will be finding the perfect balance between action, set-up, and intrigue. Seems like it would be easier to spin straw into gold.

The lovely "E" at the top of this post is courtesy of Daily Drop Cap.

Wisdom borrowed from the great Sue Grafton:

And if you'd like to see a video of a writer who looks much better just out of bed check out my friend Gretchen when she talks about where she writes:

Most of you know I'm an avid user of Facebook and Twitter. I've been active on Facebook for a few years, and on Twitter for just about a year. I consider both of them important parts of my online life, though originally, for different reasons. Now I find the two are merging for me.

From the beginning, Facebook was a place for me to keep in touch with new and old friends, and I've really enjoyed it. For the most part, I only "friended" people I knew and though sometimes that meant a person I only had the vaguest memory of from high school, it was important for me to keep it free from "clutter" by only accepting requests from people I had some familiarity with.

Twitter, on the other hand, began as a place where I created new relationships, mainly publishing and writing-related. It's worked beautifully–I've made so many new friends, acquaintances, and contacts, and I've learned so much about the industry. I've said this before, and I'll say it again–if you are in any sort of field where self-promotion and contacts are important, you gotta be on Twitter. Learn to use it and use it well, because it is your friend.

Because of the different uses I had for Facebook and Twitter, I expressed myself differently on each. On Facebook I tended to post more personal, random things, because the people there knew me. On Twitter, I tried to keep it more professional, sticking mostly to writing links and sharing information. 

But after a year of creating relationships on Twitter, many of whom I've now met face-to-face or at least had conversations with, my Twitter world has intertwined with my Facebook world.  

You know what? I like it. It means the business contacts I've made on Twitter have become more personal–certainly not the same as the ones I've had for years–but I count several among my friends now. And to me, that's what social media is about: creating authentic, mutually beneficial, and yes, personal, relationships.

The only downside I can think of is that I'm a lot more careful now about what I post on Facebook. The merging relationships on Twitter and Facebook mean Holly West, writer, and Holly West, joe-schmoe, are the same and one represents the other. So although I still post a some random stuff on both sites, I'm at least cognizant of the fact that I am, hopefully, creating an audience, and that what I say, whether good or bad, has repercussions.

What about you? Do you find yourself using Twitter and Facebook differently? Has the way you interact on each of them changed over time?

First, I have to say sometimes it's harder to think of pithy blog-post titles than it is to come up with the blog post itself.

With that said, I shall continue. Come Monday, I'll be a student again, kind of. I signed up for an online course through Stanford Continuing Education. The title of the course is "The Essential Art: Making Movies in Your Reader's Mind." It's being taught by Seth Harwood, who wrote Jack Wakes Up. It was a book I enjoyed and having met Seth online and then at Bouchercon 2009 I decided his class was the one I wanted to take; I'd been toying with the idea of taking an online writing course for awhile and this just seemed to be the right time.

I have two goals for the class. The first, of course, is to enhance Diary of Bedlam with the writing techniques I hope to learn. The second is to write a short story which I plan to submit to the MWA anthology. I've never written a short story and it will be good to have Seth and my classmates as a sounding board in this endeavor. I've already got an idea for that story but as always, I'm worried about the writing of it–I wonder if there will ever come a time when I feel confident in my ability to write a given story?

What about you? Are you embarking on any new adventures in 2010? A new job or a class? Do tell!