Standalones and flash fiction

Today I am going to be doing more than just one thing. I am going to give what I think about standalone novels and then I am going to be give some flash fiction. I have not been writing anything but stuff for my graduate classes, this blog, and my book review blog. I know that looks like a lot but I am annoyed with myself about not writing anything else for so long. So I am going to be taking a prompt from ‘from my write side’ http://frommywriteside.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/master-class-2013/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-2 and writing a quick flash fiction piece about it.

Standalone novels are the pillars of literary novels. All great novels from the previous centuries are standalones. I think that standalones are both harder and easier to write. For the easier; there are no plot threads that the writer has to worry about, no long narratives, no worry about the forgotten love interest. Just one story and just one book (after editing and rewrites I get that.). Downside about standalones; the writer may not have the time or the space to tell the full story, there may be forgotten plot points or characters that were important just dropped from the narrative leaving the reader confused. I know that there is more to say about both series and standalones but for now I think that I am finished with both. If you think of anything else that you believe that I should talk about please just leave me a comment and I will address them.

My prompt is One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training.

One of the biggest complaints of motherhood is the lack of training Ona thought as she watched her eldest son walk away with the dust from the coming wind storm following in his wake. The red light from the thick atmosphere of Jupiter tinted his black hair red and the anger in his stride made it a darker red. She was the favorite concubine of the headman but her son, his son too, was not good enough to be the next leader of their people. Ona cursed under her breath about the ancient laws that stopped her son’s ambition. He was going away now. He was going to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, to be a success there. His father was yelling at his back but her son did not turn, did not response to him at all. Her son, her Cal, was going to where she would never see him again. In vain did Ona beg his father for mercy or understanding or anything that would stop Cal from leaving. His father would not listen to her or to anyone but the old laws. The space shuttle that would carry Cal to his new life was lifting off and in a shower of dust and flame he was gone. Ona turned her back to the landing site and walked behind Cal’s father back to his home. In her heart of hearts Ona knew that she would never forgive him for taking Cal away from her or Cal for leaving.

As always thanks for reading and see you next week.

Series

Series are what I would like to talk about today. Series, love them or hate them, are everywhere. They have not always been. In fact before the beginning of the 1900 century series were seen as something only weak readers would read. Series were seen by librarians as something that should be used get young children to read but then they must weaned off of series so that they could read ‘real’ books. I learned this in a course about the history of books in grad school and it floored me. Series are just something that are so ingrained into our reading habits at this point that the very thought that they were or are less than real books just does not compute.

Now I both love and hate series at the same time. I love a good series with interesting characters that grow over the course of the book, I love to see the complex threads of a plotline come together, to see the stray threads just waiting to be picked up and explored in a later book. A series can be one of the most wonderful things in the reading world that you can read or write. A series gives both the writer and the reader a stable world to work and read from. It helps the writer because they do not have to be building new worlds with every book but can learn all about the world, they can know what color the shadows are. There is just something comforting about a known world.

But series can be boring. Because the writer does not have to be doing something all the time, some writers cannot do it. A standalone novel can be a wonderful experience. It can take you to new different places, can make us examine ideas that we have never encountered before, to go to strange new worlds, and seek out the human in them. New worlds are where we learn the most about ourselves and all literature in the end is about what it means to be human. What is human is the eternal question and literature is just one of the ways that we try to answer it.

So go write a series and a standalone novel. Go see where you best answer the eternal question of being human. You should be writing.

Be brave!

One of things that I have been complaining about for months now is graduate school. But it has given some things. It will (hopefully) get me a degree then a job in a library somewhere, it has given me a lot of self-knowledge, and it has given me some good friends; who I really need to call and get lunch with sometime. Other thing that it has given me it exposure to many different writing styles in the forms of all the papers and articles that I have read in the past two years. In doing that I have learned something very important; that is I am so tired of reading things written by smart people who are trying to prove to me that they are smart.

Allow me to explain that. In the world of academia there is this need to make sure that everyone knows that you are smart enough to be writing for the academic journals or a textbook. I would love to tell them is- If you are writing for an academic journal then I believe that you are smart. I do not think that you have your degrees by accident; I believe that you are someone important enough to be listened to. I know that this something that is not just in academic writing. I have read books that just scream ‘I am a good book! Look at me! Read me!’ If you can get your book published then I believe that you are a good writer and that you can write a good book. You do not have to prove to me that you are, I am willing to go on faith with you about it. I understand wanting to make your sale or your brand or whatever you are working so hard to get to. I know that you are working very hard to get there and if I believe that if you work hard, put your all into something, you will get everything back. You will get the book deal, you will get the readers, and you will be successful. But do not spend that time yelling through your writing about it. Just trust in yourself and in your work.

Self-knowledge is the best way to do this. Know where your strengths are and do not be afraid to see your weaknesses. The only time that weakness can hurt you is if you ignore it. There are so many people out there who can and will help you. Know where you can go for help, be that emotional help when you are hitting your head on the wall or someone who will read your work with honesty. Be brave and write on, readers!

Camp NaNoWriMo

So everyone is getting geared up for Camp NaNoWriMo but I am not doing it this year. I tried twice last year but with grad school, lupus, and general life it did not happen. This week has been rough for me because I have so much to work on and I just have no desire to write. I think that because I am writing one to two papers a week for grad school I just do not have anything left. I was going to write a post about defending fanfiction but I am sure that it needs. My post would have say "Fanfiction is good for writers because it gives us a safe place to play. It is not serious but can be taken seriously." I would have fluffed it up with more words but that is it. Fanfiction is good for young writers to work with because it gives them a voice without the seriousness and emotional involvement of their personal works.

Back to Camp NaNo I do recommend doing NaNoWriMo once in your writerly career because it shows you just what you can do if your back is to the wall. I know that some people do not like to have that kind pressure on them but without a deadline I would never get anything done. And NaNo has a very tight deadline. When I have done NaNo I have written like the wind and I loved it. I have done NaNo from a plotless point to having a plotted out course with an outline and guidelines for where I wanted to be by certain days. I know that there are people out there who has that anything written in such a haphazard way cannot be good. Not the first draft, but anyone who wants their first draft to the prefect is going to be disappointed, but if you edit it and work with it the first draft will turn into something special and important. So if you have the time and the guts to do Camp NaNo do it. Talk your friends into, I did. And I promise you will have more fun than you knew possible on a deadline.

Reading and Writing Concluded

Just a short post today more about reading and writing. Last week I mostly talked about reading and finding things that you like in the writing, then learning how to intergrade them into your own style. This week I want to talk about when you find bad writing. Now I am not really very critical of nine out of ten writers. I know how hard it to write the first draft, then you have get the courage up to show it to another human being, then you have to find the energy and drive to edit the piece into the ground. I understand all that. It is not easy but there some things that just kill the writing or the story for me. Now luckily, I think, that all these problems are easy to work around. I have two major problems that will kill a story and sometimes even a writer for me.

The first problem and the least is the prose. By that I mean the prose is just not readable, something went wrong with the writing process and now it is just bad. But take heart there is an easy way to fix this. Read it out loud. I am not kidding. Read the book or passage or dialogue out loud. If it does not sound right then it will not read right. I use this when I remember to and there is a difference in both the quality of my work, my happiness with the work, and even in my grades. I love audiobooks; so I have a habit of reading out loud to myself. I do this when I am having a hard time with the Lupus or if I am just not understanding what is being written. I know that makes it take longer to get through the piece but it is worth it in the end because you will have a better written piece.

The other major problem is much more serious. That is when the author does not do their research. When you are writing in your own world you make the rules but some things are the same. Like if you are writing something that is supposed to be real world then the sun needs to rise in the east. The biggest example I can think of is a YA novel that I read last year and the writer did not do research on how a rape survivor acts. The heroine, who has been trained at this point to be an assassin, wakes up in her bed knowing that someone else is in the room. The person touches her foot and all she can think is about is how warm his hand is. To this day that offends me. The heroine was brutalized, beaten, and strongly hinted that she was raped at least once in her life. No rape survivor is going to act like that. She is going to lose it and I know this because I have taken friends to my local rape clinic, I have held their hands as they told their story over and over. I am not saying that they live in fear every moment of their lives because that is not true either but if any of them woke up to some guy in their room they are not going to think about how warm his hand is. If you want to know what book I am talking about I will answer in private message but not in a public way. Well this one ended up longer than I thought it would. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

Writing and Reading

Something I hear from everyone in the writing field is that they all read and they read all the time. The reasons that are given are that it gives you new ideas, it shows you how any people are writing about X or Y, and that is makes you a better writer. Well I agree. Reading what others write will do all that for you and more. There is something about it that does good things for our brains. As a librarian I cannot stress the importance of reading enough. If you want to know more about the brain science behind why it is important just Google ‘brain science and reading’. There are many excellent articles from Science News and others about the importance of reading to the brain.

But what does reading do for writers? I cannot speak for others but for me it shows me what I like and what I do not like. When other writers use a certain turn of phrase that I just love I want to think of how to use it myself. Seeing both what other writers are writing about and how they are writing gives us learning writers’ guidance. When more experienced writers do something well, I want to copy it. That is not a bad thing. In fact it a good thing for younger writers to try and copy those we admire. It will teach us how to find our own voice. Every artist has a voice and the only way to find yours is to try on others first. Like when you were a child and you played dress up. You were trying on different voices to see if that one was closer to your voice. That said I do not endorse stealing from other artists. That is not the way to find your voice.

How can you try on different voices without stealing? One easy and safe way to do that is writing exercises. Take the characters or the setting or whatever really gets you and try writing it out. See where it takes you. Another thing that I have done is when something that I do not like in a book I have written out what I would have done. That has helped me get peace with the story or helped me get over the story. Do not feel bad about rewriting some other authors work, just do not steal it, of course. Be inspired by the works around you. Shakespeare borrowed, changed, and outright stole every one of his plays. They all are from older famous works so if another author has just the prefect sub plotline you need to jump start your own work, do not be afraid to use some or parts of it. Just do not steal from them. When in doubt contact the author and ask. Remember do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Until next week; write and be blessed.

Image from Google Images.

Everyone has something important

Well I was and still am not sure what I want to write about this week but I do something fun/interesting to tell you. If you Google writing blog ideas I am the fifth thing that will pop up at least for me and that I think is really cool but I do not think that it will work for others (sad face). I do not know if that is because of some setting that I have on my Google account or if I am really the fifth thing out there. I really hope that I am the fifth thing because that would be so cool. If that is really the case I want to write about why I think that is. I think that maybe everyone thinks that they know how to write. I am not talking about grammar or anything like that but they just do not need to talk about how to write. Or maybe others believe that they do not know enough about the art of writing to have an opinion or something like that.

That is not true. If you have written anything from a letter (or e-mail as the world is now) to a paper for class you have some knowledge about how to write and be successful. Now someone like John Scalzi who has a great blog about writing and more, I would trust more than someone with no writing credits under their belt. But that does not mean they do not have something of value to share. There is something that we all learn when we do the writing process that another may not know or may need help learning. So do not ever feel that just because you have not published half a dozen books does not mean that you do not have some wisdom to share about the process or just about the discipline needed to finish a piece.

Short post today but I think that it is something important that we as writers need to remember. That is that everyone has a different view of the process, a different understanding of it , and they have something important to give others about it. Until next week be blessed dear readers.