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.

New writing schedule

So this week I have decided to try and use my free time for writing time. So far I have not had good results. Maybe it is this week because I have had personal life; like my cat going to the vet and my sister maybe here about a month early and my mother needs help getting ready for her and the children. But this week’s lack of word count is disheartening. In addition to my normal work for grad school and I have to do well to make certain powerful people happy. So I have written some on a short story that I plotted out with character bios and everything about two years ago. I was writing it when I realized that I needed to have a prologue to explain some background information that is important to the story but never talked about in the story itself. So I went back to the beginning and started writing a prologue. That is all I have done on it. It is less than 500 words and I want the story to be about 5000.

Well I am going to continue to try with this new writing schedule. Maybe this is just a bad week or maybe it just feels bad because I am trying something new. About the writing itself I have high hopes for my piece. I am writing a science fiction story and when I get it done (God I hope) then I get to give it to my beta readers. I am very lucky in my readers because I have someone who knows me so well that when I make a mistake, like switching words I do that a lot, he knows exactly what I am trying to saying. By switching words I mean this- “She walked towards the car. The rain was just a plain rain but the car made it shiny.” My brain moves faster than my hands and it shows. Then I have a grammar friend who loves me but hates my grammar. It is cool he is very helpful and nice about it. Then I have a creative writing friend and a last someone who could be a professional reader.

How I handle all this outside help? Well I do it in stages. I do not send my work out to a new beta until I have read and worked with all notes from the previous beta. I talk with my betas about their notes and why they felt that way about it. I listen to them when they are talking about their notes and I do not interrupt them while they are doing it. My betas are giving me something wonderful and I do my best to respect them when they are helping me become a better writer. Well hopefully I will have a better word count for you next week. Thanks for reading and see you next time.

Character description

Today I want to talk about something that caused more than a few arguments in creative writing classes that is describing characters. First my opinion: I do not care how someone describes their characters. I do think that there better ways of doing it but in the end I do not care. That was and is my opinion on the matter but even I was pulled (very willingly) into the big discussion and argument about the ‘right’ way to do this. There is no right way but there are better ways.

The biggest way that characters are described is the Mirror method. That is when you have a character look into a mirror and tell you what they are seeing. For example:

Rachel looked at herself to fix her hair. Long blonde hair that wanted to curl but then decided that was too much work so it just flowed into waves down her back. Her light blue eyes were round as she took in her skin. Normally flawless but the last week of stress had taken its bill to her skin. She was breaking out all on her chin. She closed her eyes and bowed her head so she was looking at her short legs when she opened them.

That is the mirror method. It has its place in writing and it is not a bad way to describe but there better ways. I do not know the name for how the best way I learned in college. But it is more showing the reader than telling them what they see. I will try do it.

Rachel ran her hands through her hair trying to untangle the long blonde locks. As she moved into the bathroom worried about how her skin would look. The past week of stressing would, no doubt, taken a toll on it. Rachel ran her right hand over her face feeling the bumps on her chin. Rolling her blue eyes she turned to face the mirror.

I do not know if that is a really big difference to you but it is to me. In the first I feel like I am telling you what to see and in the second I feel that I am showing you how Rachel looks. But if I am not then please tell me, I am still learning about this writing thing, I think that is something that everyone is still learning. Description is very important and you can do the first method, I do, but I do not use method one for characters only for places. Places can just be told but do not use it too much. It can be a quick and useful way to jump start a story but it can also make you a cheap writer. By that I mean if you only use method one then you are cheating your reader and yourself out of what you can do as a writer. The best way to not do that is to have other people read your work. Have someone who likes you but is not going to worry about your feelings. You are not your work. The work is something that you have created but you are not it. But I think that I will talk about that next week. Until gentle reader, Je ne.

Story Ideas

Today’s post I want to talk about ideas for stories. That is something that very artist, be they writer, Art artist, or musician, is where do we get our ideas from? I have heard everything from my ‘I don’t have story ideas I just know what to write’ to ‘Everything is a story waiting to happen’. Well I envy those guys because that is not the way that it works for me. I cannot speak for others so this is will about where I get my ideas for plots, characters, and settings from. I get most of my ideas for stories is from dreams and the shower.

My shower is the most inspiring place in the whole world. This week I had a great idea for a dark urban fantasy that I do not want to give too much information about because I am still working on the details. I do not know what it is about my bathroom but I have the most spiritual, creative experiences in there. I know that it really weird and I have probably just lost half of my readers but it is true. If I am having trouble with a paper or a story I just go take a shower and bam! I will have the answer. Now the answer maybe rewriting the whole the thing but I am, normally, so glad just to have an answer that I do not care about the extra work. The solution will also help me not feel the time that I have spent in the writing. So next time you are stuck take a shower. There is just something magical about it.

The next biggest place I get ideas from are my dreams. I have a very active dream life. I think that it is because I do not have the most exciting life. I go to class, apply for jobs, watch TV and movies, I read a lot and once year I go to Dragon*Con (most magical time of the year!). But that is about it. I never really was very exciting and with the onset of Lupus I have become even less so. So my brain is making up for my less than exciting personal life by having a very intense and exciting dream life. I have dreamed most of the stories that I have (or rather had been working on see post on Dreams and Goals about that) been writing for years now. I do not have exiting dreams that I remember often. I always hope when I am going to sleep that I will have an awesome dream and remember it. My dream life does make up for my boring real life because in the dream I do not have Lupus. I do not have to think about my meds or getting too hot or anything other than whatever excitement is happening around me. I forget myself in my dreams. Maybe that is sad but it is true.

So the next time you are wondering where you are going to get your next story from take a shower or a nap. I know that one or both will work for you. Until next time readers, be well.

The Thesaurus

  Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite things in the world to use when I am writing: The Thesaurus. I love my thesaurus and Thesaurus.com. They have both saved my life while writing papers for classes, for blogging, for my creative writing, and for my personal writing. Now part of that is I have a learning disorder. It is just for math and spelling, when I try to remember how to do something like a math formula or spelling my brain just freezes. Now it does not matter how big the word or how complicated the formula I blank out. For the word ‘complicated’ I had to look it up. I spelled complex then looked at the synonyms to find it. Now this made my younger life so much harder than it had to be. My parents understood what was going on but my school(s) did not. They just thought that I would lazy or in the case of one teacher retarded. That teacher was the reason I was taken and tested for learning disorders and IQ. My mother, proudly, to this day says that my IQ is much higher than that of the teacher in question.

So how does this wonderful technology help the writer? Well I have already shown you one way; in that when you cannot remember how to spell a word you can just look it up. Google has smart text. As you are typing Google will try and guess what you are trying to say. Now I have defeated Google with words I am looking for. And I say this all modesty I have made Google have self-doubt. I now that some people will make fun of me but I do use Google to spell check. I know that Google is not all knowing but it is a very useful tool and I am not one to not a tool just because.

Another wonderful tool is a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms. I have two copies in my house. One that travels with me to class and out and about; the other one stays in my library in the house. I use that when I cannot remember what word I want when all I can remember is what the word means. So when I have my brain freeze I can remember what is does not mean. It is also useful because they do tell you more words that mean the same thing. I use it in that way when I am checking what a word means. Knowing the definition of a word does not mean that it the right word for the sentence. So when I have doubts about that I look up the word in my little dictionary or use Google and just read what the synonyms for it are. I have changed paragraphs because of this tool. Here are links to the websites that I use and have named in this post- http://thesaurus.com/, http://www.synonym.com/, http://www.oed.com/. Please tell me what you use when you are stuck on a word or if that is something special about me. Until next week then, je ne!