Heinlein’s Rules of Writing
If you don’t know who Heinlein is, you obviously don’t read SF. I regret to say I have yet to read any Heinlein, which could be considered blasphemy by many. In any case, he was an influential writer and he had a few little rules that even to this day seem to be rather relevant. This also is going to address a comment by Jameel regarding ‘constant fiddling’, where you are always making changes rather than progressing the story. So pay attention: Rule One: You Must WriteSounds obvious doesn’t it? The problem is that too many people, including myself at one time, say they want to be writers, but never actually get anything done. You can’t be a writer if you don’t write! Rule Two: Finish What You StartThis one I have problems with and I think a lot of writers do too. Sometimes you’ll write something and suddenly be extremely bored with it. Are there others of you out there that have that problem? To put it simply, though, you can’t publish anything if you never finish anything. Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except To Editorial OrderApparently creative writing teachers hated Heinlein for this rule, but when you think about it it makes sense. You shouldn’t write something, and then continuously rewrite it every time someone mentions something in it or doesn’t like a piece. Otherwise you’ll just do that forever and never get anything done. Remember, not all revisions are good. Sometimes you can revise something and make it worse! Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story On the MarketDuh! You can’t get published if you don’t do this. One thing to consider doing once you start submitting is to try to keep a relatively steady stream. Write it, submit it, write something else, submit that, and if something comes back rejected, resubmit it elsewhere. Rule Five: You Must Keep It On the Market Until It’s SoldWell I’m sure there is some leeway to this. If you’ve submitted something to everything imaginable and have 500 rejections on one story, I think it would be safe to say that you’re not selling that story. That doesn’t mean to give up. New markets spring up all the time and one of those might take your story. You also can’t let rejections discourage you too much. Some of the most popular authors were rejected hundreds of times before getting anywhere. Also, when you get a rejection, take that story and submit it elsewhere right away! Rule Six: Start Working On Something ElseOnce you submit, don’t stop writing. Get right back into it and write something else. Period. If you don’t write then you’ll spend a long amount of time sitting around waiting for your acceptance or rejection. So write! So, in theory, following these rules will do you some good. I know a few that I need to follow! What do you all think of these rules?
Punctuation: A Writer’s Worst Enemy — Semicolons
It has come to my attention that one of the things I should really address in my blog is punctuation. I was recently reading work from a lady in my lit. class and it occurred to me that the semicolon is the most misrepresented punctuation there is. George Orwell once shunned it because he considered it an arcane piece of the English language. To some extent we would have to agree with him because it is a rather old and rarely used item. There is good reason for its lack of use: people generally don’t know how to use it. A semicolon is, in some ways, a super comma. Unlike the comma, however, you must have two independent clauses. What is this bit about clauses? A clause, to put it simply, is a sentence that contains a subject and a verb. An independent clause is a sentence that is a complete thought. A dependent clause is one that does not complete a thought and requires additional information to do so. Example: Fighting in the old restaurant = DependentThey were fighting in the old restaurant = Independent Notice the difference? Now, in regards to semicolons, you need two independent clauses. You can’t say: She was a happy girl; smiling all the time. That makes no sense because the first part is independent, but the second is dependent. It requires additional information to make it a complete sentence. The following would be correct: She was a happy girl; she smiled all the time. Two complete clauses (sentences). Generally speaking you always want the two clauses around the semicolon to be related. Notice how the above example has a happy girl who smiles. Both are related to her happiness. Sometimes you can get away with it, but for the most part you should stick to having the sentences stick together. Besides, if you have a sentence that is unrelated it probably should be on its own somewhere anymore. Just remember this the next time you want to use the semicolon. It can be your friend if you use it correctly; it can also be your greatest enemy. If you use it poorly it is a sure fire way to end up in that slush pile or in the garbage can. Editors generally do not like flashy punctuation; semicolons can be seen this way if you use them a lot. It’s a clear warning when your use of the semicolon is incorrect that you are not developed enough in your writing for publication. I personally love the semicolon. It’s a cool piece of punctuation I think. So, that’s that!
Subplots: How Much Is Too Much?
It has occurred to me as I attempt to catch up on the novel posting that something I should discuss is subplots. I have been lax on the whole writing thing, and that is partly my fault and partly the fault of fate, which will be in another discussion of course. As for subplots, I find that sometimes I start adding in so many of them that it gets to the point where I have to ask myself “how much is too much?” At this point it is literally impossible for me to, in a decent enough fashion, end WISB in one novel. I could end it, but it would mean the novel itself would be of a caliber I wouldn’t be proud of and I don’t think my readers, as few as they are, would be all that interested in a terribly shortwinded attempt to tie up all the loose ends. As such, we’ll just have to carry those over into a second book and see what happens from there.Do any of you find the same problem with your subplots? I have quite a few going in WISB. Thus far the main plot is James trying to save Laura and get home. There are just too many subplots to name, and most of them are in the form of questions as I haven’t fleshed out enough of the ideas to adequately give an idea of the direction they are going.
Aging Characters
Mr. Bramage brought up an interesting point about the main character for WISB–James. James, it seems, no longer feels like a child, and I began to think about this. It’s true, James is no longer a child in any sense of the word. Children are essentially ‘innocent’. They generally know what death is, but at the same time have no concept of it. Perhaps they have seen a loved one die, or heard about it, but in the mind of a child–at least from my childhood–the idea of ‘death’ doesn’t really sink in.Understanding life and death is, in my opinion, something that comes with age.So in a way, James has to grow up. He has to accept ‘adulthood’ sooner because his innocence has been torn away from him. This is all part of the character’s journey. All character’s face a struggle; this is simply his struggle. I like to think, however, that James still remains a child at heart. Much of his reactions, at least from my viewpoint, seem on that childish level–and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. But his emotions are on a more child-like level, and his reactions within his mind and with himself I like to think are still at that level. It also is interesting to think that James is 12–as of right now–which is an age of great changes anyway.But, I suppose that all depends on how you look at things. This is all from my point of view as a child. I can’t say that all children react the same. That would be a tremendously unfounded assertion. So has anyone else had a character that quickly changed due to some sort of stress? Leave a comment, tell me about it!
A Writer’s Friend–Music
I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for a while now. What exactly is the affect of music on writers? Are some inspired by listening to certain forms of music? Or do some not listen while writing at all?In my case it can be either/or. Depending on the type of mood I am in, I can write while listening to music, but in other cases I have to have complete silence. I generally listen to music without words, though, namely classical and orchestrated soundtracks from movies. So I am curious what music does everyone listen to when they write? How does it affect you? And, alternately, has a song, or section of a musical piece, inspired you so much that you’ve actually written a scene set to it?I ask that question simply because it seems that some authors, besides myself, have had this experience. Christopher Paolini wrote the final battle scene in Eragon while listening to Carmina Burana, a fantastic epic classical work by Carl Orff. If you listen to parts of it you’ll understand why he was so influenced by that piece. I have tried looking for other authors that have had similar experiences, but have somewhat come up short. Over here at Quantum Storytelling Redchurch has written a blog about favorite writing music. He quotes using a lot of different forms of music, mostly from film composers.In my case I find that I am increasingly influenced by two specific pieces of music from two rather entertaining films. One is from The Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack, track 13. I’ve actually written in my head an entire scene for The World in the Satin Bag. It’s a very emotional scene too, one in which I am not at all excited to write. The other is the track entitled Kronos Revealed on The Incredibles soundtrack. I’ve not written anything for it, but every time I hear that piece I start to really think. It is a powerful and gripping piece from the film and ends on this dark, brass filled set of notes, intensifying to a climax. So, what sort of music affects all of you in your writing? And, if we take this in the opposite direction, perhaps something you have written inspired you to write a song or think of something musical. Spider Robinson worked with David Crosby to write a sort of ‘scifi’ folk song for one of his novels. You can see the interview here. It’s really the dorkiest you can get, but makes you think a little.
A Discussion of Changes – “Show, Don’t Tell”
Firstly, some notes of changes you might have noticed in the blog itself. 1. Chapter Quick Links: Mr. Bramage, my never failing and unrelentingly supportive fan that tells me how much he loves my work in comments (which I greatly appreciate by the way) had asked me a while back to put back links to previous chapters for quick reference. Well, now I have changed that entirely and put up an actual table in the side bar that will have all the links to all the chapters. Right now I have it set at 20 chapters simply because I haven’t the foggiest of how long this story will be and that seems like a rather modest, if not under-anticipated chapter goal. 2. Novel Progress: A new interesting feature spawned from looking at all those nifty NaNo sites floating about. NaNo offers a little widget you can put on your blog or website that will show your progress in your attempt to write a novel in 30 days. I loved this idea simply because it gives me an interesting marker for people to see where I’m at. So, I put one up. It’s not from NaNo, simply because I can’t use one of theirs since I’m not doing this for that project. However, it will be tracking my progress in this endeavor with an expected goal of 180,000 words, which is quite a lot if you ask me. Whether I will miss that mark or cross it depends entirely on how this story goes. Nevertheless, it’s there for you all to take a gander.3. Copyright Info: It occurred to me that, although my work is technically protected by copyright law, I should put up some sort of copyright just as an added protection. No, I don’t hold a patent or some such, and nobody can on a work of fiction simply because it’s not a commodity that can be traded, however it is a warning to those that might potentially steal from me (for what reasons I will never know simply because it seems silly to steal from an unpublished author). Alright, so now that that is out of the way. I thought I would have a short discussion on that infamous “Show, Don’t Tell” rule, a rule which I am sure I have broken more than a dozen times in the span of these last 37,000 words. This is, and probably always will be, one of those rules that everyone tells you that you have to follow strictly, yet, nobody really ever does. There are hundreds of published authors who ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. Why have we become so infatuated with this rule then? Because every single major publisher, editor, agent, and author has repeatedly crammed this rule into our heads for reasons I’m not entirely sure of.Now, as a rule, you should follow “Show, Don’t Tell”, since obviously having an entire story of ‘tell’ would be absurd. But there are times when you can get away with it. Take for instance parts of a story where ‘showing’ would simply drag down the pace. Why bother having your character showing you why something is a certain when, when you can tell it in a single sentence.Of course you’ll not want to do this all the time, but if you come to a point where telling would simply make things simpler and keep your pace constant, then just tell. Let’s look at some famous authors who don’t exactly follow the rule.Tolkien: We are mostly all familiar with his work, or should be, not necessarily because he is a fantastic writer (which he isn’t by the way), but because his work was the dawn of an entire era of fantasy writers. His work is littered with telling. He tells you about EVERYTHING in the world of Middle Earth and doesn’t use a lot of time to really show you much of what is going on. Take some of the big battle scenes that were glorified in the movie adaptations. The siege of Isengard is ‘told’ to us after it had already happened, for an example.Diane Duane: I’ve recently become a fan of her work and while she sticks to the “Show, Don’t Tell” rule more than writers like Tolkien, there are parts where she breaks away. Mostly this occurs when she refers to tidbits of information on the characters and things in their lives. Nevertheless, she breaks away from the rule on occasion, and, well, it works. I’ve been blowing through her novels so quickly I’m almost done with them.John Connolly: I just recently read his novel The Book of Lost Things, a book which I recommend anyone to read. It is a thrilling retake on all those ‘other world’ stories involving fairy tales. There are several parts of his book where he has characters ‘tell’ you stories. Because his novel is designed somewhat as a twisted world of pre-existing fairy tales, there are points where certain characters (the Woodsman for example) actually tell you ‘tales’ that are relevant to whatever is going on. These are telling sections, and there is no way around it, however, they work. They draw you in, keep you interested, and altogether keep the pace of the story very smooth.Those are just a few authors, and there’s bound to be hundreds more (Paolini is an example, who is very adept at ‘telling’ us things, and despite what many may say about his work, he has gained critical acclaim).So, should you start telling all the time? Of course not. That would lead to utter garbage, and we all know that it is nearly impossible to sell garbage, although I have to say that there are some novels out there that could be classified as garbage. You should always follow this rule, but you should also realize that breaking it isn’t really that big of a deal, so long as you don’t ‘always’ break it. This isn’t to say that we aren’t prone to making mistakes, something of