When Hunter S. Thompson first started writing, he spent hours at his typewriter. Doing nothing original. He spent those hours copying The Great Gatsby. The entire thing. He wanted to get a feel for Fitzgerald’s style, for his dialogue, for his characters, and for his exposition. It’s already been said, but learning how other writers write is one of the most important things you can possibly do when you’re first starting out.
Also, buy this: Understanding Fiction. It’s a collection of short-stories, some good, some bad, but all written by authors you should recognize. After each story, the editors provide a detailed analysis of the characters, theme, and plot. If the story succeeds, they will explain why. If it fails, they will explain why. By the time you’ve finished the book, you’ll have a greater understanding of how fiction works. It’s almost seventy years old. It’s out of print. You might be able to find a copy at your local library, but if you can’t, you owe it to yourself to purchase it. Read it. And then re-read it. Takes notes, too.
Two more things:
Write truthfully. In his essay “The Art of Fiction,” Henry James writes that a good novel will “compete with life. When it ceases to compete as the canvas of the painter competes, it will have arrived at a very strange pass.”
Be objective when you write. Be sincere.
Your fiction will rise or fall on the strength of your characters. Don’t be sympathetic. Don’t make them caricatures. And don’t make them vessels to transport an idea from chapter to chapter, either. If you start a novel with anything but your characters in mind, or if you think you’re going to use your characters to make a point, you will fail. If you want to make a point, write an essay.
Writing is hard work. Don’t give up. Even the most revered writers had a difficult time, and they often found themselves writing garbage. This is not unusual. You will write garbage, too. But don’t give up.
Oh, another note on the “read more” advice: If you’re one of those people who tends to gravitate to a particular genre (fantasy and SF fans seem to be particularly prone to this), be sure to read material from outside your comfort zone.
For example, I was once at an author’s event for Tim Powers (notable fantasy author) and asked him for recommendations on what to read, and the absolute first thing he suggested was Tristram Shandy.
And don’t forget that people like Tolkien and Cabell has solid foundations in the classics.
Now that you mention it, I think this is one of my biggest problems. I tend to come up with a plot long before I consider any characters, and so they become incidental rather than integral to the story. One thing to work on.
This all sounds like great advice so far. Thanks to everyone!
This is phenomenal advice, and I really can’t describe how much you’ve motivated and inspired people like me, pepperlandgirl.
The truth is, ** Stauderhorse**, you’re probably going to always hate the things you write. That’s pretty much how you can guarantee you’re a writer. I’m horrified by some of the stuff I’ve written. That’s kind of a given and I don’t think it goes away just because you score a book deal.
Read, read, read, and write, write, write is the best advice there is. There’s no other way to become an expert on writing than to live and breathe it. I was a much better writer as a young teen than I am now, and that’s largely because when I was a young teen I devoted anywhere from six to eight hours a day writing. Nowadays I’m lucky if I can get in an hour or two.
Though if I may recommend a book I love, The Courage to Write. It’s less about how to write and more about why to write, but for sure it will light a fire under your ass. Most importantly, it will make you realize you aren’t alone in your writing anxiety. We really are a neurotic bunch in general.
You could do worse than to analyze the storytelling model of a show like (don’t laugh) Star Trek.
If you are a plot-first kind of person, and I am, then the first step is to contemplate the meaning of your plot. What are the symbols, what are the themes? Where is it going? Then ask yourself, “What characters do I need that will best tell this story?”
Next Generation did this passably well. They would have a story about fatherhood, let’s say. Who are the characters with father issues? Worf (whose father was dishonored), Data (whose “father” was his creator) and Wesley (whose father was dead). Got a story about duty and loyalty? You could do worse than to pick Picard (the captain) and Wesley (the ensign). Like an artist choosing paints from a palette, the writers could select the character most appropriate to the theme.
Similarly, if you’re telling a story about (for instance) black slavery, you could select whatever character and time period that is most emotionally resonant for your purpose: a freed slave; a slave trader; an Underground Railroad worker; an abolitionist; a recently acquired slave; a person of mixed black-white descent; you get the idea. Telling a story about slavery from the point of view of (for instance) two whites from Connecticut just doesn’t have the right resonance.
But the character has to have nuances and depth. Using a caricature to tell your story is like an artist painting in red, yellow, and blue. It does the job but it ain’t got soul.
Yes: you go the opposite direction. You ask yourself, “What situations would most greatly challenge, or frighten, or change this character? How can I push this character out of his comfort zone? What can I do to raise the stakes for this character? Where is this character’s crisis point and how do I get him there?”
If you have a character whose main theme is self-deprecation — that is, she always puts others first, never asserting herself, never taking decisive action of her own — then you find ways to force her into decision-making situations. If you have a character who is highly moral, force him into a moral quandary. If you create a character whose chief characteristic is faith, arrange the plot in such a way as to give him doubt.
People are so very interesting when they don’t always get what they want.
Yep. Ya gotta torment your characters to get them to do things. Rats in a maze, baby, with food, electric shocks, and mint (because nothing’s more evil than mint).
Well, this is basically my standard MO, but I tend to do it much more haphazardly and without regard for the character. I sort of do the metaphorical equivalent of throwing them in a bottle together and shaking it up to see if I can get 'em to fight. But what you’re suggesting is a lot more focused and deliberate, and to be frank kind of sadistic. I will definitely keep it in mind and appreciate the input.
There are two separate but related questions here:
How do I become better at the craft of writing?
How do I become a better storyteller?
I’ll pass on the storytelling part, since my background is in communications writing, not literary writing. But for question #1, in addition to reading more and writing more, the answer is to tear it up and rewrite it. Edit mercilessly. Take out every word that isn’t a noun or verb and then put them back one by one until you have only the words necessary to make your point clearly. Tear it up and rewrite it to emphasize one thing at a time (character, atmosphere, exposition, etc.) then add the other elements in until you achieve balance. Get a thesaurus and experiment with synonyms to broaden your working vocabularly. Take out all the narrative and focus on the dialog – do your characters sound like real people? Do they all sound the same? Then look at your narrative – would those sections work better as dialog?
There’s more along the same lines but the advice is simple. Rewrite!
Oh my yes, it can be very sadistic. It’s like the difference between putting giving your snake another snake to play with, and giving your snake a mongoose.
And if you can arrange it so what will challenge Character A is what Character B wants, and vice-versa, then you’ve got a great conflict.
One exercise that I think would be useful is to take a book you like and rewrite it. Do something like rewrite a book that was written in the third person and make it a first person narrative. Or rewrite it from the point of view of a minor character. Or change the genre it was written in. This exercise will help you learn to understand the structure of an existing story while also making you create your own work for the rewriting.
You’re welcome, olivesmarch4th. Occasionally, I have something worthwhile to post around here. I consider myself a writer by trade and a teacher by training, so I try to help people when/if I can.
Indeed. I used to have terrible habits. I overused “that,” I had a shitload of sentences that were in passive voice, I loved “could” constructions (he could feel her laugh versus he felt her laugh). I adored adverbs with every fiber of my being (she said excitedly!). I knew these things were “against the rules” and most good writers would tell you to avoid them, but I didn’t understand why. Until I realized, “Oh yeah, it makes my book suck.” So after every single thing I wrote, I made myself go through and rewrite every single sentence. When you have a full length novel, this can be very tedious. But before too long, it became second nature to edit out the adverbs, to use active construction with my sentences, and to eliminate words that don’t add anything. When I started working with my writing partner, I broke her of similar bad habits (she loves the “so…that” construction so much it makes my eye twitch). I have a naturally sparse style anyway, and taking these steps really tightened up my prose.
When I start a story, I tend to think “What would it take for Character A and Character B to fall in love with each other?” Not because I write romance–I write romance because that was always my starting point. I throw them in a situation and see what happens. Some people need to take a methodical, structured approach (my writing partner for one). Some people balk at anything like structure (me). You’ve just got to figure out what works for you and that might take some trial and error.
Post on a message boad A LOT! No, seriously, this is writing, too, and doing it is a good exercise if you’re willing to do it properly. I’ve been doing this for eight years, and I have never written better in my life.
And don’t use the same non-common word twice in the same paragraph.
Look at bad writing and decide what you don’t like. Does the writer have you, the reader in mind? Does he present information in a clear, understandable manner? Does he make literary/cultural references that you, the reader, are likely to get? Does he convince you one way or the other whether you should like or care about the characters?
As a backhanded anti-example, track down a copy of Michael O’Donoghue’s oft-reprinted “How to Write Good.”
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action.*
Start as close to the end as possible.
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Remember how you used to write in junior high school? The same bland, commonplace verbs, the same repetitive sentence structure?
Once you’ve finished a scene or chapter, read over every paragraph and sentence. If anything seems like something a junior high schooler might have written, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
There has been some excellent advice in this thread which I’m going to take on board for my own writing.
My problem is that I’m a non-fiction writer for the most part. I can produce a publication quality 2,000 word article on pretty much any military firearm you care to name without any trouble at all.
Non-fiction, on the other hand, I struggle with, because I get bored with the effort of writing the story. I know the characters, I know the plot, I know how it ends, but I just get… tired of trying to write it all in a way that conveys what I already know to the reader in a way they’re going to find interesting.
I’ve managed a handful of short stories (around 2000 words) that I’m very happy with (and have had some positive feedback on), but have had no luck publishing so far- there’s just nowhere to get the sort of stuff I’m writing published (Historic Adventure for the most part) here in Australia as far as I can tell, and overseas publishers haven’t been much more receptive. I just don’t really know what to do with my writing, to be honest, so I know how the OP feels.
I will definitely keep it in mind and appreciate the input.