Usually, How-To-Write-Fast advice is deceptive. If you look close, most advice promising an increased word count avoids factoring in outlining, editing, and proofing. The advice in this article makes it plain right up front: you will be writing total word-splorp that you will have to clean up, but clean-up is faster than struggling to fill a page.
Also, I knew Mary Berman many years ago and knew her to be a responsible, methodical essayist who already had huge word counts. This advice will seem familiar to the experienced, but I plan to revisit it soon.
“Tomie was written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Ito was inspired to create Tomie by the phenomenon of lizard tail regeneration.[1] Ito’s initial concept for the manga was to depict the strangeness of a girl who was nonchalantly attending school, but in reality was dead.[2] He further explained that the original concept was that for some reason a dead person would come back to life and visit their former friends as if nothing had happened.[3] As he developed the story, Ito established that the titular character would be a mean-spirited girl because he believed it would be more interesting if the manga featured someone that wasn’t likable.[2]
He noted that the proliferation of Tomie was created while writing a serial storyline, which helped greatly to convey the concept of regeneration.”
Specificity is one of them; cause and effect is another. What I object to is the idea that there are universal principles in writing. We know there aren’t. A good MFA program is about one specific person, me, who has a very prejudicial idea of writing, meeting another person, you, who has an equally prejudicial sense of it. Then I have to find a way to tap that person lightly and help a little. Whenever I hear somebody say with confidence, “You have to show, don’t tell,” or, “Write what you know”… that’s all true to the extent it is until it isn’t.
At the beginning of the semester, I say, “I’m going to act like I really know what I’m talking about. But believe me, every day when I go to write, I have to remind myself that I don’t, because this is a particular story. It’s not every story. It’s this particular one.” I say to this incredibly talented group of people, “Look, we’re all in the same mess together, which is that we want to be writers, but it’s hard. Nobody can give you a general answer.” There’s a lot that’s wrong with the MFA model and the workshop model. What I try to do is keep undercutting it so that we’re aware of the limits of the experiment.
Been listening to true supernatural podcasts, “Spooked”, “Radio Rental”, others. “Spooked” seems to get suckered by obvious fictions. “RR” stories less dramatic, but seem more “realistic”. That got me wondering: what makes a “real” ghost story more “real”.
A discerning mind will be suspicious of any testimony conforming to three-beat or Save-The-Cat formulas, certainly. But if I may, there are other narrative aspects that probably raise suspicion, aspects that are often overlooked. Movies and novels have more leeway in avoiding these poorly-used aspects. but in short stories, it should be possible to tweak and make the short stories seem more realistic.
The podcast “Spooked” annoyed me so much that I haven’t listened to the current season. Maybe they’ve improved. They present edited interviews with the event witnesses.
When a story seems fake to me, there’s: 1) a tight timeline (over a weekend; when we moved into a new house), 2) one single POV sees *every supernatural event*, 3) activity escalates from tension to physical menace, especially if escalations are in three beats, 4) all clues point to a simple, traditional answer (my dead uncle, a folk curse, La Llorona).
The interviews sound sincere. Maybe they are. Maybe the events actually happened. But what makes something seem more realistic to me? The “Radio Rental” stories generally has those elements.
The stories on “Radio Rental” also are presented with edited interviews.
The stories seem more real because they: 1) usually take place over months, years (multiple sightings or activities), 2) not just one POV sees everything (some events are described second-hand), 3) use multiple means to address the events (flickering lights examined by multiple electricians and Fire Marshalls), 4) have moments of NOPE (a noise is *not* investigated due to fear), 5) end seemingly unresolved.
I maintain that the best horror could happen without the characters even knowing. Have you seen “Session 9”? Each character experiences their own seemingly mundane events, and the viewer is the only one who knows there is a single force that drives the plot. At the movie’s end, all the characters see is a stressed man on a murder spree.
Does that remind you of a story that you like?
As for the photo, I took that two weeks ago in NYC harbor.
Twitter is a dumpster fire that’s on its way out. But like Instagram and TikTok, writers post opinions and insights, and ask questions which can give an inkling of when a trope is about to become worn. Dumpster fires can illuminate; just don’t breathe the fumes.
This AI program can be set for different story structures, genres, and levels of eroticism for you Romance writers.
THERE IS AN “ESTABLISH INTERNAL CONFLICT” FUNCTION.
This writer outlined and drafted her novel within two hours.
A self-published author who attended this live feed says good writing and marketing will prevail, but the market will flood with dabblers and cranks very soon. A recent AI orientation cost $999 to attend, but we know that cost will drop to mass affordability in the next two years. For those dedicated writers, AI can help with marketing and synopsis creation.
For those saying “I’d never read or use AI”, that’s what photographers used to say about PhotoShop.
I woke up this morning to her sitting and looking at me. She won’t move. She doesn’t breathe. Photo by George Milton on Pexels.com
A writer is supposed to make their mother uncomfortable, yes. But the writer is also supposed to be uncomfortable. Two events reinforced this recently.
I just joined an online workshop for horror writers as a student. The workshop has the standard format in that the students send in a story and everyone provides a critique. It’s the first time in years I’ve seen the work of beginning writers. It reminded me of my earlier work.
Mistaking the conflict for the ending. Groping for a style instead of plot. Most of all, cinematic descriptions of scene. That is, visual and auditory senses only, but also use of senses to invoke a feeling. This last bit is tricky and I have much to learn here.
Imagine a swamp. Spanish moss hanging from willow trees. Brackish water concealing secrets. Reeds grown rampant. Calls of birds in trees. Pretty standard. I wrote scenes like this plenty of times. My friends taught me that other senses pull the reader in farther. A stink like mulch. Humidity laying like a hot wet blanket. The creep on your scalp of sweat and gnats. Drag of mud sucking at your boots. You get the idea.
What I’m starting to learn starts with that “Brackish water concealing secrets”, that is, using description to convey tone. Using those words like stink and suck and creep to create a richer scene.
If I want to create a mood, I need to use elements that invoke that mood in me. Note that “scalp” line: I’m bald, so sweat and bugs on my head really relates. I hate the outdoors, really, for the reason of mud sucking at things, so I thought to use that. Note that I could go deeper and go “slimy mud sucking at my low-top boots” and man writing that just icked me the heck out.
So this is what I am learning, in part thanks to this writing group prompting me to up my game. Also, I am helping out a new writer who had asked my advice. He is developing his magic style (I’m avoiding saying ‘magic system’ because magic needs to be mysterious. An AD&D detail level of understandability takes away from the magic’s drama, I think.
Anyway, the writer wanted ideas as to what price a magician should pay for overuse.
“As far as character limitations, I’m assuming you mean the toll Magic takes on a character.
If so, make a list of things that make you queasy. For me, that would be dementia, cockroaches, physical paralysis, shit and piss, parasitism, chronic pain, skin disfigurements.
I can imagine too much magic, too exhausting magic, doing: causing dementia, generating parasites under the skin, renal failure (*makes you sweat urine*), intestinal failure, neuropathy, gnarly skin diseases. I could even push each icky thing past known science, like with the spontaneous parasite thing.
The limitations could even be idiopathic, or specific icks to specific individuals.
It HAS to be a limitation that you as a person finds distasteful. The distaste will come through in your writing. If you are uncomfortable, your reader will be uncomfortable. You as the writer has to feel in order for the reader to feel.”
So, make yourself uncomfortable. And keep learning.
Once again, not me. But marketing surveys say I rate very well among Sheet Ghosts. Photo by Ayşenur Sağlam on Pexels.com
This is to catch myself up on what I’m doing in the next couple of months:
Prepare a presentation/reading for the launch(s):
it’s tough to get a slot for an author reading, so apply early. Most conventions allow you to just request a slot; the Horror On Main convention requires the author to buy a vendor table as well for IIRC $200? It’s promotional expense so if I make more than $4K from the books this year I can write off the expense yadda yadda. So step one, get those slots requested.
Prepare the reads/presentations. Usually the author will be given 30 minutes to do a reading and/or what’s called an “anti-reading”. An anti-reading can be anything like a presentation about the novel’s world or a free-form discussion or really it has no boundaries. At present, I plan on fifteen minutes of reading and a fifteen-minute presentation about the fun stuff I discovered while researching the “Flesh” books. I may include a Powerpoint. For the Fazgood launch at World Fantasy, at present I’ll just do a reading.
Get stuff into hands and onto tables: Conventions usually give attendees a swag bag, or a bag filled with promotional materials. My publisher Noble Fusion Press is getting post cards or other materials to World Fantasy to give the launch a boost. For Horror On Main, and more so for StokerCon, I have to get on the stick and find out if they do swag bags. Tables will need signage, which I image will have to small to accommodate travel.
Yes I am nervous about all this.
Contact the relevant media: the Horror Writers Association has a newsletter, and I have to get my Horror On Main and StokerCon plans to its editors.
Supporting promo material: I’m working with a talented artist friend to come up with yantra stickers. Yantra are mystical symbols key to the “Flesh” mythos. I believe stickers are the way to go, because even if no one is interested in the book, they may like the sticker design and get interest developed that way. I’ve seen the preliminary colors and they are disturbing. Plan is to have them done by end of April.
List of people to contact: I’m shooting for podcasters, mainly. I’m funny and have a varied, colorful history. Obvioulsly, the “Flesh” books and Fazgood have two different audiences, with different persons of interest to contact.
This fox is actually actor Daniel Day-Lewis. He lived on shrews for three months to get into character. Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com
This trick seems basic, but it’s helped me with character mannerisms and tone.
Usually I like to “cast” people I know as characters in my work, but lacking that, I try this trick.
Which animal best represents that character?
It’s one thing to describe a man as “bearish”. But it’s more effective to have that character jostle their way past furniture, or complain about the cold, rouse slowly to anger, enjoy naps, thump the table for emphasis, and have other bear-like behavior. Do they like picnics and the outdoors? Say, I need a reason to get outdoors for that one scene…
The more detail you can get for the scene or character, the more the motivations of the story will click into place.
Like I mentioned, this is an old trick actors use to find character. Anthony Hopkins famously used it in “Silence of the Lambs” when he considered Lector to be like a snake, and let that consideration guide Lector’s behavior. Check out a scene or two of “SotL” and that consideration becomes palm-to-forehead obvious. Hopkins’ choice of snake also led to iconic moments like Lector standing watchful as Starling first visits.
I wish I had examples from prose, because I dislike writing advice that uses examples from film. But the only other example I can think of is Ben Kingsley’s performance In “Sexy Beast” as goon Don Logan, which Kingsley had said was based on an abused dog. Please see that movie, because Logan is the Anti-Ghandi, the angriest human put on screen.
Does this technique ring any bells for you? Is there a prose character you know based on an animal?
The closer the word “I” is to the beginning, the worse the story or essay will be.
There is such thing as a bad idea, an idea which no amount of craft can save.
Genre fiction must center the genre to the conflict. Just because a story contains a werewolf, it is not a horror story or fairy tale.
A lived life is worth more than an MFA, or Clarion, or Odyssey. Spend the tuition money on experiences.
If the value of art lies with its audience, then the artist must be separate from their art.
Have we all gotten over “write what you know”?
The experimentation of MFA writers drove the popular audience from fiction to genre, then chased the audience from genre to Young Adult. Self-publication and small press reclaimed genre.
I am so glad that we are ignoring “If it doesn’t help the plot, it must go.”
What you write, writes you. Is what you’re writing making you a better person? Happier?
Always find some good in whatever you read. This keeps your perceptions and compassion alive. Always find where your favorite media could be better. This will keep you from worshipping idols.
If you write a character you identify with, grind them. Their emotions will surprise you, make the story resonant, and help you grow personally.
If you cannot weep about your life in front of your writers’ group, get a new writers’ group.
My writers group is a mix on genres, and I recommend yours be too. It keeps focus on the essentials of plot and character.
Bonus Comedy Opinion: It is possible to do improvisation with only questions and the word “no”.
