SiWC 2014 Workshop #4 The 9 Best Pieces of Advice I've Ever Gotten

The 9 Best Pieces of Advice I’ve Ever Gotten

Liza Palmer (Conversations with a Fat Girl)

1. Build a community

writers groups, IRL or online. Writers groups that write don’t critique - so people aren’t bringing back the same chapter/short story every week and tweaking it over and over. Community based about actual writing, not about telling you what’s how to/not to write. Once in a while, get a big whiteboard and help one person who is stuck and ‘break’ the book until it’s figured out. Meeting twice a month to read aloud your own work. 

“A rising tide lifts all boats” - stick with each other. Writers are competitive/jealous, so many external markers for success. If you feel you have to hide your light and people aren’t celebrating, this isn’t the right group. You want those in the trenches with you to celebrate.

You don’t need someone always saying how hard it is - disguises their bitterness as pragmatism.

Finding your ‘tribe’ - those who speak your language and understand you. Writers are ‘outsiders’, observing, so it’s amazing when you find something that’s right.

Online membership groups like SCWBI, Romance Writers of America, etc, retreats and workshops like Do Lectures, Tin House, Fishtrap, Banff Centre for the Arts, etc (Poets and Writers has an entire conference and residencies database)

2) It doesn’t get easier, you get better.

Publishing is always going to be a roller coaster. Yes, always. Anchor yourself somewhere else besides in its fickle waters. That means somewhere internal because the external pressures are never going to go away. You need to be confident, writing itself has to be the reward.

Remember why you started.

“I’m not afraid of storms because I’m learning to sail my ship” Louisa May Alcott (sp?)

3) Say yes and figure it out later. (Tina Fey?)

We pigeonhole ourselves. ‘I don’t write that’, ‘I don’t read that’ - you’re limiting yourself as to what’s out there, or tell yourself what you cancan’t do.

Writing is an apprenticeship. Everything helps your craft, everything fills the well. Step out of your wheelhouse, and take everything in your possibly can.

You are not you genre. You are your voice. Your voice can transcend any genre. IF. YOU. LET. IT.

4) Daniel Day Lewis will never play James Bond

Sometimes it’s not about you.

Art and the Art of Subjectivity. You just aren’t right for the part, so be able to see your work objectively enough to know if it needs another pass. Maybe you are right for the part, you just need to clean up the work a little more.

5) Follow the fear.

Bobette Buster’s Do Lecture (Google it) ‘Can you tell your story?’

Her philosophy is that storytelling is the art form of transformation.

The stories we take into our heart centre around reinvention and/or redemption. (what is the arc?)

How to tell if it’s reinvention or redemption: the moment the character chooses to become fully alive, or the walking dead. Usually that comes at the act 1 break, or the act 2 break. Where that decision is made we know as ‘the dark night of the soul’ (Joseph Conrad’s “Hero’s Journey”)

So how do you find that moment? You follow the fear. The choice you (or your character) makes is the one you resist the most that will set you free. So what is your character’s greatest fear? Underneath that is the underbelly of the hero’s journey.

Example, Shawshank Redemption (act 2 break) Andy leaves Red the harmonica, and Red blows on it - he chooses to accept hope into his life. He’s no longer a prisoner, he’s free.

Is this a story of redemption or a cautionary tale (tragedy/reinvention)? The dark night of the soul is the moment when they take the first baby step towards becoming fully alive or the walking dead.

Bottom line: What people are interested in is to be taken into a world they would never otherwise get to experience and they want to see the ordinary become extraordinary. For better or worse.

resist/resist/resist until they’re forced to make a decision, that opens up the road of trials

6) Go directly to the bar

You go to a party, and you need a ‘job’, so go to the bar and get a drink. That way you have something in your hand, somewhere to be.

7) You don’t win by pretending to be something you’re not

You are the best version of you.  - Malcolm Gladwell

What happens when the underdog recognizes their weakness, and then chooses an unconventional strategy (David & Goliath)? They win. 

Why fight like Goliath, follow everyone else’s rules? It’s easier. Someone else’s checklist is easier than generating one of your own. You don’t have to analyze yourself, your life. You don’t have to dig deep about whether you’re happy or not. It’s much easier to take the road more traveled.

When you follow the market, try to write what’s popular, follow the traveled road, you trade that which makes you most you. Your voice, your ideas, your passion.

You can feel it when you’re writing something important/good for you, and when you’re trying to write like Goliath. It’s clunky, unnatural.

BUT, like the audience who came to watch two guys fighting each other, they were let down/unhappy to see a pip squeak knock out the giant with a pebble. Doing things your way may not be celebrated. They will challenge the way things are normally done.

8) Just let Mellie be Mellie - a character from Shonda Rhimes’ ‘Scandal’

The truth will out.

People are who they are. Things are what they are. They can’t hide this for too long. They will be revealed.

‘If you wait by the river long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by.’ - Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Don’t stress about what everyone else is doing. It’s not about you. Sometimes it’s just someone else’s “turn”. Let it go.

9) “Do the work, Don.” (Madmen)

Sit down, shut up, do the work. Block out the white noise, set a goal, get to work. 

Possible goals: word count, ‘Focus Booster’ (app to download), writing group meet-up, Nanowrimo. Get that deadline and stop giving yourself excuses. SHOW UP.

9.5) “Good luck! But more importantly, prepare well. Visualize each phase, start to end, which probable errors and you actions. Repeat.” Chris Hadfield

SiWC 2014 Workshop #3 Less Theory, More Funny

Less Theory, More Funny

Dan Bar-el

Write two things about yourself, each in a sentence

The first thing is true but boring, the second thing is a lie, but an outrageous lie

Now take the true and boring thing and turn it into an outrageous lie.

Three reasons why we laugh (unprovoked)

Something is funny (the brain is reacting)

Something is awkward/uncomfortable/nervous/surprised (emotional reasons)

To release tension (when we’re tickled - physical)

Comedy Rule #1

Comedy = expectations not met (when we meet someone, we expect to shake hands, not throw cream pies in their face, or yell, etc)

‘He’s so boring that…’ ‘boring’ and ‘so’ are telling you where the joke is going

web/brainstorm - what does ‘boring’ make you think of, and ‘so’ pushes you to exaggerate, but there still has to be logic:

people bring a pillow when they visit

sharks fall askeep

people yawned big enough to swallow their own face - too weird/illogical

he not only like to watch paint dry, he tapes it so he can watch it again

Exercise:

My town is so small that…

compile the data: what do you find in a small town? gas station -> gas pump -> car wash, police -> station -> jail, traffic lights, library, pets, etc and where does it lead you?

…that the car wash is a tooth brush (both scrub/clean, but one is insanely small)

…there’s no room to park cars (not good)

… the local bank only carries small change (not great, could be better to say, ‘my town’s bank is a piggy bank)

…the sheriff’s deputy is his dog

…the police are also the criminals

…the one room school house is a school apartment

More exercises:

The ants at the picnic were so hungry they ate…

my mom in law’s potato salad, the uncles

They boy’s parent’s were so cheap for his weekly allowance they gave him… (no currency)

a paper route, get out of jail free card, tax tips

My mother was such a hypochondriac that…

she died of embarrassment, she went everywhere in a space suit, she married the immunologist

The guy smelled so horrible that…

my nostrils went on strike, his deodorant crawled back in the tube

The dentist’s e equipment was so bad that to remove a tooth, she used a…

a seance, a tootsie pop

Joke construction:

The real crux of the joke is at the very end of the sentence - anything after it is meaningless.

Why webbing/brainstorming?

Lateral thinking.

Humans are very linear. Because we see our lives like that, we think like that ‘we do this, then this, then this, then this…’

Comedy is about making sideways connections

Posters from Play Land show stuffed animals barfing stuffing. (Fair, games, prizes, stuffed animals. rides, fast rides, dizzy, barf)

How do you create a connection between a cylinder and a cylinder with a triangle on top? (looks like a dunce cap - what did you do to piss off the teacher?)

S S S I (snakes, the last one is scared stiff, the last one is doing yoga)

o 8 (building a snowman, snowman with his head knocked off, zero saying, where’d you get the belt?)

^ ^ ^ v (look what I can do, pyramids? - blueprints upside-down, mountains?)

You can play up a comedic description by comparing them to someone/thing else you wouldn’t expect, like comparing a child running to play to Genghis Khan. He looked just like Georg Clooney if he’d overstayed in a tanning bed for 3 days and then fallen face first into a fire.

Exercise:

We know comedy = expectations not met

image of Shirley Temple, image of crazy looking bearded guy

 - write a short diary entry from one of their perspectives, but reverse the ‘personalities’ you expect based on their images

Instead of webbing, you can brainstorm with a category system:

people, place, thing, even, slogan/expression

example, fireman on a birthday card - only you can prevent cake fires

Comedy exists in a reality similar to ours, but not really,

Why did the chicken cross the road? In reality, it’s going on instinct, in comedy, it’s made a mindful decision

Book called ‘The Nose from Jupiter’. In reality, lonely boy dealing with divorced parents. Comic reality, there’s a tiny alien that lives in his nose.

You go to school - all teachers are monkeys

Mom takes kid to the mall - to buy a machine gun

President gives a speech - using only fart noises

Exercise:

Write down 5 Real Reality events (incorporate a verb into your sentence)

Bring each Real Reality event into a Comic Reality

A girl goes to a martial arts school…

A family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner…

A city is snowed under by a big storm…

A country has just been attacked…

Scientists discovered a cure for baldness… in a world inhabited with dogs. Hairless chihuahuas rejoice

Your soccer team plays another team…

The police chase a criminal…

A man does yoga…

Your child brings home an art project… Art came along to get it back and brought Geography with him

A pilot flies an airplane…

Four Elements of a Comic Character - handout

Comedic perspective: drunk, optimist (excited to get arrested), paranoid (suspects his pets of being spies), klutzy, loser, romantic, crybaby (adult literally has a tantrum when he doesn’t get a raise), hoarder (used kleenexes, a warehouse full of twist ties), con artist, fearful (jumps at her own shadow and screams)

Flaws: absentminded, arrogant, blunt, bigot, 

Flaw works against their character trait - like a bully who is only 3’ tall or really skinny.

example: comic perspective - fearful, exaggeration -  jumps at her own shadow, flaw - she’s nosey (which will lead her into fearful situations)

then add humanity (make relatable)

WALL-E comedic perspective - romantic/innocent, exaggeration - collects useless stuff as treasures, flaws - simple robot limited by his own technology, humanity - has developed emotions and falls in love.

SiWC 2014 Workshop #2 POV, Choices, Choices

POV, Choices, Choices

Susanna Kearsley

‘the writer is starting the story, the reader finishes it’ - the reader fills in so many details on their own

1st POV - ‘I did this, I did that’

traditional - gather around and I’ll tell you a story…

close, in one person’s head (usually)

3rd POV - ‘He did that, he said that’

still traditional, but more used in fairy tales, greek myths

Use whatever POV that fits the story the best, no right or wrong. You can be effective either way, have equal emotional connection/accessibility for 1st or 3rd.

Try to figure out whose story it is - main protagonist, or someone close to them? (The Great Gatsby is a good example)

Sometimes the best way to show the protagonist is through the eyes of another character

Sometimes you lose out in 1st person because it limits what the reader knows because of what the character knows - like, in mysteries close 3rd usually works better

Things they personally see themselves, or reads

Things they hear themselves (things someone tells them, or they overheard - if they overhear, make it logical because most people won’t deliberately listen at a door unless they’re not a great person)

Whether their 1st or 3rd, your narrator is going to have their own blind spots, things they don’t notice are important until later. Things they assume/etc as well based on their knowledge/experience, and things they are unaware of - would never notice/think about. So don’t harp on things in the past, or in a different culture that we, today/here, think are dirty/wrong/etc

Things that are going to affect POV: age, gender/sex, culture, socio-economical, family background (men more protective, notice things like doors locked, stove burners turned off, etc)

“Schrodinger’s Rapist” - article online - Google search

Head-hopping - flipping back and forth between POV character heads in a way it’s confusing for a reader, for example, don’t do it within the same paragraph. Don’t want the reader to have to stop to figure out who’s talking.

Can alternate sections, even better to switch between 1st & 3rd so it’s really clear who’s head it’s in and have different ‘voices’. Have line breaks (***) to make it easy on the reader of Roman numerals for ‘past’ and regular numbers as ‘present’ if historically alternating, or list the date or something like that to distinguish sections.

Showing the character through someone else’s viewpoint (example from ‘Every Secret Thing’, a character trying to ‘see’/find the driver who hit someone in a hit-and-fun)

Added emotional resonance

Jim didn’t know what Deacon said, Georgie did

Get a fuller picture of what’s going on, another level/angle

Both were in 3rd pov close.

When you’re in a close pov, you are surmising what the other person is thinking, but there are tricks to get it across, like by showing the other character’s expressions/actions/etc

You can use the character’s past experience, like you know when your mother says/ does a certain thing, she’s upset/etc.

Where a character looks up/looks down, holding out a hand to help one person but not  another, and whether that other person takes or doesn’t take it

‘Gone Girl’, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackeroid’, both great examples of unreliable narrators. Very useful as someone telling something to your MC - make them seem trustworthy, buried in deeply, but in the end turns out not. Could also may have it right or may have it wrong, as in they themselves aren’t sure, like if they were drunk. Usually an unreliable narrator is used to lead the reader away from the answer, especially in mystery genre.

*** ‘book ‘Bedtime story’ - for Josh (Robert Weirsma sp?) - boy in a coma/dream state

SiWC 2014 Workshop #1 Catcher in the Wry: Writing Novels for Teens

I am finally getting around to posting the SiWC notes from October. I know everyone was pretty happy I posted my ones from last year, so these will go up once a day for the next few days.

And just like last year, please forgive any weird wording/spelling as I was typing really fast and after a couple panels/workshops in a row, my brain was on the 'creamed-corn' end of things.

So here you go: proof a dyslexic writer can listen and type at the same time (just don't ask me to chew gum and recite my phone number... inevitably things will go very, very wrong).

Catcher in the Wry: Writing Novels for Teens

Anita Daher

Handout - evolution of YA over the years.

YA - marketing term, to address a need. Before WW 2, only a society of adults and children

Young Adults caught in between, intelligent to understand complex literature, but not yet personally mature.

Catcher in the Rye originally published for adults, today considered YA, but also the first in the style we most consider YA today. themes of identity/connection/belonging also in first person and has an authentic voice.

Before CitR there was an innocence. No sex, drugs, gangs, etc.

‘Tom’s Opinion’ 1881, used as a ‘reward book’ given out in Sunday School/etc

Today we don’t talk down to our readers.

General rule between MG/YA/NA, protagonists are the same age of the reader, or a couple years older. There are exceptions, like ‘Dust’, which has a 12 yo protagonist, but was complex enough to appeal to young adults

MG - Grades 2-6, pets, family, siblings, humour, mysteries, gross stuff, usually 1 pov in the younger grades since it’s confusing to jump around into the heads of different characters. Chapters can be as short as 1-3 pages.

YA - jobs, first love, difficult first situations, all the complexities of adult novels. Protagonists are in school, or have just left. Can handle more than one pov. Want to see growth/arc/etc of all pov characters.

NA - newer category, more the racier, older YA that evolved and there was a market, for YA readers who want something a little older, 18-24 ish, university, first career, serious relationships etc.

No matter what, you want to grab attention/get to the story quickly and a strong sense of the MC. Who they are and what they want (in 1st chapter)

Plot - UK author Keith Grey ‘Ostrich Boys’ Instead of thinking of a story having beginning, middle & end, he says it’s better to think of it as ‘dilemma, confrontation, resolution’.

Exercise: Plot checklist

What does your MC want?

What/who gets in the way of what your MC wants?

Is the primary conflict internal or external?

How does your MC plan to get what s/he wants?

How will you maintain tension?

How will your MC be the ‘hero’ in terms of the story climax/resolution?

What is your character’s growth/arc - how are they changed from beginning to end?

How will you begin your story? (keep in mind the beginning can/will change)

Setting -  mood of the story, can help reveal character, how the MC approached space reveals them/their mood

Exercise: 

16 teen encountering a busy marketplace on holiday

same marketplace, character is a runaway - being chased

If you want the character to be tense, use shorter sentences, not many details

If relaxed = more contemplation, description, internal etc.

 Setting: enough details to draw in, a few very vivid words, but not so much that it feels like a dump.

Same with appearance of MC’s, fill in just enough details of that the reader won’t fill in the wrong details if something specific to the story is important.

Backstory: author needs to know everything, but if it’s not important to the story, don’t include it

Teen dialogue: age/era specific lingo, be careful and watch for it.

Why, brain... why?

Yes, it's technically Boxing Day (1:32am local time), and y'know what I've been up to for the past several hours?

Google searches.

Yup. This 'thing' which doesn't even have a title.

What am I researching online?

Well, the Rig Veda for one. Yes, I am reading the Rig Veda, and I may read some of the other sacred Hindu texts as well... I've also got a window open with a spoken sanskrit dictionary, something called 'pranava meditation teachings', and 52 different Wiki tabs/pages open.

A few of those Wiki pages/tabs include: Sarama, Helskor, Hermes, Cerberus, Socotra, and every fairytale I can remember/think of involving magic shoes... from Cinderella, Puss in Boots, The Red Shoes, Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Wizard of Oz, The Magic Shoes, even the glowing-hot iron shoes the evil queen from Snow White is making my list... and those are only the fast/basic ones I can recall and can easily search for by name. I know there are a pile of non-western tales, I just haven't gotten that far yet. I've also found a few academic papers, like this one, which should be an interesting read.

If anyone has any other stories in solving magic shoes, I would really appreciate it if you could email me or mention them in the comments. My brain is a little full of... hymns right now... it's more than a little fun re-reading all the ones about Vac that I haven't read since university.

I've also been browsing everything from this to this to this... (that last link I'm kindof in love with) and beyond...


I'm not sure how other writers research, and I think it probably differs, not only for the writer, but for the type of story being written... as an example, I think research for historical fiction would be way harder than an ordinary contemporary story... wow, okay, I got lost on my way to the point...

...so, backtracking swiftly from that tangent, I'm not sure how other writers research, but I do a lot of reading without really taking down many notes. I try to immerse myself in as wide a range of information as possible, and somewhere in the midst of drowning in that flood of data, things just start suddenly clicking together.

That's how I wrote every paper in university... and (apparently) how I research story ideas.

And that's the mode I'm in right now. Skim reading like crazy.

I admit it feels more than a little blasphemous... mixing so much religion/mythology/etc into a giant vat and reimagining it into something new... but I suppose, after reading and learning about so many belief systems over many years, that is how they generally spread... by amalgamating, devouring, or destroying other belief systems. And don't even get me started on hermeneutical horizons... philosophy at 1:30am is probably only surpassed in 'bad ideas' by calling someone on the phone that you're mad at and trying to have a conversation.

Okay, I think I have actually tired out my brain enough to fall asleep. It's been a tough few weeks.

G'night, all.