Skipping through a Perfection Quagmire

I'm finally half-way into my novel Green Tara. In previous posts I've confessed how much more slowly this rewrite--I hope final draft-- is going than I had hoped. It always takes longer than I hope but, shucky darn, I thought my good planning had created useful shortcuts in the l-o-n-g rewriting process. And I know better than to get stuck in a perfection quagmire. Apparently that was wishful thinking on both counts. So, in an effort to coach myself here are --

SEASONAL TIPS for skipping through a perfectionist's quagmire:

• Read the first paragraph of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. Treat yourself to the second paragraph.
• Kick some snow. Treat yourself to hot cocoa.
• Watch a classic film like CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT and learn how a professional woman's public persona can be most effective when it's a well-crafted piece of fiction. (Hey. It worked for Barbara Stanwyck. She got a raise and the love of her life!)
• Make paper snowflakes with someone under 12. Treat everyone in the house to hot cocoa.
• Meditate on the difference between a baby and a world-class leader. Notice which one gets the star. Now go celebrate that work in progress and know when it comes of age it just may turn the world upside down.

Writing is . . .

Writing is like polishing a mirror.

~Anon

The Three C's

I don't remember where I heard or read this story guideline, so I can't give credit. But, it's easy and important to remember.

The three C's of story:
Character
Circumstances
Choice

TIP: Though fiction rarely sticks to the facts, it will always document emotional truth.

Newton Said

He got his original ideas by standing "on the shoulders of giants." Let's follow his lead.

Or even better: Snatch raw truths fresh from eternity.

Story Alchemy

I outline my stories, because I need to know where I'm going or I get lost and lose heart and quit. But I advise my students never to mistake the outline or story map with the journey.

A story is not a sum of all its parts or a simple string of scenes. A story has emotional pull. A story creates a sense of satisfaction and completeness. This comes from forcing a character to make a moral choice: to act or not to act. The key behind the choice is the main character's internal change. It's a character who changes deep down inside who moves us emotionally.

And therein lies the magic.

Is it good enough?

I'm having a heck of a time making any progress on my full-length story GREEN TARA. It's driving me crazy. My deadline's the end of the month and I'm barely out of the starting block. The problem is, I'm writing this draft for someone else to read and evaluate. If this was my first draft, I'd be gleefully blazing through the story because my primary goal would be to simply string together the story and allow the characters some room to emerge and take charge. But in my fourth draft I'm plagued by all those devilish fears. Will it be picked up? Is it good enough?

The antidote to fear--I know from experience--is to get back to basics and trust the process. Here's how it works:

START (Getting bum into chair can be the toughest part.)
1. Plan the energetic drive of the next scene.

2. Write the scene as quickly as possible. (Or, in my case, rewrite.)

3. Keep going without going back.

ON THE NEXT DAY (Get bum into chair.)

• Reread the most recent new scene--NEVER EVER go back to scenes written more than one day before--and edit for clarity and flow and dramatic juice.
• Move on to the next scene - repeating the above process (1-3), except it's easier because we've already gotten past the most difficult part, START.

If the goal is to write one new scene per day, I'm always editing one scene from the previous day and writing one new scene. So the progress is one back, two forward: netting one new scene per day. Unfortunately, I'm really behind, so I'm in the three scenes back, six forward category.

View from my Hammock

Two days ago I knew I had a last of season opportunity for a swing in my hammock, courtesy of this glorious maple tree above my head and a sister hickory holding up my feet. I took the better part of an hour to snap shots while the light was good. The characters in my novel celebrate the life of the natural world. I felt it would be disingenuous for me to do less.

Philosophy aside, the benefits were clear. The fresh air filled me with so much energy I was able to easily tackle a tricky part of my Green Tara rewrite. I cut three scenes, reordered the ten scenes before and after the cut scenes, and revised one significantly to fit the new content. Yes, I still have to string them all together and revise for flow, but the outlining work is done. I have a plan.

Today the temperature dropped 20 degrees and most of these leaves are on the ground. And I have a solid plan to take me through Act I.

Writing Sound

My screenwriting students are bringing examples of cinematic storytelling to class and on Wednesday Chris brought in JURASSIC PARK so we could focus on the sound of T-rex in his first film appearance. It was so interesting to hear about how the sound designer mixed together the sounds of lions, tigers, alligators and elephants to create the wholy original, never-before-heard T-rex voice.

David Koepp, the screenwriter who adapted Crichton's original story, didn't describe the T-rex's sound in any detail. But what he did do was to build suspense by introducing the sound first as a vibration and then as footsteps. From Koepp's 1992 screenplay, posted on dailyscript.com:

IN THE FRONT CAR

TIM-'Can you feel that?'

Tim leans over to the front passenger seat and looks at the two plastic cups of water that sit in the recessed holes on the dashboard. As he watches, the water in the glasses vibrates, making concentric circles - -

--then it stops --

--and then it vibrates again. Rhythmically.

Like from footsteps.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

It was three more pages of suspense in the rainy night inside the tyrannosaurus paddock. A rope without goat, goat leg flung on the windshield, louder vibrations, twitching electric wires, an adult dashing from car to cinderblock outhouse, seeing the T-Rex, moving flashlight beam that really gets him going, until finally the beast opens its mouth wide and--
ROARS.

Wow!

Color Intoxication

In my last couple of posts I made excuses for why I've posted so infrequently in the last month. Yes, I did have a big writing deadline, and after that I was busy evaluating mid-term assignments. Yes, I really did injure my collarbone, or rather all the muscles around it and up into my neck. But the real reason I can't concentrate in my den staring at a computer screen is a miraculos process called photosynthesis.

It's affected me with a serious case of "color intoxication" and I can't resist filling my eyes with the brilliance that mother nature's been storing up all spring and summer. I'm looking out my back door for as long as the leaves hang high on the trees.

Not Writing Excuse

I fell off my bike two weeks ago and strained the soft tissue around my left collar bone. It hurts. I'm not writing much. But I'm so antsy to get back to my Y.A. novel Green Tara.

Yesterday's Tricksters

Hijacked!

“Party Girls” is my first stage play, and it’s a real departure for me—a teen comedy/horror short. It was recently produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. and it got lots of laughs and a good review. So, why do I feel like the story was hijacked?

Here’s what happened: The director and actors ignored all my stage directions (and some of the dialog) and made the whole tone much cruder than I imagined. When the girls, zombies who talk (I’ve taken liberties with the genre), come out of their initial death trance they’re gagging. In the production when they gagged, they spit out disgusting cottage cheese with food coloring. It certainly looked like vomit, so they nailed the special effects. At the end, when the girl stabs the boy, it was done in full view and viciously and with a very realistic version of his disemboweled gut (more disgusting food). That’s the moment in the script where I’d indicated that they fall out of view and she stabs him accidentally. She says, “Oops.” I disliked the SHAUN OF THE DEAD tone. I’m pretty sure that, as produced, any of the subtle jokes were lost in the gore.

I really don’t like the current crop of zombie films or horror in general, and think that our culture has grown too fond of violence as entertainment. You and I are both wondering how I ended up contributing to the coarsening of our culture. At first I resented the fact that the others had hijacked my story and made it into this crude and violent piece. Then I had to accept the fact that I was the one who wrote “Hillary stabs Calvin” and no matter how accidental the actors might play the stabbing in the future, I’ve added one more to the body count.

SO, I’ve given considerable thought to what my character is really after. It’s NOT about revenge or the desire to eat human flesh. That’s just not interesting to me. I think I have a solution. However, the audience laughed at the crude version. So was my younger director more tuned into the audience and serving them? I don’t know if they’ll laugh or yawn when I rebuild the story with my retro sensibility.

Break Time

Two weeks ago I turned in a 143 page manuscript. The following weekend I watched my short play in a "world-premier" four-night run, making changes after every performance.

Last weekend I celebrated with a grand party our city puts on every year: The Lotus Festival -- world class music from all over the world, brought to our backyard. And I still need more playtime.

Back when I've refueled.

Write what you know

This morning I detected a lot of uncertainty. I heard, I'm "thinking about..." and I'm still "figuring out" from many of the writers in the room. This feeling goes with the territory. It is common for all writers at many stages of story development. So, know that you're in good company.
Two things to say to ourselves to overcome the fear, what if it's terrible?:
1. K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. (Remember: circle, triangle, square, trapezoid)
&
2. Write what you know. This doesn't mean every event or every character comes from personal experience. This means start with the story points or character points that you know. For example, if you haven't yet determined the main character's super objective, a.k.a. action throughline, look at all the story events you've collected and see if any of them fit into stages of the hero's journey. Perhaps clarity about the bigger arc will emerge. AND IT MEANS, above all, WRITE. "Thinking about" or "figuring out" the story are meaningless activities. WRITE. Because, writing is a process and we discover what we don't know about the story and the character by writing.

Dramatic Scenes

Great dramatic scenes all have structure, just as a complete work has.

1. The beginning, what the character wants.
2. The middle, or rising conflict, who or what that gets in the way.
3. The ending, the surprise outcome known as 'the turn.'

The dramatic conflict of the middle seems fairly easy to grasp. Yet, a soft choice for the beginning often leads to a lot of yelling and demands, but not much real drama, and no real chance for the scene to turn. The secret is in defining the goal.

The character's goal at the scene level is a specific objective, achieveable, & measurable. It includes taking positive action.

For clarity's sake, it's wise to state the goal exactly on the nose.

Let me give you an example from personal experience.

A short play I wrote called "Party Girls" was just produced at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. I'd done significant rewrites with the director and the cast during the early rehearsal period, but then didn't see a run through any time in tech rehearsal, trusting that all the basics were in place. The setting is in a side yard of a house where young high schoolers are partying. Opening night I was mortified that there was no sound to establish a sense of space, which meant no crickets, no dance music from the just off-stage party, no ring tone from the girl's cell. No sense of direction, or that the girls were on their way to a party.

Wait a minute. True, the absence of sound was deafening, but I'm ashamed to admit that somewhere in the the rewrites I'd dropped the girls' objective. This pair of teenage girls are on their way to a party, and the entire short is what happens between the edge of the yard and the back door. Nothing's going to stop them. The throughline is very simple, yet very specific. But I'd dropped the ball at the script level. No one in the audience knew where the girls were, where they were going or why. Thankfully, enough bazaar things happen in the first couple of the minutes that energy didn't sag.

Even so, I added two lines (now the fourth and fifth lines of the piece):

Kiki-I didn't even want to come to the party.
Hillary--Well I do. Come on!

The next night, the performance was so much better. Even without the sound design, we all knew exactly what was going on. And when the sounds were there the third night, even better.

TIP: As my friend Jennifer VanSijll says, "clarity trumps."

Value of a Deadline

I'm spending time with the greatest motivator of all, a deadline.

I need to turn in a rewrite (2nd draft) of the children's novel I'm writing for Quest Atlantis.

Back later.

Character Sketches

Here's a tried and true method for creating memorable characters.

TIP: Write the character sketch in first person, as if you're inside the character's skin.

Some questions to stimulate ideas about what to include:

• What do you look like?
• Where are you coming from? (ethnicity, educational background, religion, geography)
• Talk about the quality of your relationships with family, friends, romantic partners, co-workers.
• What's your talent? Handicap?
• What do you want? What will you do to get it?
• What do you need to learn?
• What do you fear most?
• How do you respond emotionally when things don't go your way?

TIP: Remember that physical attributes are only a tiny fraction of what makes up a three-D character.

Now rewrite the character sketch in third person, as if it is a set of notes by the character's psychological counselor or priest. The author can compare how the character perceives himself to how the outside observer sees him.

Story Poker

This story generating game works best with a group of people 5-25. Part of the game includes building and shuffling the playing cards, so you'll need blank index cards and pencils. We're using six basic element (or suits of cards): character, plot, storyworld, dialog, image, & theme.

For each story element the players write specific, concrete details on one card. For example, if I'm making a card for the storyworld suit I might choose:

An Island in the Great Lakes, accessible only by boat. There are no private automobiles, only bicycles and horses. The resort side of the island feels a little like a theme park without the rides. Outside the town, the blue sky and crystal clear water stretch endlessly, or at least as far as the eye can see.

Every player writes a card for at least two suits. All the cards are organized in piles (not shuffled) according to suit. Now, each player selects two cards (not his or her own) from different suits.

TIP: to help build the deck, some of the cards might describe a favorite film story. For example, for the dialog suit I might choose a man's pick-up lines: "We lost so many good men. (crying) I wish I were stronger." (from THE WEDDING CRASHERS)

The players work in teams of three to five. Using the story cards as inspiration, the goal is to take a wild collection of ingredients and generate an original story. Everyone has the option to trade in cards to find story elements that might make better sense together. But use caution when looking for 'better' cards. Some of the most delicious surprises come when unlikely story elements are put together.

After twenty minutes, each team pitches an original full-length story.

What's in the Bag?

A writing exercise inspired by William Froug and his book Zen and the Art of Screenwriting. It's about the importance of creating the need to know. The scene below is a synopsis of the scene in the chapter "What's going on? Don't tell me."

Imagine a rough looking fellow walking into an upscale jewelry store. He's carrying a paper bag. He steps up to the diamond counter and asks to see the manager. He's in a hurry. Everyone, the sales clerk at the diamond counter, the customer trying on pearls, and especially the security guard's wondering what the dude's got in the paper bag. The audience is desperate to know, too. The longer the writer keeps whatever's in the bag, in the bag the better.

TIP: If he whips out a gun, the audience will be instantly disappointed. Too obvious. Surprise is key.

exercise:

• write down ten things your character wants to keep secret.
• write down ten cool bags or hiding places for the secret objects.
• mix up the lists, putting secrets into different bags and see what happens

All the Senses

I'm rewriting a novel for hire, and one of the notes I received on my first draft was "more physical descriptions." I've seen the illustrations for the book (a children's novel attached to an on-line game), so I didn't think physical descriptions were that important. In fact, I don't particularly like long descriptive passages that bog down the story. So I was struggling with how to address my note for the rewrite. Another writer friend gave me a tip. Here it is:

TIP: Some of the most powerful physical descriptions aren't the way people and things look. Use all the senses, including sounds, smells, tastes, sensations like temperature and texture, and the 6th sense.

So, when I introduced a 35-year-old woman into the action line of the novel I sprinkled in a note about her age. But I didn't say anything else about her looks. When she entered the room another key character "relaxed." Then the text describes her quite simply:

"She radiated peaceful energy and she smelled like lavender."

Later in the chapter there's a phrase "her dark, fringed hair" and a few paragraphs down two words about her clothing, "simple robe," but the sentence that introduces her relies on senses other than sight.

Thanks for the tip, Lucy!

Lightning* Writing --a daily warm-up exercise

Inspired by Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

The goal of this warm-up exercise is to keep our hands moving across the page. It is a writing practice that is done without self judgement.

No attention is given to spelling or grammar. No attention is given to "good" or "lovely" words, "fly" or "marketable" ideas, "gripping" or "sympatico" characters.

Our full attention is given to stringing words together, one after another. Our goal is to envoke our subconscious creative source. Some days the writing will be extraordinarily lame. That's good and as it should be. But sometimes we'll actually strike gold and discover something wonderful, like a character's deepest fear or the most hilarious line of dialog.

Instructions: Begin with a simple prompt, such as "I remember . . . Or I smell . . . I want to write . . . " If you realize that your hand is no longer moving, write the prompt down and begin again. Write without thinking for 20 minutes.

TIP: We're inviting the muse to come and play. If we open that dialog every day she'll join us, sometimes when we least expect it.

* notes on the name: "Lightning writing" is Goldberg's name. Because I first came to this practice when I read her book, that's what I call it. (I've noticed many other writers describe a similar practice, but call it different names.) 'Lightning' might refer to speed, though I don't believe speed is the goal. For me the 'lightning' refers to a still place where a spark of inspiration may strike and, if the conditions are right, light a fire. The bonus is when I practice regularly, I notice a lightening that goes with everything I do, from creative efforts to less attractive chores.

Finding story ideas

A former student who is gainfully employed as a non-fiction writer wrote to me recently. He said,

"I know I could write a pretty good story, but I can't seem to will myself to start."

My response:

Bottom line: it’s tough to think and create at a keyboard all day and expect ourselves to think and create for fun in all that ‘extra’ time. Your artist self probably wants to dig in the dirt or whittle wood or play rock guitar--anything that uses different motor skills and brain patterns.

So, first give yourself free play time to nurture your artist self and then play with story ideas. (See writer and creativity coach Julia Cameron for how to fill the creativity well.)

There's the time crunch thing, too. At every stage in life we're faced with multiple demands on our time and attention. Students have multiple classes, a job and a social life. Young careerists have credits to build. Parents have kids to feed and chauffeur. So where do we find the time to generate non-paying, speculative fiction?

My solution is to work with small chunks of time a little bit every day. Even when I have "no" time I can always find fifteen minutes to jot down notes and questions to myself. Anything to keep the pump primed. Then on days when I actually have a couple of hours I'm ready to go. The alternative is to wait for long stretches of really productive time, which may never come, and then spend most of that treasured stretch figuring out how to get started again. I hate this second scenario, so I try to stick with the first. To keep the momentum going I write something, anything everyday.

The cool thing about the small chunks approach is that it doesn't take a strong will to make the commitment. Herculean discipline is desirable when it's time to wield a strong arm. Joyful creation loves a light hearted touch.

TIP: Give your creative work first effort of the day. Then go to work for someone else.