Writing from a One Point: The Thing Steven Seagal Taught Bill Shakespeare

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photo by Tharso

This afternoon, I was smarting off to author Roni Loren on Twitter.  She had expressed a very real authorial frustration with not knowing where to start her current novella project.  I offered her some #CannedWritingAdvice.  When she asked for a a can opener, I spouted off deep-sounding drivel, drawing on my old radio improv skills:


Start with the voice and let the narrative flow in all directions from that one point.

While a fair summation of how I right, and how I structure stories, and reflecting some of the resonance of Scott GF Bailey's unified theory of writing, I meant this to be flip.

Only.

My word choice tripped me up, and I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.

You see, in aikido, we talk about a one point.  Your one point, thought of as the center of the energy which the martial art draws on, is somewhere between two and four inches below your navel, depending on your physique, health, mindset, etc...  Sometimes, you also work around an extension of the one point, a point in space measured out from the point in your physical body. 

The idea of the one point is complex.  Here are a couple of examples.  

To the left, you can see  me, in a rusty aikido ready stance.  Most of it's not terrible, given my dress, circumstances, and rustiness.  If I were doing this properly, my arms would be drawing from my one point and extending the energy out through my fingertips, directly at my target. 

Below, you can see an aikido master, using the one point to lever his 

opponent down.  He first drew his attacker in, and then controlled him, essentially like bending a flexible rod over his knee -- except bending his opponent over the one point, in stead.

photo by Ygonaar 

Sometimes you redirect energy from the one point.  Sometimes you redirect your subject around the one point.  The one point is the center of a dynamic sphere of activity at the heart of everything in aikido.

Now, back to what I said to Roni when I was smarting off: Start with the voice and let the narrative flow in all directions from that one point.

I'll be darned if that's not true to how I write.  The voice really is my one point.  It is the center of energy withint he body of what I'm writing.  Everything else I do is to redirect that energy or to redirect my readers around it.  The voice is the one point at the center of the dynamic sphere of my writing.  It is the thing which I extend out into the universe, and the thing which provides the lever point for whatever impact I hope to have on the reader.  The rest of the narrative really does flow from there.

Perhaps it's a little thing this analogy, but it helps me embrace the idea even further.  Because I love working with analogy, it also helps me understand other things.  Aikido disciplines suddenly seem directly applicable.  Focus and directionality in my ready stance tells me about preparing for writing.  It's about deliberate extension of voice, not about character and plot notes.  Aikido exercises suddenly seem instructive.  Routines in which we practice complex circular motions while pinned to one point give me insights in how to perceive my story as revolving around the voice.

Love those epiphanies...

.Nevets.

All Kinds of Procedural Stuff

(Click here to read my Flashy Fiction from today.)

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I thought I'd talk a little about process today. I always read with great interest what other writers say about how they work, so I definitely welcome feedback and comments. Also, I'll ask for some input towards the end, so feel free to chime in on that, too!

Here's my basic procedure when writing a short story, which is usually 2K -- 3K words:

1) Start with an idea. The idea can be any element of a story.

2) Pre-write the story for a while. I write in my head, working out some passages and verbal tools that I plan to use. I make sure that the idea is fully-formed with a beginning and an end.

3) Write about 750 words from the start. At that point I usually have a good idea of whether the story is going to truly work or not.

3A) Write the ending. Often times, but not always, I write out the ending at this point, to help not lose track of where I'm heading and how I need the character and tone to develop.

4) Revise. I know it's bad form, but I never have an unrevised first draft. I revise as I go.

5) Write out another 750 -- 1000 words.

6) Revise.

7) Finish writing the story, if it's not finished at this point.

8) Proofread on-screen.

9) Revise, reading aloud from on-screen.

10) Get reader/s comments.

11) Edit from paper.

12) Read through on-screen one last time.

13) Submit.

So I do a ton of editing and revising, and I do a lot of it as I go. I didn't bother writing steps in there for, "Jump back three paragraphs to make sure this flows the way I think it does." For novel-length writing, it's very similar, except that I prefer to work from at least a chapter outline, if not a fully detailed outline. I don't usually outline for things less than 5K, because they're usually fairly thoroughly pre-written in my head and I'm not going to forget them.

What do you guys think? Am I robbing myself of something valuable by not having that first draft that writers are supposed to crank out before ever erasing anything?

Oh, and practical stuff. If you'd like to read and comment on some of my WIP short stories, please let me know. I'm still working working out the best way to use on-line tools to facilitate that and haven't found a system I'm comfortable with. If you have ideas for that, let me know that, too.

And anyone who's looking for readers or betas, let me know. I love to help!

.Nevets.

The Right Spirit

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I wanted to share some more thoughts on critiques, because they're just so darn central to our writing process. For the critiques that you do engage in (whichever side you're on) there are so many ways you can go astray. Here are some points to keep in mind about the right spirit to have, apart from the obvious about being a fair and balanced reviewer and an thick-skinned author:

For the Critiquer

1. Bouncing off what Heather said, if you don't like the genre or style or even the author, don't volunteer to review it. It's not going to be fair, because you won't know what to look for and will either produce unhelpful remarks or unnecessarily negative ones.
2. Listen to what the author is looking for. Do they want proof-reading? Do they want stylistic tips? Fact-checking? Marketability ideas? Make sure you give them what they want and don't give them a bunch of stuff they're not looking for.

For the Critiquee

1. Don't respond defensively. Take the criticism, think about it, consider it, decide for yourself if you want to incorporate recommended changes or not. But don't argue with your reviewer or make your excuses. There's no point and nothing to be gained. Plus it's rude and reduces your chances at getting a good review in the future.
2. Agents and editors are important. Readers are helpful, but readers who don't make a decision about the future of your work only readers. Liberate yourself from the tyrrany of assuming that a critique obligates you in any way. But if it's an agent or an editor, and you want to get published, liberate your work from the tyrrany of your own pride.

.Nevets.

Some Heretical Remarks on Critiques

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Let me get this right out there at the front. I think critiques and comments are important and valuable. I find them helpful in not only improving my stories, but in improving my writing for the next go 'round. In fact, if anyone ever wishes to read and comment on a WIP (work-in-progress, for those of you not up on the jargon), they simply need to let me know, and odds are I'll give them a crack at it. I encourage all writers to seek and embrace critiques.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttt............

I do think that critiques sometimes get elevated to near-religious status by writers, especially by new writers, and I'd like to offer a frank assessment of some of the limits of critiques. I offer these thoughts not to dissuade any writers from getting their materials looked through, picked apart, and remarked upon. Ou mei! Rather, I hope to help liberate some new writers from the bondage that critiques can become. Let me elaborate:

1. The nature of the critique is that you will almost never get copy back without remarks for improvement. If you do, the reader probably didn't read. Even after you've edited once, if you re-submit, you will probably get remarks. In fact, if you use a different reader, I assure you that you will get remarks. Moral Number One: Don't wait for the all-clear on your story before submitting it, because the all-clear probably won't come.

2. A critiquing reader is not the same as a reader. Ideally, the comments in a critique will help you tighten and improve your writing. This should also enhance your story for readers. But when I'm critiquing a story, I'm looking at it differently than when I'm just reading it, and I think that's true for most people. Readers may subconsciously notice the impact on your story of the technical details the critiquer points out, but they will rarely fixate on them. Moral Number Two: A mechanic can always find something on your car to tune-up, but is your car safe and comfortable anyway?

3. Critiques reflect taste. Sure, there's bound to be some grammar. Some syntax. Some writing fundamentals. But there's also the sort of thing that a critiquing reader just doesn't like -- or just happens to love. Another reader may have a totally different opinion. "Good writing" is in the mind of the reader, and if we all agreed on that, we'd all have the same favorite authors, which we don't. Moral Number Three: It's okay to disagree with a critique.

And lastly (at least for today)....

4. A rejection letter is not cancerous. Once you get a critique or two, it's okay to send something off. If your submission or query is rejected, you will not die, nor contract a deadly disease, nor plunge into financial ruin. You will be disappointed. You will be frustrated. And then you will decide to either send it elsewhere or edit and revise, perhaps on the basis of a fresh critique. Moral Number Four: Send out your dadgum writing.

Too many new writers seem to get trapped in this thing where they work and work and work and work the same story to death. If this is you and you're reading this, break the cycle. Please, start sending some stuff off.

.Nevets.

The Challenge of the Overhaul

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Last night, I completed my solid draft of, "Petty Theft," one of the overhaul / major revision stories I was talking about in the last post. I'll edit it today and, if generally satisfied, let Rose hack away at it, and then hopefully have it prepped for submission as a 2500 - 3000 word crime story on Monday.

It's been an interesting experience working on this. It's partly editing for style and content, of course. It's partly proofing my high school grammar (which wasn't bad). But a lot of it is writing from scratch. I think on pure word count I went from 1700 in the original to 2500 at the end of last night's draft. Way more than 800 of the words are brand new, though.

I found myself using the original version of the story almost as a narrative outline. "Okay, here's plot point one, here's plot point two, here's the crescendo..." I kept most of the original dialogue -- which was sparse in this story, anyway. I kept a few particularly clever turns of phrase (LOL!). But mostly it's a whole new story.

The original story was part of a group of stories that were quite literally my attempt to answer a self-administered writing challenge, "How can you write a short story that reads like watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents?" That will largely be true still when they have all been redone, but there's a difference. What originally interested me about those stories were the twists and turns of the plot itself. At this point in my life and in my development as a writer, I am far more interested in the main character's psychology as it is twisted and turned by the plot.

To accomplish this shift in focus for "Petty Theft," I shifted the POV from third-person to first. This allowed me not only to introduce more interesting internal monologue, but also to present the psychosis of the MC more coherently. When you're stuck with describing an unbalanced person from the outside, you run the risk of brushing unintentionally up against humor and satire. When you can show it from the inside, it seems more natural to the character and the balance shifts a little more toward disturbing, away from comic.

The real challenge was, of course, maintaining the original essence or soul of the story. I want to make sure I didn't only maintain the plot, but a lot of the spirit. I want a new angle on the original story, not an entirely different piece. That's what I'll be looking for when I edit today!

.Nevets.

Back on Track

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Just a quick note. I was working on the story again yesterday evening, and I think I finally worked out a way to put my sociopath in the place of Hegelian conssciousness without explaining to everyone that that's what I'm doing. It's better reading, obviously. It's also more to the point of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm not trying to teach philosophy to my readers. I'm just trying to help get folks engaged with some of the deeper issues of life that philophers like Hegel point to.

Okay, I need to get a little writing in today. It's been a great day, but no writing yet.

.Nevets.

Tempted to Explicate

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I got another 1K+ words in on my Hegelian sociopath story last night. I was mostly happy, but I'm running into this awful temptation to explain my character's motivation, so that my sociopathic killer has the voice of a philosophy grad student gone bad. Not good.

Thanks to a college English teacher who really hammered, "Show, don't tell," into my brain, I cringe anytime I find myself even coming close to plot exposition or verbalizing a character's motive in a way that is unrealistic for an actual person to think. At this point, I rarely find it a problem. I have built up all the right habits.

Unfortunately, this story presents a unique challenge -- "allegory" is not the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind. (Sorry, I'm reading Choke right now.) Essentially, what I'm doing here is taking a portion of Hegelian philosophy and playing it out through sociopathic murder. In other words, I'm crafting an allegory for something with which I know my readers will be totally unfamiliar.

If I pull this off, it will get encourage people to think about a philosophical idea that I think is very important to grapple with, without their having to actually delve into the arcane world of philosophy. However, just as the story of the apple falling on Newton's head illustrates gravity without dragging out a technical explainer, my story needs to illustrate the idea without the accompanying philosophy.

And I keep looking back at what I've written and seeing placed where my sociopath expresses too clearly motivations which explicate the philosophy I'm underlying. The sociopath shouldn't even be thinking philosophically, let alone explaining my story.

Aargh. I will try again later.

.Nevets.

Scaring Myself

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Sometimes I scare myself with my writing, and that's not a sly way of saying I'm "scary good" or so effective that my sense of suspense gets to even me. The subject matter may or may not be inherently scary. The writing may or may not be of any quality. What scares me is what my writing reveals is inside me somewhere. Sometimes, I would rather it not be there.

"Pre-writing" is what I call it when I'm thinking about what I'm going to write and playing around with the actual sentences and structures in my mind. Right now, I'm pre-writing a short story that literalizes certain aspects of Hegelian philosophy. Sounds really dry, right? It plays out as a first person chronicle of becoming a sociopathic killer. Sounds less dry, yes?

I'm not sure I'm in love with the fact that I can identify enough with a sociopathic killer to write a first person story from that perspective. It's a little creepy. I know authors do things like that all the time. I've read stories like that and never been bothered. But writing it myself? Looking at those dark, terrible words and knowing they're in my voice? That's a whole other experience, and I'm not always comfortable with it.

It's true that I am endorsing neither the sociopathic lifestyle, nor necessarily the Hegelian philosophy that led me down that path. I am exploring. I am playing with ideas by playing with words. It's also true that dark, terrible words reflect a reifying of philosophical abstracts from generations ago. They do not reflect my own thoughts. They interpret someone else's. Even so, the voice is my own. And, like most (many?) authors, I am pretty immersed in what I write or pre-write, so the voice is not even my own through a distant echo. It's pretty intimate.

And that's what scares me.

How easily some aspect of my personality can take on the thoughts and motivations of a sociopathic killer and feel them intimately.

Not sure what to make of that, but there it is.

.Nevets.