Aikido, Balance, and the Art of Writing

All---

I'll post more about the spiral tomorrow or Thursday.  If you haven't given me a description or definition, there's still time, and I've learned something different from each comment.  Tonight, I wanted to talk about something else.

When I was fortunate enough to be in aikido class in Alaska, our instructor, Master Mike, regularly imparted the little bits of wisdom that you think only come from martial arts instructors in movies and TV.    I wasn't there long enough to compile a compendium, but there are a few that have stuck with me.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art that focuses a great deal on balance and intentionality.  These two were stressed again and again when learning how to walk and pivot.  The saying was, "Turn head, body follows."

As with most instructional aphorisms, there are two aspects to this.  One is descriptive.  When you turn your hear, your body naturally wants to follow.

The other aspect is proscriptive and prescriptive.  If you just want to look, look with your eyes, not with your head.  If you turn your head and don't allow your body to turn with it, your balance is going to suffer.  If you turn your body without first turning your head, you won't have much balance to start with.  Therefore, when you want to turn, turn your head and then let your body follow.  If you don't want to turn, don't turn your dadgum head.

I don't want to draw a cheesy analogy specifically between turning your head and some aspect of writing that should always lead the way.  There are probably some valid comparisons to be made, but I suspect they vary wildly from one writer to another and I know that they are entirely beside my point.

Here's my actual point: however you write, be aware and be intentional.  Don't write blindly.  Know the impact of each part of your writing on the rest, and make conscious decisions to do each thing you do.  In a general sense, every character or action you introduce (for instance) impacts the story as a whole.  Understand the implications of those introductions, and then make them with that knowledge in mind.

In a particular sense, most authors have strengths that will drive their writing.  Know what yours are, know how the rest of your writing follows in behind, and write like you might it.  Let your strengths lead the way, and allow the rest of your writing to follow.

Turn head, body follows.


.Nevets.

Starting Point for Your Story

All,

As I work on Real Stakes again I am once more impressed by how difficult I have made it for myself because of the starting point. It began with a plot.

Obviously I need a plot.

But my style is strongest, most natural, and most effective when I begin with character. When I was honing my craft with mystery and crime shorts that will likely mostly remain forever imprisoned in the AmoebaQuest folder on my computer, I started with a plot. When I wrote my first novels (sci-fi and fantasy), I began with setting. When my writing started to find itself in experimental fiction and edgy scoring, it was all begun with character.

As I have gone on to mature in psychological suspense, it still works best that way. My interest is in the people and their development. Ennui and Malaise started with a character, voice, and a development arc. Every time I sit down at it, it flows well and at a high quality. I am now in my third overhaul of Real Stakes.

Because I am adding characters to a plot, and that is not my best way of working.

How about other writers out there? Where do you start? Do you find it matters or not?

.Nevets.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.1

Delving, Always With The Delving

All---

So I had another insight today about my writing. Some dots finally getting connected. Still working on how to operationalize this, but here goes...

I've talked more than once about the fact that I'm not a linear, inductive thinker. Most of you out there are, to varying degrees. It's how most things are organized, and what most people strive for. It's A + B + C, therefore D thinking. "I see water drops falling and wet stuff around me -- hey it's raining." It's looking at the evidence and then coming to a conclusion. Things like that.

I can't do that. It's not in me. When I try, I get more confused and, honestly, I get ill.

My brain starts at the end: D. I may or may not always not the A, the B, or the C. "It's raining! Oh crap, why am I getting wet?" I tend to intuit conclusions and then have to figure out how to marshal the evidence and/or explain my steps.

Sometimes this is very handy. It means I'm a good problem solver. It means I can look really smart because it appears that I think quickly. It means that I can operate comfortably in big pictures. It also means that I'm free to see obscure connections between things because I don't have to start with the smaller, logical connections.

Sometimes this way of thinking is a pain in the butt. It means I'm terrible at following and giving step-by-step instructions. It means I can look really dumb because I can know the right answer but be incapable of explaining how I know it. I means that I often don't see details, and typically don't know what to do with them when I do see them. It means I miss the obvious connections, and the ordinary way of operations.

I've known this about myself for a while. What I didn't know is how it related to my writing.

A little while back, we were having a conversation on here about literary vs. experimental fiction. In the context of that, Michelle and I exchanged a few comments about how personal one of my stories in the upcoming Genre Wares anthology is.

In the same conversation, I was wondering if I needed to focus on more literary, quasi-experimental fiction because it's where I had success. Most of you encouraged me to not stop writing what I like to write, but I was still bothered by the difference between what I've had success writing and what I've not.

Today I figured it out. At least in large part. The stories that ended up in Genre Wars are both quite personal, as was the story I referenced which did well in a college writing contest.

That seems an obvious ingredient of great writing, but I haven't been able to figure out why they were more personal than other things I've written which draw equally on my own emotions, relationships, and experiences.

Today the dots got connected.

I wrote those stories in a semi-experimental way, so I was a lot freer with my form. I wasn't constrained by logical story-telling constructions. Don't get me wrong; they're coherent stories. But because they were literary and experimental, I wasn't worried about A, then B, then C.

In fact, in all three cases I started with a concept of the story as a whole and then just sort of worked it out in words.

In other words, those were stories that I allowed myself to write the way my brain works. They were personal not just because of the content but because of the manner in which they were crafted. The writing was good, in part, because it was done in the way I'm geared rather than the way I try to be.

It probably sounds silly, but I cannot tell you how exciting and liberating this realization is.

I'll leave it at that for now. It'll be interested to see where I go from here from things I'm working on.

.Nevets.

Heads Up - Soon you Too Will Hate Me!

All---

Well, hopefully you do not soon hate me. I'm not really big on being hated. And actually I don't even really intend to be controversial. Makes for a great blog title, though. I'm all about the hook. haha

But, though I may yet hope to remain your harmless little lovable Nevets full of sweetness and light, I will warn you that Tactless Tuesdays are coming, starting next week.

Again, it's all about the hook. (Which, on a total tangent is the name of a very catchy bit of goofy story-telling in verse by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks with a Rolling Stones-ish feel.) On Tactless Tuesday I will not be tactless. I'm way too much a of a goody-goody for that. But I will take of the infamous kid-gloves and cut to the chase of cliche.

Say what, Nevets? Speak English, Man.

To give you an idea of what I mean, the opening series of posts will cover Lies that Writers Tell Themselves, the first five weeks of which will cover...

1. Stories exist outside of our imagination.
2. Characters have lives of their own.
3. We each need to just write however works best for us.
4. If people don't understand what we've written, it's just because our writing is too artistic and intellectual.
5. We need to write for a target audience.

For each of these, I will explain why I think it's a lie, how I think the lie manifests itself, and why I think the lie is dangerous. I will definitely not be targeting people or being rude. Just honest without window dressing. And I'm not talking to anyone. I'm a writer, and I buy into these lies all the time. I just hope to call attention to these issues, help get thought flowing, and maybe get some conversation started.

So look for Tactless Tuesday, starting next week!

.Nevets.

The Torture of the Craft

All---

So today, over on Flashy Fiction, Suzanne (author of The Naughty List which shall soon be destroying YA bestseller lists near you) posted the awesome prompt, "It's you." What a great sentence. Brief, to the point, and loaded with possibilities. There is no question that Heather is the reigning Flashy Fiction master of getting a punchy, on-the-mark story in as few words as possible. I have no intention of even trying to challenge her supremacy.

That said, I did go into today intending to try my hand at it. Heather had already posted, and it was brevity=wit as usual, and with two such posts, the theme for the day was established.

I was not at all satisfied with mine, however.

Here's the text:

***

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

"Hello?"

Hello.

"Oh my gosh, it's you."

***

All well and good I'm sure and a bit interesting, but in retrospect, it didn't capture what was in my mind at all. I think minimalism can be quite powerful, but you risk losing tone and mood. In my mind's ear, this was a pretty neat bit. On paper as words, it's meh.

Too vague. Too open to possibilities. Minimalist writing is inherently open to interpretation, but a good writer needs to take care to push that interpretation in the right direction, and I completely did not do that.

Nor am I sure yet how to push it where I intended without just adding to it. Now, it's true that even in minimalist writing you sometimes need to add in more text because there is honestly such a thing as just not enough words. My blue cat. Well, that's minimal alright, but it doesn't tell a story. It suggests some possiblities, but it's not a story. Needs more words.

So I guess I should be okay with adding more words, but I'd sure like to still accomplsih what I intended to -- to imply the circumstance rather than to spell them out.

I'll give it a go -- let me know if it helped any!

***

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

"Hello?"

Hello.

" . . . "

Hello.

"Dear God, it can't be . . . it's you . . ."

***

Bending the Rules

All---

I think I'm close to pulling the trigger on submitting, "Petty Theft." I need to do a print-out proofread and I need to sleep on it. I like it. I think it maintains the essence of the original story, but I also think it updated nicely. I took a lesson from Cuppa Jolie's Monday Moment of today and to punch of my MC's irritation factor. I personally think it paces out pretty well, but I read the Red Flags post that Casey linked to today, and now I'm a little paranoid.

I've got a darn lot of internals in this story. I think they're action-oriented, plot-moving, not just journaling, but it's going to take me a day or two to stop second-guessing myself. Rose read through it quickly tonight and said it definitely didn't feel slow to her. As long as the reader isn't left saying, "Okay, get on with it, get to the point, Nevets," I'm okay. There are no 100% rules in writing. Unfortunately, there are some 100% rules in getting out of the slough pile.

While I want to be an artist and to respect my creation, I'm nowhere as hung up on those ideas as I was when I was a teenager and started cranking out the fiction. I've been through a masters program. I know all about writing to meet the standards of the people who need to approve. And, yeah, frankly, I want to be published. That's the other thing. I know I want to be published, and while I want to still respect myself in the morning, I've gotta admit that doing what it takes to get my foot in the door is pretty important right now.

Maybe if there's a story that I can't get done within the normal "rules," I'll just put it off for later. Right now, I need to build my platform. Then I'll have something to stand on.

As for, "Petty Theft," I don't think it breaks the rules too badly at all. I just need to accept that and take the plunge with it.

It doesn't help that this one got trounced in its original form by as disparate outfits as Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and same mystery/crime rag out of Australia that no one's even heard of. Ah, baggage. LOL

.Nevets.

Writer, not Observer

All---

I'm not really an outliner. I will confess it here and now. I will also confess that there have been some times that I have really regretted it. And I will further confess that I think the reason two novels have stagnated in-process for me is that I had an open and a close, and lost my way in between. An outline would have helped prevent that.

I'm also a bit of an explorer. I've been an archaeologist. I've been a forensics tech. I've been a historical researcher. I know the thrill of uncovering things, and have been intoxicated by it. When I'm writing, I'm also exploring. I love seeing the story unfold as I write it the same as if I were reading it or watching a movie of it.

But I am writing it.

And that's where I get really confused by other writers sometimes. I do know what it's like to be surprised by things as I write. I do know what it's like to get angry with and even yell at a character. And I do know what it's like to reach a point where I realize that what I was intending will not actually be possible.

What I don't get, however, is when writers find themselves stumped. I'm not criticizing them. I'm not complaining. But I literally cannot conceive of it. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

"I don't know if I should have my character do this."

"I don't know where to go from here."

"I had planned for that character to be a villain, but they went and did something heroic, so now I don't know who my bad guy is."

I hit stumbling blocks in the middle of the road. I get that. I can understand how you sit at point A and look to point D but aren't sure how to go from A to D.

But I don't see how you can get to point C and not know where you're heading.

Partly, it just has to do with the way I think. I'm not much of a step-by-step kind of guy. I conceive the overall big picture, and then have to go back and fill out the details. So when I start writing, I know how it starts and I know how it ends, and I have a sense of the voyage between, even if I don't quite have all the details picked out yet.

To me that also seems like basic story-telling, though. If you don't know where you're heading, I'm not sure what it is you're doing when you sit down to write. Again, I don't mean any offense whatsoever. Just journaling about my own confusion. To me, if I go to write a story, if I don't know where it's going, I'm not writing a story. I quite literally don't understand what's in your mind when you write a story that is only a beginning.

Of course, I remember reading a forward by A. C. Crispin in one of her Star Trek novels (blush). It was a great story, and very creative, like most of her stuff that I've read. And one of the things she said was that a lot of her stories just start with her asking a, "What if..." question. "What if Spock and Bones sat down to play a game of chess?" Hmm.

Too, I love writing for prompts. (Check out Flashy Fiction!) But when I write for prompts, I think for a little while, and start writing once the big picture comes to me. I don't start before I know where it's going.

If any writers who work free-form from a beginning want to chime in and clue me in, I'd love to learn. I'm a curious fella by nature, and if I can understand rather than be confused, I prefer it!

.Nevets.