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By Brian Hodge, on September 9th, 2010
 “Just four more flaming bowls, and FINALLY I can start writing…” Back in February I did a piece about the immediate productivity boost I got just by yanking the cable that connects my desktop computer to my Wi-Fi router.
It worked for a painfully obvious reason: the elimination of a major distraction: das Internetten. But, in my carryover-from-childhood inclination to tear things apart and see how they work, I’m often not satisfied with surface explanations.
And I came to the conclusion that there was another reason why that tactic was effective, a reason that may ultimately be more powerful, running much deeper, than the obvious one.
However unwittingly, I’d established a distinct new ritual for the sole purpose of readying myself to perpetrate creative productivity.
The Function Of Ritual
Life is full of rituals great and small, simple and elaborate, formal and informal, but there’s a common denominator between most of them: Their core purpose is to usher us from one state of being into another.
The wedding ritual exists to mark the union of two into one.
The funeral ritual, to formalize the transition of life into death.
The awarding of a martial arts belt, to signify the satisfactory completion of a block of training.
Pass through this type of ritual and you become something new, something different from what you were before.
But the transitions don’t have to be permanent. Their effects, the states of mind they conjure, can be temporary, too. Intentionally so.
Think of a liturgical ritual like the Mass. Its underlying goal is to usher the believer from a state of mundane, earthly consciousness into a state focused on the spiritual. Medieval theologians likened this process to the tuning of a bell … but instead of metal, tuning a person so that he would resonate at a higher frequency than he did before.
In this context, ritual is a shortcut. A bridge. A wormhole in space between two distant galaxies that can get you from one to the other much quicker than if you were to traverse the full gulf between.
When compared to the mundane places we often occupy, what is writing, then, if not a higher, more resonant state of mind?
Why Ritual Works
The mind adores patterns. It hunts for them everywhere. It loves to link things together and it thrives on making order out of chaos. And it’s a whiz at bundling specific states of mind with associated physical cues.
As a kid, I would sometimes see baseball players — pitchers, usually — go through the most peculiar sequences of activity before ever throwing the ball. It looked to me then like blatant superstition. And maybe, even to the players, that’s all it was. But they did it anyway.
However, specialists in Neurolinguistic Programming would see something quite different here: that what the players were doing was repeatedly taking the heightened state of focus necessary to throw the pitch how and where they wanted it, and anchoring it to a unique sequence of behavioral events.
Repeat the events — tweak nose, swipe thumb along bill of cap, rub opposite elbow — and, ideally, this silly little sequence will usher you into the desired state of focus.
Every pitch, then, becomes its own ritual.
Revisit the liturgy for a moment. Think of the incense, the candles, the Latin chanting, the presence of the altar and the the stole around the priest’s neck. Think of how quickly these cues work together to induce a change in state of mind. You don’t even have to be a believer to feel some kind of tug. Because their symbolic power runs centuries deep.
Now … imagine the potential waiting to be tapped by pairing a few unique cues with the belief in yourself, and in the tale you’re telling.
Establishing A Ritual Of Your Own
Long before there were ever such things as priests, there were shamans. The shaman’s job is simple in description, complex in performance: to journey between the worlds of matter and spirit, and bring back something of value for the tribe.
Not everybody approaches writing that way.
Just the ones that resonate. Even if they don’t know it, or think of creating in those terms.
With the shaman, it’s ritual, usually involving a drumbeat, that serves as the vehicle for the journey.
For the writer, looking for an expedient route from the mundane world of bill-paying and car-pooling to the enveloping realm of story, ritual can take a hundred thousand forms. It’s whatever works. It’s the cues that mean infinitely more to you than what they appear to be on the surface. Whatever actions reach inside and flip your switches.
You might have a ritual already without even realizing it. That singular coffee mug you only ever fill before you sit down to write. That CD or iTunes playlist you only cue up when it’s go-time.
Whatever the ritual is, though, there are a few qualities that should shape it. It is:
Unique. Whether a solitary act or some nose-cap-elbow combination, it should belong exclusively to your writing preamble. Nothing else. Even the act of disconnecting from my router, as simple as that was, wasn’t something I did for any other reason.
Performed mindfully. You know how you absently swat your hand at the light switch when you enter a room? Don’t do it like that. Whatever action you’re taking should command not just your full attention, but your full intention. When unplugging that cable, I pause and remind myself that what comes next is sacred time.
Repeatable. When it’s simple enough to do without worrying whether you’re doing it right, that leaves you free to focus on intent. And it’s probably best if you can do it anywhere. Sure, you swear by tucking one foot to your belly and hopping one-legged across the room … but do you really want to do that in Starbucks?
Self-reinforcing. Some things we do over and over again to the point of rote meaninglessness. An effective ritual takes the opposite trajectory. Its power should grow in the doing. It should accrue the weight of legitimacy. Because it works. For you, it works.
So journey well, and happy trails.
Now come back with something wonderful.
***** It’s 2-for-1 day! You are most cordially invited over to my blog, Warrior Poet, where the latest, “Agree To Disagree: The Key To Constant Conflict,” will be going up shortly. Ish. Shortlyish.
[Photo by Paul Stevenson]
By Mort Castle, on September 7th, 2010
Let’s talk about a unique, but often ignored, sub-genre of fiction: American Horror.
It might be argued that American Horror begins with Ye Olde Master, Edgar Allan Poe, himself who wrote some of it and lived too much of it. Whatever the beginnings (which you can argue about in your next term paper), American Horror is distinguished by certain definitively American, rather than universal, themes, by a decided vigorousness of constantly evolving language in even the most cerebral of stories, and by tropes thought of as quintessentially American. It’s not wrong to say that American horror can be recognized as much for what it is not / does not as for what is.
The worldly Middle European count with a long history and longer fangs and the quaint ghost of the manor house are not likely to be found in an American story, which more probably will be peopled with inbred, chainsaw swinging morons. There will be that “rose for Aramantha” on that silken pillow in our Southern Gothic crumbling mansion, next to Aramantha’s fetid corpse, but the cursed vase, necklace, rabbit’s foot will find its natural habitat in the haunted museum in Liverpool.
In the first decade of this century, new American voices in horror were heard and the older guard undertook horrifying (literary) experiments (many of them successful) to grow the horror genre. There were horrors in convenience stores and condominiums, monsters bred of steroid use and crack cocaine, and of course, there was 9/11, when horror invaded the security of the mundane and changed everything and every American.
Perhaps citing examples of American Horror scribes and their not so American counterparts might help to define the category, and thus, not implying anything about quality …
American Horror: Stephen King, Weston Ochse, Joe R. Lansdale, Jeff Jacobson, Stephen King, Dean Koontz. Not American Horror (notice, I did not say “Unamerican”): Clive Barker, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, usually, Anne Rice.
Sometimes American Horror: Wayne Allen Sallee, Tina Jens, David Niall Wilson, Tom Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson.
See, it’s not just about setting, it’s about sensibility. It’s not what is filled in on “Country of Origin” on your official papers, it’s about your “World Perception.” It’s not subject matter alone that differentiates painters Gustave Caillebotte from Frederic Remington, nor the folk themes employed by composer Modest Mussorgsky (Russian, in case you couldn’t figure it out) from those of Red, White, and Blue Aaron Copeland. It’s an approach which can be contemplative but still has a degree of cowboy consciousness, it’s a fierce independence in tone and style which might well be seen as the prime motivation for both Daniel Boone and Chuck Palahniuk, or Teddy Roosevelt and Jackson Pollock.
American Horror: Well, like that All American Supreme Court of the Nixon Era (Yes, an American horror and tragedy his own se’f) rendering its ruling on pornography … “Heh, can’t quite define it, but I know it when I see it.”
So do you, right?
And don’t you think there ought to be a book of quintessentially American Horror stories?
I do.
So does Wicker Park Press.
I am therefore pleased to announce—
A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
If you have been reading this column for a while, you might recall my saying I had a couple of projects in the works. Here’s one of ‘em:
I am reading for ALL AMERICAN HORROR OF THE 21ST CENTURY: The First Decade. This will be an anthology of reprint stories published between October of 1999 and December of 2010. The tentative release date is spring of 2011.
Payment will be on a par with the reprint fees paid by most of the “Best of” anthologies and will be an advance against a pro rata share of royalties. I am particularly eager to see stories under 5,000 words which have been published in venues which I might not have come across; this could include college literary magazines, pro and semi-pro genre magazines, and websites …
Confession: Although I recognize some webzines do publish quality, I don’t spend days reading fiction on the internet; it’s this thing about my eyes going granulated.
And proclamation: Those who know me are already aware that I strive for quality in my own writing and admire the achievement thereof in the work of others. That means if a horror story is the literary equivalent of Ipecac and might well act in the same emetic way, it probably ain’t for me.
The book’s publisher, Wicker Park Press was established in 2002. Titles include Becky Thatcher’s AMAZON GIRL’S HANDBOOK; Leigh Hunt’s THE REBELLION OF THE BEASTS; Gene Logsdon’s THE LORDS OF FOLLY, and, forthcoming, CAVAFY’S STONE AND OTHER VILLAGE TALES, by National Book Award nominee Harry Mark Petrakis. Wicker Park Press is headed by Eric Lincoln Miller, a veteran “book guy” and the current president of the National Association of Independent Publishers Representatives.
For more information about submissions or anything else, please write to me at:
Allamhorror@aol.com
Looking forward to seeing great stuff.
Mort
By Gerard Houarner, on September 4th, 2010
Taking the 59th street exit on the FDR in Manhattan, you usually get caught in red-light eddy between two tall buildings for what may seem like minutes, but is probably just 20-30 seconds (this is Manhattan, after all).
One access point to and from the apartment building on the left is across a footbridge over the eddy (lovely at dawn, looking out at the rosey-peaked dawn while inhaling exhaust fumes) that seems to lead to a long, glass-enclosed corridor decorated, at intervals, by art prints. Occasionally, very occasionally, you see someone in the hall. Once, I saw two or three, very widely spaced, walking all in one direction.
As is often my habit, I look at places like this and imagine them as a particular corner of hell.
SO hell is an endless corridor.
Carpeted? What’s the lighting like? Is there music? Or musak?
Is one wall windowed, overlooking an industrial wasteland (a go-to favorite of mine, alas) or a Bosch landscape of tortures to come should you ever reach the end of the corridor? Or is it rock? Lava? A spongy mass that will consume you if you lean against it? A blank wall. Or another wall decorated by prints. Or art.
Do the people in the corridor do the art? Or someone – or something – else?
Who are these people in the corridor, by the way? Are they all walking in the same direction, up and down? If the same, are they spaced apart as they were in my vision? How far – meters, miles? Can they hear each other scream? Or do they just run into each other’s trash?
Let’s get to the mechanics. Do the people in this particular corner of hell need to go to the bathroom? Do they get hungry? Sleepy? Do they want sex? Drugs and alcohol? In other words, is part of their torture the needs and appetites of their former lives?
It’s good to have needs. Needs propel stories. So if not this, then some other need…something chasing from behind, or a carrot dancing just around the next bend of the corridor. An urgent mission they were assigned to fulfill by reaching the end of an endless corridor when they arrived at hell’s gate.
How those needs are met, and frustrated, are sure to torture in hell, as they sometimes are in life.
Is there a culture in this corridor world of hell? What protocols structure encounters, whether regular (as in the world of cross current walkers) or irregular (spaced walkers, perhaps lingering by a bathroom or food store they exhausted waiting for to share the company of the one who follows them – and what happens then, is hell really other people?).
Culture also propels needs, as well as structures them. Culture complicates the fulfillment of needs with rules. Culture is good for story.
Does all this hell stuff mean something – is it a metaphor, or a satire, or a surreal excursion, a virtual simulation or game or test, or the dreams of a catatonic character?
And we haven’t even gotten to the characters, yet.
The point of this exercise, of course, is to approach storytelling from yet another angle – developing an idea, a premise – hell is an endless corridor – and making it real by asking questions and finding answers for them. Could be science fiction, where the rules are the ones that rule the external world, or fantasy, in which the action serves as a metaphor for the rules governing the inner landscapes of people.
In other words, some kind of logic needs to be applied to stories at some point in their making. Usually. By most folks. (Have I hit all the qualifiers, yet? Because everybody’s different, yes, I know.)
Because logic will be applied by editors, publishers and readers. So you’d best to get know the concept.
Internal logic, logic consistent with the rules set up by the world in which the characters live – that’s all that’s asked for, most times, by readers from casual and professional.
When that logic gets worked out is up to you, of course. Some let the undertow of emotional and intellectual currents carry them off through some stuff that happens to these folks they throw in, and when an ending is reached, logic is applied and the stuff that happens is tightened up a bit or a lot, and the folks, well, they get that stuff happened to them.
Others work all that logic out in their heads, know the arcs and the twists of their tale ahead of time, and set about the clean and crisp construction of a story with a certain amount of precision and confidence.
Wherever you fit in the spectrum, from master architect to pulling it out of the hole with your eyes shut, it’s good to remember what can propel a character and a story is usually something that can follow a form of logic others can understand. Vampires, living dead, werewolves – all logical in their context.
Now, if I were John Skipp, I’d tell you all to work out a little 100 word ditty based on “the corridor is hell” premise and see how many different views of hell you can get (and how brief they can be), and then send it to me, and I’d post the best ones next time.
But, of course, I’m not John Skipp and I don’t have a legion of fans and I’m not even sure who’s reading this (I do have a fan, Mr. Legion, from Des Moines, who mostly buys my stuff used but is very sincere, but his old 486 desktop has been acting out lately and I’m not even sure his screen is working anymore and last I heard the mice had eaten through a power cord and the roaches were dancing on his hard drive disk).
So if you feel spunky, see what you can do and send it to me and I’ll be back next month with something from you guys.
But, most likely, I’ll be back with something else acting like this never happened.
Just like if I was in hell….
By Gerard Houarner, on September 4th, 2010
A couple of months ago, I riffed on a Locus interviewee’s comments about writing, and this month, well, I’m going back to the well but this time it’s john Crowley and, well, it’s john Crowley…
In the January 2010 issue of Locus, John Crowley talked about writing and how he teaches, and said the following:
“When I teach science fiction classes, one of the stories I always give my students to read is “The Light of Other Days” by Bob Shaw. It’s a story about memory: things that have been captured and lost, and the power of things that have been caught but shouldn’t have been. What I try to describe to students is the way a science fiction story ought to work. To be a real science fiction story but a moving one, whatever technological gimmick you come up with has to be the bearer of the meaning of the story. It has to carry the weight of the emotions. It’s not a science fiction story if the scientific wonder or futuristic thing is just there but the emotions are about me and my wife, or my feelings about my son, and by the way, we’re in the future. The SF thing has to carry the meaning, and you get the meaning of the story by thinking about the gimmick.”
Of course I’m old enough to remember that story from when it first came out, back in the day when short stories carried a bit more impact than they do now and when it was possible to read just about everything that was important in various genres without secluding one’s self in a priory.
The quote is an obvious, and valuable, lesson for science fiction writers, of course.
But, of course, it relates to any literary work powered by a central image, idea, crime, passion, adventure, monster, what have you – the gimmick, whether it is technological, fantastic, emotional, or simply the machinations of a thriller plot, serves as a metaphor for the meaning of the story. The tools of the genre serve as a vessel for the emotions of the characters in that story, the ones the reader is being asked to identify with, invest in, relate to and follow along on a journey.
Yes, I understand, Crowley is talking about a very specific thing relating to science fiction, and I’m adding fuzz to the matter at hand, generalizing and obfuscating a very important truth.
Yes, I understand that the technological innovation is not at all the same thing as a paranoid thriller plot, or a noirish scenario of doom, or a dragon, or a stranger in town, or a couple trapped in a domestic hell.
But Crowley’s observation sent my mind down a rabbit hole and into a world I haven’t inhabited in many, many years: college. Sophomore. Greek classical literature, the roots of Western literature.
And the old Red Queen said hi: Aristotle’s Poetics.
You just can’t get away from the damn thing. There’s a version for film writing, Rick Hautula (aka A.J. Matthews, or the “next Stephen King” as he’s “lovingly” referred to at Necon writers’ conference) is always referencing it whenever he talks about writing, My college professor in Greek lit obsessed about the Poetics, before he was summarily dethroned as temporary department head and saner (in only the most liberal, academic sense of the word) heads prevailed. It’s online (google it and you’ll find various “”Butcher” versions or splurge and for a couple of dollars you can pick up a better used translation), and there is a lot of study and summary material dedicated to it which presents in capsule form those hours of debating and interpretation you might spend, along with a ton of money, experiencing first hand in college classes. If you need the live performance, knock yourself out.
It’s all about dramatic unity. The Poetics offers the first cohesive theory about the structure and aesthetics of storytelling, at least as it relates to Western aesthetics. You could do worse than read, or more accurately, spend a little time studying and researching, old Aristotle. Much of what you’ll learn in modern writing courses comes from the groove he laid down 2300 years ago.
What was said then is, of course, still relevant now. Certainly in the commercial markets available to us. Certainly in relating to what our audience has been trained to expect, through school and lifetimes worth of mass consumption of stories – from structured and packaged biographies (for those non-fiction types who don’t read “fiction”) to folks schooled in everything from the classics to pulp, comics and summer blockbuster movies.
Dramatic unity calls for a story structure in which all the parts are tightly interconnected. The usual line-up includes time, place, rhythm, emotion, theme, action.
Ooooo, action. Don’t get my old professor started on that.
Anyway, Aristotle served as midwife to the notion of show, don’t tell. He viewed storytelling (specifically, tragedy) as a mimetic art, that is, a reflection of the way the world actually works. No deus ex machina. Fear and pity, at least in tragedy, are the emotional goals for the audience, followed by catharsis. Characters, sadly, are rather strictly defined in moral/societal terms, hardly the intense, psychological creatures of today.
There are interesting things out there on the Poetics – you could much worse than spend a couple of hours going through some of the online free college study material (google something like aristotle’s poetics analysis).
Yes, there are issues. This is all fine and well for Western style storytelling, and we all know that Western style storytelling is the very best of its kind, certainly, and everybody else wants our Westerns style storytelling and there really is only one kind of story and one kind structure that really, really, really reaches down into the core of who and what we are because we’re all the same, when you come right down to it, and those Greeks got it right for everybody when they did their thing and everybody else got it wrong and they just better hurry up and get with the program…
Well, there are some cultural differences, things found acceptable and rules broken, as story fulfills different needs at other times and/or parts of the world. Hell, there’s plenty of variation within our own “sacred” Western rational point of view. You can start with Euripedes.
Of course, the way story, or the art of poetry, can reflect individuality in the context of a society rather than merely represent culture, fate, what have you, is a twist on Aristotle’s take on the matter.
What makes the Poetics valuable, no matter how you shake your rhubarb (as another generation’s Joker might say), is the logic of making the story coherent in terms of an internal set of rules. If in your world folks express themselves periodically through outbreaks of song and dance, or extended hand-to-hand combat, then so be it. Just make sure the logic holds true as certainly as apples fall from trees in our world.
The Poetics might not work for you. The work might bore the bejesus out of your imagination. I’m just saying, Aristotle’s Poetics is a place a lot of writers you read and love have passed through. For some, it’s a bible. For others, a tool to help get a handle on story structure.
There’s a reason the thing’s been around for thousands of years….
By Carole Lanham, on September 2nd, 2010
 Beware of Fonts
 Never Write Something That Will Hurt Somebody
 - Always Givey a Finall Look afore You Go To Print…
Horror Homemaker Tip # 657
You Never Know What You Just Said.
If you are someone who knows how to read, a good rule of thumb is to read what you’ve written before others read it. Here are some simple tips to keep in mind before deciding you’re ready to go to print.
Consider the Pioneers Who Came Before You and Learn From Their Trials
“Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.”
“Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.”
“Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you’ll never go anywhere again.”
Can You Back Up What You Promise?
“Dinner Special — Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00″
Remember to Check Your Spelling
“Our experienced mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.”
Don’t Forget to Use Your Goodest Wording
“3-year old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.”
What qualifies me to write this article and make fun of others in the porcess, you may ask? Why, when it comes to mistakes, I’m an expert.
Happy Writing!
By David Niall Wilson, on August 31st, 2010
When I started writing seriously, I attacked the challenge of the short story. The first few times out the gate I remember how difficult it was to hit what I considered the minimum length for a serious story – 2500 words. I worked out characters ahead of time, almost like a role-playing game stat sheet for each one – not because I intended to use all of that information, but because if I knew it, it could inform the decisions and dialogue of the character.
I believed that there needed to be a set number of plot twists, and that there was a particular point in the story where you had to be working on the conclusion. I was fond of twist endings, cliché as they usually turned out. I read constantly through the pages of Writer’s Digest and The Writer, and I bought all the popular books on writing. Oddly, what I don’t recall doing is sitting down and trying to emulate a particular formula or style. Considering all the dissecting, prodding, poking and plotting that was going on, it’s an odd omission.
I don’t want to dwell on formulas just yet, though, I want to talk about the constant desire of authors I have known (myself included) to keep score on the words. As I said, in the beginning, a 2500 word story seemed pretty long to me. Over time, I started to stretch them out to 3, 4, and even 5000 words, but throughout that time I managed to hold onto the ability to be succinct. To this day I can write flash fiction under a thousand words without much effort, and with pretty good results.
Unfortunately, in the world of short fiction, you are paid by the word. In the world of novels, you often have guidelines you need to fall within – like 70-80k, or “about” 100k. If you are winging your novel, writing from the seat of your pants, these sorts of guidelines can drive you crazy. They are one reason that I took up the fine art of the outline a few years back. I don’t need explicit instructions when I travel – in this world, or one I’ve made up – but I like to know where I’m going and about how far I expect to travel before I get there.
I remember clearly a cruise I took on board the USS Guadalcanal, one of the ships I served on in the US Navy. I had two computers at the time – I took the older one with me to the ship. It was an old 386 with Word Perfect 6.0 loaded and ready. Along with that computer I had a Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 500 – the sturdiest, most reliable printer I have ever owned. I took a drawer full of ink cartridges, and a case of paper. I remember sitting down before I left and figuring out that, at 250 words per page, there would be half a million words printed if I used that entire case. I came very close.
I was the Leading Petty Officer of the Electronics shop during that period. I didn’t have an office of my own, but I had a UHF Transmitter room that I sort of took ownership of. Most of the equipment in that room was mine to maintain, and there was a workbench that would hold my computer. I also had a large “boom box” and a box of CDs. Those became the soundtrack for several novels; not all written on that cruise, but at the very least revised and completed. I had floppy disks with all my books and stories, and I worked constantly. The ship served dinner between 4:00 and about 5:30. After that, every night that I did not have duty, I was in that room, typing away, until around 11:00 PM – sometimes later.
Depeche Mode and Concrete Blonde were my friends. I memorized the first two Crash Test Dummies CDs and learned to love a band called Ten Inch Men, whose album Pretty Vultures is still one of my all-time favorites. The singer from that band, Dave Coutts, went on to sing for “Talk Show,” along with members of the Stone Temple Pilots. I met Dave, and several other members of Ten Inch Men, when they found my review and comments on their music in my Live Journal online. Again – another story.
The point is the words. You just don’t see how they add up until you let yourself think about it. Most professional writers I know claim about a 2,000 word per day output. In those days on the Guadalcanal I averaged 3500-5000 a day and had days that topped 10k. These days I fall in the 1500 -2000 word range, but here’s the thing.
One of my great pleasures every year is participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge. 50,000 words in thirty days. When you say it that way it seems like a horrifying challenge. When you break it down to the reality – 1,667 words a day, you see that a lot of working writers write more than that every month. If you add in what I do for the Crossroad Press site, and the blogs I write to promote my work, I’m sure I’m still doing the 5k a day shuffle myself.
So…in reality…if you concentrated, you should be able to churn out 3-6 novels a year with some regularity, although broken up by short stories, essays, reviews, etc. Writers write, and though there are certainly times this is less true than at others, a steady stream of words produces a prodigious output over time. I have been at this a very long time, and have determined that I do not – at this point – want to know how many words I have written. In fact, I cringe at the thought of it and want to run away, pulling out what little hair remains to me and go screaming off into the night. I’ve written so much, and yet, I feel as if there is so much still to accomplish. There are so many stories waiting, and now they are piling up against the end gate as I plow into them, trying to fight my way through in the allotted space of a lifetime.
You can get buried in the words. You can get lost in worrying over the numbers. In the end, those that can’t be held back will escape your fingers, and your personal mountain of words will grow. I’ve decided to make mine tall enough to touch the sky, beautiful enough to attract climbers and wildlife, and solid enough to withstand time. Foolish, simple dreams that make me smile, and keep me working. I have always loved the mountains.
By Alma Alexander, on August 30th, 2010
1. There are times that I have sat and watched words which *I am typing* appear on the screen in front of my eyes… and not recognised them. That’s how much my characters – or sometimes just my story – take over when I’m in “writer mode”. I sometimes think it’s a mild form of possession.
2. There are characters I have created that I actively dislike (no, I’m not telling which). There are times that it’s HARD to be fair to those characters. I like to think I generally come out on the side of the angels, but I don’t know…
3. In my stories, people *die*. Sometimes they do so for a really really good reason, or a good cause. Sometimes they do it willingly, in the hopes of achieving something with that death. Other times their death may appear meaningless or wholly arbitrary. But see, this is the way things work in the real world, too, and I don’t think that my fictional realms should be any the less “real” for being created by my mind.
4. I don’t work from outlines or write-by-scenes (which is the literary equivalent of paint-by-numbers, I guess) or to rigid pattern. My stories are as organic as they come. I stick a story seed into the ground, water it copiously, and it sometimes astonishes even me when something weirdly exotic comes up out of the good earth. Having said that, I do have to admit to one amendment to this – for the kind of complicated stuff that I write, keeping a timeline is kind of… essential. All of these characters exist and live and work and play and plan independently, and it sometimes matters that one of them has to be a certain age before another meets them – it really will not DO to have a wonderful romantic relationship happen, and then discover that in your original timeline one of the two lovers has to be three years old…
5. There is a time, after the completion of every single one of my books, usually after it’s “safely” out of the house and in the hands of someone who has influence on its future (such as an editor), that I wander around the house chewing my nails and driving my poor husband nuts with the generic whine of “Nobody wants my book!” He usually counters, once some sort of positive reaction has come in, by putting on his “I told you so” face. But for a while, there, things get sticky. They do. I go through phases of absolutely believing that every sane reader out there simply HAS to hate this thing I have just completed.
6. I flinch at bad reviews, despite trying to train myself into the mode of understanding, on an intellectual level, that there are bound to be people out there whose cup of tea my work ISN’T. Silence, however, is far worse than even the worst of bad reviews. At least a bad review means that someone has READ the book, even though they hated it. Resounding silence makes an author wonder if the book actually does exist, or if the previous couple of months of frenetic editorial activity and galleys and copyedits and proforeading have all been just a figment of one’s imagination. (All this means, usually, is that the reviews arrive in a clump six months later, having been collected by someone in the publicity department and then gathered dust in their inbox for a while before they got sent out. But tell yourself that when you are sitting in your bubble and waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen…)
7. There is something frankly terrifying the first time you see your book in the hands of a complete stranger.
8. You never stop learning in this game. Even when you start teaching, you learn from the people who call themselves your students. That’s because writing is as individual as people – it’s almost like a mental fingerprint, people have pet words, pet phrases, a way of painting an image or an emotion, and people will ask the damndest questions in a workshop or classroom scenario, questions which sometimes make the *teacher* stretch in order to answer them. That’s absoltuely wonderful.
9. There are times that it’s a royal pain in the ass, being a writer. You learn to THINK like one. You sit down to watch a TV show, or go to a movie, and the rest of the people watching the same thing will sit rapt for an hour or two and then drop their jaws in utter astonishment at some twist ending… which you worked out halfway through the story and were waiting with increasing impatience to be vindicated. And you usually are. You learn fast not to open your mouth when other people are watching anything with you, because objects get thrown at you otherwise.
10. It never gets old. Okay? It just never gets old. Every time a new book arrives, it’s like the first time. A flutter of the heart, a burying of the authorial nose into the pages to inhale that fresh new book smell, a strange and silly smile that won’t leave your face for the next forty eight hours. Every book is a little piece of a dream come true. It’s a little bit like sitting outside on the porch just as the clouds break on a gray day and the sun streams through, and everything that was monochrome is suddenly part of a bright and vivid world, and you understand perfectly just why you were born – simply to be the one to see those colours come to life before your eyes.
By wayneallensallee, on August 28th, 2010
 Skull Rainbows, Asian Girls, and Pregnant Dwarf Strippers
Wayne Allen Sallee
28 August 2010
I’m still reveling in our incredible summer, which is still producing 90 degree temperatures and, for the first time since high school, I have actually walked the shores of the North Avenue Beach and Fullerton Parkway, the latter where my mom and dad hung out in the 1940s, before the museums and the bike paths and twenty dollar for four hour parking lots. I have written nearly 70K on my novel, Proactive Contrition, because of our heat, staying awake until 3 AM makes me feel immortal as I listen to Stan Getz and Max Roach, only rarely having my concentration broken by verbal confrontations between the crack house people and the Polish Insane Popes gang members who live across the street from each other. Ah, the suburbs of Hell.
This whole thing with the mosque being built near the “hallowed ground” of Ground Zero? All I’d really like to know is who owned the property and who then soled it, start yapping at them. Everyone seems to have forgotten the Murrah Building in 1995. I suppose it is because Timothy McVeigh was white and from the US and not some Muslim with a gripe. I’m pissed that Ground Zero is an empty lot going on a decade, and the same goes for the spot where Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. Anyhow: that’s my political statement for the year, thank you for listening.
You guys like my wacky anecdotes, right? Well, last Friday I had an opportunity to attempt a blind date “meet” with a nice Asian girl who is 31, coffee, jazz club, yea me. Then she emails me and said to meet by the Macy’s at 6:30 PM. She must think I have a mobile device, but I’m at home and it is 5:23 PM. Fine. I’ll try, what man wouldn’t? I’m at the bus stop, a cab pulls up. The guy says he’s off duty, he is shirtless, shoeless, and has about eight teeth. And likely younger than the Asian girl. Hit the Orange Line el train at 5:47, not bad considering this guy had the scent of Pabst Blue Ribbon coming out of his ears. I’m off the train at the first stop, by this giant eye sculpture on Van Buren (look some shots up on my Flickr account, wayneallensallee, and prepare to be creeped out) and run seven blocks north. 6:37 PM. And, oddly enough, there are Asian women everywhere, many of them looking at a man selling CDs of harmonic music from a huge black box. Now, the girl was being coy but I told her I’d be wearing a blue shirt with an atom on it (yea, Salvation Army), and I swear she made eye contact with me. I think a bit taller than me, black dress, carrying some hardcover book. It was her, I doubt anyone else would stare, thinking, hey, that’s the shirt I just gave to the Salvation Army! That guy must be a hobo! Well, she scurried away, perhaps worried that I was ready to drop dead from old age. But, let me tell you, this is the last time I look for dates in the Pennysaver.
Last month, I flew my niece Ashley down to Kentucky for the Fourcastle concert, kind of like our Lollapalooza, only much more organized. She’s my godchild, and will turn 18 one month from tomorrow, and though no one else in my family will admit it, I pretty much got her to break up with her douche of a boyfriend, a future Maury Povich candidate. The first day, we walked up to an old Civil War museum, one guy had actually fought in the Revolutionary War, and the sad thing was that you could leave the plot of land, walk down a dirt path, and be at the loading dock of a Wal-Mart. That night, I bought a copy of The Crazies for Ash, and we watched it and were pleasantly creeped out. I recommend the film, and I was impressed by the camera angles. She slept on the couch and I had this heavy Korean blanket–one of my cousins married a gal when he was in the Army–which is about as heavy as those plastic bibs the dental assistant tosses on you before you get x-rays. Come morning, I was folding the blanket, And the sheer weight of it made me fart like the tugboat at midnight. I’ve never seen my niece’s eyes wider (until, a month later when I told her group of friends that I got a hernia after getting a lap dance once). I don’t think I’ll pass gas like that until my bloated dead body is found one day and a rookie cop picks my corpse up the wrong way. So the next day she is at the concert, and what do I do? I go down to the strip clubs with my cousin Danny, the ones near the Ohio River, the better to eat you with. I love downtown Louisville, because we don’t really have one. It was in the high 80s at three in the morning, the girls just hung outside, smoking. As I’m putting a dollar bill into this girl’s g-string, she mentions–at that exact moment–having danced to the song that was playing while at pep rallies in middle school. I wanted to smash my bottler of generic 7-Up and jam the shards deep into my throat. A few years back, I saw a dwarf stripper. And she was about eight months pregnant. I thought if she had a Swiffer on her, she could have dusted the joint. But there is a melancholy moment to be had here. As I said, the girls could stand outside in their I Dream of Jeanie costumes, and this one girl had come outside because a bunch of college kiddies had shown up. My cousin Danny vouched for me being a good guy, plus “Doc Chicago” would have a lot in common with someone who was born in Mount Prospect, out by O’Hare. We talked about how the Loop had changed, our ex-Gov. Rod. The girl told me she was afraid of strangers, i.e., the frat guys. Here’s why: her father had shot her in the head in 1988. She showed me the huge crease which is covered by her long, blond hair. A part of her ear missing. And then we went on talking until the sun came up, lights in apartments going on as people readied themselves for work. An overweight black guy rode by us on a bicycle with a stack of newspapers. And separate lives continued into another day.
I never did get around to Skull Rainbow. That ’s because of me going off on tangents, as I do throughout the novel, but the gist of it was that, long ago, Sid Williams and I actually wrote a story while at the World Horror Convention in Nashville, 1991. The setting was the Crown Plaza and we even included the infamous Huddle House restaurant, a dubious title at best. Sid has his own stories from his days as the entertainment reporter for a Louisiana newspaper, and how every week this teenager would call his extension to ask which episode of The Incredible Hulk was airing that Friday. Better than Airwolf, at least. But CrossRoads Press will be offering Sid and I the chance to have our four co-written stories together for the first time, in audio form.
And that’s that from my listening station out here in Burbank, just five blocks from the beautifully crappy and extremely bigoted Southwest side of Chicago. Everyone have a safe Labor Day, and when next we meet, I will be have outlived Rod Serling.
By Richard Dansky, on August 27th, 2010
What you are about to read is heresy.
The basic advice every writer gets from every direction is this: Write. Always write. Make sure you write. Make sure you write every day. Write write write write write write write.
(Eventually, some of us move on to “and here’s what you do to make your writing good”, but that’s a whole other discussion.)
At its core, this makes sense. Most people who say they want to write, don’t. Most people who call themselves writers aren’t, for the simple reason that they never actually sit their asses down in front of something suitably keyboard-shaped and pound out actual words in sequence. The real physical act of writing is, of necessity, the key to the writing process, and yes, you have to perform it if you’re going to call what you’re doing “writing”. And so advice to sit down and write, to do so with discipline and dedication and an honest-to-Stephenie-Meyer time commitment because no matter what the interwebs are telling you, that goddamned manuscript is not going to be magically composed for you by the combination of pixies and your sheer innate awesomeness, is good, and solid, and necessary.
Except…
There are times when it is perfectly acceptable, nay, beneficial, to stop writing.
Yes, discipline and productivity are admirable things in a writer. I wish more folks had them. At the same time, it is worth recognizing that there is more to writing than writing.
Consider the conversation I had with a writer friend recently at NECON. He’s working hard on his current project, the first book of a proposed trilogy. He’s a good writer, very professional, and making good progress. And he commented that he’s given up two of his favorite hobbies so he can get this done, one a creative outlet and the other pure relaxation.
This, I think, just might be a bad thing. Contrary to what the cult of unicorns and rainbows might think, creativity is not an endless resource. It requires downtime to regenerate. It requires fresh sources of inspiration to fuel it, and fresh experiences to synthesize. And I may be going out on a limb here, but you don’t get new experiences, meet new people, or do new things while writing. (No, websurfing doesn’t count.) Unless you’re one of a very rare breed, you can’t just crank things out endlessly, especially if there are other things in your life like a day job, a partner, children, a pet, or a crippling addiction to internet porn[i] that also demand your time, attention, and emotional energy.
Even if writing is your day job, that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to take the occasional break. Steelworkers get days off. So do sysadmins. So do short order cooks, pediatric nurses, and blackjack dealers. Why? So they can rest, recharge, and come back and do their job well after they’ve had a chance to get away from it for a bit. There’s nothing about writing that’s so sacred, holy or unique that this notion doesn’t hold true for us scribbly types[ii].
So in short, take a break now and then. Allow yourself to do other things to rest, refuel, and allow yourself to come back to your writing refreshed. See other people besides the ones you create. Do things other than type. Not only does doing so refresh your language and interpersonal skills (useful for writing believable dialog), but it also potentially provides you with new material that you can use in your writing. I promise, you will not be punished by the gods because you didn’t update your LJ word count widget sufficiently for a day or two. You will not lose your mojo in its entirety because you did not feed the beast once or twice.
Heresy. I know. But occasionally a little blasphemy is good for the soul.
[i] The first person who yammers in the comments about how I have now just made porn equivalent to parenthood will get sent to them a custom made t-shirt that reads “I SEEM TO HAVE MISSED THE POINT AND DO NOT UNDERSTAND RHETORICAL DEVICES”. Thank you.
[ii] I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s true. Also, you cannot learn martial arts through a five minute montage sequence, you have almost no chance of winning the lottery, and if you’re a Kansas City Royals fan you’re completely screwed until the heat death of the universe. Some things just are.
By alexandrasokoloff, on August 24th, 2010
by Alexandra Sokoloff
A friend of mine did a workshop at the RWA National Conference a couple of weeks ago on the High Concept Premise. We ended up talking before the workshop about high concept in books and movies, and also about the even more elusive concept of the Big Book.
I was interested to hear that when she polled a number of editors to ask them how they would define a Big Book, while everyone said that the Big Book is the one that everyone is always looking for, no one could give her a specific answer about what exactly it is. Or even try. A Big Book is the one all the editors get excited about because they think they can make a ton of money with it. But what IS that?
I’m used to people being vague about what High Concept is. And yes, it’s an “I know it when I see it” kind of thing – the idea that is so good that it is painfully obvious, only no one else has thought of it until now.
And as my friend and I were talking, I realized that a Big Book is slightly different from a High Concept book. They are NOT necessarily interchangeable terms, which is going to make this blog post even more confusing.
But let’s start with High Concept. This is a Hollywood term. And very often, it IS what editors mean when they talk about a Big Book.
If you can tell your story in one line and everyone who hears it can see exactly what the movie or book is – AND a majority of people who hear it will want to see it or read it – that’s high concept. (If you need a refresher on the premise line you can read more here: What’s Your Premise?).
Here’s another way of looking at it: the potential of the setup is obvious. A movie like MEET THE PARENTS instantly conjures all kinds of disaster scenarios, right? Because we’ve all (mostly) been in the situation before, and we know the extreme perils.
I would also add, not as an afterthought – with a high-concept premise, the moneymaking potential is obvious.
I would also add, because MEET THE PARENTS is a good example of this, that you know what the movie is from the title alone. (In fact, many movie ideas are sold on the title alone. I had lunch with an A-list screenwriter friend recently who said that the title might be the most important selling point of any film pitch, these days.)
Here’s another indicator. When you get the reaction: “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!” or even better, “I’m going to have to kill you” – you’ve got a high-concept premise.
But okay, let’s break it down, specifically. What makes stories high concept? One or more of these things:
- They’re topical – they hit a nerve in society at the right time: FATAL ATTRACTION for AIDS, JURASSIC PARK for cloning, DISCLOSURE for sexual harassment (only reversing the sexes was utter bullshit.)
- They are about a subject that we all have in our heads already (THE PASSION, THE DA VINCI CODE, FOUR CHRISTMASES, JURASSIC PARK, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN)
- They exploit a primal fear (JAWS, JURASSIC PARK) or a spiritual fear (THE EXORCIST, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY).
- They are about a situation that we all (or almost all) have experienced (MEET THE PARENTS, THE HANGOVER, BLIND DATE, FOUR CHRISTMASES).
- They are controversial and/or sacrilegious enough to generate press (DA VINCI CODE, THE LAST TEMPTATION, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR)
- They generate water-cooler talk (FATAL ATTRACTION, INDECENT PROPOSAL)
- They have a big twist (THE USUAL SUSPECTS, THE SIXTH SENSE, RUTHLESS PEOPLE, THE CRYING GAME). And not necessarily a twist at the end – the twist can be in the set up. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is about two people falling in love – when they’ve never met. RUTHLESS PEOPLE is about a group of kidnappers who kidnap a wealthy woman and threaten to kill her if her husband doesn’t pay – which turns out to be her heinous husband’s dream scenario. He WANTS her dead, and now the kidnappers are stuck with a bitch on wheels.
- They are about a famous person or event – or possible event: TITANIC, GALLIPOLI, APOLLO 13, ARMAGEDDON, ROSWELL, 2012, THE HISTORIAN, DA VINCI CODE.
- There’s also just the “Cool!!!” factor. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK revolves around an artifact that supposedly has the supernatural power to will any army undefeatable. Well, what if Hitler got hold of it?
Let’s take a closer look at a few high-concept ideas:
JURASSIC PARK – A group of scientists and the children of an inventor tour a remote island where the inventor has cloned dinosaurs to create a Jurassic amusement park – then have to fight for their lives when the dinosaur containment system breaks down.
What kid has not had that obsession with dinosaurs? And who of us has not had the thought of how terrifying it would be to be face to face with one of those things – live? Throw in the very topical subject of cloning (they get dinosaur DNA from a prehistoric fly trapped in amber) and the promise of amusement-park thrills, and who ISN’T going to read that book and/or see that movie?
Plus, there’s the potential for an amusement park ride. I’m not kidding. What made STAR WARS one of the biggest moneymaking franchises of all time? Action figures. Light sabers. Wookie costumes. Do you think for one single second that Hollywood is not thinking of these things all the time?
FATAL ATTRACTION – A happily married man has a one-night stand and then his family is stalked by the woman he hooked up with.
This film hit a huge number of people in the – uh, gut – because even people who have never had an affair have almost certainly thought about it. Also the film came out when AIDS was rampant, with no effective treatment in sight, and suddenly a one-night stand could literally be fatal. It’s easy to see the potential for some really frightening situations there, as the innocent family is terrorized, and of course we all like to see a good moral comeuppance.
INDECENT PROPOSAL – A young, broke couple on vacation in Vegas are offered a million dollars by a wealthy man for one night with the wife.
This is a great example of the “What would YOU do?” premise. It’s a question that generated all kinds of what the media calls “water cooler discussion”, and made it a must-see movie at the time. Would you have sex with a stranger for a million dollars? Would you let someone you love do it? Oh, boy, did people talk about it!
HARRY POTTER: A boarding school for wizards? You don’t even have to say any more about it. Except that – what kid DOESN’T think that they’re a crown prince/ss wizard or witch trapped in a Muggle family? (Also, see “amusement park ride” and “action figures”. Cereal, candy, Halloween costumes… have you seen the EAT PRAY LOVE clothing line, wines, and storage containers at Cost Plus? I’m just saying…)
Are you starting to get the hang of it?
But with movies, the high concept premise has a couple of incredibly practical considerations. It suggests a built-in marketing campaign – and it is such a good idea that you could shoot it on a low budget and still have a movie that people would go see. That doesn’t mean anyone’s GOING to shoot it on a low budget, because we are after all talking about Hollywood. But you COULD shoot it on a low budget. It is the idea that is golden. (Think of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, OPEN WATER – all ultra low budget movies that made mints because the ideas were so compelling and the movies were well enough done to sustain the idea).
A Big Book, however, is almost the opposite. It’s Big. Epic. The HARRY POTTER series, THE HISTORIAN, THE PASSAGE, DA VINCI CODE, THE HUNGER GAMES – these all scream big budget. Huge setpiece scenes, international or otherworld locations, huge casts. They have been or all will be made into movies because they are bestsellers and also incredibly cinematic (not to mention in a few cases great books) but without that bestseller thing they are concepts that would give any studio head pause, because of the budget considerations. But in a book, we have no budget constraints. We can do the international scope and build a whole other world. And once that book has proven itself in the book world, Hollywood is more than glad to sweep it up for film or TV production.
So what can we do to start generating more high concept/Big Book ideas for ourselves?
One of the best classes I ever took on screenwriting was SOLELY on premise. Every week we had to come up with three loglines for movie ideas and stand up and read them aloud to the class. We each put a dollar into a pot and the class voted on the best premise of the night, and the winner got the pot. It was highly motivating – I made my first “screenwriting” money that way and I learned worlds about what a premise should be.
Whether you’re a screenwriter or novelist I highly recommend you try the same exercise – make yourself come up with three story ideas a week, and try to make some of them high concept, or Big Books. You’ll be training yourself to think in terms of big story ideas. You don’t have to sell out. I’m always telling exactly the stories I want to tell, about the people I want to write about. But there’s no reason not to think in more universal terms and be open to subject matter, locations, themes, topics, that might strike a chord in a bigger audience.
(Also, I hope the brainstorming we’re going to do here today will help.)
The reality is, these days agents and editors and publishers are looking for books that have those unique, universal, high-concept premises, and the attendant potential for a TV or movie sale.
Open your mind to the possibility of high concept, and see what happens. You may surprise yourself.
So I’m really interested in talking more about this today. Which books do YOU consider Big Books? What about High Concept – books or movies? Let’s throw out some examples and analyze what’s going on to make them such successful premises!
- Alex
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