Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Writing Tips

Some days I run across links that mesh together nicely into one theme, other days, I'm all over the place. Today's links are all over the place but there's one thread that runs through all of them, how to write better.

I clicked on this link to The Outfit Collective because of the title, "Chasing the Elusive Coyote". I know about coyotes. They live in our woods, their hunting habits have driven the deer and turkeys in closer to the house, hoping for a respite from the hunt, their howls in the night send shivers up my spine and yet there are no words to describe that unearthly sound, especially during the spring mating season. While the beautiful essay that Bryan Greeley wrote doesn't dwell on coyotes, he does draw a wonderful picture of how to capture setting in your stories. http://theoutfitcollective.blogspot.com/2010/01/chasing-elusive-coyote.html

John McFetridge posted a quote from James Crumley's "The Last Good Kiss" that totally sums up how to write a short story. "Stories are like snapshots, son, pictures snapped out of time," he said, "with clean, hard edges. But this was life, and life always begins and ends in a bloody muddle, womb to tomb, just one big mess, a can of worms left to rot in the sun."

And a snapshot is exactly what a short story is. A glimpse at one moment in time that changes a character forever in some way. Short stories don't sprawl, like a photograph they have "clean, hard edges". And as a reader we get to live in that life-churning moment with the character we're reading about. You can read more of John's thoughts at http://dosomedamage.blogspot.com/

A while back I asked Michael Bracken if he found himself repeating stories. At the time I was writing story after story about floods, the stories themselves were different but the flood was always present. Michael said (paraphrasing here) that most writers repeat themes in their stories. No matter what genre the writer uses, they'll probably go back to that "something" in their life that they want to explore. So, this post at The Guardian struck home for me on a couple of different levels, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jan/11/fiction-johnirving

Not only do I have to watch out for repeating themes, now I have to watch out for putting the same scenes in every story. And yes, I've caught myself using the same scenes, like hiding in hidey-holes and wrapping up in Grandma's quilt or afghan. But then for me, having something familiar close by when my character is scared just seems right. And yes, my grandmother's lamp sits on the desk where I write. Subliminal message?

4 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Yep, life may contain short stories but in the end it's not a story at all. A muddle is a good term for it.

sandra seamans said...

Probably why we use the term "muddling through" when we talk about our lives. :)

Frank Loose said...

Ross MacDonald explored the same themes in many of his books - he used different characters each time out to explore them, and wrote what many think is the best series of detective books ever penned. So, done right, i think it is more than fine to revisit those story elements and themes that interest you as a writer.

sandra seamans said...

I agree that some writers, like MacDonald are very adept at this, Frank. But there's some authors, especially in series who just seem to cut and paste information or use slightly different versions of the same scene over and over.

I think a short story writer who would like to collect their stories into one volumne would have to be very careful of this type of writing. Reading the "same" story over and over in one book could get very boring for the reader, no matter how good the writing was.