I fell in love with this small section, but finally came to realize it simply didn't fit in my "Montana is Burning" novel. So enjoy:
As shadows lengthened in the forest, a wolf waited.
He awoke at daybreak far to the north with an empty belly. The last surviving member of his pack, he’d eaten nothing but a few rodents the last few days. Alone, he had little hope of killing larger prey.
The wolf turned south and loped toward memories of slow-moving cattle that grazed away from human scents. He stopped to rest when the sun shone directly overhead. A swath of land denuded of trees stretched into the distance to both left and right. He could smell and hear much further than he could see, and sensed no men nearby. He sprinted across. He rested again and then urinated to mark his mission and direction of travel before continuing his journey. The wolf trotted over the Whitefish and Salish Mountains before a familiar scent stopped him on the edge of a grassy meadow.
The cattle still lay in his path but only after many hours’ journey through rolling sand hills. His stomach ached. The wolf ignored his hunger and waited.
Shadows stretched into the clearing below him, masking a swift stream in smears of gray and black. The wolf breathed deep of the warm air and smelled deer once more.
A female. Closer this time. Down-slope and upwind.
The wolf tensed his haunches in readiness.
The whitetail deer edged closer through the shadows, yet not close enough.
The wolf felt the weather change. A storm front was passing by. The humidity rose as clouds rolled overhead, smothering the landscape in featureless murk. Lightning crackled in the distance.
The lone male might as well have been blind. Yet he smelled the sweet fragrance of tamarack, pine and aspen, the loamy earth, the rich droppings left by beast and bird, and the salty blood coursing through the doe. Even through the noisy turbulence of wind and nearby stream, he clearly heard the prey set one hoof on a leaf.
The wind began to swirl. A fat plop of rain struck the cracked earth between his paws. Water sprinkled across the parched clearing. He sensed dusty treetops shuddering at scattered drops. A blanket of heavy, moist air settled around the hunter and now he sensed only water.
He stretched out on his belly and waited.
There you are - the rest of it at the next posting.
Kootenai River in NW Montana, near Canadian Border
photo by Gene Tunick of Eureka, Montana
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Don't Know Much...
...about History - got a snappy beat, doesn't it?
Like the old saw, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," we often have a hard time defining the difference between great writing and so-so prose, but we sure as heck know what we like to read: action and dialogue.
If you catch yourself nodding off in the middle of a chapter, what do you do? Usually, your eyes start scrolling down through those dense paragraphs until you come upon (1) Somebody saying something exciting, (2) Somebody punching somebody, or (3) Somebody ripping someone's clothes off.
Perhaps I exaggerate. But not much. Few of us pick up a volume of Socrates or Aristotle when we desire a couple hours of diversion, because one Deep Thought after another starts to make our hair hurt. It's different, though, when the Deep Thoughts arise as a result of choices the protagonist is forced to make, demonstrated by his actions instead of lectures from on high. For example, what if the grandson of long-dead Socrates were to challenge Aristotle to a duel because of an insult by Aristotle's mentor, Plato? (Of course, the grandson would be secretly involved in an affair with the daughter of Aristotle.) To show Artistotle choosing pacifism when a hot-blooded, testosterone-driven teenager is holding a dagger to his neck, might be a bit more compelling than page after page of philosophical whertofores.
Especially if you're writing commercial fiction. But even in the rarified regions of literary fiction, there is a resurgence of "story" if we can believe the latest issue of New Yorker - you know, plot, things happening to interesting people, and the consequences thereof.
Anyway, this writer sometimes yearns to critique stories that are acted out by quirky characters with opposing goals in exotic locales, instead of being trapped inside the protagonist's skull for thousands upon thousands of words.
Like the old saw, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," we often have a hard time defining the difference between great writing and so-so prose, but we sure as heck know what we like to read: action and dialogue.
If you catch yourself nodding off in the middle of a chapter, what do you do? Usually, your eyes start scrolling down through those dense paragraphs until you come upon (1) Somebody saying something exciting, (2) Somebody punching somebody, or (3) Somebody ripping someone's clothes off.
Perhaps I exaggerate. But not much. Few of us pick up a volume of Socrates or Aristotle when we desire a couple hours of diversion, because one Deep Thought after another starts to make our hair hurt. It's different, though, when the Deep Thoughts arise as a result of choices the protagonist is forced to make, demonstrated by his actions instead of lectures from on high. For example, what if the grandson of long-dead Socrates were to challenge Aristotle to a duel because of an insult by Aristotle's mentor, Plato? (Of course, the grandson would be secretly involved in an affair with the daughter of Aristotle.) To show Artistotle choosing pacifism when a hot-blooded, testosterone-driven teenager is holding a dagger to his neck, might be a bit more compelling than page after page of philosophical whertofores.
Especially if you're writing commercial fiction. But even in the rarified regions of literary fiction, there is a resurgence of "story" if we can believe the latest issue of New Yorker - you know, plot, things happening to interesting people, and the consequences thereof.
Anyway, this writer sometimes yearns to critique stories that are acted out by quirky characters with opposing goals in exotic locales, instead of being trapped inside the protagonist's skull for thousands upon thousands of words.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Dialogue - Not Just People Talking
A recent post on the QueryTracker.net blog got me thinking about dialogue's many roles. It develops character, imparts information, enlivens the prose, changes the pace after a stretch of narrative, heightens tension, and helps set the story in a certain era, region, socioeconomic group and culture. You can even set up the book's theme with some well-crafted dialogue. In Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, all we know after five pages of listening to protagonist Inman is that he's recovering from combat wounds in an Army hospital. The he meets a blind man selling boiled peanuts on the hospital grounds and asks him who put out his eyes. The blind man says he was born that way.
-Why did you never have any? Inman said.
-Just happened that way.
-Well, Inman said. You're mighty calm. Especially for a man that most would say has taken the little end of the horn all his life.
The blind man said, It might have been worse had I ever been given a glimpse of the world and then lost it.
-Maybe, Inman said. Though what would you pay right now to have your eyeballs back for ten minutes? Plenty, I bet.
The man studied on the question. He worked his tongue around the corner of his mouth. He said, I'd not give an Indian-head cent. I fear it might turn me hateful.
-It's done it to me, Inman said. There's plenty I wish I'd never seen.
-That's not the way I meant it. You said ten minutes. It's having a thing and the loss I'm talking about.
Many readers complained bitterly about Inman being killed off at the end of the book, just as he'd realized the love of his life. But here on pages 5-6, Frazier showed us what was coming.
More than the roles listed above, dialogue embues the story with a certain flavor and authenticity. Elmore Leonard is a master at using a few lines of dialogue to convey the essence of a penitentiary, of military life, of wise guys, of Hollywood, of the ranch, or of a retirement community. In A Painted House, John Grisham shows us a rough-and-tumble family of hill people working on a Depression-era farm, when Deputy Stick investigates the death of a local ruffian.
"Three?" Stick repeated in disbelief. The entire gathering seemed to freeze.
Pappy seized the moment. "Three against one, and there's no way you can take him in for murder. No jury in this county'll ever convict if it's three against one."
For a moment Stick seemed to agree, but he wasn't about to concede. "That's if he's telling the truth. He'll need witnesses, and right now they're few and far between." Stick turned to face Hank again and said, "Who were the three?"
"I didn't ask their names, sir," Hank said with perfect sarcasm. "We didn't have a chance to say howdy. Three against one takes up a lotta time, especially if you're the one."
Everyday conversation, though, is nothing like dialogue in fiction. Listen to people talking on the street, and you'll notice how much is aimless, uninteresting and lacking tension. Conversation is littered with ahs and ums, stutters, false starts, cliches, pointless anecdontes, in-jokes indecipherable to outsiders, and stories that start nowhere and trail off into nothing. Good fictional dialogue might include any of the above in order to establish character, but is generally tightly written, with each participant guided by her goals in that particular scene - preferably conflicting goals, unknown to the other characters. Better yet if each character's goals are mutually exclusive, so one person achieving his goal means another's is denied.
Good dialogue in fiction is tight and lively - reality with all the boring stuff cut out. In this example from Robert B. Parker's Perish Twice, private detective Sunny Randall is trying to get some help from a married detective who has cheating in mind. Sunny speaks first.
Anybody issue him a permit?
We haven't.
But somebody might have.
Yep.
It's something that could be ascertained.
"Ascertained"? Wow, Sunny. You're some talker.
But it could be, I said.
Sure, eventually.
Could you look into that?
Larkin grinned at me.
You ever think how blond our kids would be if we mated? he said.
All the time, I said. See what you can find out for me about the gun.
Will it improve our chances of mating?
Won't hurt them, I said. I nodded at the picture on his desk. They might.
Larkin looked at the picture and smiled.
Yeah, he said. They always do.
Dialogue in fiction mimics reality. It has a conversational tone, and often aspires to the breathless give-and-take of a tennis match. It's often full of slang, profanity, sentence fragments and poor grammar. And good dialogue has a music of its own, plus a succer punch waiting around the corner. Take these co-workers feeling each other out in T.L. Hines' The Unseen:
She put one of her sneakered feet up against the wall behind her, picked a fleck of tobacco off her tongue. "So where do you live, at least?"
"Staying in a place over by Howard University."
Another laugh.
"What?" he asked.
"Howard U-ni-ver-si-ty. How's a white boy like you end up in the District, working for cash under the counter at the Blue Bell, and staying at a place filled with black folks?"
He puffed on his own cigarette, looking down at the ground. "You mean I'm not black?" he asked.
-Why did you never have any? Inman said.
-Just happened that way.
-Well, Inman said. You're mighty calm. Especially for a man that most would say has taken the little end of the horn all his life.
The blind man said, It might have been worse had I ever been given a glimpse of the world and then lost it.
-Maybe, Inman said. Though what would you pay right now to have your eyeballs back for ten minutes? Plenty, I bet.
The man studied on the question. He worked his tongue around the corner of his mouth. He said, I'd not give an Indian-head cent. I fear it might turn me hateful.
-It's done it to me, Inman said. There's plenty I wish I'd never seen.
-That's not the way I meant it. You said ten minutes. It's having a thing and the loss I'm talking about.
Many readers complained bitterly about Inman being killed off at the end of the book, just as he'd realized the love of his life. But here on pages 5-6, Frazier showed us what was coming.
More than the roles listed above, dialogue embues the story with a certain flavor and authenticity. Elmore Leonard is a master at using a few lines of dialogue to convey the essence of a penitentiary, of military life, of wise guys, of Hollywood, of the ranch, or of a retirement community. In A Painted House, John Grisham shows us a rough-and-tumble family of hill people working on a Depression-era farm, when Deputy Stick investigates the death of a local ruffian.
"Three?" Stick repeated in disbelief. The entire gathering seemed to freeze.
Pappy seized the moment. "Three against one, and there's no way you can take him in for murder. No jury in this county'll ever convict if it's three against one."
For a moment Stick seemed to agree, but he wasn't about to concede. "That's if he's telling the truth. He'll need witnesses, and right now they're few and far between." Stick turned to face Hank again and said, "Who were the three?"
"I didn't ask their names, sir," Hank said with perfect sarcasm. "We didn't have a chance to say howdy. Three against one takes up a lotta time, especially if you're the one."
Everyday conversation, though, is nothing like dialogue in fiction. Listen to people talking on the street, and you'll notice how much is aimless, uninteresting and lacking tension. Conversation is littered with ahs and ums, stutters, false starts, cliches, pointless anecdontes, in-jokes indecipherable to outsiders, and stories that start nowhere and trail off into nothing. Good fictional dialogue might include any of the above in order to establish character, but is generally tightly written, with each participant guided by her goals in that particular scene - preferably conflicting goals, unknown to the other characters. Better yet if each character's goals are mutually exclusive, so one person achieving his goal means another's is denied.
Good dialogue in fiction is tight and lively - reality with all the boring stuff cut out. In this example from Robert B. Parker's Perish Twice, private detective Sunny Randall is trying to get some help from a married detective who has cheating in mind. Sunny speaks first.
Anybody issue him a permit?
We haven't.
But somebody might have.
Yep.
It's something that could be ascertained.
"Ascertained"? Wow, Sunny. You're some talker.
But it could be, I said.
Sure, eventually.
Could you look into that?
Larkin grinned at me.
You ever think how blond our kids would be if we mated? he said.
All the time, I said. See what you can find out for me about the gun.
Will it improve our chances of mating?
Won't hurt them, I said. I nodded at the picture on his desk. They might.
Larkin looked at the picture and smiled.
Yeah, he said. They always do.
Dialogue in fiction mimics reality. It has a conversational tone, and often aspires to the breathless give-and-take of a tennis match. It's often full of slang, profanity, sentence fragments and poor grammar. And good dialogue has a music of its own, plus a succer punch waiting around the corner. Take these co-workers feeling each other out in T.L. Hines' The Unseen:
She put one of her sneakered feet up against the wall behind her, picked a fleck of tobacco off her tongue. "So where do you live, at least?"
"Staying in a place over by Howard University."
Another laugh.
"What?" he asked.
"Howard U-ni-ver-si-ty. How's a white boy like you end up in the District, working for cash under the counter at the Blue Bell, and staying at a place filled with black folks?"
He puffed on his own cigarette, looking down at the ground. "You mean I'm not black?" he asked.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
You're Fired - From Critique Group
Sorry, Stuart*, you're not welcome back. Sure, we've struggled at times with finding enough warm bodies to fill the chairs but the simmering tensions were driving everybody crazy, to the point that when you finally erupted in a vomit of rage at our ignorance, bad taste and cruelty - well, it was a relief.
Not that an explanation is needed, but here are some thoughts in case you decide to seek feedback from other writers some day in the distant future.
1. We are only human. Don't let it make you crazy when a member makes a suggestion, and then completely contradicts that advice a few months later. Maybe she changed her mind, or was having a bad hair day, or was flailing around because she couldn't get a grip on your style. Take criticism and suggestions with a grain of salt. Most of us follow this dictum: if one person makes a certain comment, maybe it's because his shorts are bunched too tight, but if two or more echo the same idea, then I probably have a problem I need to deal with.
2. Every comment shouldn't lead to an argument. Aren't you in a group in order to get feedback on your masterpiece? Then disengage your mouth and open your ears. The surest way to cut off constructive criticism is to be defensive, argumentative and emotional when somebody tries to give helpful advice.
3. It's not personal. When a literary agent declines to represent you, it's not because she thinks you're an awful person. When an editor rejects your submission with a form letter, his intention is not to deliberately insult you. When a critiquer isn't engaged by your prose, it's not a personal attack. Not all ideas are great and not all techniques are effective, but the fact that everybody doesn't gush over the brilliance of your work doesn't detract from your worth as a human being. Hell, maybe we're wrong, and you're going to be Hemingway 2.0 (see #1 above). Again, the rest of us are in a group to elevate our craft so we WANT critical comments and specific suggestions (see #2 above).
4. Develop selective amnesia. I admit being an imperfect creature who gets frustrated when I give the same advice for months on end, and fail to see improvement, and sometimes I hurl an ill-considered, Simonesque remark. Sometimes a critiquer is having a bad day and lets slip a snarky comment. Sometimes another writer just doesn't get the message you're trying to convey. When you keep track of critical comments made months, even years earlier, that's not healthy behavior. Bear in mind that when you hold a grudge, the other person is blissfully unaware nearly all the time. Until the eruption, vomit of rage, etc.
Good luck in your literary career. Now go bother somebody else.
(* Name changed to protect a flaming jerk)
Not that an explanation is needed, but here are some thoughts in case you decide to seek feedback from other writers some day in the distant future.
1. We are only human. Don't let it make you crazy when a member makes a suggestion, and then completely contradicts that advice a few months later. Maybe she changed her mind, or was having a bad hair day, or was flailing around because she couldn't get a grip on your style. Take criticism and suggestions with a grain of salt. Most of us follow this dictum: if one person makes a certain comment, maybe it's because his shorts are bunched too tight, but if two or more echo the same idea, then I probably have a problem I need to deal with.
2. Every comment shouldn't lead to an argument. Aren't you in a group in order to get feedback on your masterpiece? Then disengage your mouth and open your ears. The surest way to cut off constructive criticism is to be defensive, argumentative and emotional when somebody tries to give helpful advice.
3. It's not personal. When a literary agent declines to represent you, it's not because she thinks you're an awful person. When an editor rejects your submission with a form letter, his intention is not to deliberately insult you. When a critiquer isn't engaged by your prose, it's not a personal attack. Not all ideas are great and not all techniques are effective, but the fact that everybody doesn't gush over the brilliance of your work doesn't detract from your worth as a human being. Hell, maybe we're wrong, and you're going to be Hemingway 2.0 (see #1 above). Again, the rest of us are in a group to elevate our craft so we WANT critical comments and specific suggestions (see #2 above).
4. Develop selective amnesia. I admit being an imperfect creature who gets frustrated when I give the same advice for months on end, and fail to see improvement, and sometimes I hurl an ill-considered, Simonesque remark. Sometimes a critiquer is having a bad day and lets slip a snarky comment. Sometimes another writer just doesn't get the message you're trying to convey. When you keep track of critical comments made months, even years earlier, that's not healthy behavior. Bear in mind that when you hold a grudge, the other person is blissfully unaware nearly all the time. Until the eruption, vomit of rage, etc.
Good luck in your literary career. Now go bother somebody else.
(* Name changed to protect a flaming jerk)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
A Good Critique Group
To me, my novel critique group has been a wonderful laboratory for experimenting with the craft of writing. Some of what I've learned has been from others pointing out strengths and weaknesses in my own prose. I've also learned a lot from the successes and failures of my fellow critiquers.
From Jake, I learned not to be a snob about grammar. A sentence fragment in exactly the right place can have tremendous impact. But the shorter the better. By the time I get to the end of reading a thirty or forty word sentence, I'm desperately searching for a verb. Not finding one, I retrace my steps to see what I missed. So keep fragments short.
Speaking of short, Jake's one-sentence paragraphs (even one word!) can become habit-forming.
Beware!
He also introduced me to the works of Robert B. Parker, a great example when I've been struggling with dialog.
On the flip side, Jake reminds me not to fall in love with my novel to the point that, once it's written, I neglect all the other wild ideas flitting around in my head. Write the next novel, Jake!
Angie inspires me. She can literally draft a novel in a weekend orgy of typing. It may be rough as hell but there's that pile of pages full of ink, begging to be edited and polished into something great. Like former members Bob and Marie, she's written 2-3 books while I've been worrying over every comma and adverb in my own masterpiece.
She's also great at keeping the focus on a sympathetic protagonist instead of my jumping from POV to POV of all the wackos roaming my mind. She visualizes a character, pushes him into a pit of quicksand, and keeps jabbing his with a stick until he figures out how to save himself.
Angie also reminds me of the need to keep improving my craft. I can't depend on others to fix my spelling an grammar since I don't always have the luxury of waiting 2-4 weeks while a chapter, query letter or synopsis passes through the critique gauntlet.
Wes reminds me of King or Koontz, deftly slipping in a word or phrase that takes your breath away. There is so much power in the exact word picture at just the right moment. But it's hard for the solitary writer to know the difference between the sentence that enlivens an entire page, and one that jolts the reader out of the story. That's why we drive through blizzards in the winter and past beckoning golf courses in the summer, in search of constructive criticism.
Wes also shows me how important it is to anchor a story with sensory details. I understand his genre is not like a whodunit, western or romantic comedy, but some sort of New Age space-travel-but-not-really-sci-fi allegory. But sights and sounds, farts and freckles, idiosyncrasies and memories of your maiden aunt with garlic breath - these are things people can identify with, building rapport between readers and both the story and the hidden author. In my humble opinion, until we breathe life into some sensory images, we're merely throwing adjectives against a wall, hoping something will stick.
Nick, a landscape artist new to writing, is full of energy and enthusiasm about this new creative outlet. He reminds me how vital it is to nurture the wide-eyed child within each of us, keeping him at arm's length from that crabby old editor. We've got to give ourselves freedom to write crap, to follow our pens where they lead us, and to take risks. Some of that crap turns into pretty good, uh, lit once it's been worked on a bit, whereas there's not much you can do with a blank sheet of paper.
Ina continually reminds me of the awesome power of storytelling. You can talk all day about the importance of love, honor and respect for the traditions of your significant other, but Ina nails those concepts in her 200-word tale of a Jewish-Christian wedding at a hog farm.
At the same time, she demonstrates how vital interesting characters are to a story. In early drafts, the players are cardboard cut-outs, and it's fascinating to see how just a few words can add quirks, foibles and physical traits to a minor walk-on, making him a fleshed-out person about whom you could actually say, "I know that guy."
I've learned things from some of our drive-by critiquers as well. From the fellow who came once and vanished off the face of the earth, I learned the importance of finding the time to write, the time to edit, and the time to seek feedback.
A gal came once and ran screaming for the door, terrified by all those marks in the margins of her beloved creation. She reminded me of the reason I keep coming back - to get criticism. If I could achieve emotional distance and be able to recognize my mistakes and weaknesses, I wouldn't need the critique group.
But it's still a wonderful group, and I feel like there's a hole in my life when I'm forced to miss a session.
Next time: why Stuart isn't welcome back.
From Jake, I learned not to be a snob about grammar. A sentence fragment in exactly the right place can have tremendous impact. But the shorter the better. By the time I get to the end of reading a thirty or forty word sentence, I'm desperately searching for a verb. Not finding one, I retrace my steps to see what I missed. So keep fragments short.
Speaking of short, Jake's one-sentence paragraphs (even one word!) can become habit-forming.
Beware!
He also introduced me to the works of Robert B. Parker, a great example when I've been struggling with dialog.
On the flip side, Jake reminds me not to fall in love with my novel to the point that, once it's written, I neglect all the other wild ideas flitting around in my head. Write the next novel, Jake!
Angie inspires me. She can literally draft a novel in a weekend orgy of typing. It may be rough as hell but there's that pile of pages full of ink, begging to be edited and polished into something great. Like former members Bob and Marie, she's written 2-3 books while I've been worrying over every comma and adverb in my own masterpiece.
She's also great at keeping the focus on a sympathetic protagonist instead of my jumping from POV to POV of all the wackos roaming my mind. She visualizes a character, pushes him into a pit of quicksand, and keeps jabbing his with a stick until he figures out how to save himself.
Angie also reminds me of the need to keep improving my craft. I can't depend on others to fix my spelling an grammar since I don't always have the luxury of waiting 2-4 weeks while a chapter, query letter or synopsis passes through the critique gauntlet.
Wes reminds me of King or Koontz, deftly slipping in a word or phrase that takes your breath away. There is so much power in the exact word picture at just the right moment. But it's hard for the solitary writer to know the difference between the sentence that enlivens an entire page, and one that jolts the reader out of the story. That's why we drive through blizzards in the winter and past beckoning golf courses in the summer, in search of constructive criticism.
Wes also shows me how important it is to anchor a story with sensory details. I understand his genre is not like a whodunit, western or romantic comedy, but some sort of New Age space-travel-but-not-really-sci-fi allegory. But sights and sounds, farts and freckles, idiosyncrasies and memories of your maiden aunt with garlic breath - these are things people can identify with, building rapport between readers and both the story and the hidden author. In my humble opinion, until we breathe life into some sensory images, we're merely throwing adjectives against a wall, hoping something will stick.
Nick, a landscape artist new to writing, is full of energy and enthusiasm about this new creative outlet. He reminds me how vital it is to nurture the wide-eyed child within each of us, keeping him at arm's length from that crabby old editor. We've got to give ourselves freedom to write crap, to follow our pens where they lead us, and to take risks. Some of that crap turns into pretty good, uh, lit once it's been worked on a bit, whereas there's not much you can do with a blank sheet of paper.
Ina continually reminds me of the awesome power of storytelling. You can talk all day about the importance of love, honor and respect for the traditions of your significant other, but Ina nails those concepts in her 200-word tale of a Jewish-Christian wedding at a hog farm.
At the same time, she demonstrates how vital interesting characters are to a story. In early drafts, the players are cardboard cut-outs, and it's fascinating to see how just a few words can add quirks, foibles and physical traits to a minor walk-on, making him a fleshed-out person about whom you could actually say, "I know that guy."
I've learned things from some of our drive-by critiquers as well. From the fellow who came once and vanished off the face of the earth, I learned the importance of finding the time to write, the time to edit, and the time to seek feedback.
A gal came once and ran screaming for the door, terrified by all those marks in the margins of her beloved creation. She reminded me of the reason I keep coming back - to get criticism. If I could achieve emotional distance and be able to recognize my mistakes and weaknesses, I wouldn't need the critique group.
But it's still a wonderful group, and I feel like there's a hole in my life when I'm forced to miss a session.
Next time: why Stuart isn't welcome back.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
New Year, A New Start
Amazing how the New Year starts in the middle of winter, not a time we are easily motivated. Here in Montana, it's snowed every day for the past three weeks or so, and everybody's sick and tired of shoveling, slipping and sliding. Even when I lived in North Carolina, everything except the evergreens turned brown and drab. Why not start the New Year in the spring, when the signs of nature's rebirth are all around us?
Maybe renewal isn't supposed to be easy. It certainly seems harder gluing my rear end in a chair to write this time of year. Maybe maybe maybe...
Maybe it takes someone smarter than me to make sense of this. After all, instead of having brunch with Trump, Grisham and Obama today, I was out buying off-season clothing at yellow-tag, seventy-percent-off sales. So take my advice with a healthy dose of salt - the words of another struggling writer who sees the flaws of others a lot clearer than my own.
So, so New Years Resolutions for authors, poets and illustrators:
1. Keep a couple projects going. It's natural to hit a wall now and then so instead of beating it with your head, turn to researching a future story, or editing that junk you wrote a couple years ago, or working on family history. You'd be surprised how life delivers answers when you're looking in another direction.
2. Hang out with other writers. Join a local author's group, attend workshops, sign up for courses to improve your craft, attend readings by local writers and poets, go to book store signings, and watch newspapers for other events.
3. Join a critique group. This is the single best thing I ever did to improve my writing. We have members working on YA, a western, a memoir, a thriller, a humorous crime tale, and New Age sci-fi. But good writing is good writing, and recognizing it in others is the first step in incorporating it in mine. Also, I often don't see faults in my own prose until they're pointed out by others.
4. Find a time that works for you, and write every day at that time, even if only for 15-20 minutes. Putting new words on blank paper is priority one. Editing, researching and designing the dust cover can wait.
5. Read. A lot. For enjoyment and for insight into improving your craft. If you are struggling with dialog, read some Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard or Dixon Rice. Seriously.
Have a happy New Year and keep on writing.
Maybe renewal isn't supposed to be easy. It certainly seems harder gluing my rear end in a chair to write this time of year. Maybe maybe maybe...
Maybe it takes someone smarter than me to make sense of this. After all, instead of having brunch with Trump, Grisham and Obama today, I was out buying off-season clothing at yellow-tag, seventy-percent-off sales. So take my advice with a healthy dose of salt - the words of another struggling writer who sees the flaws of others a lot clearer than my own.
So, so New Years Resolutions for authors, poets and illustrators:
1. Keep a couple projects going. It's natural to hit a wall now and then so instead of beating it with your head, turn to researching a future story, or editing that junk you wrote a couple years ago, or working on family history. You'd be surprised how life delivers answers when you're looking in another direction.
2. Hang out with other writers. Join a local author's group, attend workshops, sign up for courses to improve your craft, attend readings by local writers and poets, go to book store signings, and watch newspapers for other events.
3. Join a critique group. This is the single best thing I ever did to improve my writing. We have members working on YA, a western, a memoir, a thriller, a humorous crime tale, and New Age sci-fi. But good writing is good writing, and recognizing it in others is the first step in incorporating it in mine. Also, I often don't see faults in my own prose until they're pointed out by others.
4. Find a time that works for you, and write every day at that time, even if only for 15-20 minutes. Putting new words on blank paper is priority one. Editing, researching and designing the dust cover can wait.
5. Read. A lot. For enjoyment and for insight into improving your craft. If you are struggling with dialog, read some Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard or Dixon Rice. Seriously.
Have a happy New Year and keep on writing.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Opening Paragraph III
So the opening of a book should capture the reader's attention and tease the imagination. A lot of us novice writers often strive to shock for the sake of being shocking, and agents/editors surely see plenty of death, dismemberment and debased sex in the samples that pummel them daily. There's probably a million different approaches you could take for the first few paragraphs, but I enjoy an author who creates the expectation of something i haven't seen before. Here's the first 7 lines of "The Unseen" by Montana scribe T.L. Hines:
Perched on top of the elevator, Lucas peered at the woman below and created an elaborate history in his mind.
Elevators and their shafts were easy places to hide. Easier than utility chases. Much easier than ductwork, popularly portrayed in movies as cavernous tunnels through which a man might crawl. Lucas knew better; most ductwork was tight and narrow, and not solid enough to hold 150 pounds.
I know a little about urgan explorers and creepy-crawlers who get a thrill from spying out secrets and riding elevators in office buildings. But this excerpt promises more - a character (possibly the protagonist) who makes up imaginary biographies about those he watches (stalks?). I just got this book for Christmas, so I'm not deep into it yet, but so far the writing lives up to the tease.
I hope my fan hasn't heen holding her breath waiting for my entry in Nathan Bransford's most excellent first-paragraph contest. Sometimes anticipation will whet the appetite, but there's only so much you can do with peanut butter and stale bread. Anyway, I've had an idea bouncing around in my cranium about a college-age dude with some geeky roomies who've logged copious hours of internet porn but don't know the first thing about women. The dude is something of a smooth operator, mostly because he genuinely enjoys being with attractive, funny, intelligent women. To do well at that pasttime, he's learned to pay attention to them and decipher the code behind some of the words and behaviors.
The dude realizes that there are hundreds of thousands of nerdy guys in the same situation as his roommates. A guy could get rich by videotaping pretty college girls talking about their preferences in men, dating and sex. Then splice in some soft porm that illustrates what the dude has learned, and, the trickiest part, find somebody to distribute the DVDs nationally. He recruits some beauties who are willing to talk about their sex lives if the pay is right, but has to deceive them about the commercial use he has in mind. Naturally, he falls for one of the girls, yada yada yada, then quits his lothario ways, and rides off into the sunset with the love of his life.
Well, that didn't turn out to be the one-sentence summary I'd envisioned. Following is the opening paragraph that hopefully hints at a shallow dude with possibilities and the future object of his affections. For emphasis, I've since split out a sentence in the middle as it's own paragraph, but it was originally spliced together as one fat stream-of-consciousness paragraph:
She sits on the other side of a small table littered with ashtrays and highballs, entrancing him the way her perfect features twist imperfectly as she talks. God knows she talks nonstop, pausing nano-momentarily to knock back some scotch and milk or puff on a Kool. Sometimes the tip of her tongue pokes out the corner of her mouth for no apparent reason, causing a tingle to run up his cock for no apparent reason.
Are they having A Moment?
Like two comets flirting with the same star though never colliding, they’d been hanging out at Jack’s and screwing their way through the denizens for a couple months. By now she knows his playbook. He suspects it’ll require honesty and spontaneity to nail her but he’s not sure it‘s worth the risk.
Have a wonderfull New Year, and keep on writing.
Perched on top of the elevator, Lucas peered at the woman below and created an elaborate history in his mind.
Elevators and their shafts were easy places to hide. Easier than utility chases. Much easier than ductwork, popularly portrayed in movies as cavernous tunnels through which a man might crawl. Lucas knew better; most ductwork was tight and narrow, and not solid enough to hold 150 pounds.
I know a little about urgan explorers and creepy-crawlers who get a thrill from spying out secrets and riding elevators in office buildings. But this excerpt promises more - a character (possibly the protagonist) who makes up imaginary biographies about those he watches (stalks?). I just got this book for Christmas, so I'm not deep into it yet, but so far the writing lives up to the tease.
I hope my fan hasn't heen holding her breath waiting for my entry in Nathan Bransford's most excellent first-paragraph contest. Sometimes anticipation will whet the appetite, but there's only so much you can do with peanut butter and stale bread. Anyway, I've had an idea bouncing around in my cranium about a college-age dude with some geeky roomies who've logged copious hours of internet porn but don't know the first thing about women. The dude is something of a smooth operator, mostly because he genuinely enjoys being with attractive, funny, intelligent women. To do well at that pasttime, he's learned to pay attention to them and decipher the code behind some of the words and behaviors.
The dude realizes that there are hundreds of thousands of nerdy guys in the same situation as his roommates. A guy could get rich by videotaping pretty college girls talking about their preferences in men, dating and sex. Then splice in some soft porm that illustrates what the dude has learned, and, the trickiest part, find somebody to distribute the DVDs nationally. He recruits some beauties who are willing to talk about their sex lives if the pay is right, but has to deceive them about the commercial use he has in mind. Naturally, he falls for one of the girls, yada yada yada, then quits his lothario ways, and rides off into the sunset with the love of his life.
Well, that didn't turn out to be the one-sentence summary I'd envisioned. Following is the opening paragraph that hopefully hints at a shallow dude with possibilities and the future object of his affections. For emphasis, I've since split out a sentence in the middle as it's own paragraph, but it was originally spliced together as one fat stream-of-consciousness paragraph:
She sits on the other side of a small table littered with ashtrays and highballs, entrancing him the way her perfect features twist imperfectly as she talks. God knows she talks nonstop, pausing nano-momentarily to knock back some scotch and milk or puff on a Kool. Sometimes the tip of her tongue pokes out the corner of her mouth for no apparent reason, causing a tingle to run up his cock for no apparent reason.
Are they having A Moment?
Like two comets flirting with the same star though never colliding, they’d been hanging out at Jack’s and screwing their way through the denizens for a couple months. By now she knows his playbook. He suspects it’ll require honesty and spontaneity to nail her but he’s not sure it‘s worth the risk.
Have a wonderfull New Year, and keep on writing.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Opening Paragraph II
My previous rant was about literary agent Nathan Bransford's excellent search for the best first paragraph. My only disagreement with Nate's approach is that a paragraph is an artificial construct which readers don't pay much attention to. For example, if the book starts with dialog, the opening paragraph will be the bit of conversation from Character One, perhaps just a couple words. When Character Two speaks, or there is physical action by anybody but Character One, a new paragraph will start.
As readers, we don't automatically shut the book at the end of paragraph one, and either put it back on the shelf or carry it to the cash register. We browse for a while, maybe 15-20 lines of text, to see if it has any appeal. Sometimes that's all it takes - Grisham's "A Time to Kill" had me hooked from the first few lines - or sometimes it starts us flipping pages to see if whatever interested us can be found later on.
So that's the scientific test: does the prose intrigue us? Does it set up a dramatic or humorous situation, a unique character, or a fascinating locale? Does the author have a Voice that grabs us by the collar and won't let go? Is there some intangible quality to the writing style that we've admired in other books?
I'm going to push back my own feeble entry in Nate's contest, and instead inflict upon you the opening lines of my crime thriller, "Montana in Flames." I don't have enough emotional distance to know whether this is good or bad, but I've tried to intrigue the reader with an interesting locale, protagonist and situation.
Paul Longo eased his lanky frame into a chair at the New Accounts desk and waited for the statuesque blonde –- Elizabeth from her nametag -- to get off the phone. Her shimmering emerald dress clung to all the right places. Paul didn’t mind the wait.
He looked around the lobby. A small bank for a small town. Some of the windows had the bluish, dimpled look of antique glass. The pressed tin ceiling looked authentic, suggesting the building was a hundred years old or more.
The kid pushing through the copper-and-glass doors didn’t look the slightest bit authentic. A little guy, maybe five-foot-four and 130 pounds, who looked full of meth. Bulging eyes flicked nervously around the lobby, and one cheek twitched a furious beat. Still had prison pallor from his most recent stint. Both hands jammed deep in the pockets of a down vest, despite the unusual autumn heat.
Detective Paul Longo slipped the 44 caliber Super Redhawk from its shoulder holster and dangled it behind his chair. The end of its nearly ten-inch barrel touched the floor.
As readers, we don't automatically shut the book at the end of paragraph one, and either put it back on the shelf or carry it to the cash register. We browse for a while, maybe 15-20 lines of text, to see if it has any appeal. Sometimes that's all it takes - Grisham's "A Time to Kill" had me hooked from the first few lines - or sometimes it starts us flipping pages to see if whatever interested us can be found later on.
So that's the scientific test: does the prose intrigue us? Does it set up a dramatic or humorous situation, a unique character, or a fascinating locale? Does the author have a Voice that grabs us by the collar and won't let go? Is there some intangible quality to the writing style that we've admired in other books?
I'm going to push back my own feeble entry in Nate's contest, and instead inflict upon you the opening lines of my crime thriller, "Montana in Flames." I don't have enough emotional distance to know whether this is good or bad, but I've tried to intrigue the reader with an interesting locale, protagonist and situation.
Paul Longo eased his lanky frame into a chair at the New Accounts desk and waited for the statuesque blonde –- Elizabeth from her nametag -- to get off the phone. Her shimmering emerald dress clung to all the right places. Paul didn’t mind the wait.
He looked around the lobby. A small bank for a small town. Some of the windows had the bluish, dimpled look of antique glass. The pressed tin ceiling looked authentic, suggesting the building was a hundred years old or more.
The kid pushing through the copper-and-glass doors didn’t look the slightest bit authentic. A little guy, maybe five-foot-four and 130 pounds, who looked full of meth. Bulging eyes flicked nervously around the lobby, and one cheek twitched a furious beat. Still had prison pallor from his most recent stint. Both hands jammed deep in the pockets of a down vest, despite the unusual autumn heat.
Detective Paul Longo slipped the 44 caliber Super Redhawk from its shoulder holster and dangled it behind his chair. The end of its nearly ten-inch barrel touched the floor.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Opening Paragraph I
Yikes! I've been a bad, bad blogger, ignoring my responsibilities to my fan. It's been a crazy spring, summer and fall, full of soccer, college visits for my equally disorganized son, and lots of writing. Just not the blog type of writing. My novel is finally close to being sent out into the world, for better or worse, and I've been doodling with a lot on potential follow-up concepts.
Aside from my infamous "positive rejections," my critique group has been having successes. Jake has an agent for his western (and it is a western, Jake - it's got horses, gunslingers and a saloon) and Angie is having some of her books e-published. This is truly a profession where you never fail, as Dennis Foley says, but you can choose to give up.
While you're poking around my blog, be sure to check out the link to Nathan Bransford's blog, the most entertaining and educational one I've found on the business of publishing. Nate has recently been conducting his second "first paragraph" contest. Over a four-day period, any unpublished author could post the opening paragraph from a work in progress. By the time I got organized there were already over 1,100 entries, and 1,364 comments had been posted before the contest string was shut down. Some of the posts were deletions of accidental duplicates, and a few others were snarky comments or gratuitous sucking-up, but roughly 95% were actual submissions.
It was an eye-opening experience to scan the first 500 entries (poor Nathan had to personally read every single one to come up with his top six). There were a lot of romances, historicals, sci-fi and fantasies, YAs and crime stories. Not many tales for younger children, erotica and memoirs. Quite a few dead parents, failed relationship, and stumbling upon bloody corpses. Of the 500, I read about 30 that would've made me take the book straight to the cash register, and an equal number that would've had me flipping pages to see what the rest looked like.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of poorly-written crap, along with plenty of decent attempts marred by preventable flaws - misspellings, poor grammar and cluelessness about the meaning of "one paragraph only." Since I enjoy reading offbeat works, none of the topics made me squirm but some of the language was off-putting. Phrases such as "nether regions" and "anal leakage" spring to mind (although the latter would be a great name for a punk band, if such groups still exist).
Imagine your typical struggling editor or literary agent, forced to wade through knee-high garbage all day at work, then dragging a stack of it home to pollute her home. What a thrill it must be to discover a writer who can actually tell a coherent stort with a flair for drama, humor or tension, an interesting voice, and some understanding of craft. Every day she receives unsolicited, handwritten manuscipts on lined paper. The agent or editor gets: phone calls about submissions that were mailed three days earlier; query letters on lavender, scented stationery with a photo of the author's children/cat/grandmother; and knick-knacks, boxes of candy and the occasional $5 bill in the hope these will entice her to look more kindly on the submission.
Well. My Old Year's Resolution is to not only dedicate myself to selfless blogging, but also to enrich the lives of agents and editors everywhere by submitting works that will bring smiles to their faces and a ka-ching to their bottom line.
Next blog: my thoughts on an opening few paragraphs, and what I submitted for Nathan's contest.
To all you authors out there, keep the faith and keep writing.
Aside from my infamous "positive rejections," my critique group has been having successes. Jake has an agent for his western (and it is a western, Jake - it's got horses, gunslingers and a saloon) and Angie is having some of her books e-published. This is truly a profession where you never fail, as Dennis Foley says, but you can choose to give up.
While you're poking around my blog, be sure to check out the link to Nathan Bransford's blog, the most entertaining and educational one I've found on the business of publishing. Nate has recently been conducting his second "first paragraph" contest. Over a four-day period, any unpublished author could post the opening paragraph from a work in progress. By the time I got organized there were already over 1,100 entries, and 1,364 comments had been posted before the contest string was shut down. Some of the posts were deletions of accidental duplicates, and a few others were snarky comments or gratuitous sucking-up, but roughly 95% were actual submissions.
It was an eye-opening experience to scan the first 500 entries (poor Nathan had to personally read every single one to come up with his top six). There were a lot of romances, historicals, sci-fi and fantasies, YAs and crime stories. Not many tales for younger children, erotica and memoirs. Quite a few dead parents, failed relationship, and stumbling upon bloody corpses. Of the 500, I read about 30 that would've made me take the book straight to the cash register, and an equal number that would've had me flipping pages to see what the rest looked like.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of poorly-written crap, along with plenty of decent attempts marred by preventable flaws - misspellings, poor grammar and cluelessness about the meaning of "one paragraph only." Since I enjoy reading offbeat works, none of the topics made me squirm but some of the language was off-putting. Phrases such as "nether regions" and "anal leakage" spring to mind (although the latter would be a great name for a punk band, if such groups still exist).
Imagine your typical struggling editor or literary agent, forced to wade through knee-high garbage all day at work, then dragging a stack of it home to pollute her home. What a thrill it must be to discover a writer who can actually tell a coherent stort with a flair for drama, humor or tension, an interesting voice, and some understanding of craft. Every day she receives unsolicited, handwritten manuscipts on lined paper. The agent or editor gets: phone calls about submissions that were mailed three days earlier; query letters on lavender, scented stationery with a photo of the author's children/cat/grandmother; and knick-knacks, boxes of candy and the occasional $5 bill in the hope these will entice her to look more kindly on the submission.
Well. My Old Year's Resolution is to not only dedicate myself to selfless blogging, but also to enrich the lives of agents and editors everywhere by submitting works that will bring smiles to their faces and a ka-ching to their bottom line.
Next blog: my thoughts on an opening few paragraphs, and what I submitted for Nathan's contest.
To all you authors out there, keep the faith and keep writing.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Technology Must Die!
So should the wannabe Famous Author query agents and editors by email or snail mail?
Do the results differ? Truth be told, I haven't been at this querying business long enough to tell. With about 30 queries out there flapping their wings on my behalf, only a half-dozen have come home to roost. My very first e-query flew back within 12 hours with a request for a partial MS. Omigawd, the future is bright. Grisham labored in obscurity for years, selling his first self-published novel out of the back of a station wagon at swap meets, and here I've struck gold with my first effort. Before shopping for a Mercedes, I thought it might be prudent to research my new best friend. Oops. Google came up dry. Other than the brief entry on First Writer that led me to him in the first place, I found nada on the usual literary agent databases. I emailed Mystery Agent to see if I should send the partial by email attachment or snail mail, and also politely asked whether he had a website or blog. Since then, silence reigns.
My first query, and I get VaporAgent.
By the way, check out the link to Lit Agent X for actual examples of wacky, clueless queries that will make you feel incredibly smug.
The rejections I've received so far have all been professional and polite, usually along the line of "not for me" or "not a match." That's fine because I understand that this business is about art, not science.
Sometimes I have the same reaction as a reader. I had heard good things about Middlesex by Eugenides and grabbed it off a bargain table at Borders. I fought my way through the first 20 pages before giving up. Just "not for me," despite what Oprah thinks. I'd also heard about Spaceman Blues: A Love Song - supposedly cutting edge, awesome prose. I tracked down the first chapter on the author's website and it blew me away. Absolutely for me.
But I've noticed that replies to e-queries tend to be very minimal and safely-worded, whereas those returning to my mailbox sometimes have more positive, even helpful comments scrawled on the letter. One snail mail rejection came back yesterday from a prominent NYC literary agent and actually had nearly 100 words of feedback - my synopsis was a "compelling presentation" and he couldn't see any obvious flaws, but didn't feel the necessary "connection" to take me as a client. Wow! (Why hadn't the girls back in high school let me down like that, instead of telling me to buzz off? Virginity would have been ever so much more palatable.) That rejection will keep me motivated for months to come. I'm thinking it's suitable for framing.
As I said, I'm still new to querying and with some of the most successful agents only accepting e-queries, maybe that's the best way to go. I admit to getting a minor tactile thrill from folding up an SASE and slipping it into another envelope along with a crisp piece of stationary with my brilliant, well-researched query. But I don't get creepy over it.
I have important reasons for dragging my query letters down to the post office and dropping them through a slot, reasons that have nothing to do with the odds of success or failure or helpful comments. Once a query is mailed, there is Hope for a period of time. That Hope helps me glue my butt to a chair and tap out more queries, rewrite my old nonsense, and create gawd-awful first drafts of future nonsense. The fact that there is no scientific or logical basis for this Hope is inconsequential. It's the best buzz I've gotten since I threw Jim Beam out the back door.
On the other hand, last night I emailed a carefully-crafted, well-researched query to an agent who's supposedly waiting breathlessly for a thriller to represent. The rejection showed up among my incoming emails before my morning coffee break today.
Technology must die!
Almost forgot - thanks for checking out this blog, and keep on writing.
Do the results differ? Truth be told, I haven't been at this querying business long enough to tell. With about 30 queries out there flapping their wings on my behalf, only a half-dozen have come home to roost. My very first e-query flew back within 12 hours with a request for a partial MS. Omigawd, the future is bright. Grisham labored in obscurity for years, selling his first self-published novel out of the back of a station wagon at swap meets, and here I've struck gold with my first effort. Before shopping for a Mercedes, I thought it might be prudent to research my new best friend. Oops. Google came up dry. Other than the brief entry on First Writer that led me to him in the first place, I found nada on the usual literary agent databases. I emailed Mystery Agent to see if I should send the partial by email attachment or snail mail, and also politely asked whether he had a website or blog. Since then, silence reigns.
My first query, and I get VaporAgent.
By the way, check out the link to Lit Agent X for actual examples of wacky, clueless queries that will make you feel incredibly smug.
The rejections I've received so far have all been professional and polite, usually along the line of "not for me" or "not a match." That's fine because I understand that this business is about art, not science.
Sometimes I have the same reaction as a reader. I had heard good things about Middlesex by Eugenides and grabbed it off a bargain table at Borders. I fought my way through the first 20 pages before giving up. Just "not for me," despite what Oprah thinks. I'd also heard about Spaceman Blues: A Love Song - supposedly cutting edge, awesome prose. I tracked down the first chapter on the author's website and it blew me away. Absolutely for me.
But I've noticed that replies to e-queries tend to be very minimal and safely-worded, whereas those returning to my mailbox sometimes have more positive, even helpful comments scrawled on the letter. One snail mail rejection came back yesterday from a prominent NYC literary agent and actually had nearly 100 words of feedback - my synopsis was a "compelling presentation" and he couldn't see any obvious flaws, but didn't feel the necessary "connection" to take me as a client. Wow! (Why hadn't the girls back in high school let me down like that, instead of telling me to buzz off? Virginity would have been ever so much more palatable.) That rejection will keep me motivated for months to come. I'm thinking it's suitable for framing.
As I said, I'm still new to querying and with some of the most successful agents only accepting e-queries, maybe that's the best way to go. I admit to getting a minor tactile thrill from folding up an SASE and slipping it into another envelope along with a crisp piece of stationary with my brilliant, well-researched query. But I don't get creepy over it.
I have important reasons for dragging my query letters down to the post office and dropping them through a slot, reasons that have nothing to do with the odds of success or failure or helpful comments. Once a query is mailed, there is Hope for a period of time. That Hope helps me glue my butt to a chair and tap out more queries, rewrite my old nonsense, and create gawd-awful first drafts of future nonsense. The fact that there is no scientific or logical basis for this Hope is inconsequential. It's the best buzz I've gotten since I threw Jim Beam out the back door.
On the other hand, last night I emailed a carefully-crafted, well-researched query to an agent who's supposedly waiting breathlessly for a thriller to represent. The rejection showed up among my incoming emails before my morning coffee break today.
Technology must die!
Almost forgot - thanks for checking out this blog, and keep on writing.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
I doubt you woke up on a Tuesday morning and decided, "I think I'll be a novelist." It was a more gradual process. Telling bedtime stories to the little ones. "Daddy, would you write that down so I'll always have it?" Then sending your creation to a local mag just for the helluvit, and the thrill of publication. Followed by a couple more credits, an invitation to write reviews of kid-lit for a regional journal, a couple dopey mystery stories and an unfinished YA wizard's apprentice novel.
Finally you lost all control and spent years (or 6-7 weeks, if you're my friend Angie) purging and bleeding over reams of perfectly good paper before birthing The Great American Novel. An ugly truth gradually emerges - nobody will ever knock at the door to see if, just by chance, you have TGAN ready to rush off to the presses.
Damn. You have to grovel before the money changers and promote your masterpiece in the marketplace. Worse yet, you've got to write the two most miserable, despicable, slit-your-wrists-if-you-don't-get-it-right-this-time documents: a query and a synopsis. Somehow you summarize TGAN into an 8-page synopsis only to be told: "Cool! Now condense it to 1,000 words - better yet, 500 - and then shoehorn it into one measly paragraph for your query letter."
Aaarrggghhhh.
Hum-hum-ha-hum.
Dix?
Okay, I'm back now. Just had to double-check that 'shoehorn' is one word, not hyphenated.
Crap. Had to check 'double-check.'
Any questions why I'm not the speediest author alive? Okay, below is the synopsis for my novel Montana is Burning. I don't claim it's the world's greatest synopsis (still a bit of the passive voice, eh?). I just hope it conveys the flavor of the work and shows I can tell a coherent story so, if the agent or editor is partial to that kind of story, hopefully she'll ask to see some more. Anyway, here it is.
Thanks and keep on writing.
Finally you lost all control and spent years (or 6-7 weeks, if you're my friend Angie) purging and bleeding over reams of perfectly good paper before birthing The Great American Novel. An ugly truth gradually emerges - nobody will ever knock at the door to see if, just by chance, you have TGAN ready to rush off to the presses.
Damn. You have to grovel before the money changers and promote your masterpiece in the marketplace. Worse yet, you've got to write the two most miserable, despicable, slit-your-wrists-if-you-don't-get-it-right-this-time documents: a query and a synopsis. Somehow you summarize TGAN into an 8-page synopsis only to be told: "Cool! Now condense it to 1,000 words - better yet, 500 - and then shoehorn it into one measly paragraph for your query letter."
Aaarrggghhhh.
Hum-hum-ha-hum.
Dix?
Okay, I'm back now. Just had to double-check that 'shoehorn' is one word, not hyphenated.
Crap. Had to check 'double-check.'
Any questions why I'm not the speediest author alive? Okay, below is the synopsis for my novel Montana is Burning. I don't claim it's the world's greatest synopsis (still a bit of the passive voice, eh?). I just hope it conveys the flavor of the work and shows I can tell a coherent story so, if the agent or editor is partial to that kind of story, hopefully she'll ask to see some more. Anyway, here it is.
Thar she blows - critique away and we'll see how much humility I can handle.Tall and weathered, with a nose right off an Indian-head nickel, Detective PAUL LONGO worries his new job in Montana with the Mullen County Sheriff’s Department won't last long. Seeking solace in the Rockies after accidentally killing a child during a crack house bust in Phoenix, now Paul finds he has alienated his new co-workers, who mistrust his city ways. His first day on the job, he kneels to pray with a dying holdup man who requests last rites, and Paul’s profane, hard-drinking co-workers stick him with the nickname The Pope.
Elections are near, with the Department split between loyalists of incumbent SHERIFF CLYDE FRYE and the Chief of Detectives. Paul is the only fence-straddler. When an abortion clinic catering to wealthy out-of-staters in the town of Kintla is firebombed with a Molotov cocktail, the political hot potato is dumped in his lap. Paul must contend with vicious local politics, over-zealous federal agents, a newly-formed militia group bent on blockading the county, a former lover trying to connive an exclusive interview, and an approaching forest fire.
Three bodies emerge from the abortion clinic wreckage, one being DR. SUSAN SEWARD from the clinic. An adult male victim goes unidentified -- unthinkable in such a small, close-knit community -- and an autopsy reveals the third, badly-charred corpse is a large dog. But whose?
A remote-control bomb explodes on the route of a local peace march two days after the clinic’s destruction, killing four. Paul’s heroism prevents more deaths but while he’s hospitalized over-night for a concussion, the investigation spirals out of control. On returning, he finds Sheriff Frye has caved in, ceding power to the FBI and ATF. Paul fails to convince the feds to look for two different bombers -- a Molotov cocktail bomber and a high-tech copycat.
His lone consolation is a budding relationship with Deputy JANET BAREFOOT, who is half Native American, making her another outsider in the Department.
A second remote-control bomb, discovered outside Kintla’s high school, is disarmed before it detonates. Paul remains convinced this technology doesn’t fit in with the primitive Molotov cocktail used against the abortion clinic.
The investigation eventually centers on SONNY, a Religious Right fanatic. Sonny flees into the teeth of the forest fire, only to be blocked by scores of armed militia. A gun battle erupts, with Sonny and most of the militia wiped out.
Everyone else celebrates the end of the case but Paul Longo worries it's too neat. He digs into the background of Dr. Susan Seward, and discovers her husband DR. JACK SEWARD assumed another doc’s identity years earlier. Paul goes to Seward’s remote home in the path of the advancing fire. Seward admits firebombing the clinic and says the unidentified bodies were a hitchhiker Susan had seduced and the man’s dog. Despite being wounded in a face-off with his prey, Paul kills Seward after a chase through blazing, smoke-choked woods.
A chance comment by the phony doctor leads Paul to suspect Sheriff Frye’s involvement. Frye gets the drop on Paul the next day and disarms him, bragging that he secretly set up the militia in order to eventually squash it, spring-boarding himself into the governor’s mansion -- maybe the White House. As federal agents close in (Paul is wearing a hidden wire), Frye takes Janet Barefoot hostage and bolts.
Paul tracks them into an abandoned gold mine. The Sheriff and Paul struggle deep in the pitch black tunnels before Paul plunges a knife into Frye’s chest. Paul's a hero, Janet's rescued, and Frye heads for the infirmary in his own jail.
After a night in the local hospital, Paul awakes sore and woozy but feeling redeemed. He finds Janet waiting. She tells him he’s turned a corner on his tormented journey, headed in the right direction at long last. If Paul doesn’t mind, she’d like to walk alongside him.
Thanks and keep on writing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)