21. August 2010 by Gore Wehner.

As a creative writing instructor, I see the same mistakes made by beginning writers. First, let me say as an aside: this is a good thing! Excellent, even. Why? Because unless you make mistakes, you will not learn. It means you are discovering a path towards understanding how to  give your creation legs so it can carry out your intention. My classes are strongest when people who have never written a word in their life attend. It brings about wonderful discussion and I tend to learn from the experience, as well.

That said, here I will list the top five mistakes beginning writers taking my classes make, and how to avoid them.

1) Describing far too much in the first several pages of the story.

What do I mean? Let’s break this down. Most writers want to explain what the characters look like, their main characters’ backgrounds, what the protagonist thinks about the other people in the story, what’s happened in the past to bring about the situation the characters are in, and several paragraphs of environmental description. All in the first three or four pages. Whew!  That’s a lot to absorb, and we still haven’t gotten to the plot yet. A good rule of thumb is to write whatever you feel you need to in order to get the story straight in your head, then reread it to find  where the main action begins. Edit the rest  of the story out. You will probably find your entire first chapter will be gone. And that’s okay. Just hold onto the information in case it comes into play later in the book.

2) Using cliches and ‘ly’ adverbs instead of using creative word play.

My first drafts are full of cliches and ‘ly’ adverbs. Later, I seek these out and find a more imaginative way to reword portions of my story. Some ‘ly’ adverbs are essential for brevity, so I’m not insisting you take every single one out. But use them sparingly. Saying: “She walked happily down the sidewalk” sounds better as: “She skipped down the sidewalk.” Or be inventive: “She traipsed down the sidewalk, a crazy grin decorating her face.”Just keep in line with the tone of your story. One odd but clever sentence woven through paragraphs of less colorful language will sound awkward. As for cliches…unless a character speaks in cliches, leave them out. Overused phrases have lost their spark. (Yes, That was a cliche! Wanted to see if you were paying attention.) In other, and better, words: Overused phrases are like dull knives: they still do the job, but not as well as something shiny and sharp.

3) Write in the genre you enjoy reading.

This may seem out of place, when all my other advice sounds to technical, but it’s very important.  For one thing, you won’t finish writing that novel or short story you aren’t passionate about. If you love vampire stories…I don’t care how saturated editors say the market is…write about vampires. If you love mysteries, learn how to write them and go for it! Trust me, you will be happier in the long run.

4) Give each character their own personality and voice.

I can not stress this enough. Many years ago, I had an agent critique my manuscript (Mark McVeigh, a wonderful person, I might add).  He read the first ten pages of my middle grade manuscript and pointed out he couldn’t tell the difference between my two female protagonists. To him, they sounded one and the same. But they are very different! I wanted to point out. But I held my tongue because I couldn’t back up the claim. Weeks later, when my bruised ego was ready to pick up the manuscript again, I looked at it with new eyes and had to agree…there wasn’t much to differentiate them. So I got busy developing their personalities, and my novel is so much better for it (Thank you, Mr. McVeigh!).

The last and final problem that occurs with the beginning writers I meet is:

5)  Too much telling!

You will see this over and over again in my posts. Why? Because it is the number one thing you can do to bore your reader. I once gave a workshop presentation teaching people how to engage the reader using the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, seeing. With every paragraph you write, make sure there is something there that the reader can identify with. A reader’s eyes will quickly glaze over with the sentence: “He ate the fruit. It tasted delicious. He ate another.” (Yawn.) I’m bored typing it. But what about: “The first bite was an explosion of sweet and sour, the yin and yang of the fruit world. The juices dribbled down his chin, but he couldn’t stop eating. He grabbed the second fruit, its red flesh so sinful he almost felt guilty touching it.”  What sentence tells us more about this character and what he’s doing? I used the senses of touch, taste, and added how he felt. Wham! Instant interest.

So there you have it, the most common mistakes I’ve seen teaching my writing classes. Hopefully you will apply my advice to your own writing, but if not, take a creative writing class.  You, too, can be a teacher’s delight!

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12. June 2010 by Gore Wehner.

Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen led a wonderful lecture on picture books. (www.sudipta.com) One of the things she mentioned about writing picture books is keeping the text at 650 words or less. Not an easy feat, by any means. So I’d like to explain how editing makes a much tighter, stronger story.

When you write an introductory sentence for a picture book story, keep in mind a few things. First of all (and every editor, agent and author stressed this at the conference), voice is paramount! Before you even place one word on the paper, know her your protagonist is, inside and out. This will help create a unique voice that belongs to your character alone.

My example: a five year old boy. Likes spiders and frogs. Dark hair and eyes. Has a habit of rubbing his nose with the back of his hand instead of using a tissue during allergy season. Finds things amusing and funny, even when an adult doesn’t, such as another person tripping over his feet. Or missing his mouth when eating, the food therefore landing in the person’s lap. He has an older brother who is good at sports. My character is not good at sports. In fact, he’s the worst batter on his T-ball team. But he finds it more amusing to watch other players mess up anyway. His name is Gordon.

There’s a lot I can do with this. But most of it won’t be in the story at all. However, I know Gordon pretty well, I believe. And I’m confident I know him well enough to understand how he’ll talk, react to situations, and feel about things. In essence, I believe when I write about him, I’ll be able to capture his voice.

Returning to the introductory sentence…I can do one of two things: Introduce the character through action, or  narration.  You see narration all the time. “I am Gordon. I am on the Red Glory Hawks T-Ball team, and I’m really, really good. Except, of course, at hitting or catching. No, I’m actually much better at watching the game.”

What’s the problem with this sentence? Anyone want to take a guess? Okay, there are several. First of all, it’s much too long. I’ve already used up 33 of my 650 words, and I haven’t said much at all! Second, although it hints at a problem, we aren’t sure if there really is a problem because Gordon doesn’t seem to mind not being good at hitting or catching.

So I need a beginning sentence that shows character and delivers a unique voice, is short in text, and gives us the character’s problem.

Easy, right?

Gordon gripped the bat. The pitcher threw the ball and Gordon swung. And missed. “Strike three!” the umpired called. Gordon burst into tears.

Okay. What’s wrong here? I’ve introduced a character, a problem, and his reaction. But do I need so much text? Nope. The illustrator will show Gordon gripping the bat. I can leave that sentence out. And Gordon bursting into tears is a bit too much. First of all, the reader isn’t likely to identify with him. We don’t understand why he’s crying, since we don’t know enough about him yet. (Did he always miss the ball? Was the team depending on him? Did a bee sting him at the last second?) Second, remember my character description? He finds things amusing, right? This doesn’t come across in his tear-soaked emotional display.

Picture book writing is about defining character through action and reaction. It also means leaving much of the description up to the illustrator and knowing your character well enough to have him make natural reactions that are organic to character and plot. The plot must not be forced. Children are smart. They know if something sounds fishy.

Last but not least, there must be a sub-text to the story. A message that isn’t “in your face.” What has the character learned? How has he or she grown?

Picture book writing is, in my opinion, some of the most difficult writing there is. (Besides poetry. But that’s a post for a different day.) If you intend to do it right, study other authors. Look for sites like Sudipta’s to gain an understanding from people who know the genre well. Attend conferences and workshops so you can study the craft. Then write, write, write. Edit and trim, and write some more.

Picture book writing is at the core of storytelling.  By writing picture books you learn how to craft a story start to finish in the most direct way possible. And I admire writers like Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen who do it successfully.

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9. June 2010 by Gore Wehner.

Literary Agent Scott Treimel gave a wonderful lecture about Characters, Conflict and Pacing. Let me throw out a tidbit from his speech and discuss it. Something I find difficult to get across to writers is how easy it is to mess up the imaginative process for the reader. Scott mentioned how there is no need to describe everything in vivid detail. In fact, being somewhat vague with the description of the main character helps the reader identify more fully with that character. The reader is, essentially, that character, because the reader can imagine that character looks like them.

I found that so interesting, and tried to think back on the last few YA books I’d read. True enough, no flowing blond ringlets like a halo around a heart-shaped face. No freckles across a narrow nose. No bright green eyes framed by long, black lashes. I’d made up what the character looked like based on the character’s personality. And yes, perhaps the character did resembled myself a little.

He also stressed that mentioning, for example, that the surrounding lockers are orange, bogs the story down. How important is it for those lockers to be orange? And, I might add, how important is it to know the character’s locker is the third one down from room 123? Yet these appear in first drafts of stories over and over again. Because that’s how we, as writers, see it.  And we want to reader to imagine it exactly as we do,to experience it the way we are experiencing it.

I once read an article where two fictional men are discussing this very topic. One reads the other the beginning of a scene, giving only a small amount of detail, and even simplifying the action. He then asks the other man to relay what he’s read, describing the details his imagination has filled in.The second man does so, and adds what was never actually written into the scene, because his imagination has done all the work. The writer has merely made suggestions.

Try this: cut out a room from a department store’s advertisement. Now write about a character who enters the room, rushing to pack a suitcase before her abusive husband comes home drunk from his friend’s house. Do this now before you read on. Go on, I’ll wait.

Now that the scene is written, take a look. How much room description did you use? How about her actions? Did you detail everything she did, from opening the suitcase to pulling out articles of clothing? Did you use internal dialogue? Does she think a lot about what she’s doing?

Okay. Now, keeping the scene for the most part intact, take out half the words. Get rid of what the bed or rug looks like, if you’ve added it. Keep her thoughts sparse. Use short, clipped sentences for her inner dialogue. Only use necessary action.

Does the second scene have more immediacy to it? Does the tension feel stronger? It should. And guess what? Your reader will have filled in what the room looks like, how she moves from dresser to suitcase, and the fear that presses against her heart…all on his/her own! Isn’t that amazing?

Now, that’s not to mean you shouldn’t describe anything in your novel. The reader can also benefit from scene descriptions and character descriptions. But keep these observations from your character’s point of view. Do we really walk into a party and describe to ourselves what kind of light is being emitted from the wall sconces? Or do we note the activity going on instead? Maybe your character is an interior designer, and she/he’s drawn to wall sconces. If so, then describing them may make sense. But if not, leave out those details.

After all, do you want to spend your time reading ten pages about locks of gold ringlets and long dark eyelashes?

I didn’t think so.

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