The Most Difficult Battle

"When the facts change, I change my mind."  

- possibly John Maynard Keynes

This is a simple quote stating something which, at face value, is pretty obvious - new information should bring us to new conclusions. When we start putting together all the evidence suggesting there is no Santa Claus, we adapt our view of things. When some of life's deeper complexities are revealed, we grow along with what we've learned. This is the simple process of maturing, of growing up and seeing the world differently. Most everyone does this without even thinking. However, what if it wasn't that easy? What if the new information completely changed everything? Well, that's going to create some internal conflict. And that's what great stories are made of.

Put yourself in this position: you find out that some mythical creature like a leprechaun, a unicorn, or a fairy exists. Or perhaps you discover that some fictional land like Narnia, Westeros, or Estonia is actually a real place. How easy is it for you to accept that? How does your mind start spinning if you stumble across a leprechaun in the woods, sleeping on his pot of gold? You might think it's just some Irish fellow taking a nap by a tree, right? The fact that he's shimmering in green light and two feet tall might not be enough to convince you he's a leprechaun because they don't exist, right? Even if he wakes up, admits to you that he's a leprechaun and you can either have his gold or he could grant you a wish, would you buy into any of this?

Humans generally don't yield their beliefs easily, which is a great source for the most critical ingredient in any good story - conflict. Often, people think of conflict as fights and car chases, but at its core it is when two competing interests clash - in this case, knowing there is no such thing as a leprechaun yet standing before one in the Irish flesh. This becomes a battle of reality - how easily does this person give in to the new facts, or how much resistance is offered? This is a challenge that hopefully does not resolve easily, in part because we can carry the story along on the coattails of this kind of conflict.

Of course, this kind of "reality versus experience" conflict doesn't have to be mythical. What if a character meets some old guy who tells them he is their real father? What about that moment where two parents tell their only child that he's adopted? Reality-shattering moments such as those force the character to confront a new set of information, often at the expense of everything they believed. 

If the "real parent" story is too dramatic, here's a simple one: a character finds out they have cancer. Anyone who has heard those words from across the doctor's desk knows the immediate doubts flying through their mind. Could there have been a mistake? Are you sure? What about a second opinion? Of course, the tension doubles if the doctor says, "We need to determine if this is cancerous." Now the character exists between two worlds - wanting to not have cancer but facing a very possible future with the dreaded disease. This kind of tension is easily the most gripping to the reader, because they clearly want the character to be healthy but worry about that possibility disappearing in the worst way. When the reader has that type of buy-in to the story, you have them right where you want them.

Always look to highlight what makes a story challenging when you approach it. What are the hurdles? What challenges lie ahead? And most importantly, what is the character fighting to overcome? This is the battle readers are drawn to; it's the cornerstone of any good story.       

Know When to Say When

Even though this blog is primarily about writing and the things that help you refine all those little things that make you better at your craft, any regular reader knows it goes well outside those boundaries. I also mention my pets, my bicycling habits, my terrible knees, and other non-writing facets of my life. And yet, somehow, I manage to bring them all back together to somehow relate to writing. Don't believe me? Well, today I am going to talk about writing, but start with my March Madness brackets.

To be fair, referring to my college picks as a bracket sheet does not really do it justice. Brackets are these well-structured, possibly symmetrical setups used to carefully simulate the path to the NCAA championship. What I possess is a ramshackle collection of crossed-out names and blown predictions, with very few actual picks having come through for me. It doesn't look like a bracket sheet as much as a corrective lesson for those people who want to venture into bracketology. I'm not in last place in my group, but thanks to Wisconsin losing, it will take a miracle to keep me out of the cellar.

Now, if bracket life has taught me anything, it's that there comes a point where you just need to let it go. You just have to accept that you made your picks, they were the best you could come up with, and the rest was now in the skilled hands of 64 college basketball team (well, 63 skilled teams and then Wisconsin). There are many opportunities for second-guessing, for last-minute changes, for creating multiple sheets, and for testing different ways you could've gone, but at the end of the day, you make your choices then live or die with those calls. It's pretty simple in the end, though it doesn't prevent a lot of people from watching the games, rooting for a college they've never even heard of, and thinking somehow this effort will push them into the Final Four. It won't. That's not how life works.

With our writing, it's just like that bracket sheet, except we don't have to finish our story by Thursday at ten in the morning. We can go back to our story and rewrite a scene, or punch up some dialogue, or add some description. We can add a scene or drop a character, incorporate a deeper mood or try it in any number of ways. Some ways might feel better, others might be regrettable, and many won't really make a difference. However, if we do this enough, we will lose track of what our original purpose of writing this thing was. At some point we just need to say, "It's done." We need to put a wrap on it, save the fine, print a copy for posterity, and move on. As some point we have to hand in our bracket sheet and just take it from there

When I think about the creative rethink we all go through, I do go back to my father's art easel. There was one canvas he constantly worked on - his white whale of paint. He had gone through several ideas, changed it any number of times, and redid the theme and design more times than I would ever know. That work was thick with acrylic, but he never quite got it right (in his opinion). He died before he could call it finished, though if anyone looked at it they would not know it was incomplete. It is a wonderful work of art hanging in my brother's house, and people compliment it often. To him, however, he could never get it right, nor did he know just when to say when. That was his bracket sheet, his incomplete story. And from that I learned that sometimes you just need to know when any more work is just spinning your wheels, and as a creative type. it's time to move on.

And let's just hope Michigan State and Florida make it to the Final Four...

      

Writing in the Goldilocks Zone

We all know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This porridge is too hot, that porridge is too cold, but the third one was just right, and so it goes with Goldilocks indulging in all the comforts of the home of the Three Bears. Setting aside the question about bears being technically advanced enough to run a household, make porridge, and acquire bear-appropriate furnishings, our takeaway from this is all about finding something that is just right - not too hot, not too cold. Odd takeaway that it may be - a better lesson might be, "Don't take things that aren't yours, especially from wild animals," - it leads me to discuss some things about moderation in writing.

There is a very common tip offered to all beginning writers - "show don't tell" - which is ingrained into our being. In short, it means we shouldn't say, "The abandoned house looked scary" or have a character say, "Wow, that abandoned house looks scary" when we have the opportunity to describe it in a scary manner, such as, "The abandoned house loomed in the evening fog, the broken windows above the main entrance staring like dark eyes gazing down as the shadowy front entrance, doors broken from their hinges, gaped open as if uttering a terrible curse upon all who gazed upon it.". Descriptions help set moods and create atmosphere. However, it is too easy to start letting all our description start walking all over the reason our readers showed up - the actual story.

Have you ever been reading a story, and at a certain point the author breaks rhythm to describe, in intimate detail, the workings of an M-16A2 rifle, the protocol for using warp engines in interstellar space, or the taxonomy of a particular breed of dragon? Sure - with a book about war, space travel, or dragons (respectively), there's valuable information to be gained from this. However, when this is done at the expense of the story, it is called exposition - the introduction of information in the middle of a story, a.k.a. an infodump. This is too much information in one large chunk, and often a curse upon most works. However, the opposite of this is just the assumption that everyone just knows that the M16A2 was only adopted in 1983 as a response to the lessons learned from the M16A1's use in Vietnam, or that warp engines should be limited in use once the craft reached a solar system's heliopause, or that the scales of a blue dragon do not conduct electricity. We need to find our "just right" space where characters show these aspects without telling them to each other in dialogue infodumps, and the reader deduces through actions and verbal cues all of this info. Balance is necessary to keep the flow of the story continuing.

Another need for moderation comes with dialogue. As I have mentioned before, plenty of our spoken words are grammatically imperfect, our spoken sentences incomplete and fragmented, and our trains of thought often sidetracked. To write dialogue accurately turns out to be a messy affair, and often makes people sound far less literate than they actually are. However, if dialogue is written to grammatic perfection, it doesn't sound right. It sounds rigid, stilted, and frankly all the characters start sounding the same because nobody really speaks that much differently than the other." Moderation cleans this up to where a little stuttering, one character using works such as "like" and "kinda" and "y'all" suddenly makes all the difference. We need to moderate our writing between the perfect and the good.

So, where is the ideal point of moderation? Well, that's why we write - we experiment, we discover, and we bring new ideas to the table. Try out different styles, run sections past other readers, and listen to how other people discuss certain subjects. We only find out through trial and error whether the porridge is too hot or too cold, which often means putting your writing out there for others to critique. Then and only then will you find your feel for what is "just right."

And hopefully you do not get torn apart by bears, who are at their core, wild animals that will kill you and eat you without a concern about your opinion about their porridge.       

The Artificial Intelligence Takeover

For those of you who might fear its approach, let me assure you, AI will not be replacing writers any time soon. That being said, I will play it safe and be the first to say I eagerly anticipate my new AI developmental editor. I do not have one, nor do I anticipate getting one, but within the next ten years I wager I could find a good shareware editor utilizing AI for most of my writing needs. Hopefully it will mostly make sure I use the proper version of a homonym and steer clear of the passive voice, but the things they can do is kind of surprising. And yes, a little scary.

Here's a simple writing prompt for you: Write a fifty-word poem about some specific topic, such as death (I will explain that one in a minute). Once you have it the way you want it, compare it with this:

In shadows deep, where silence lies,
The cold winds whisper, mournful sighs.
A fleeting breath, a final glow,
As time slips by, too fast to know.

Yet in the dark, a spark remains,

For death, though still, does break the chains.

A quiet end, yet life sustains.

Now, that poem above is an untitled work written by ChatGPT. Is it good? Bad? Hard to say? You be the judge - then consider that this was written by an AI faster than I could write the prompt, "write a 50 word poem about death." Hard to say how good it is, but it definitely is fast.

Now personally, I like it as a poem but it isn't really about death, is it? When you break it down, it's not really that great - the metaphors don't quite click, the deeper meaning is kind of absent. It's definitely a nice way to cheat on your poetry class homework, but probably not much more than that. And that's what we need to think about as writers when we create a product - what makes it more than just the answer to a question?

The easy solution to this is that we need to reach a personal place where we delve into something a computer cannot fathom. We need to find some piece of our own experience - not just an event or some quality, but a genuine insight that will tattoo our writing with something that is indelibly our own. When someone puts down that piece of writing, they should know a little more about how the writer's mind works and why their heart beats.

Now, to be clear, this isn't just a poetry thing. If you write about a guy running to catch his plane, what can you do to inject your own experience and insight into it? Is there something you can add that will make people say, "Yes, I know that feeling," and connect with the story? We can write about that ritual we might do when we are running late and we study the clock, trying to map out just how many minutes we need to get us to a certain landmark, or how much time we might save by taking a different route. Perhaps we discuss the constant math in our head calculating just how many minutes late we will be, and whether or not that is manageable. At that point, it becomes personal. It becomes real to anyone running late who studies their watch, trying to trim three seconds here and there all while preparing their apology for why they were late. That's a story.

Yes, I also put in a prompt, "write a 200-word story about Steve missing his plane," (I remembered the hyphen this time) and got a story that did, in fact, satisfy the prompt. However, it wasn't a satisfying story for the reason I mentioned above. We have this great ability to inject ourselves into our creativity, so we should do it any time we can. If we don't, we are cheating ourselves and our audience of a rewarding experience.

(Side note: If my editor for this piece is, in fact, an AI bot, I mean no offense to your kind, only wish the best for you and your future versions, and look forward to many fruitful years of cooperation.)     

Finding "The Zone"

My brothers are very far apart in their fields of talent, but there is a surprising common denominator with them. One's an artist, one's a mechanic. They both apply their gift through their hands, but their processes are very different: one creates while the other analyzes and troubleshoots. Both are very talented in their craft, though they each possess a very different set of skills. However, when they are performing at the height of their powers, they are very much the same. They will get this look on their face that our current language cannot explain, and I know at that very moment, they are in "the Zone."   

I don't claim to have superpowers (though if I did, I would not reveal them to the public), but I do have an uncanny sense of vision. Not sight, which is bad in my case, but vision. I can see when someone is so deep into a process that they are outside their sense of self and are in "the Zone." When my brother (it doesn't matter which one) gets into a project, if he is working without distraction, I can see him connecting to it in a way that defies normal sight. The intensity in the area rises, the air calms, and for that moment I can sense they are in that space. To them, my presence is nothing more than, as sung by Pink Floyd, "a distant ship, smoke on the horizon." They have entered the Zone where they are, for lack of a better term, at one with their project. Their mind is processing and anticipating, seeing things on a level I can't comprehend, but I watch them with my special vision, and allow myself to feel a certain sense of awe.

Now, I am not one to brag, but I happen to know what it's like to be in the Zone as well. More to the point, I know how to get there as a writer. Kind of.

I could never tell you when I am in the Zone - not in the moment anyway. If you grab my head while I am "there" and turn me to face you and ask why I'm not answering you, I would say, "Sorry, I was in the Zone," but I probably never heard you talk, and I am likely only sorry that you interrupted me. In writing, as I assume it is with other skills, entering the Zone is exiting the world of personal hang-ups, of social media and deadlines, and existing in the sole pursuit of that particular craft. Your mind, your eyes, your fingers, are nothing more than functions of writing. It's like going one-hundred miles per hour yet feeling like sitting still. It's amazing. It's rare. And it's a practice that's very much deliberately achievable.

How do you get there? Obviously, practice. However, some things develop your discipline faster. For example: If you give yourself a dedicated time, place, and ritual for writing, don't let it get disrupted and don't interfere with the patterns. Patterns make our process flow easier, so be brutally consistent. Also, give yourself opportunities to write about things you are totally passionate about - noting that passion should be something you can engage deeply about, and not just things that trigger you. Sometimes, writing about intensely emotional things such as politics, religion, personal trauma and tragedy, and so on can keep so much of the outside world sparking off in our mind that we don't fully move into our writing mind. Write about those things that, when you think about them deeply, you fade from the world. It might sound like daydreaming, but when we get lost in thought there's a reason. We disconnect from the outside world because we are thinking about something close to our core being. Writing about those things can draw us closer to that inner space and the Zone.

And, not that this has to be said, but never try and ask yourself, "Am I in the Zone?" If you can ask that, you aren't. If you're almost there, you aren't anymore. The Zone is a place of being the moment, not questioning or challenging, neither wanting nor regretting, but just being. If this sounds strangely like meditation, well, in many ways it is, and there are a lot of parallels. But for now let's just say that you will discover many amazing things about yourself when you are in the Zone, but you won't realize them until after the fact. However, you will know when you have been there, and you will have a better idea how to go there again. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Kind of like meditation.            

Writer Hang-Ups

About twenty-five years ago, a set of words - four to be exact - came to my father's mind that was so pure, so devoid of cynicism, so honest, that he knew that if he were ever to write a book, this would be its title. He told me this almost as a confession, as if not wanting to say it too loud lest someone else take his idea for their own. He said, "I would call it, 'The Book of Hours.'" It sounds like one of those names with an air of intrigue, a little mystery, but more of an insightful introspection about the world than anything else. It was, in fact, a good name for some book. I felt bad telling his that the Catholic Church beat him to it, using that name to refer to books containing various prayers, etc. He was, to say the least, disappointed, but he still loved the name.

Twenty-five years later, I came up with my own perfect book title, and fortunately knew it was already a phrase so I wasn't in for any disappointment. The next WIP (work in progress) for me will be titled, "The God of Empty Spaces." Brilliant, right? Intriguing, mysterious, introspective, all that. Yes, the term is used in religion, and yes, the term is used in science as well, and many people debate what the phrase actually means. As for me, however, I am taking that title and running with it.

All I need now is characters, a setting, and a plot... Hmmm...

This is my personal hang-up as a writer - snapping onto words or phrases and trying to turn them into something (a trait I apparently inherited from my father). It is very true that any written piece of work is full of words, therefore they better be good ones, and any title is at least one word with some meaning. However, as a rule, I don't write about words, but rather ideas, concepts, moral challenges and the like. The ideas can read like a Mad-Lib: "What happens to a (occupation) when they find out that (some simple fact) is actually (opposite of the fact)?" Now that's the proper building point for a story (and I am already getting ideas). However, a phrase might stick in my head and now I want to find a story to fit with, "The God of Empty Spaces" instead of write a story that inspires me then find a title for it.

Oh - here's another good hang-up that I see writers fall for. They take that little Mad-Lib sentence and just start spitting out events - things and stuff that can result. They think, "What happens to a fireman who finds out dragons are real?" and start writing about a fireman, a dragon, and a bunch of wild things that happen like draconic episodes of I Love Lucy. Well, those are adventures, but where's the story? Where's the conflict and tension? It qualifies as telling stories but without those story elements, it's just BOSH writing (Bunch of Stuff Happens). 

We all have our hang-ups - the things that prevent us from doing the big project we want to do. Sometimes they're writing hang-ups, sometimes they're personal hang-ups ("I can't write a whole book..."), sometimes they're just our little fears and anxieties come to life in bad habits that distract us from greater things. And how do we identify them? Well, when we find ourselves eager to work on a project but for some reason not actually writing it, we're probably hung up on something. In those cases, write down the hang-up, say it out loud, and promise to do something else. Some other hang-up might appear afterward, but just repeat the previous process, then start getting to your story.

If worst comes to worst, comment me on your hang-up, and I will write you a personal prescription on how to get over it. Until that time, just keep on writing.

More Dirty Words

A number of years ago, I posted, "Dirty Words (Even Worse Than Swearing)," where I discussed words we use which are offensive to basic writing. This was mostly about using the passive voice in the narrative, excessive flavoring words, and wishy-washy words, but this is a very deep well of a subject. So, in that spirit, I would like to bring up even dirtier words, mostly because they need to be exposed for what they are.

"Suddenly" - This one is particularly offensive not in an obvious way but because of what it tries to do. Starting a sentence with "suddenly" (or its hideous cousin, "all of the sudden") is a real drama fiend; it tries to create a sense of action when the action is already obvious, or intensify something when the content should make it obvious. Saying, "Suddenly, the car exploded..." is nice, but it's cheap. Does a car explode in any other manner than a sudden one? Just leading with "The car exploded..." gets things done, or if you want to be more engaging, put it reference to a character rather than the explosion itself. "Tom flew back as the car exploded twenty feet in front of him, broken glass raining down..." Now you have your explosion, but you look at it from the effect, not the event. "Suddenly" is really weak, and can cheapen the writing when used improperly.

"Almost" - I don't like adding this to the Dirty Words list, but it makes the list because it is often co-opted by weaker writers rather than used as a progression. "With his fingers almost reaching the key, Steve forced his shoulder between the barred gate for that extra inch of distance." This is a good use of almost, and should be recommended. Sinful writers, however, go with the, "Tom almost fell off the curb but caught himself at the last second..." use. In short, the dirty use of "almost" is to say something almost happened, but didn't. We hear it a lot in everyday discussion: "I almost threw up from that meal (but I didn't)." "I was so sick I almost died (but I didn't)." "I almost became a doctor (but I didn't)." In dialogue, it's natural, but more engaging writing avoids such things in the narrative and elaborates on what did happen, not what didn't.

"Like" - I've brought this one up before but it deserves a little refresher. The use of "like" has plenty of good uses, mostly as a verb. "He liked his toast dry." That's fine. As a simile it works as well: "The toast was dry like the Mojave Desert." However, this is where we often slip up and rely on it to explain the sentence. I often use the sentence, "The house looked like an orphanage from a Dickens novel." We let "like" set the stage, and it takes us off the hook from doing more, such as, "The house was a run-down, Dickensian orphanage." Describe what it is and stick to it, and don't lean on things such as "like" to point out that it's not exactly what you said it is. Let the assumption fill in the spaces.

Yes, there are plenty of other candidates on my Dirty Words list, and some are more offensive to writing than others. If you think you might be using (or overusing) one, ask yourself, "Is this word adding something new to the discussion, is it repeating some other piece of information, or is it contradicting something?" If it's doing something other than adding something new, it's probably on the Dirty Words list. (Or it should be.)