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WFMAD Day 12 – Let’s talk about it

August is a wistful month for many reasons, including the fact that it is when the SCBWI Annual Conference is held in Los Angeles. Le sigh. I really need to go back soon. Until I can, I will have to content myself with reading the official blog about the conference.

That’s enough wistfulness. I woke up with the sun and harvested a bunch of green beans that will soon be on their way to the freezer. I planted 10 plants, but that’s not nearly enough, given that green beans are a staple here. Next year I think I’ll plant 30. The tomatoes are starting to ripen and my popcorn plants have tasseled.

Has anyone ever frozen kale?

From the garden to the writer’s desk. We’ve been doing a lot of character development this month, so it’s time to mix things up. Are you listening? Good, because today is all about dialog.

Dialog should carry one of the two burdens of Story: a) move the plot forward, or B) add to our understanding of character.

Beware the temptation to load dialog down with backstory blathering, as in this Draft 1 Example:

Narrator: "You know, it’s funny you should say that, Drake. Remember the time when we were kids and our house burned down because Cousin Ichabod tried to repair the stove with a blowtorch and how he forgot to turn off the gas and remember how after they let him out of the hospital he got on a bus to Las Vegas and was never heard from again? Well, sure as heck, he came home today – thirty years to the day after destroying our house and family."
Drake: "Do you think he knows that Ma and Pa have been scheming to kill him every day since and they put all the insurance money into the finest weaponry and land to hide the body?"

Yeah, I know. Made of suckitude.

But we all write like this, when no one is watching. I think ::lowers voice to whisper:: I think it might be part of the process. Don’t tell the people who give standardized tests. They enjoy the delusion that first draft writing is always polished prose. (Silly bureaucrats!)

I have a cure!

Prepare yourself!!!  Get down on one knee and bow your head.

::raises staff of oak and ash:: I, Madwoman of the Forest, do hereby grant thee the First Draft Exemption For Writing Bad and Pointless Dialog. 
::bonks assembled writers on head with staff::

OK, get up now. Don’t you feel better?

I find that I NEED to write banal and blathering dialog in a first draft because it help me understand the characters and their backstories. The trick is to have the courage to admit how bad it is when it comes time to revise. And cut out everything that is useless.

Example, Draft 2:
Narrator: "Ichabod’s back."
Drake: "I know. Ma has the cannon ready. I’m supposed to dig a hole."
Narrator: "Already did it."
Drake: "Then I get to cover him up."
Narrator: "Fair enough. But don’t tell Pa."

(Yes, I deliberately created a question with that last line. It’s supposed to move the story forward.)

Ready….

Today’s advice: Mystery author Robert B. Parker said, "Say a lot in a little. Put the most meaning in the fewest words."

Set…

Today’s prompt: Today you eavesdrop. Sit next to people who do not know you are listening and write down as much as you can overhear. Stop before the police are called. Read over what you’ve written, paying special attention to how often they spoke in fragments and how quickly information was conveyed. How does the way they speak differ from the way your characters speak?

Extra Bonus Points: Rework some of your dialog from your WIP. Be merciless – what can you throw away?
 

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

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WFMAD Day 1 – I doubledog dare you!

YES!!! IT’S HERE!!! AUGUST 1ST!!!

::runs around like a madwoman and scares dog::

Got your writing tool of choice warmed up and ready? Have you told your family that the only time they can interrupt your WFMAD writing is in case of fire or arterial bleeding? Have you turned off all your phones?

Many of you participated last year. While you are limbering up your fingers and stretching your minds, allow me to review the rules for our first-timers.

The rules are simple. In fact, they aren’t even rules. They’re more like guidelines, the Pirate Code of Writing.

1. Commit to write for 15 minutes a day for the entire month of August.
2. Just do it.

Seriously. That’s all there is to it. You don’t have to sign up anywhere, or meet minimum word count goals or complete a whole freaking novel in 30 days.

Just. Write. Every Day. This. Month.
15 Minutes.

::TANGENT ALERT:: Why am I doing this? Because writing is hard. Because life is complicated. Because so many people want to write, but they allow the complications of life to get in the way because the thought of actually living the writing dreaming can be scary. Because I love projects like NaNoWriMo, but I know that the goal of writing a novel in a month is unrealistic for many people. Because I know that we all have fifteen minutes a day that we waste (with the possible exception of new parents and authors on deadline).

Because we are all connected and we are all facing the same struggles.

This is not the time for editing or outlining. Just keep your pen, pencil, crayon, or fingers on the keyboard moving for 15 minutes. You can use the entire time to write "I don’t know what to write and LHA is crazy" the whole time if you want.

I’ll give a prompt a day for anyone who is feeling stuck. But you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

I would love it if you guys checked in with me by posting in the comments section (feel free to be anonymous if that’s more comfortable). Tell me where you wrote today or for how long, or what you were working on. Tell me what kind of resistance thoughts cropped up as you were writing, or trying to start writing. Tell me what it felt like when the 15 minutes were up.

(LEGAL STUFF: These prompts, like all my blog entries, are my material and, thus, under my copyright. You have permission to reproduce them for classroom use only. Yes, you may link to these posts.)

OK, that’s enough blathering.

Ready….

Today’s reward: Of course you deserve a reward! Decide what it should be before you start writing, then give it to yourself as soon as you are done.

Today’s advice: Don’t judge, criticize, or edit what you’re writing this month. Right now, we’re concentrating on getting the words down on the page. You can do this. You can absolutely do this.

Set…

Today’s prompt: Write down the last dream you had. Was it boring? Then write down the last memorable dream you had. Can’t remember your dreams? Then write down the last memorable dream that you heard about. Focus on feeling the emotional state of the dream. When you reach the end of the decription, keep writing, Make the dream come alive for fifteen minutes.

Scribble…Scribble….Scribble!

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Writing Advice from La Wharton

I finally finished Hermione Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton. I probably won’t reread it, but it was interesting enough to slog through all 800-plus pages.

I copied out two quotes for you.

The first one has to do with the books in Edith’s library. She frequently wrote in the books she was reading and had no time for people who believed that books should be treated like fragile objects. She was fond of this quote, from W. N. P. Barbellion’s Journal of a Disappointed Man, “A Book is a Person and not a Thing.”

The second quote is one of Wharton’s diary entries from 1934, when she was working on her novel The Buccaneers.

“What is writing a novel like?
1. The beginning: A ride through a spring wood.
2. The middle: The Gobi desert.
3. The end: A night with a lover.
I am now in the Gobi desert.”

When Edith Wharton wrote these words, she was 72 years old. She had published 20 novels, more than 85 short stories, and won a Pulitzer.

I think this gives all of us permission to grumble a bit when stuck in the Gobi desert, but then we have to go back to work.

Scribblescribblescribble…

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Time Travel

I am getting ready to beam back to the 1740s. Am bringing my own toilet paper.

I will answer the questions that came in over the weekend upon my return. While I’m gone, can you please post links to the best blogging done about BEA this year?

Also, if YOU were beaming back to the American colonies in the 1740s, what would you bring?

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Writing Prompt!!

I haven’t done one of these in a long time, but since I am diving back into being a writer (as opposed to being an author, which has consumed the last several months for me), I figured you should, too.

This is the surprise I found in my garden this morning.

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Write for fifteen minutes about this. Don’t analyze. Don’t plot. Don’t outline. Just write.