#WW Writer Wednesday, The Squishy Middle

If the middle of my cake is soft, I know I should have left it in the oven longer. If the clothes come out of the dryer damp around the seams, I know I pulled them out too soon. In other words, if I don’t finish my task, I have more to do. It’s easier to understand than nuclear fission.

   Life is too short to waste on mediocre anything, and I apply this mantra to my own writing. How can I expect others to overlook a half-baked center in what I serve?

   Recently I started reading a second novel in a series that attracted me with the dynamics between the main characters. Whoops! Something happened before the main conflict that changed the focus of the lady detective. She gave her dinner time with teenage kids more value than her murder investigation. I quit reading because the characters were boring. The first chapter promised intrigue that was too long in coming. I was bogged down in mundane details that felt like quicksand.

   I am willing to spend time with the thick intricate tales told by Elizabeth George when the complexity of a character is revealed slowly one layer at a time, like real neighbors. But I don’t want a minute description of activities or relationships like those I have endured in my daily routine. There is no tension. There is a reason for the popular saying, “Skip to the chase.”

   In other words, a writer risks losing readers when a cooking segment is too long and with no purpose. Or when an inclusion of a parent-teacher meeting has no vital information for the plot, or a long rant on clothing or music reads like a Wikipedia entry. The characters seem to be searching for a plot. That’s when a reader’s eyes glaze over. She does not turn the page. As a writer, I don’t want that fate for my stories.

   Some pros advise putting a conflict on every page, like a collection of scenes showing cause and effect, a string of dominoes falling one by one. I think that each scene should move a reader toward a goal, an obstacle, or the stakes.

   Literary agent Donald Maass suggests in The Fire in Fiction that the middle of a good story has an outer turning point and an inner turning point. The main character’s acceptance of the challenge and the stakes of pursuing a goal is an outer turning point. An inner goal of a major or minor character can change and become a turning point that sets up a larger conflict. An inner goal keeps the story moving on a secondary level.

   For example, in my short story “Dead Man Hanging,” a gentlemen farmer is discussing with the sheriff the possibility of a scam on his houseguest when a body is found at a hotel. In the first scene, the farmer has no intention of getting involved in law enforcement, but the circumstances yield to the great flood of 1916. The sheriff needs deputies. As the investigation proceeds, their philosophies tangle, and the farmer’s perspective changes. (This story was published in January in the anthology History and Mystery, Oh, My!)

   Screenwriter Blake Snyder gave excellent advice in Save the Cat. He insisted the turning point in the middle is preceded by fun and games. He considered this a back door to the premise of the story, a related tangent. Snyder pointed out that often the subplot carries the theme, which is a debate on the pros and cons of a particular issue. In the movie, Miss Congeniality, the premise asks and answers the question: Can a tomboy win a beauty pageant? (See the Buddhapuss Ink March 4 blog post about format by writer Selaine Henriksen.)

   I nurture the growth of my characters on the theory that their changes will influence the direction of the story. I imagine a writer making choices like Goldilocks. Too much change and the reader is lost in a flurry of hot events (like bar hopping). Too little and a reader is lost to cold boredom. We can’t please all of the readers all of the time, but we can make an effort for a happy compromise. A comfort zone is an elusive target, isn’t it!

    I try not to be engrossed in details that are superfluous, embroidering my sentences with fancy words and phrases like a literary art project. A verbal Renoir. When the heat is turned down, the center of the story becomes mushy.

   Beware! When we promise chocolate, we can’t serve mud. Yuk! How rude!

© 2015 Georgia Ruth

Georgia Ruth lives in the foothills of North Carolina. Now retired, she managed a family restaurant for ten years and worked in sales for fifteen years. Both experiences produced rich soil for her fertile imagination. Georgia is a member of Sisters in Crime and Short Mystery Fiction Society. She has stories published online for Stupefying Stories and Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, and in print, Mystery Times Ten 2013 by Buddhapuss Ink. Her story “The Mountain Top” will be published in a Sisters in Crime anthology in 2014. Her website is http://georgiaruthwrites.us

Thanks, Georgia, for a great piece! Avoid the “squishy middle,” no one wants to read something that's half-baked. We're looking forward to seeing more from you soon!

READERS: We hope you enjoyed this week's edition of our #WW Writer Wednesday Series. We will be taking a short hiatus for a few weeks. Until we return, Butt in chair, WRITE!

~ The Black Cat

Buddhapuss Ink LLC is proud to be a small, but solid house, known for great fiction and nonfiction books, that are written for readers with brains, by authors who have more than just one book in them.

#WW Writer Wednesday: Becoming the Writer You Want to Be

Paula Gail Benson

Two years ago, I discovered “The Easy Way to Write” series by Rob Parnell, best-selling author, musician, screenwriter, and Australian entrepreneur. With over ninety books to his credit (many in eformat), he is an acknowledged writing guru whose motto is Your Success is My Concern. 

What I like that his books are straightforward and give positive, achievable steps for becoming a working, successful author. I particularly enjoyed the opening chapter of The Easy Way to Write Short Stories that Sell, in which he gave some excellent advice for making the most of writing skills. Distilled to the essence, here are his recommendations.

First, approach the task as a business. Present yourself as a professional and act professionally and courteously in your dealings with agents and publishers.

Second, produce a clean, enticing product that meets and exceeds buyer expectations. The less an editor has to do to make a manuscript publishable, the more valuable it becomes because it costs less to produce.

Third, ensure a consistent output by developing manageable routines.

What exactly does manageable routines mean? Writing every day at a particular time and in a specific place? Meeting a daily word quota or number of pages revised?

Maybe. Or, maybe not.

Is writing one thousand words a day manageable for you? Or, are you struggling to produce a few hundred words each time you have a few free minutes between classes, or jobs, or things you need to do for your family and friends?

Remember how Curly (played by Jack Palance) explained the secret of life to Mitch (Billy Crystal) in the City Slickers (Columbia Pictures 1991)? “It’s one thing, and you have to figure out what it is.”

Manageable means one thing: what you can accomplish based on your own schedule, lifestyle, needs, and resources. You have to discover what a manageable routine is for you. And, the best test for figuring it out is determining what you can plan to do on a fairly regular basis with a sense of expectation and accomplishment.

Routine speaks of habit. I recently read an article that listed good habits to develop to help avoid some of the detriments of aging. Along with good nutrition and exercise, the article encouraged that people have a routine. It did not have to be complex, but one you enjoyed returning to consistently. Like doing cross word puzzles, practicing a musical instrument, or writing in a journal.

A manageable routine is a schedule you can look forward to keeping for the joy of finishing the tasks you set for yourself, and not so rigorous that it's daunting. In the opening chapter of The Easy Way to Write Short Stories that Sell, Parnell suggests that one way to develop the ability to finish a story is to start thinking of how the story ends. He suggests you write a dozen short paragraph stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. Then, write “The End.” Make it a practice to reach the place where you write “The End” and make that act a part of your storytelling. After you have a dozen examples, no matter how short, the act of writing “The End” becomes part of your work product. You have learned to persevere to reach the conclusion.

In essence, you’ve developed a manageable routine.

He advocates setting achievable goals, visualizing success, and writing a mission statement to better understand your brand and the product you are producing. Last year, I wrote a post giving more detail about his methods that you may find here. But, the more I think about it, the key is developing manageable routines.

So, to make certain that you have a business approach, good product presentation, and consistent output, find the writing habits that fit best into your life and make you want to embrace your writing time each day as a haven and comfort rather than a dreaded ordeal. I hope each of you finds this advice practical, achievable, and encouraging, and that it assists you in becoming the writer you want to be this year.

  

©2015 Paula Gail Benson

A legislative attorney and former law librarian, Paula Gail Benson’s short stories have been published in Kings River Life (http://kingsriverlife.com/), the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable (http://bwgwritersroundtable.com/), Mystery Times Ten 2013 (Buddhapuss Ink), and A Tall Ship, a Star, and Plunder (Dark Oak Press and Media, 2014). She regularly blogs with others at http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com. Her personal blog is Little Sources of Joy, at http://littlesourcesofjoy.blogspot.com, and her website is http://paulagailbenson.com.

Thanks, Paula! Nice piece. I'm sure our readers will take away a lot of great information. Buddhapuss Ink LLC is proud to be a small, but solid house known for great fiction and nonfiction books, written for readers with brains by authors who have more than just one book in them. 

READERS: We hope you enjoyed this week's edition of our #WW Writer Wednesday Series and that we'll see you again next week when our guest poster, Linda Sienkiewicz, writes about Getting Intimate with Point of View. Till then, "Butt in chair, WRITE!

~ The Black Cat

When Writing Your First Draft, Take all the Detours

by Faye Rapoport DesPres

Think about the last time you went for a hike or a walk around your neighborhood. You probably set out with a specific plan; maybe you had a route mapped out, a particular amount of time reserved, a good idea of what you would likely see and hear. You wore clothing appropriate for your adventure—maybe hiking boots if the trail was steep or muddy, a rain parka if the sky looked foreboding.

Did your hike or walk turn out exactly as you expected? Did anything out of the ordinary happen along the way? Maybe the sun came out and you had to peel off the rain parka. Maybe you spotted a side trail, decided to explore it, and discovered a hidden pond at the bottom of a small hill. You sat on a large, flat rock at the edge of the pond and breathed in the fresh air, which smelled of mud and pine, and noticed a small turtle sunning itself on a fallen branch. You watched the turtle for a while and noticed how its head was turned up toward the sky. Then, without notice, the turtle slipped off the branch and into the water with a gentle “blip,” leaving a small, circular wake that slowly spread before dissipating.

Or maybe, you stayed closer to home, walking around your block. You waved to a neighbor who was outside tending some roses that had been planted against a white fence in their front garden. You stopped to say hello only to discover how downtrodden they looked; she had recently suffered a tragedy in her family. You expressed your condolences and gave her a hug, offered to help any way you could, and made a mental note to stop by later with fresh-baked cookies.

In neither of these scenarios did your hike or walk turn out exactly the way you expected. In fact, it became a richer experience because you were willing to stop and look around, or deviate from your expected path. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and . . . "*

The same is usually true in the craft of writing, and many writers (including me) often forget this. We set out with an idea of what we've planned to write, then get stuck when we stick too closely to that predetermined path. Before we’ve gotten very far at all, we start worrying about whether our sentences or paragraphs are “good” and start lamenting that what we've written isn’t working. We stare blankly at a page with just a few words on it because we’ve shackled our minds with restrictions and expectations.

Some writers draft once (perhaps from an outline), and that’s it. Those who can do this certainly have my admiration. For most writers, however, this approach doesn’t work. Instead, we have to give ourselves permission to create what Anne Lamott dubbed the “sh*tty first draft.” Freewriting is a wonderful way to do this—just write for a period of time, not allowing yourself to stop even when the words don’t seem to be flowing, and don’t worry about the shape or meaning of what you write. Not yet. Don’t even worry about the grammar or the spelling. Just let your mind connect to the page through your fingers, let it wander through your thoughts or your memories or your plot, and see what happens. See where it takes you. You might be surprised to discover that not only have you spent your time actually writing, you’ve found a new approach to your topic or idea, or maybe your idea has completely changed. You’ve given your mind permission to explore, and by doing so you’ve stumbled upon something that’s deeper, more interesting, or more inspiring to you than your original concept.

Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, whether it’s the “theme,” the structure, the voice, or some plot twist of your piece, you can go back and start draft two—where you  start thinking more seriously about shaping your text. Some writers go through this process with many, many drafts over many, many months before they hit that moment when they just know they have it “right.” Even then, months or even a year later when they dust off that old draft, they might find something new to say or change.

The writing process is, of course, different for every writer. What’s important, I think, is to take the pressure off yourself to be perfect every time, right from the first draft. Now and then you might get lucky and write a piece that will require little editing the first time you sit down with it at your desk (or with your notebook outside, or at the kitchen table, or wherever you write). But for most writers, most of the time, it takes numerous drafts to perfect a piece of writing.

So, when you sit down for the first time with a topic or a character or a plot, why not set your mind free? My guess is it will be well worth the unexpected journey.

*Frost, R. The Road Not Taken. Bartleby.com. web. http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html Accessed October 21, 2014. 4

@2014 Faye Rapoport DesPres

Faye Rapoport DesPres has spent much of her writing career as a journalist and business/non-profit writer. In 2010 she earned her MFA from Pine Manor College, where she focused on creative nonfiction.

Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Animal Life, Trail, Timberline and other publications. Her personal essays, fiction, and poetry have been published in Ascent, Superstition Review, and Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, as well as other journals, magazines, and anthologies. Currently, DesPres is an adjunct first-year writing instructor at Lasell College. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and their rescued cats. Message from a Blue Jay -- Love, Loss, and One Writer's Journey Home is her first book.

Our thanks to Faye for a thought provoking piece! We hope you enjoyed it! 

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We hope you'll be back next Wednesday when Paula Gail Benson stops by to talk about Writer's Conferences - Why you should attend them & what you'll learn when you do!