Books: Past and Future

I love paperback books. Hardbacks look pretty on the shelf, and their larger size makes their covers more interesting to look at, but they're nearly impossible to read. The dust jacket is the first obstacle; either you expend half your attention keeping it on the book, or you set it aside and inevitably end up tearing it or creasing it so it never quite fits again. 

Hardbacks are much too heavy to read clasped between upheld arms while lying back in bed, let alone held one-handed while lying on your side. If your arms tire and you let the book settle into your chest or stomach, you have to lift it to turn a page, or risk tearing them every time you drag them across your body. Even if you read at a desk (which is plainly ridiculous) you have to deal with their unyielding spines, which won't allow you to remove your hand from the page for even a second, or you'll lose your place as the book automatically flips back to a more comfortable posture.

Paperbacks, on the other hand, are light, flexible, and cheap enough that you won't feel bad about creasing their spines to force them to stay open. You can read them in all sorts of ridiculous positions; curled up in a fetal ball, hunkered sideways on a daybed, even lying upside down on a couch with your feet in the air--and your arms will take MUCH longer to tire.

But the benefits don't stop there. Whenever I finish a chapter, before I put down the book, I take a moment to bend it in my hands and watch the way the pages move. Often, I'll buzz through them like a flip book, holding the edge close to my nose so I can draw in that dusty, woodsy smell that isn't quite "good", but is too familiar to be unpleasant.

With a hardback, I feel guilty for dog-earing the pages, but I'm too scatterbrained to keep from losing a bookmark. Paperbacks, I fold with gusto, always making sure to line up the corner of the page with the exact line I stopped on. When I resume my reading, I fold them the opposite way so they'll lay flat, but the pages never lose the telltale crease of a book that has been thoroughly and hungrily enjoyed.

Hardbacks stand stolidly on the shelf, admonishing you not to treat them carelessly, not to get too greedy for the secrets and adventures within. Every marring is a sad event, a loss of value, a reason to lecture yourself.

Paperbacks can take the abuse, heck, they revel in it. Some of the cheaper ones might start losing pages after too many reads, but a good paperback wears its scars with pride, like a soft, wrinkled baseball glove or a faded pair of jeans. They don't wear out so much as break in; they adjust to fit your hands. And just as a favorite pair of jeans might require some fancy footwork to avoid widening the knee holes while putting them on, a favorite paperback might need you to prop up those first pages that have been turned so many times the glue has lost its grip.

And if the inevitable happens, and a paperback is worn past the point of readability, you can lay it to rest and replace it without guilt or great expense. A well-read paperback goes to its grave without fuss or grief. It has done everything it was meant to do. It has fulfilled it's purpose, lived a full life, and can go to the trash heap satisfied and free of regrets.

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I love paperbacks. But as a science fiction writer, I'm predisposed to like technology. I love ebooks too. As an author, I love how easy they are to publish. As a reader, I love how easy it is to keep them in limitless supply, right in my pocket.

I love that I can read at night without keeping my wife awake with my lamp. I love that no matter what I'm reading, I always have it with me, so no waiting room or bathroom trip ever leaves me bored. I love finishing one book and having the next literally already in my hand.

But I will never stop buying print books. And I will never be able to part with the ones I have. Even if there is no chance I'll ever read them again, I can't let them go. Even though I bemoan their immense weight every time I move, I simply cannot imagine my life without them. And no matter how many I have, I will always want more.

Even if I've already read a book in digital form, I sometimes buy a paperback copy anyway. I have several that I've never even opened. Perhaps that's wasteful, but I like the idea that I have them, should the need or desire to read them ever arise. For one thing, it's easy to lend print books. For all their benefits, that's one thing ebooks have yet to really capture.

Every time I lend a book, I say goodbye to it. If I get it back, it's a happy surprise. If not, I don't get mad. It's a bittersweet ritual I've come to savor after losing many, many books to friends and relatives.

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I read an article recently that argued that a connection to the past is an essential ingredient in human happiness. Our psychology demands we feel as if we are part of something bigger and older than ourselves. But hope for the future is just as essential. To be happy, we need to feel as if things are getting better and easier as we soldier on in time.

Paperbacks are my connection to the past; some quite literally. There are a few that have a misty-eyes emotional connection for me. Books have been some of my favorite gifts, and I've inherited a few from friends that will always conjure up specific memories.

Ebooks are my hope for the future. When I browse my Kindle library, I always think of more books I'd like to own. With the ease of a few taps, I can put them in my Amazon wish list for future purchase. No matter where I go, I always have a full library with me, and that comforts me.

Books and ebooks have come to fill different, equally important roles in my life. I could never choose one or the other. What about you? Do you have a massive, heavy collection of books? Or is your library tucked away on a server somewhere? Let me know in the comments!

Write for Yourself, or the Reader?

I read a lot about writing. I've almost always got a craft book open in my Kindle library (right now, it's James Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel), and my inbox is clogged with newsletters from half a dozen writing blogs.

In books, blogs and forums, the one question I see more than any other is this:

"Should you write for yourself, or for the reader?"

In other words, should you just write whatever you feel like, and let the chips fall as they may? Or should you look at what readers enjoy, or what's selling, and try to write like that?

This is a great question, and one of the most important that any writer faces. Unfortunately, the common wisdom is very polarized. I believe in a more balanced approach.

In short, I think you should write what you want to write, but write it how the reader wants to read it. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The longer answer is that a writer should write what he knows, and that usually means what he wants. As far as the story/conceptual content of a piece, you kinda have to write for yourself, or its a chore and you hate it.

But you can't ignore the reader's hopes and expectations either. That's a path of least resistance issue. If you write only for yourself, to the exclusion of the reader, readers will simply take the path of least resistance and set your book down. Demanding to be read, but refusing to consider the reader's feelings makes you a dictator (one of the many reasons I despise lit-fic authors).

Thankfully, you can have it both ways. In reality, you have to have it both ways. If you write purely for yourself, you'll be an arrogant prick at best, and languish in obscurity at worst. If you write purely for the reader, you'll produce forgettable genre trash. If it's really well written, it might sell, but what writer aspires to make zero impact on their reader?

Writers want to be known. We want to be read, or we wouldn't write.

The thing is, no matter what you're like, there are people like you out there. No matter what you want to write, there are people who would enjoy reading it, if you could only get it in front of them. So you have to write what you want, figure out who also wants it, and write it in such a way--and in such places--that they can enjoy it.

As always, life is more complex than the binary questions humans love to ask about it.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Fiction Writing

You hear about the Seven Deadly Sins everywhere, but it's rare to hear about their opposing virtues outside of a church. Heck, even there, it's rare. I went to Catholic church and Sunday school for the first sixteen years of my life, and I found out about the Seven Virtues from Wikipedia.

I won't try to sell you on these virtues as a lifestyle (though most of them are pretty hard to disagree with), but when it comes to writing, we're all guilty of at least one of the Seven Deadlies, at least some of the time, and that means it's good to know the opposing stances. The virtuous writer is likely a happy writer, whether she is successful or not.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Writing

Humility

The opposite of pride, humility takes many forms for a writer. First and foremost, humility means never assuming you know everything, or even "enough" (what's "enough" anyway?). Language and storytelling are always changing, so a writer should always be learning, period.

Humility also means submitting to the will of an editor or publisher. While a writer has every right to defend his work, he must acknowledge that there is wisdom in the experience of overseers. A soldier on the ground may think it's wise to ascend the hill in front of him, to attain the high ground. But the General knows that there's an enemy army on the other side, and mounting the hill will invite disaster. 

The editor and publisher have the bird's eye view. In a good writer-editor relationship, there will be times when the writer is right, and times when the editor is right. But it takes a humble writer to see that.

Another form of humility is placing one's own agenda--be it fame, literati recognition, or a soapbox message--second to the desires of the reader. Don't forget: people read to enjoy themselves. I've never read a book because the author deserved it. I only read things that I enjoy. I love an author who makes me think, even challenges my worldview, but if you can't make me enjoy the ride, I'm getting off.

Humility is about creating a path of least resistance for the reader. If you want to be read (and if you didn't, you wouldn't write), you need to make it easy, worthwhile, and enjoyable for the reader, or you simply won't have many readers. It won't matter how good your writing is.

Kindness

The opposite of envy, kindness is all about how you regard your fellow authors. Whether they are above or below you in skill and accomplishment, they deserve your respect.

I will admit, I struggle with this one. If you've read this blog for very long, you'll know. I make a lot of hot-headed statements about amateurs and hacks. They're mostly for comic effect, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I occasionally believe what I'm saying.

Cultivating humility helps one be kind. We are all students of this mysterious craft, and we are all on different paths. There is no single trajectory from novice to bestseller. Heck, not everybody wants to be a bestseller. And some bestsellers got there by sheer dumb luck; Stephanie Meyer sold Twilight to the very first person she submitted it to. Meanwhile, Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected over twenty times, even though it had already enjoyed success as a magazine serial.

You can guess what readers will like, but you'll never know. Even the people in the crow's nest (editors and publishers) don't know. They just guess better. 

Fiction is a crazy, unpredictable game, and it pays to have good sportsmanship. That's what kindness is all about. Respect the people who aren't as far along as you. Help them if you can. And learn from the people ahead of you. Don't waste your life trying to be them, or hating them for being on top. When it comes down to it, we're all on the same team.

Charity

The greedy writer will write anything to gain fame or recognition. The charitable writer shares themselves with the reader.

Few people read a book because the author deserves it, but everyone who reads does want a piece of the author. Readers want a story first and foremost, but they want that story to come from a unique voice. They want the story to embody some kind of artistic vision, no matter how humble. To attain true fame and recognition, a story must feel genuine.

That's what charity is all about. The greedy writer writes so that she may take. The charitable writer writes because she has something to give.

Figure out what you have to give, then figure out who wants that thing, and give it to them. It's simple, really. If you look at the demand first, then try to become whatever fills it, the result will feel contrived and artificial. But if you find your audience based on what you want to write, then use the audience's desires to guide and hone your offering, it becomes a give and take. It's tough to strike the balance between writing for yourself and writing for the reader, but authors do it all the time. The key is charity; a willingness to give. Without that, you're just a beggar.

Temperance

Writing that indulges the author's poetic or descriptive whims is gluttonous. Temperance, then, is when you only give what is necessary, when it's necessary.

When you're in the trenches, up to your elbows in words, sometimes it's hard to know how much is too much. We're all guilty of a long-winded, tell-y description once in a while. But that's what makes editing so great. We aren't committed to the first words we choose.

Temperance, then, is your inner editor. No, not the negative one who says you're a hack. The other, reasonable one, who says "maybe you should tighten that up a little." It's perfectly fine, even advisable, to turn this voice off when you're writing a first draft. But once the draft is written, this voice should take charge and hone your writing down to its leanest, meanest self.

In this sense, temperance takes on another meaning. We temper metals by repeatedly heating, quenching, reheating and quenching again. This process removes the hardness and brittleness of a metal, and makes it tougher and more flexible. Your writing should be the same. Smooth over those rough spots. Rebuild brittle sentences so they don't shatter on first reading. You want your writing tough--assertive--but flexible enough that anyone can understand it. Tempered writing can withstand the test of time.

Chastity

That word is bound to bum a few people out, so let me be clear: chastity is NOT abstinence. Chastity is merely the avoidance of empty sex and violence.

In writing, this means only including graphic details when they really matter. There's no sense in showing a character getting their hand cut off unless that disability is going to change the way they behave. There's no reason to show two characters making love unless the act has consequences, good or bad. Either they fall in love, or they regret the encounter and that regret drives their choices from that point on.

Chastity is not avoidance of sex, drugs, violence, and cursing. Chastity means taking something "impure" and making it pure by imbuing it with meaning. Sex between loving partners is wonderful. Meaningless sex between strangers leaves them feeling cold. It's the same way with writing. A steamy sex scene, or a gruesome fight can fire our passions if it means something. But if it's just there for show, it will turn us off.

Even when the sex and violence do matter, there's something to be said for restraint. After all, reading is about stimulating the imagination, and the imagination is always more satisfying than reality. Think about it: a horror movie is always less scary once you've gotten a good look at the monster. It's the unknown that scares and tantalizes us. A woman clasping a sheer cloth across her chest is sensual. A woman with her ankles behind her head is just pornographic, and frankly boring. You can't give everything away right away. In writing and in life, Chastity is the art of savoring the reveal.

Patience

The wrathful writer crafts a story as a means to an end. The story serves his message. The patient writer doesn't feel the need to cram anything down the reader's throat. The patient writer understands that people change gradually.

I'll admit that sometimes it's good to be shocked out of your complacency. Sometimes we need the horror of war to motivate us toward peace. But if we're to sustain that peace, we must gradually change our attitudes toward our enemies, or history will repeat itself.

Writing with a message works the same way. Maybe you want to convince the world to go vegan. You can't just show people a cow in front of a band saw and expect them to convert on the spot. If anything, it will only make them dislike you for exposing them to that cruel reality. As a writer (or a speaker, for that matter), you are just a messenger. The idea you want to convey is bigger and probably older than you. Chances are you don't even own this idea you're trying to sell. So unless you're peddling one of the few new ideas in the world, people aren't going to hear what you're selling. They already know all about it. All they're going to hear is how you're selling it.

People are stubborn. They only change when they decide to. People rarely change for others, and when they do, they screw it up as often as not. To enact change through storytelling, you have to make people want to change. and that means being subtle. They have to think it's their own idea. That means planting a seed, surreptitiously if you have to, and waiting for it to grow. And that takes patience.

There's another kind of patience that wise writers practice too, and that's waiting for success. Successful writers will tell you that it doesn't come overnight, or even at all. The writer who claws and scrambles after success like a dog scratching at his cage is just wearing himself out. He'll quit before the gatekeeper lets him through. But sit and wait patiently, and the gatekeeper can be kind. And the writer will be wiser and happier for it.

Diligence

Alright, maybe you shouldn't just sit and wait. Be patient, by all means, but use your time to improve your craft.

Again, sloth is probably the most common and deadly sin for writers. It keeps great books from being written, and good authors from getting better. Whatever you write, whatever your goals are, there's always a way to grow. Anyone who doesn't believe that is prideful, but that pride is probably masking sloth.

I believe one of the deepest flaws in our society is that we go through a period of education, and then at a certain point we're "done". But that's not really how the human mind works. Humans always need to be growing. The minute they stop, they start dying.

So if you're a well-educated writer, whether you have an MFA, or just a stack of dog-eared craft books and a full RSS feed, get over this idea that you're "done". There's always more to do.

Even if you've accepted that learning is a lifelong process, there may still be a lesson for you to learn about diligence. You may be the best writer you can be, but each piece you write must go through a similar process of forging to become the best piece it can be. Just because you're a hardworking author doesn't mean you crap gold. Even successful authors need to edit. Every word should be questioned.

Forget "good enough". "Good enough" is for losers. Make your writing as good as you can, no matter how much work it takes. You can't expect devotion from readers if you don't plan to repay them in kind (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). People can tell when an artist is resting on his laurels.

Furthermore, diligence is about finding the writing habit. Figure out what your peak hours are in a given day, and try to use them for writing. Figure out what habits, settings, and motifs put you in a diligent state of mind. Writing is art, but it's also work. In fact, it's mostly work.

Get to it.

Bonus Virtue: Hope

Though it's not listed among the classical Heavenly Virtues, in my preliminary readings for this article, I encountered several mentions of the idea of hope.

Hope is a uniquely human phenomenon (as far as we know). Hope is a happiness that looks to the future. Animals, smart as they may be, are governed first by instinct. Instinct lives in the present. Instinct is either satisfied now, or it desires something now.

Humans, however, willingly sacrifice in the present to store up treasures in the future. Looking fondly to that future is what we call hope.

As a writer, you must always have hope that you will succeed. You must hope that you become the best writer you can be. You must hope that you will land a literary agent, or successfully market your self-published book. You must hope that readers see and hear what you're trying to show them.

And a good writer will instill hope in her readers. Sad endings and negative character arcs have artistic merit, but in the end, readers are unlikely to return to an author that makes them feel like shit. If you use a negative character arc to teach the reader a hard lesson, you should at least leave them feeling like they're better people for having learned it. If you make them feel like they're a shitty person living in a shitty world, they won't be lining up to buy your next book.

Maybe people deserve to feel shitty. Maybe you believe that. But even if they do, the don't want to, and that means they're not going to willingly subject themselves to something that makes them feel that way.

Is that the kind of writer you want to be? Someone who readers unwillingly subject themselves to? If that's you, you're probably not reading this.

Good books give us hope, even if it's bittersweet. Keep that as your goal, and you'll never stray too far from the virtuous path.

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Well? What did you think? Was I too harsh on the sins? Are the virtues naiive? Let me know in the comments!

The Seven Deadly Sins of Fiction Writing

Alright. I'm not the first to publish a blog article along these lines. You caught me. What can I say, it's a grabber!

Despite how often people trot out the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins, I still think there's some use in listing the worst things you can do to damage your writing and your career. What you don't hear about often are the Seven Heavenly Virtues, which oppose the better-known sins. That's what I plan to add to the discussion; not just the diseases, but the cures.

First, though, we have to take a look at the bad stuff:

The Seven Deadly Sins of Fiction Writing

Pride

For a writer, pride can take many forms, but it usually boils down to one poisonous thought: "I'm better than other writers".

Many who are stricken by pride may not even admit it to themselves, but deep down they labor under the pretense that they, above all people, know what they are doing. These are the amateurs who think they don't need to learn grammar, story structure, and self-editing skills. These are the journeymen authors that think their lengthy publication record exempts them from criticism.

Most successful people in the world agree that successful people never stop learning. Recently, I saw a video that highlights another disturbing facet of this notion: once you stop learning, you get old. When a writer decides he or she knows everything they need to know, that's the moment they begin their inevitable descent into irrelevance.

If life and history have taught us anything, it's that new ideas and innovations are constantly overtaking established methods. The person who balks at new knowledge refuses to accept this. Even if a writer really did know everything about writing, language is a living, changing organism, and there will always be new things to learn.

So never assume you've seen it all. They're coming up with new stuff all the time. And never assume you can't learn something from someone just because they're in an earlier stage of their career than you.

Envy

Writers are readers (at least they should be), and that means we all have our favorite authors that inspire us. Many of us feel indebted to a particular author for motivating us to start writing in the first place.

Envy is what happens when that admiration turns bad. Instead of learning from our idols, we hate them for their success, or we try to ape their style in an ill-conceived attempt to ride their coat tails.

The more time you spend talking shit on other writers, the less time you spend growing in your own career. That's the real sin of envy; by focusing your emotions and efforts on another person, you do yourself an injustice. Sure, some famous writers are hacks. Some of them didn't work for their success. Some of them don't deserve it. So what? How does that affect you? Are you under the impression that every writer deserves an equal share of the fame?

Be inspired by others, of course. That's part of how you learn. But don't focus on them. Work to improve your own writing instead of tearing down that of others.

Greed

For writers, greed can be related to envy. Greedy writers hop from one trend to the next, writing whatever they think will sell. They see a successful movement, and they drop what they're doing and try to write something that will fit in.

Greedy writing is devoid of theme. It lacks identity. Even if it's well written and edited, the writing is missing the spirit that makes true originals worth learning from.

In writing, greed is another perversion of inspiration. Greedy writers are posers. They're fickle. The moment something drops below a certain rank on Amazon, they're off to find the next trend. They have no ideas of their own, nothing original to say, and while they might occasionally entertain, their work is quickly forgotten. Readers, whether they're aware of it or not, can sense fluff. That's what greed produces: fluff.

Gluttony

Speaking of fluff, gluttony is when a writer is so obsessed with words and clever ideas that they crowd out the story. Purple prose is a well-known pitfall, especially for beginning writers who have not yet learned the wisdom of restraint. Beyond the words themselves, though, there is a sort of violet-tinged aura that some stories take on when an author tries too hard to stuff them with whiz-bang, neato ideas.

Gluttonous writing is filled with unnecessary detours, either to flex the writer's poetic muscle, or describe some pet object, idea, or character in exhaustive detail. These are the writers who spend whole chapters describing the social machinery of a futuristic society, but somehow don't derive a plot from all that information. These are the info-dumpers. These are the people who include a list of the name of every crater on Mercury, even though the reader has no need to know them.

The fruits of gluttonous writing are ultimately distractions from the story. Everything in a story must matter; every object, idea, or character must advance the plot and draw the reader more fully into the author's world. You can't make a story "cool" by hanging a bunch of neat stuff on it. You can't make a novel poetic by tacking a bunch of florid descriptions onto every scene. Every addition must serve the whole, or else be cut out.

Lust

Similar to gluttony, lust is when a writer fills his or her book with lurid tales of sex and violence as a way of shocking the reader into paying attention. Don't get me wrong, readers love a sexy, violent story, and I'm no exception. But when those scenes are shoehorned in at moments where they don't matter, or when they go on so long it becomes obvious that the story is just an excuse to exorcise the writer's lust (for flesh or blood), that's a problem.

People love sex, drugs, violence, and swearing. But that doesn't mean that including those things will make people like a story more. Cheap thrills are just that: cheap. It takes no skill to toss in some debauchery just for the hell of it. Making the debauchery matter, however, can make for gripping writing. Don't shy from red-faced vitriol or red light district pleasure, just make sure they're in the story for a reason. And for God's sake, don't make us sit through page after page of that stuff. It gets embarrassing after a while.

Wrath

Wrath is when a writer creates a story only as a means of expressing some fiery political, religious, or philosophical view. Granted, narrative can be an effective means of elucidating a philosophy, but ultimately it does a disservice to the fiction itself.

The issue here is similar to gluttony and lust. A writer should not write a story as an excuse to do something else (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). If you want to be a poet, be a poet. If you want to write steamy love scenes, erotica is your game. If you want to spread your ideology, you should be writing essays. Why hide your true objective under a shroud of fiction? To me, it's a sign that the writer lacks confidence, especially when it comes to philosophy. If your ideas aren't strong enough to stand on their own, or if you don't feel capable of defending them, maybe you shouldn't be trying to sneak them into reader's minds by disguising them as a story.

Furthermore, when you write a book to espouse an ideology, you're spreading yourself too thin. You're doing two jobs; crafting a story and defending an argument.  I'm all for political and philosophical themes in fiction; my work is full of them. But a good story must be its own objective. If you're guiding inspiration is a message, and not the story itself, you will choose the message over the story whenever the two come into conflict. The result is a weak story, which in turn makes your message harder to digest. Ultimately, it's counter productive.

At the risk of sounding heretical, this is why I'm not a fan of so-called "literary" fiction. This is why I, an avid reader, was always the vocal dissident in any English class. Many of the books I was forced to read just didn't hold my attention. I read them, and I enjoyed more than a few, but I could always tell when a writer was just using a boring, barely-there story to bludgeon me over the head with some pet idea. I wish I could have put my finger on it at the time.

Sloth

Writing is a stationary pursuit, so perhaps it is fitting that the most common and most deadly of the seven sins is sloth. We all know our own capacity for laziness in writing, and it infects us at both the micro and macro levels.

On the micro level, we have lazy writing; common missteps like too many adverbs and adjectives, or empty words like "very" and "beautiful". Many of the articles on this website are dedicated to fighting lazy writing.

On the macro level, writers are often lazy in their approach to the task. We're all guilty of this sometimes; we don't always feel like writing, or we simply can't muster the energy to do another round of edits on our latest work. Even if we do find the energy, we half-ass the job sometimes. And who among us is immune to the dreaded writer's block?

Sloth is arguably the most deadly sin of fiction writing because no matter how it attacks, it prevents you from building your story world. Readers cannot read what we do not write (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!), and they cannot visualize what we frame in lazy writing. Either way, readers are left wanting, and we are left wallowing in obscurity and self-pity.

Unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all solution to sloth. Writing is a habit like any other, and it must be undertaken deliberately and repeatedly until not writing is more vexing than writing badly. We may die before we accomplish everything we want to, but if we write anyway, at least we will have done something.

I've always believed in lofty, even immodest goals. Set your sights on the mountain's peak. You may not reach it, but you'll get off the ground.

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Next week, I'll take a look at the virtues that oppose these sins. If any of the above sound like you, hopefully my thoughts will be helpful!

The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Two

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Two: Thou shalt show, not tell

You've heard it before. If you've read my article on Scenes and Narration, you know what it means. Stated as succinctly as possible, showing is like watching a movie, and telling is like reading the Wikipedia synopsis.

You know showing is important, but are you willing to commit to it?

One thing I never read in articles about writing is how hard it can be to force yourself to show, when telling is so easy. It can be tempting to just brush through a series of events with narrative summary. But if you truly believe that story is the highest goal, you put your own concerns behind those of the story, and soldier on.

Showing means more time at the keyboard. And that should be good, right? I mean, we're writers. We like writing, don't we?

The truth is, not all of us love writing every day. Sometimes it can be hard work. Sometimes the muse won't show up. Sometimes our attention is elsewhere. These are moments when the temptation to tell is greatest.

When you're on fire, it's easy to write scene after scene, Hell, it's harder to stop than it is to keep going. When you're having a good day, scenes, images, and actions seem to flow through you. They may even feel like they're not coming from you at all. During these times, showing is easy.

"Show, don't tell" is more than a technique, it's a lifestyle (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). It's about finding the right combination of elements that keep you in that productive mindset. And when it's not working, shake things up a bit. A change of location can work wonders; even if its from one side of the couch to the other. Breaks are important too; you want the Archimedes effect working for you when you're not actually at the keys.

It's hard sometimes, but it's worth it. The fictive dream is a powerful, magical thing, and you can't get a reader into it by telling. You put a lot of information across when you tell, and readers will know the story. But if you want them to experience it, you have to show them.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part One

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment One: The Story is thy highest goal, thou shalt not have any goals before it

When I first decided to pursue writing seriously, I had a lot of reasons and goals motivating me, but honestly it boiled down to one of each: 

• Reason: I thought I was pretty good at writing. 
• Goal: To achieve some level of recognition beyond my friends and family.

Both of those are still true (otherwise what the hell would I be doing this for?), but as I've studied my craft, a more important goal became my driving force, and that was simply to tell stories. 

When it comes down to it, the desire to tell a story is the only pure motivation to set yourself to the task of writing. It's the only pure goal you can strive for. Any other driving force inevitably clouds the story, and the story is what the readers come for. 

It's important to be humble, and not let your ego cloud your judgement. Ego is the driving force behind purple prose, confusing narrative, condescending tone, and a whole host of other problems that drive people away from books. It's important to remember why people read. 

People read books because they like stories. 

Sure, there are a host of subtler reasons augmenting that, but at the heart, that's all people want. If a story makes them think, or takes them on flights of poetic fancy, that's just a bonus. They come for the story, they stay for the rest.

So in writing, you have to put the story first. Every decision should be made by asking "Does it make the story easier or harder to experience?" (it's the Path of Least Resistance again). Anything that creates more work between the reader and the story leads them to put the book down. Even dedicated bookworms are subconsciously looking for reasons to put a book down. 

You can't expect readers to make excuses for you (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You can't expect readers to assume that slogging through your overwrought, byzantine prose will somehow prove worthwhile. You can't expect readers to follow a haphazard, confusing narrative because it means something to you. Of course it means something to you. But have you ever read a book because the author deserved it? I sure haven't. I only read books because I want to. 

There are exceptions, sure. After all, people read David Foster Wallace, and he's the most arrogant, condescending writer to ever walk the Earth. But don't be so naive as to think that a book must be challenging in order to make people think, or garner critical praise. It's just not true. If you're involved with the reading community, you'll find that popular fiction has provoked more thoughts in more people than any piece of literary fiction ever has. Sure, they're not teaching The Hunger Games in college literature classes (not yet, anyway), and Suzanne Collins may not be James Joyce, but when you measure the effect on the world, it's hard to argue that The Hunger Games didn't matter, or didn't affect the way people feel and think. 

Let me illustrate this with an analogy. People don't listen to music to be impressed. People listen to music because they like they way it makes them feel. If the artist is technically accomplished, that's great. If not, it doesn't really matter, so long as the music makes people feel the way they want to feel. If music listeners were driven primarily by technical ability, artists like Yngwie Malmsteen would be the best-selling and most critically praised in the world: 

Did any of you watch that video past the one minute mark? I'm betting you didn't. You heard him start wailing, and you were like "okay, I get it", and then you hit pause. Or you let it play, but resumed reading this article. Doesn't that prove my point?

Luckily, it's possible to be technically accomplished and keep the focus on the story. In fact, if you want to be widely read and highly regarded, you've got to have it both ways. You have to find a way to craft a story that people don't have to fight their way into, and you have to let the story do the teaching, not you. 

Don't stand in the way of your story by stopping it in its tracks to deliver a lecture about how 19th-century English society is organized. Don't lecture to readers about the genealogy of every character's horses. Don't indulge your poetic side describing a sunset while we're waiting to see what someone will do. Because in the end, readers don't remember that stuff. Readers remember characters doing things.

Don't write a book just to make some political or philosophical argument. While its true that narrative is an excellent way to put ideas across (because it shows those ideas in action, rather than just telling them), if your whole story is just an excuse to get on the soap box, readers are going to feel lied to. Readers open a book because they think you want to tell them a story. But if all you really want to do is influence their thoughts, they'll know it. Stories can change the way people think, but you have to let the story do the teaching, not you.

And this last bit should go without saying, but don't write a book to get rich and famous. Don't write a book out of some vain hope that it will get made into a movie. That's working backwards from an imaginary future. Sound like a healthy M.O.? 

If wealth and fame is all you're after, you're in the wrong business. There are maybe a dozen people who get rich and famous off of writing in a given decade (actually, I think that figure is pretty generous). The odds are hilariously stacked against you, so making that your main goal is a recipe for bitterness. But that doesn't mean the trade isn't worthwhile for other reasons. Writing should be its own reward, just as experiencing a story should. Anything that gets in the way of that is unfair to the reader, and torturous to the writer. 

So just tell a story, and let the chips fall where they may. You'll be happier for it.

Be Forewarned

Simultaneous original creation is one of the surest signs that there's nothing new under the sun. For example, the first novel I ever wrote was a sprawling, experimental mish-mash about several people from different points in human history being magically transported to a supernatural realm, taking part in a handful of strange trials, and ultimately providing the impetus for the apocalypse. I quiver with embarrassment at how juvenile my writing was back then. I, like many first time authors, was so intoxicated by the act of creation that I never paused to consider my story's inherent flaws, or how my writing might be improved.

Then one day, I bought a copy of Into The Electric Castle by the Dutch band Ayreon. It was an extended prog-rock opera that told the story of several people from different points in human history being magically transported to a supernatural realm, taking part in a handful of strange trials, and ultimately providing the impetus for the apocalypse.

And it was absolute garbage. (Listen to Ayreon's prodigious excess on Youtube)

Don't get me wrong, Ayreon brings together a diverse and talented group of musicians, all of whom are virtuosos in their own right. In terms of technical ability and musical composition, the album is a triumph. But there isn't a single truly memorable moment in its 100-minute run time, and the story is ham-fisted, trite, and full of mind-numbing exposition. And this made me realize that my first novel suffered from exactly the same problems. (The whole album might be tongue-in-cheek, and in that case it's probably a masterpiece, but to me it's impossible to tell)

If you've been writing for a while, you may have been through something similar. I'm convinced it's a necessary learning experience. The simple fact is, there are only so many stories the human mind is capable of telling. Depending on how you break things down, there are as few as seven.

That doesn't mean there's no hope, though. People create original, engaging stories all the time. I'm even arrogant enough to think that I've managed it once or twice.

Unfortunately, I can't really tell you exactly how to avoid cliche, and I doubt there's anyone out there who claims to have the recipe for originality (having the recipe kind of precludes the idea of originality, doesn't it?). However, there are plenty of resources when it comes to avoiding cliches. Some stories have been told and retold--usually with the best of intentions--so many times that people started recognizing the pattern, and speaking out about it.

Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine, keeps an archived list of "Stories We've Seen Too Often", and it's a great warning for spec fic authors like my illustrious self. I am guilty of writing or planning to write two or three of the things that appear on this list.

Writers find inspiration everywhere. I often find it in movies, books, and the struggles of daily life. But it's important to remember that many, many people have access to the same sources of inspiration as you. It's not unusual for two people separated by time and distance to arrive at more or less the exact same idea. So it pays to be aware of what's already been done to death, and save your poor tired fingers from banging out a story that was already done to perfection thirty years ago. While you might still want to write your own telling, awareness will help you temper your expectations for the story's performance on the open market. Writing is never a waste of time--I mean that, never--but trying to sell a story mired in cliche is an emotional flogging you could do without.

If you're a spec fic author, and you're thinking about submitting your latest work, take a look at Strange Horizons' list, and save yourself some pain and anguish. But don't feel guilty if your story is on that list! It's a natural part of the process; like falling off a bike. If you keep getting back on, and keep learning from your mistakes, there's no reason you can't get to the Tour de France.

Tell a Damn Story!

Nobody ever sat down and said, "You know, I've got some extra time.  Maybe I should spend it letting some writer cram their opinions down my throat."

If you ask people why they read, nobody will answer, "Because I like to hear what fiction authors think about real-world issues."

This is an issue that perplexes and angers me a great deal, and it ties in to my thoughts on the Path of Least Resistance.  So many authors--especially new ones--seem to think that novels are a good way to put their political, religious, or philosophical opinions across.  And they labor under the false impression that their opinions are welcome.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that stories are a great way to put ideas across.  Isaac Asimov taught me about the power of individuality and rational thought.  J.K. Rowling taught me about the power of friendship and love.  H.P. Lovecraft made me irrationally terrified of large mountains, even when I'm not on top of them.

Because I believe every story makes an argument--whether the author means to or not--it follows that stories communicate ideas.  But that isn't why humans write stories, and it's certainly not why readers read novels.  Nobody likes it when a story is a thin, obvious excuse for climbing on a soap box.

If someone picks up a book, and within a few pages they can see the author only wrote it as an excuse to wax philosophical, they get turned off to that book and that author--even if they agree with them.  Surely you've read books, or seen movies, and had this reaction.  It's that feeling that you've been deceived; that somebody pulled a bait-and-switch on you.  Nobody likes the feeling of being suckered, even if they like whatever they've been suckered into.  And if you feel the need to sucker people into listening to your opinions, maybe you ought to keep them to yourself.

There are dozens of great reasons to write fiction, but in my mind, the most pure and noble is simply because you want to tell a story.

Don't write a novel because you want people to think racism is deplorable.  Write a novel because you have a moving, emotional story in your head that demonstrates that racism is deplorable.  Don't write a novel so you can espouse your environmentalist views.  Tell an enlightening, human story that demonstrates why we must be better stewards of the planet.

In short, don't tell us what you think, show us something that might make us think like you do.  Because in truth, that's the only way to reach people anyway.  Nobody enjoys being lectured to.  Nobody accepts a new idea because somebody else badgered them into it.  People learn from their experiences.  So if you want to teach them something, you have to make them experience something.

Readers read because they want to be transported into a story.  Audiences go to movies because they want to feel something.  As consumers of entertainment, we want to be excited, thrilled, scared, and relieved.  We want to fall in love with the good guys and hate the bad guys.  We don't want to be lectured at, or admonished for our behavior.  We get plenty of that from our parents and bosses.

We read books and watch movies because we have a basic need to get out of our own heads for a while.  If we happen to discover something profound while we're out, that's great.  But that's not the reason we go out in the first place.

If all you want is to express your views, you should be a blogger, not a novelist.  But if you're willing to let your opinions--and yourself--play second fiddle, you might be able to tell people a story.  And that story might just change them.  And they'll love you for it.

I Used to Hate That Book

We all have those books, the ones we never wanted to read, the ones we forced ourselves to finish, the ones we immediately tried to purge from our memories. We read most of those books in high school.

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This guest post is from Tom Treweek, award-winning journalist and author of The Dutchman's Mine.  You can check out more of Tom's work on his website, and you can follow him on Facebook.

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I actually loved books in high school--the ones I brought for myself. I read a lot of Michael Crichton back then. A lot. I was an adolescent boy who found a book about dinosaurs running wild in the modern world. Was I supposed to resist?

The only classes I got bad grades in were reading. It wasn't because I wasn't good at it, it's because I never read what they wanted me to read. Yeah, down with the man.

And one of those books that sunk my grades (that sunk a lot of students' grades) was The Great Gatsby. Yeah, that one. The book that, at the time, seemed to exist only so teachers could educate their pupils on the many forms of symbolism. I mean, seriously, can't I just enjoy a book without having to pull out some special decoder ring to figure out which color is supposed to represent the resurfacing lust for an old flame? God.

I finished that book on fast forward, skimming as quickly as possible, trusting that I'd pick up the important points from the class discussion.

I didn't, hence the bad grade.

Move ahead twenty years (after we pause so I can weep silently at the time that's flown by), and I could be found back in school, this time during my stint as a substitute teacher. One one particular day, I found myself overseeing a "resource" class, which is code for one of two things: either the school's cognitively challenged students, or its behaviorally challenged students. This class was the latter, and the teacher, who was out sick (or "sick") had been reading them The Great Gatsby.

Every other class in the school had the students read it for themselves, but this class couldn't be trusted with this task. The only way they were going to get some of F. Scott into their brains was via the silky smooth tones of a quality amateur reader.

Whatever. I didn't pick the assignments. I just tried to get through the day, just like the kids who were barely pretending to pay attention in front of me.

So I opened the book and read a sentence. God, it was just as boring as I remembered. I read another. Then a paragraph.

Then Lucille poured a drink. And it all came together for me in one glorious moment.

Everyone was drunk practically without pause for the entire book!

I couldn't help myself. I suddenly slurred my speech as I read the words between quotation marks, drawing laughs from students. It was probably a bad idea, or it would have been if I had thought about it for even a second. Maybe those kids found a new love of books. Maybe I pushed them toward alcoholism. Being an optimist, I prefer to think I did both.

But the revelation wasn't for them. It was for me. And it wasn't just Gatsby that opened up for me. I suddenly saw how all books transform at the mood of their readers, how the different stages of life alter our perspectives, how the accumulation of experiences only add depth to fictional imagery.

The way we read anything is overwhelmingly colored by the experiences we take into that reading. Traumatic histories that cloud our future, a bad breakup, a restful weekend, a new relationship, these all shape the way we understand our favorite literature. That's why so often, when we return to a book years later, we'll find that we interpret it differently. That's how I finally found The Great Gatsby entertaining, having first read it before my first drink, and then reading it again after becoming almost as professional a drinker as a wordsmith.

But it could be a bit more subtle than that. Maybe sometimes you read Lord of the Rings and focus on Sam's heroism, and sometimes you focus on his sacrifice. Sometimes you look at that sacrifice with pride and other times with regret. There is no limit of the ways your current circumstances can affect the way you read.

With this revelation, I was a new man, a new reader, a new writer. And probably corrupter of children.

I tell you this story not only to make you laugh at my past follies but also to encourage you to revisit those books you loved in your youth--and those books you didn't. They change. They grow. They evolve. Just like you do. And the test of true friendship is the ability to grow together. Yes, books are your friends. Sigh, I am such a nerd.

What books have changed for you? Which ones do you want to revisit? Share them in the comments below.

Setting Goals as a Writer

Every writer has goals, whether they're clear or not.  Most of us probably want to be famous; we want to be the next Stephen King, or the next J.D. Salinger.  Some of us just want to make money.  Some of us don't care about money, we crave recognition.  Some of us just write because we don't know what else to do.

Whatever led you to writing, it's beneficial to have a very clear set of goals.  And there's an old saying that I think applies to writing as much as any other endeavor:

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

[If anyone knows who first said that, I'd really appreciate it if you'd comment below!]

Early in your career, I think it's a good idea to decide exactly what you want from writing.  Whether it's just to finish a novel, or whether it's to pen the next Harry Potter, having some clear idea of your endgame will help you set mile markers along the way.

And don't be afraid to aim high.  It's better to shoot for the stars and end up at the top of a mountain, than aim for the foothills and never get any higher.  So what if you fail to reach your ultimate goal?  You'll probably still get further than you would if you set "moderate" goals.  You can't win if you don't play.

Once you have your ultimate endgame in mind, figure out what it will take to get there.  Do you need a traditional publishing contract, or can you achieve your goals as a self-publisher?  Do you plan to write just a handful of novels, or do you want to be prolific?

I prefer to break by goals down into four time-related categories:

1. Ongoing goals: These are goals I hope to achieve every day of my career.  Some of them are personal, like going to the gym every weekday.  Some of them are professional, like staying up to date on blogs and social media.
2. Short-Term Goals: These are goals I envision myself completing within one month to one year.  Typically, this will include whatever project I'm currently working on, and whatever I have lined up next.  For me, freelance jobs will usually be under this category.
3. Mid-Term Goals: These are goals I envision myself completing within the next five years.  These include larger projects that are still in development, as well as general publishing goals.  For example, I intend to publish the first Jim Frankenstein novel within this period.  In order to achieve that, I need to finish editing it (which is a short-term goal), query agents, and sign a publishing deal.
4. Ultimate Goals: This is where I put the specific things that equal "success" to me; things I envision myself completing some time before the end of my career.  It's my way of taking a vague goal like "be a successful writer", and parsing out what that looks like to me.  For example, one of my ultimate goals is to publish an anthology of The Complete Jim Frankenstein, which, if all goes to plan, will consist of six novels, ten novellas, and numerous short stories, presented in chronological order.  Another ultimate goal of mine is to develop a body of work that takes place in a single, continuous story universe.

Thinking like this has kept me focused on what I want to do, and helped me set deadlines for myself.  It's another way that staying organized has helped keep me motivated.

It's easy to feel frustrated when your physical and mental writing desks are a cluttered mess.  But if you work on turning yourself and your writing process into a well-oiled machine, you never know what heights you can achieve.