People often talk about "who they are" or being their "true selves". Frankly, that's a crock. People don't have true selves. We are a collection of randomly fluctuating thoughts and feelings. In a single day, a person may wake up grouchy, mellow out into calmness, rise into happiness, explode into rage, plummet into despondence, and finally becoming numb. Your state of mind may be completely different during each of those phases, but they are all equally you.
The closest a person can come to having a "true self" is having a dominant mindset. If you are a grouchy dude for the majority of the waking day, then you're just a grouchy dude. Any time you show any feeling or perform any action that is not what a grouchy dude would do, you are somebody different, or at least, that's how you'll be treated.
Some people's dominant mindset is a total bummer. You know those people, right? They're down in the dumps, only focus on the bad things, and nothing can convince them otherwise. These people are usually aware of their mindset and are often unhappy with it, but they feel stuck in it because it dominates their mind. These people don't feel that they are their true selves just because they feel that way most of the time. Their true selves are happy, well-adjusted people who don't have negative thoughts.
Regardless of the specifics, people's mindsets are temporary. However we are feeling, that feeling will change.
This can be a point of contention with writing. Audiences simultaneously want realistic and understandable characters. Those qualities can often be mutually exclusive. Realistic characters are bizarre. Sometimes people just switch moods. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes there are reasons, but they are so complex and numerous that it would be a daunting chore to explain it in a story. And if the character isn't consciously aware of the reasons why and is narrating the story, it would be seriously jarring for readers. Conversely, characters who are simpler and easier to understand feel fake. The hero with no goal but defeating the villain is one dimensional. The good-natured hero with a troubled past is more fleshed out, but still two-dimensional at best.
So what are we to do? The simple answer is compromise. One thing we can do is find middle ground between the person who never changes their mindset and the person who changes it eight times a day. The other thing we can do is try to find an explanation for every change of mindset that a character goes through.
Of course, if you want to be brave, you can refuse the compromise. Make a character that is realistic. Make a character who jumps from mood to mood, elation to despair, calmness to blinding violent rage. Don't explain it any more than the character is aware of. Maybe the audience will go for it. If these mood swings really are as ubiquitous as they seem, maybe more people will relate to them than one would think. Then again, people also seem to hold characters to different standards than we hold ourselves, so who knows.
There's only one way to find out for sure.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
A Private Endeavor With A Public Persona
As the public we always see the public side of writing. Here's a finished book. This was what got me started on the subject. Here are my ideas. Here is how I expressed them. We have public readings and interviews and book signings. Being a writer sure is a sweet gig. You know, except for all that writing you have to do.
The public aspect of being a writer is just one face of it. It's a persona. The actual writing, though, is intensely private. You may talk with people about what you're writing. You may even have some people help you with your writing along the way. But ultimately, you're the one putting the words down. If you're in a crowded room and you're writing, you are alone.
These things are neither good. They're just part of the deal. However, it is going to be helpful to have both of these qualities (being able to be both private and public). If you are so antsy or flighty or just want to be around other people so much that you can't sit down long enough to string a couple sentences together, then you'll never be able to write anything more than a couple of sentences. If you are never around other people and never talk about yourself or your work, how can you expect anybody to ever find your work or read it?
Writing is a private endeavor with a public persona. If you want to be a writer, I hope you are able to handle that.
The public aspect of being a writer is just one face of it. It's a persona. The actual writing, though, is intensely private. You may talk with people about what you're writing. You may even have some people help you with your writing along the way. But ultimately, you're the one putting the words down. If you're in a crowded room and you're writing, you are alone.
These things are neither good. They're just part of the deal. However, it is going to be helpful to have both of these qualities (being able to be both private and public). If you are so antsy or flighty or just want to be around other people so much that you can't sit down long enough to string a couple sentences together, then you'll never be able to write anything more than a couple of sentences. If you are never around other people and never talk about yourself or your work, how can you expect anybody to ever find your work or read it?
Writing is a private endeavor with a public persona. If you want to be a writer, I hope you are able to handle that.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Throw It Out; Write It Again
One of the worst things a young writer can think is that they write a story once. They're supposed to sit down, crank out the story in one sitting, and then it's done. Sure, they may edit as they write, but once you're at the end, it's The End. Accompanying the problem is thinking that you are writing the final draft and that any prep work is a waste of time and energy (after all, we always end up making up our stuff as we go along). I know this is terrible because I did it myself.
Fortunately, I have since come to my senses and realized that writing without preparing is garbage. If it is the first time you wrote something, it is a first draft by definition. And if you've done no preparing, then you only really have a rough idea of what you are trying to do, making it a rough draft, too. At this point, I write a given story over and over again. Each time I finish a draft, I throw it out and write the next one.
The prep work I do is usually taking a sheet of paper and writing down as many thoughts as I have that are inspiring the story, The first version of a story is an outline. It is the organizing of my thoughts into a linear progression. This outline also covers the key points of the story. It is the skeleton.
Now that I know the absolute basics, I throw out the outline and write an overview. As I've said before, an overview is halfway between an outline and a first draft. This is where I start discovering more of the characters involved and who they are. I discover their preferences, mannerisms, goals, motives, and all that other stuff. I also figure out the nuances of the plot. I may know that I have Point A and Point B, but here is where I figure out what happens to get people from A to B.
After an overview, I write my first draft. At this point, I pretty much know the entirety of the story. What I don't know are all the excruciating details. I haven't written out the conversations verbatim. I haven't drawn diagrams of buildings or decided what furniture and other accoutrement are there to see and interact with. The first draft is where I am writing the story as a story (instead of mere ideas about a story). I am also practicing my pacing and tone here.
When I finish a first draft, I know my story. I've already written it and played with it, so now I want to make it beautiful. My first draft usually has so many things that I want to change that it becomes easier to just do a complete overhaul. This is where the second draft comes in. Once again, I throw out my old version and do it again. The nice thing about the second version is that there will be a stronger continuity to it. Though a long story probably won't be drafted in one sitting, it will sound more like a cohesive unit than if I had torn out chunks of my first draft and filled them with rewritten material.
With the second draft done, there comes leeway. Ideally, this draft will be so solid that it doesn't need to be thrown out. However, I could write another draft if I decide that enough needs to be changed. Depending on the specifics of the piece of writing, I will draft until I am happy enough with it that I move on to editing.
The editing process is where I finally stop throwing out what I have. It is where only minor tweaks need to be made, often cosmetic ones for clearer and easier reading. With those done, I will have a final draft. Huzzah!
The reason I wrote this out is to illustrate how much writing goes into a piece of writing. Every step has a purpose. Every step is crucial. None of them can be avoided and nobody can do all of those things in one draft, let alone one sitting. Now, like I said, I used to be that petulant youth. So I also know that there is no way to convince them that they're wrong. People like that need to experience these failures and realizations for themselves. However, it is important to make them aware of these things. I had teachers who told me I was being stupid by trying to do everything in one draft. I rejected them, but I also had the seeds of realization planted. When everything I wrote was lousy, I realized that my teachers were right. If not for them, I would have thought I just wasn't that good (or worse, not have realized that what I was doing was lousy).
You may not want to literally throw out your writing. That's fine. Save your drafts. Sometimes they're good for nostalgia. On occasion, they're good for reference. Just make sure you don't have it side-by-side with the current draft you are writing. There will be too much temptation to directly copy, which defeats the purpose of writing new drafts.
Fortunately, I have since come to my senses and realized that writing without preparing is garbage. If it is the first time you wrote something, it is a first draft by definition. And if you've done no preparing, then you only really have a rough idea of what you are trying to do, making it a rough draft, too. At this point, I write a given story over and over again. Each time I finish a draft, I throw it out and write the next one.
The prep work I do is usually taking a sheet of paper and writing down as many thoughts as I have that are inspiring the story, The first version of a story is an outline. It is the organizing of my thoughts into a linear progression. This outline also covers the key points of the story. It is the skeleton.
Now that I know the absolute basics, I throw out the outline and write an overview. As I've said before, an overview is halfway between an outline and a first draft. This is where I start discovering more of the characters involved and who they are. I discover their preferences, mannerisms, goals, motives, and all that other stuff. I also figure out the nuances of the plot. I may know that I have Point A and Point B, but here is where I figure out what happens to get people from A to B.
After an overview, I write my first draft. At this point, I pretty much know the entirety of the story. What I don't know are all the excruciating details. I haven't written out the conversations verbatim. I haven't drawn diagrams of buildings or decided what furniture and other accoutrement are there to see and interact with. The first draft is where I am writing the story as a story (instead of mere ideas about a story). I am also practicing my pacing and tone here.
When I finish a first draft, I know my story. I've already written it and played with it, so now I want to make it beautiful. My first draft usually has so many things that I want to change that it becomes easier to just do a complete overhaul. This is where the second draft comes in. Once again, I throw out my old version and do it again. The nice thing about the second version is that there will be a stronger continuity to it. Though a long story probably won't be drafted in one sitting, it will sound more like a cohesive unit than if I had torn out chunks of my first draft and filled them with rewritten material.
With the second draft done, there comes leeway. Ideally, this draft will be so solid that it doesn't need to be thrown out. However, I could write another draft if I decide that enough needs to be changed. Depending on the specifics of the piece of writing, I will draft until I am happy enough with it that I move on to editing.
The editing process is where I finally stop throwing out what I have. It is where only minor tweaks need to be made, often cosmetic ones for clearer and easier reading. With those done, I will have a final draft. Huzzah!
The reason I wrote this out is to illustrate how much writing goes into a piece of writing. Every step has a purpose. Every step is crucial. None of them can be avoided and nobody can do all of those things in one draft, let alone one sitting. Now, like I said, I used to be that petulant youth. So I also know that there is no way to convince them that they're wrong. People like that need to experience these failures and realizations for themselves. However, it is important to make them aware of these things. I had teachers who told me I was being stupid by trying to do everything in one draft. I rejected them, but I also had the seeds of realization planted. When everything I wrote was lousy, I realized that my teachers were right. If not for them, I would have thought I just wasn't that good (or worse, not have realized that what I was doing was lousy).
You may not want to literally throw out your writing. That's fine. Save your drafts. Sometimes they're good for nostalgia. On occasion, they're good for reference. Just make sure you don't have it side-by-side with the current draft you are writing. There will be too much temptation to directly copy, which defeats the purpose of writing new drafts.
Friday, June 4, 2010
A Useful Measurement
People are so obsessed with length.
When I give somebody a writing assignment, the first question is always "how long does it have to be?" If I tell somebody I wrote a book, "How many pages is it?" You'd think they care more about the feat of finishing the writing more than what was actually written.
I know this is a bad habit brought on by academia, where length can be just as important as content. Still, it bothers me. Aside from the fact that it belittles the important of content, I am greatly bothered because there are no useful measurements.
I wrote a story overview that was 16 pages long. This was single-spaced with indented paragraphs. When I made it double-spaced for legibility, it was 32 pages. It was the same document, all the same words and everything, but to say that I used 32 pages just to give an overview of a story sounds way more impressive than 16. Similarly, I wrote a book that is 25 pages long. It also has an average of 22 words per page. The standard page has 250 words on it, making my 25-page book seem even less impressive.
Page length is a bad measure, but word count seems promising, right? I keep measuring pages in terms of words, after all. There are two main problems with measuring a work in number of words. The first is that words come in a variety of length. The other is that words can have vast differences in descriptive meaning. Every time I describe something as "immaculate" instead of "clean", I am writing more, but being counted the same. However, if I use "immaculate" of "really really clean", then I am using fewer words, but using much stronger and vivid ones.
Try all of the measures available. Characters, words, sentences, pages, chapters. No matter what you choose, you will find that it can be very misleading. I will say, though, that if you use all of them simultaneously, you can get a decent idea of the composition of a piece of writing.
However, I must reiterate my original belief that length itself is a stupid thing to measure. It is the meaning of what you say, the effectiveness of its rhetoric that matters far more than anything else. If you can make an interesting point or describe a fascinating concept in ten sentences, do it and don't waste your time trying to expand it into twenty pages.
If you want to know how long a piece of writing should be, here is the best advice possible: Write it until it's done.
When I give somebody a writing assignment, the first question is always "how long does it have to be?" If I tell somebody I wrote a book, "How many pages is it?" You'd think they care more about the feat of finishing the writing more than what was actually written.
I know this is a bad habit brought on by academia, where length can be just as important as content. Still, it bothers me. Aside from the fact that it belittles the important of content, I am greatly bothered because there are no useful measurements.
I wrote a story overview that was 16 pages long. This was single-spaced with indented paragraphs. When I made it double-spaced for legibility, it was 32 pages. It was the same document, all the same words and everything, but to say that I used 32 pages just to give an overview of a story sounds way more impressive than 16. Similarly, I wrote a book that is 25 pages long. It also has an average of 22 words per page. The standard page has 250 words on it, making my 25-page book seem even less impressive.
Page length is a bad measure, but word count seems promising, right? I keep measuring pages in terms of words, after all. There are two main problems with measuring a work in number of words. The first is that words come in a variety of length. The other is that words can have vast differences in descriptive meaning. Every time I describe something as "immaculate" instead of "clean", I am writing more, but being counted the same. However, if I use "immaculate" of "really really clean", then I am using fewer words, but using much stronger and vivid ones.
Try all of the measures available. Characters, words, sentences, pages, chapters. No matter what you choose, you will find that it can be very misleading. I will say, though, that if you use all of them simultaneously, you can get a decent idea of the composition of a piece of writing.
However, I must reiterate my original belief that length itself is a stupid thing to measure. It is the meaning of what you say, the effectiveness of its rhetoric that matters far more than anything else. If you can make an interesting point or describe a fascinating concept in ten sentences, do it and don't waste your time trying to expand it into twenty pages.
If you want to know how long a piece of writing should be, here is the best advice possible: Write it until it's done.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Don't Be An Elitist Asshole
Don't you hate people with terrible taste? Like, who ever thought that Britney Spears was a good singer in the first place? In fact, everything that gets played on the radio is worthless trash. It's all crap and the only good music is that sweet underground stuff that nobody knows about.
As soon as you start calling something trash because it’s popular and talking about how the masses have no taste or sense of quality, you’re an elitist asshole. Even if you thoroughly believe it, you still are. If 90% of the people think one thing is good and you don't, maybe you’re the one with the screwed up sensibilities.
The common argument is that the masses are uneducated. The elitists understand their subject on a deeper, more intimate level, therefore they appreciate it more than the commoners and thus they have the right to declare what is good and what is trash.
But isn’t art subjective? What makes your preferences more valid than theirs? Just because you enjoy something on a different level or for different reasons doesn’t make you better, just different.
We are all entitled to our opinions, especially on the arts. Nobody should demean you for your preferences, and neither should you do that to others. If you truly can't accept other people's tastes, at least keep it to yourself. You may be an elitist, but at least you won't be an ass.
As soon as you start calling something trash because it’s popular and talking about how the masses have no taste or sense of quality, you’re an elitist asshole. Even if you thoroughly believe it, you still are. If 90% of the people think one thing is good and you don't, maybe you’re the one with the screwed up sensibilities.
The common argument is that the masses are uneducated. The elitists understand their subject on a deeper, more intimate level, therefore they appreciate it more than the commoners and thus they have the right to declare what is good and what is trash.
But isn’t art subjective? What makes your preferences more valid than theirs? Just because you enjoy something on a different level or for different reasons doesn’t make you better, just different.
We are all entitled to our opinions, especially on the arts. Nobody should demean you for your preferences, and neither should you do that to others. If you truly can't accept other people's tastes, at least keep it to yourself. You may be an elitist, but at least you won't be an ass.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Unfortunate Implications
Sometimes we have a noble lesson that we wish to share with people. We may tie it into a story or we may just turn it into a saying and hope it catches on. This is a wonderful thing. But if you're going to do it, think it through. Sometimes even the most quotable quotes have unfortunate implications.
Consider the saying famously attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
On its face, it's a good lesson. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't try to sound like you do; you'll end up with your foot in your mouth and everybody knowing it.
But is this really that great a policy? If you re silent and everybody thinks you're a fool, should you really remain silent? People already think you're a fool, so they'll treat you like a fool (not to mention what they would say behind your back). What if you admitted to being a fool? Is it not impossible that somebody may want to educate you?
Arguably, I'm taking this saying out of context and applying it in ways that it was not intended. Arguably, I'm examining the ways that a person might interpret the saying's meaning. In the latter case, I find this lovely nugget of wisdom to be pretty terrible, even if unintentionally.
The point is that you should make sure to not make the same mistake. Before you share some brilliant thought, play around with it. Try to apply it to unconventional situations. Find out if it sounds disturbing when put into the wrong context. Avoid those unfortunate implications.
Consider the saying famously attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
On its face, it's a good lesson. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't try to sound like you do; you'll end up with your foot in your mouth and everybody knowing it.
But is this really that great a policy? If you re silent and everybody thinks you're a fool, should you really remain silent? People already think you're a fool, so they'll treat you like a fool (not to mention what they would say behind your back). What if you admitted to being a fool? Is it not impossible that somebody may want to educate you?
Arguably, I'm taking this saying out of context and applying it in ways that it was not intended. Arguably, I'm examining the ways that a person might interpret the saying's meaning. In the latter case, I find this lovely nugget of wisdom to be pretty terrible, even if unintentionally.
The point is that you should make sure to not make the same mistake. Before you share some brilliant thought, play around with it. Try to apply it to unconventional situations. Find out if it sounds disturbing when put into the wrong context. Avoid those unfortunate implications.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Why Spelling Matters
One of the rallying cries of students rejecting their English classes is "spelling doesn't matter." It's a pretty divisive issue; people tend to feel strongly on one side or the other. Though I do believe spelling matters, I can understand both sides of the issue.
Spelling is the bane of the English language. Since English absorbs words from just about every language, it has the spelling rules from just about every language. What's worse is that English is over 1100 years old, meaning that it has not only been absorbing new languages for over a millennium, but it has also had ample time to evolve itself. However, as the pronunciation of the spoken language has evolved, the spelling has not. This is of course due to prescriptivist grammarians (also known nowadays as Grammar Nazis).
'Conscientious' has no business being spelled the way it is. It should be kahnshe-enchuss. I am proud that we get our fast food at the "drive thru" and it is open during the "late nite" and that we can guzzle it down with a "lite beer". In fact, according to the spellchecker in Firefox, all of those phrases are acceptable and do not appear as typos.
However, even if our spelling is ridiculous and rarely allows us to figure out how to pronounce a word we've never seen before, it does serve a useful purpose. When you spell things properly, people will know exactly what you mean every time. When you start using the wrong spellings, you can have some unfortunate implications.
My favorite example is this: "Eminem is my favorite raper."
Oops? I sure hope that was a typo.
It also allows us to distinguish our homophones. 'Weight' and 'wait' sound identical, but have different meanings. By giving them different spellings, they distinguish the intended meaning. Consider the word 'fit'. It can be an adjective meaning in good health. It can be a verb meaning to make an object occupy a particular space. 'Fly' can be an insect, a zipper, or something that jets do. Imagine if each meaning had a different spelling that distinguished their meanings. It would be wonderful. And even though we don't have that for every homonym, we can at least enjoy the ones we do have.
I'm ok with spelling changing. I'm totally fine with it evolving to match its present pronunciation (instead of reflecting its etymology). However, whatever the spelling of a word ends up becoming, spell it consistently so we have any idea what you're talking about.
Spelling is the bane of the English language. Since English absorbs words from just about every language, it has the spelling rules from just about every language. What's worse is that English is over 1100 years old, meaning that it has not only been absorbing new languages for over a millennium, but it has also had ample time to evolve itself. However, as the pronunciation of the spoken language has evolved, the spelling has not. This is of course due to prescriptivist grammarians (also known nowadays as Grammar Nazis).
'Conscientious' has no business being spelled the way it is. It should be kahnshe-enchuss. I am proud that we get our fast food at the "drive thru" and it is open during the "late nite" and that we can guzzle it down with a "lite beer". In fact, according to the spellchecker in Firefox, all of those phrases are acceptable and do not appear as typos.
However, even if our spelling is ridiculous and rarely allows us to figure out how to pronounce a word we've never seen before, it does serve a useful purpose. When you spell things properly, people will know exactly what you mean every time. When you start using the wrong spellings, you can have some unfortunate implications.
My favorite example is this: "Eminem is my favorite raper."
Oops? I sure hope that was a typo.
It also allows us to distinguish our homophones. 'Weight' and 'wait' sound identical, but have different meanings. By giving them different spellings, they distinguish the intended meaning. Consider the word 'fit'. It can be an adjective meaning in good health. It can be a verb meaning to make an object occupy a particular space. 'Fly' can be an insect, a zipper, or something that jets do. Imagine if each meaning had a different spelling that distinguished their meanings. It would be wonderful. And even though we don't have that for every homonym, we can at least enjoy the ones we do have.
I'm ok with spelling changing. I'm totally fine with it evolving to match its present pronunciation (instead of reflecting its etymology). However, whatever the spelling of a word ends up becoming, spell it consistently so we have any idea what you're talking about.
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