How to Write Your Best Story: a rambling review

A few months ago, Philip Martin, a fellow writer and editor (although he's more established and "serious" than I am in the editing realm, and he has fingers in all sorts of literary pies), asked me to read through the manuscript for How to Write Your Best Story: Advice for Writers on Spinning an Enchanting Tale (128 pages, $14.95, Crickhollow Books). 

I've been writing since I was nine or ten years old -- not very well, but often and copiously -- and I've lost count of the writing conferences, seminars, and classes, and groups I've attended, but the greatest learning has come from the simple act of writing (and revising -- a lot), and the best advice has come from sitting down and talking to other and better writers. Reading How to Write Your Best Story is rather like one of those conversations: down-to-earth, intelligent, understandable, and useful. 

Aside: Did I mention that my first conversation with Philip Martin was several years ago at a writers conference? Yep. I attended his session (I forget the topic), then asked him to autograph my well-read copy of his recent book, The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature: From Dragon's Lair to Hero's Quest, a Brothers Hildebrandt painting of Smaug on the cover, which just makes a good book that much cooler. I'm not usually the groupie / fanboy type, and I certainly don't go around asking other folks for their autographs, but this time, it just seemed like the thing to do.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

"Never judge a book by its cover" is old advice that isn't always true. After all, most of us have seen plenty of cheesy science fiction covers with awkward robots or scantily-clad alien women, or trashy romance novels decorated in shirtless men with impossible hair or women in torn bodices. We look at those covers, and we pretty much know what we're gonna get. (I'll take the science fiction -- hold the cheese -- over the lurid romance any day.) The whimsical cover art for How to Write Your Best Story is the reader's first clue that the contents are written by someone who knows and appreciates a good story, and probably read his share of them. (The artwork is by the late Marvin Hill.) What I like best about this book of advice is that it's less about rules and more about principles of good storytelling:

Good storytelling exists in a world outside of formal structural elements of literature. It has intangible aspects, like a beautiful melody or an appealing fragrance. It exists in imaginary worlds you know well, like the 100 Acre Woods, or Narnia, or Lake Woebegone, or in mostly real worlds, such as a humorous journey on the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson -- or in any number of great books based as much on storytelling as anything else. (p9)

And

(F)or a good number of years, I've pondered the question: is there a way to teach good storytelling, in the fashion of Kipling, Steinbeck, C.S. Lewis, O. Henry, Tolkien, or other beloved writers classic and modern -- successful authors who we'd all agree knew a good story from a hole in the ground?

What do readers look for in a good tale? What specific techniques do I find myself most often recommending to emerging writers to boost the quality of their stories? (p10)

That's what Martin endeavors to do in the rest of the book, and he does it with a whimsy to match the cover art, by telling a story interwoven with instructive chapters. After the Introduction, for instance, is the beginning of "The Princess & the Apple", followed by Part One: General Things about Good Stories, followed by the further tale of "The Princess & the Apple", which is interspersed among these chapters: The Case for Intriguing Eccentricity, The Case for Delightful Details, and The Case for Satisfying Surprises.

Included are many quotes from the works of famous authors and poets, including this quote from Joyce Carol Oates:

"Storytelling is shaped by two contrary, yet complementary, impulses -- one toward brevity, compactness, artful omission; the other toward expansion, amplification, enrichment." (p25)

That's a push-pull war in which I constantly engage: what to leave out, what to add, what must be spelled out, what can be implied, what's trivial, what matters.

A few more examples of advice from the book:

throw out the thesaurus (pp26-30),
juxtapose or fuse two ideas to offer a unique intersection (pp50-51),
listen (pp55-56),
use more senses (pp68-70),
ask what your characters want most (p93),
don't dodge the difficult ending (pp104-105),

and much more.

How to Write Your Best Story is chock-full of good, perennial advice, but it's also fun to read. This book will remain in my permanent library, and that's just about the best recommendation I can give.

New Issues for a New Year: RGR and HFQ, and Writing Advice

The boys are back in town: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly starts 2010 with its third issue, and the editorial team expands by one. I haven't had a chance to read the stories yet, but will deliver a review as soon as I do. The past issues are excellent, so I expect this one will be no different.

And Ray Gun Revival delivers its 55th edition, the final in the current .PDF format, which I like well enough, but there are big things promised for the new version of the magazine. RGR is an homage to the pulpy goodness of old-fashioned science fiction, and offers a variety of story styles. Check out the review columns, too, and the artwork -- good stuff.

As with the last few reports of my progress on Thieves' Honor, the serial I write for RGR, Episode 11 remains unfinished. It has gone through a couple incarnations, and is facing a third. The dilemma lies in the need to balance dialogue with action -- there's too much of one, and not enough of the other. However, for the sake of clarity and characterization, a certain amount of dialogue is required.

Then again, maybe I'm just stressing over small stuff.

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On her blog, friend Jade has posted a couple entries of interest to writers and movie buffs -- "Why reading 'bad movie' reviews is good for the writer" and "Amadeus and editing".

Over at The Writer's Handbook Blog, Philip Martin offers great advice to writers about composing blog posts (advice I can certainly use).

Another friend, writer and editor David Farney, in a recent post on his "Storm of the North" blog, pays tribute to author Robert E. Howard and soldier Robert L. Howard, and shows the durability of ancient heroic poetry.

Speaking of heroic poetry, HFQ could use some poetry submissions that fit the heroic fantasy theme of the magazine. It ain't easy to write, but if you're up for the challenge, check out the submission guidelines and give it a go.

Writing Update

Sunday afternoon, I submitted Episode 1 of Thieves' Honor (formerly Space Pirates, see sidebar) to Raygun Revival as a possible upcoming science fiction serial.

I'm considering another run of episodic fiction here on the blog, either another science fiction piece, a fantasy, or maybe even a historical. Not sure yet.

This morning, at some crazy time when most sane people have been asleep for hours, I finished the latest edits on Dragon's Rook (138,000+ words) and sent the monster of a manuscript off to Philip Martin for a read. Check out his stuff at The Writer's Handbook blog or at Great Lakes Literary.

I think I may take today off from further writing, and reward myself with a movie. Iron Man is playing at the second-run theatre in the city where I work, only $2 for a matinee, but then there's The Dark Knight, Wanted, The Mummy, WALL-E, and Hellboy II, all playing at the regular-price cinema.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Sound Literary Advice

Last month, in the newsletter by Philip Martin of Great Lakes Literary, he discussed "The Sound of Your Stories" and advised reading them out loud for their cadence, something I've found useful for years, especially when writing dialogue. (It's a good thing no one can see me marching up and down the house, talking to myself in different voices, waving my arms, making faces, fighting imaginary foes.)

This month's newsletter contains the expansion of a theme on which he wrote last year: "Developing a Sense of Place"--Part 1 is here; Part 2, here.

One of my favorite articles is this one: "C.S. Lewis & the Art of the Believable Detail."

The newsletter is free, the information is useful, and the writing is good. At the bottom of the first page, there's a link for those who want to sign up for the newsletter, which I highly recommend.

Insane Poetry, and a Quest for Quirky Characters

Another bit of poetry for National Poetry Month, but this one was written on the fly for a goofy response to an editorial discussion over at Fear and Trembling magazine. (Editor Scott Sandridge has instituted a points--ahem, bones--system, in which we rate the submissions from 0 bones, for something horrendous or improperly formatted, to 10 bones for something that blows our skulls wide open.) Nothing literary or sweet or even truly poetic about this bit, just some macabre silliness, verbatim:

(conjuring the image of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk:"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.")

Bones, bones, tasty bones
Fresh bones, blood-sticky, flesh-spongy bones
Arm bones and thigh bones and tiny, skinny finger bones
Puzzle-cut spine bones and knobby-ended wrist bones
Not-so-round skull bones
Shovel-scooped collar bones, wing-like shoulder bones
Bones, bones, lovely bones
White-boiled angels floating in my stew

(It ain't great, but I laughed a time or two typing it.)

Okay, enough of that. Now for something more serious.

I've been considering my characters, and studying what other writers do to make theirs memorable. Anyone who's been to a writers conference knows about psychological profiles / questionnaires, intended to help us know our characters from the insides out, or about character sheets, where we list all sorts of things, from physical traits and flaws to childhood trauma to favorite styles of footwear. But what makes a character linger in the reader's mind for not only days but years?

I met Philip Martin a few years ago when he was speaking at an Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. conference in Oklahoma City, and when I, feeling a little like a teenage groupie, asked him to sign my copy of his book, The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature: From Dragons Lair to Hero Quest. Through a variety of circumstances -- a group lunch, a discussion session, and more -- we struck up an acquaintance. Though communication has been sporadic over the last couple of years, I do check in on his blog from time to time, and the latest entry addresses the matter of memorable -- or quirky -- characters: "The Wonderfully Eccentric Characters of Charles Dickens".

He includes a link to his newsletter, too, in which there is an article entitled "In Praise of Eccentricity":

The core of the writer's challenge is to tell a fresh story. As William M. Thackeray (Victorian novelist, author of Vanity Fair), summed it up: “The two most engaging powers of a good author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.”

But how? How do you put a fresh spin on old and common themes?

One secret: eccentricity!

That's the opening; here's the closing:

Find the character that is a bit odd (or a lot so), and you've got a core element of a story that can make the reader sit up and pay attention. By offering something fresh and exotic, you create real value, something we can’t get at the corner convenience store of the imagination. Remember the rule: eccentricity is your friend.

Now, head on over and check out all the stuff in between!