Irene Smith

I have finally had to come to the conclusion that I can’t do everything. I was trying to update this blog weekly, write a book, participate on Brigit’s Flame by writing a short story every week, study for Microsoft Certification, and also do my real job, the one that pays the bills. This left very little time for everyday things like, oh, sleep and spending time with my family.

I just couldn’t do it. Trying to do too many things at once caused a system crash (my system, not the computer) and I just haven’t felt like doing anything for several months. My health has been suffering and so has my psyche. The whole experience just made me feel sorry for myself and left me incapable of accomplishing much of anything. The few stories I did manage to write got me nothing more than a bunch of rejections.

Is it time for me to give up on writing? Maybe I’m just fooling myself. I thought that I write well. Most of the people who read my stories like them (except for the magazine editors, apparently) so if I haven’t figured out what I’m doing wrong by now, maybe I should just quit.

Why can’t I do that? No matter how many rejections I get, I find myself writing again. It builds up, like water pressure behind a clog in a pipe and after a while, I start getting story ideas that swoop and dive around my head like crazed birds until I sit down at the keyboard and get them out there. I can’t help myself.

I am a procrastinator by nature. I tend to do things at the last moment. Most of the time it works pretty well for me but sometimes…

Last weekend I was busy. We had a party for my son’s birthday and by the time I thought of the blog post, it was Friday night. I vowed that this week would be different. Yet here it is quarter to midnight and I haven’t written anything yet. Maybe this is why I haven’t had a major publishing success?

Even so, I’m too persistent (too stupid?) to quit. I keep trying.

It’s time to go back to the drawing board. I am going to throw out everything I’ve already done and begin at the beginning with a new idea, a new story, and maybe, finally, a success.

They say that one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Maybe that is what I’ve been doing. I have about half a dozen different story ideas and I keep trying to redo them and get a bestseller out of it. Maybe I’m just getting bored with my own stories. And, if I’m bored, my readers will be as well. Time to start fresh.

So…

Tonight’s post is going to be short and sweet. I’ve got a book to write.

See you next week…

Take a look at the following short exchange and see if you can tell me what’s wrong with it:

“Good morning.”

“Good morning to you,” I replied.

“What is new?” said my boss, George Newbinging.

“Nothing. How was your weekend?”

“Great,” he replied. “How are the kids?”

“Oh, same old, same old,” I said.

So, what do you think? Besides being boring as hell, this little dialog does none of the jobs that dialog is supposed to do within a story. Dialogue can do any or all of the following:

• advance the plot
• tell us about the characters
• heighten the conflict
• provide information the viewpoint character might not otherwise know

I suppose I could make a case for increased tension if the employee had done something terrible, say screwed up some paperwork or lost an important order. Then the very fact that the boss doesn’t say anything about the incident could be a means to heighten the tension. Otherwise? Not so much.

While people exchange comments like the above every day in real life, they can’t afford to do the same in fiction. Dialogue in fiction must perform at least one of the functions I listed above.

Advance the Plot

Take a look at this short exchange:

“You must be my new master.” The man looked around and sighed. “What year is it?”

“Two thousand and nine,” Ken replied. He tried to get up but he couldn’t move.

“Only eight years this time,” said the man shaking his head. Then he bowed low. “I am a jinni and you are my master. What is thy first wish?”

Now Ken was glad he hadn’t run away. “How many do I get?”

“Three wishes are standard. Everybody knows that. ”

“Finally something is going my way,” said Ken.

In just a few lines we’ve managed to convey the information that Ken has found a jinni and that he is entitled to three wishes in a more entertaining way that “Ken found a jinni and it told him that he was entitled to three wishes.” The narrative version might use less words but the version with dialogue is more interesting.

Tell us About the Characters

If you are doing your job right, the characters in your stories each have their own mannerisms in speech and action. For example:

“Yo, man, how’s it hangin’?”

“Good morning, my dear fellow, how is the world treating you on this fine day?”

Obviously there are differences between these two characters’ speech patterns. The informality of the first speech (yeah, I know it sounds corny) might indicate a lower level of education or it might indicate someone who is putting on a personality that isn’t really his own. Which it is depends on the context of the story of course.

Heighten the Conflict

Dialogue is the perfect way to heighten conflict. Don’t tell us that two characters are angry at each other. Show it in the way that they speak. Instead of:

Mom was angry.

Have Mom show us herself like this:

“Matthew Denis Smith, what in the wide world do you think you are doing?”

No question that Mom is a little bit annoyed now, is there?

Provide Information

Dialogue can give us information that we might not be able to get any other way. For instance, if a story is told from the point of view of a character that was not a witness to something that needs to be presented, a character that did see the incident can tell the viewpoint character about it in a much more interesting way than, “Later I found out, blah, blah, blah.”

I find dialogue is more fun to write than narrative too. But that’s just icing on the cake, so to speak.

I went to a free course at the Gotham Writers Workshop on Wednesday night. It was worth the extra effort that I had to make to attend. It really was a bit of a hardship because the class ended at 8pm so I had to take the 9:58pm train home. That meant that I didn’t get home until 12:30am. How easy is it to get home and go to sleep right away? I can’t do it. By the time I was in bed and falling asleep, it was nearly 2am. Needless to say I was a bit tired the next day, although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe the high I got from going to the class is what kept me going the next day.

It was a high. The funny thing is that I didn’t really hear anything I didn’t already know, but hearing it made me anxious to apply the information myself. What we talked about was character. We talked about how you go about creating characters that have depth. Really? Everybody knows that.

Then we were given ten minutes to describe a character. It could be someone you know or someone with whom you are barely acquainted. I thought I had this one down pat. I started off and (I thought) was going along great.

After a second little exercise where we were to show the character eating breakfast, the teacher asked some of us to volunteer to read what we had written. That was when I realized what a poor job I was doing. The two students who ready their breakfast scenes had basically written what could have been the beginning of excellent stories. I almost had the feeling that they were ringers, professional writers invited to the class to make the rest of us realize how much we needed to take the full, paid-for 10-week course.

I tried to put my failure down to the fact that I don’t think quickly, that if I had more time I would have done a better job. I even blamed the fact that I was writing with a pen instead of a keyboard.The truth is that most of my characters are about as three-dimensional as paper dolls. I have known for some time that my fiction was missing something and i think this is it. I don’t think I really understood what it meant to create three-dimensional characters.

My characters often have desires, quirks, I try to make their speech patterns enough different so that you can recognize them from their words. But, when it comes right down to it, they’re still boring, often nothing more than a collection of quirks.

Since I was eliminated early (for the second month in a row!) from the monthly writing competition at Bridget’s Flame so I’ve got time to work on my characterization skills before the next competition begins. So this is what I am going to do:

1. I am going to create a character by giving a physical description.
2. Then I will write about the person’s past.
3. I will look at his or her hopes and desires.
4. Finally I will describe the person’s deepest, darkest secrets.
5. Once all of that has been done, I will place the character in a situation and see if all that preparation will give me a better story and a more interesting protagonist.

It’s worth a try. If you want to try it too, go ahead. If you end up with something you want to share, put a snippet or two in your comments to this entry. I’d be interested to see what you come up with. My results? See you next Saturday.

When learning to paint, beginners often learn by copying the work of the great masters. Go to any art museum and you are bound to see at least one student sitting in front of a great canvas, sketching different portions of the work and, therefore, learning how to make a few lines and dots appear to have substance.

The technique I am about to describe is similar. I have used it several times more or less successfully and I have always learned something useful in the process. The results you achieve will vary and you may end up with something that you can’t sell because it is too close to the original. On the other hand, you may end up with something totally new. Therefore, this technique is probably more useful for short stories than for longer pieces because only a masochist would write fifty thousand or more words knowing that there is a good chance the final product can’t be sold.

Pick a story you like. Read it casually. Then read it again. Study it. Keep reading until you can state the plot in a single sentence. Identify the protagonist, the antagonist, and any other important characters. Then make a list of the scenes. There may be anywhere from one or two to a dozen or so scenes in a short story. Make a list. Record everything on paper or in a computer file and then go away and do something else for a few days.

Now it is time to write your own story. Don’t try to remember the exact wording of the original; just read over your notes and write the story step by step according to the blueprint you have created. You may want to use a similar voice or style just for fun, but the important thing here is to write the story.

The last step is to compare your story to the original. Did your version progress at the same speed? Did you alter the pace, the voice, or the ending? If you did make changes, does your story please you as much as the original? If so, you have won big time. If not, write it off as a learning experience.

What now? Pick another story and do the same thing or, and this is even more valuable, wait a few days and write another story from the same notes. Whatever you do, make this exercise your own and let me know how it worked for you.

By the way, I came up with this idea several years ago when I was reading Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. He describes having learned to write newspaper stories by reading existing stories, reducing them to a single sentence, and after giving himself enough time to forget the original, writing his own version. At that point, although I had started a lot of stories, I hadn’t ever finished one. This exercise was, for me, the way to a complete story. I hope it does something as good for you.

I have been writing for–oh hell, nearly forty years. I wrote my first book, a horrible mish-mash of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Doctor Doolittle when I was 11 years old. It was really bad, but the way, in case you are curious. Not only did I steal every plot twist and turn from my favorite books, I included every one of my friends as characters.

For most of those forty years, I believed that writing fiction was something that had to be inspired. By what? Who knows. I guess I imagined some schizophrenic muse residing somewhere in my brain. Once in a whle she would throw me a bone and I would write a story. Mostly I wrote parts of stories that had beginnings and no ends but that’s beside the point.

When I write non-fiction, articles or documentation, I have no problems. No blocks have ever existed for me with non-fiction. There are times, in fact, when it seems like cheating. I don’t need to be inspired. The words just appear on the page. Sometimes it feels as though someone else is dong the work and I’m just getting it all down.

Fiction is hard. I write, I re-write, and I question every word. At least, I always did. I worry about writing clichéd stories. I want every story to be perfect and wonderful and–you get the idea. Usually about halfway through I begin to hate the story and, more times than not, I end up throwing it away. For every story I have completed, there are at least five more that will never see the light of day.

Today I decided to stop trying to write perfect, unique, absolutely fascinating stories. From now on, I’m going to write stories that are fun to write whether they are “wonderful” and “perfect” or not.

That’s not as easy as it sounds but I wrote a story–a complete story–today in about three hours. It’s not long (only 1,970 words) but it is complete. It’s not perfect. It’s not totally original, but it’s done.

If you want to read it, go here… Of Smoke and Mirrors

Does this mean I’m going to become the prolific, successful story teller that I’ve been trying to become for the past forty years? Probably not. Yet I feel as though I’ve taken a huge step forward today. I’ve stopped believing in writer’s block. I’ve stopped believing that I need to be inspired to write, and–this is the best part–I wrote a complete story because I decided that was what I was going to do. **Pats self on back.** That’s a good start.

Did you know that the Internet can be a great time waster?

I know, who would have thought it.

There are times when I think that I would get a lot more work done if I turned off the wi-fi. I know that I get a lot more writing done on the train (when there’s no Internet connection) than I do when I am at home.

When I am working at home, I don’t allow myself to spend time surfing the ‘net unless I have research to do. For example, if I’m trying to do something with an application and I’m stuck, I’ll look to see if someone else has solved the problem and written about it. Otherwise, I do my work and pretend that the Internet is “off” for the day.

When I am trying to write, it’s a different story. Stuck with a story and don’t know what people should do next? Check on Facebook, MySpace, Live Journal, or Twitter and see what people are talking about. I can spend tons of time updating my status, writing a blog, uploading pictures and not even realize the time has gone by. Check me out…

Irene Smith on Facebook
Irene on MySpace
13-Stories at Live Journal
Story_Teller at Twitter

Once that’s done, there are online games to play. I have two destinations that are particular favorites. Do you like jigsaw puzzles? I do. JigZone has tons of great jigsaw puzzles and you can decide how difficult it should be from six pieces to 247 pieces and if that doesn’t sound like a lot, believe me, 247 pieces on a computer screen makes the pieces small enough to be a big challenge.

When it comes to other kinds of games, my favorite place to waste time (and believe me, it can waste a lot of time) is Club Bing. It used to be called the Live Search Club but Microsoft changed it recently. This place is not a total waste of time, by the way. At Club Bing you can earn tickets and with tickets you can earn cool prizes. This is one of the few places that doesn’t make the prizes impossible to win either. So far I’ve earned enough tickets to get an XBox 360 game, an XBox 360 controller, and a copy of the Zoo Tycoon 2 Zoo Keeper’s Collection. They even pay the postage.

If nothing else fails, I can pretend that I’m doing “research” for a story. I go to Behind the Name to research the meaning of names and to look for names for my characters. Or, for a whole host of fun name generators, I go to Seventh Sanctum where I can make up names for everything from exotic fantasy races to kingdoms.

All together these web sites (and more like them) combine to make what little free writing time I have disappear as quickly as light into a black hole. I have become a master procrastinator and while I hate myself for it, sometimes I just can’t resist.

So now that I’ve confessed some of my favorite time wasters, it’s your turn. Where do you go to pass the time? Leave a comment and tell me about it.

Have you noticed how few truly scary movies there are lately? I love horror stories and horror movies but very few new movies are truly scary. For example: I once saw a vampire movie. It was one of the Hammer films, I believe and it wasn’t even in color. I had nightmares for weeks. I couldn’t go to sleep without checking the closet and under the bed and I spent most of each night with the blankets pulled over my head for protection.

What made it scary was the atmosphere; the sense of doom. You knew that something was going wrong but weren’t sure what it was. The vampires seemed to be beautiful and attractive until they show their “true colors” and attacked.

Horror movies today nearly always end up resorting to body parts and blood to make you scream. And when they don’t, they are hardly scary at all. The Vampires have had their fangs extracted and the werewolves have been groomed with a Pedi Paws. They inhabit more romance novels than horror movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Twilight series of books and Sookie Stackhouse books, but they make the supernatural seem so mundane that they have lost their power to scare. And yet…

I’m watching the movie Coraline. There’s no blood, no gore, no stalking serial killers. And yet, this movie is truly scary in a way I never expected. It does a wonderful job of following the rules of a truly scary story. It starts off by making everything seem wonderful. Coraline is unhappy with her life and then she discovered another world behind a tiny little door.

On the other side, Coraline finds her “other mother” and “other father” and they seem to be so much nicer than the ones she has in real life. Without giving anything away, life for Coraline becomes increasingly terrible until she has to commit to a contest in order to save life as she knows it.

Too bad it’s too hot to hide under the blankets.

I’ve been trying to write fiction for years now. Since 2003, I’ve been “serious” about it. In other words, I’ve written things that I’ve submitted for possible publication. Success? Not much, but thanks for asking. I haven’t figure out why yet, but I have noticed something funny. The more I read about writing, the more I do exercises, the less I feel capable to write. It’s almost as though thinking about it too much makes it impossible. Sort of the same thing as when you stop to think about driving a car. Think too much about the mechanics of driving and the next thing you know, you’re in a ditch.

On the other hand, once you have thought about it, not thinking about it is like telling yourself “I won’t think about pink elephants.” The next thing you know the ballet from Dumbo is going on in your head. I’m in a weird place. On the one hand, I have stories that are just begging to be told; at the same time I can’t seem to get out word one. I am doing great at making mind maps and coming up with a basic statement of the story (the protagonist, the antagonist, the situation and a twist) but I can’t go beyond that.

I’ve been taking a writing class online and it seems as though the tools I am getting from the course would solve all of my problems, but in some ways I’m more verbally constipated than ever. I have gotten pretty good at writing flash fiction but I can’t seem to go beyond the 1k or so that I need to write for a piece of flash. Why? I am not sure but if you are reading this at irenesmith.com, you can go to my Live Journal and read some samples. If you are reading this on Live Journal, scroll up and down and take a look. If something occurs to you, feel free to tell me about it. Just, please, criticize the writing, not the writer.

In the meantime, I’ve got to go finish my story for this week. Check out the Live Journal account for this week’s entry in the Brigit’s Flame writing competition.

MindVisualizer^TM

Web Site: http://www.innovationgear.com/

License: Commercial, $79

(Demo version available. See the web site for details.)

There is a wide variety of software available to create mind maps and some of it is even free. So why am I telling you about a product that isn’t free? I usually use free software when it is available. Unfortunately, sometimes you get what you pay for. I discovered MindVisualizer^TM the other day when I was looking for a replacement for a freeware mind mapping application that suddenly stopped working. I downloaded the demo and fell in love.

Mind Mapping is a cool thing. It is a way of brainstorming with yourself. The act of creating the map can help you shut up the critic within and concentrate on creating. Whether what you are trying to create is a short story, a novel, a business plan, or a shopping list, mind mapping can help.

MindVisualizer^TM is easy to use because it has a user interface similar to Microsoft Office. The commands and shortcut keys you are used to using in Office are available to you. I found myself using the program almost immediately without having to refer to the manuals. The program does its job unobtrusively. Freed of having to think about the mechanics of the application, your mind has free rein to focus on the task.

The image in Figure 1 shows a sample mind map that was created using MindVisualizer^TM. I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, in fact, it only took me about five minutes to create it. Just the same, it looks good. I accepted the defaults as I created the nodes and inserted child nodes. The best part of using the program as opposed to creating a mind map on paper is that you can move nodes around, edit nodes, and generally play with the concepts in you map until you are satisfied. For perfectionists (that would be me!) it provides the perfect opportunity to “let go” and be creative without being stuck with something less than pleasing afterwards.

There is much more to this program than the ability to create extremely simple mind maps like the one shone above. You have a great deal of control over the look of your map too, from the shape of the nodes, to fonts and colors. You can also add images to the mind map in the form of small icons or larger images. The demo version of the program provides a nice selection that you can play with. Map nodes can include hyperlinks and links to files on your computer system as well as simple text, making it easy to use the program to organize your life too.

One feature I found particularly useful is the ability to create linked maps. Right click on any node and select “Create Linked Map From Here,” and a new map file opens with the main node containing the text of the node you selected when creating the linked map. The original node has a hyperlink that you can click to load the linked map and the linked map includes a link back to the parent map too, so you can easily move from one to the other.

Completed maps can be exported in a variety of formats including PDF, Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel,) Open Office, and various graphic formats including JPG and PNG.

The creators of this program have managed to load it with useful features without making it cumbersome and complicated to use. I downloaded the demo version of the program from the MindVisualizer^TM web site last weekend and I have fallen in love with it. I heartily recommend it.