Posted by aidan in writing advice, writing process, writing tools | 7 comments

Lateral Thinking for Writers

The term lateral thinking was invented by Edward de Bono in the 1960s.  The basic techniques of lateral thinking involve coming up with new ideas by looking at problems in a different way and by introducing random thought stimulation.

Douglas Adams once talked about how he had got stuck writing The Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.  The heroes had just been thrown out of a spaceship and he needed a way of rescuing them.  Given the sheer vastness of space it was exceedingly unlikely that another spaceship would be passing by in time to save Arthur and Ford.  Adams couldn’t think of a plausible solution so he decided to think of it in terms of judo, where you use your opponent’s strength against them.  He used the extreme unlikeliness of a rescue scenario to his advantage and invented the infinite improbability drive, which became a major plot point in the story.

De Bono has written lots of books about the subject that outline a variety of methods for generating ideas.

One of the best books I’ve read on the subject is Michael Michalko’s Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques.
Although many of the examples are aimed at business (how do I think of new ways to market my widgets?) they can be easily adapted to generating new story ideas.

One of the simplest techniques is introducing a random idea and seeing how it relates to your story.  For example, randomly choosing a word from a dictionary.  How does this new word relate to your story?

Brainstormer is a web site and iPhone app that provides random word prompts for writers.

For example, let’s say you were writing a story about a magic sword and wanted to come up with some new ways to make the sword intersesting.  (Stormbringer: the sword that drinks souls, The Misenchanted Sword that once it has been drawn has to kill someone before it can be sheathed).

You spin the dials on Brainstormer and get: Adultery, Americana, dwarf.
Hmmmm… A sword that changes size based on the wielder?  A sword that ended up in a kitsch shop?  A sword that guarantees its wielder will fall in love with the spouse of anyone they kill with the sword?

Another spin produces: Self-sacrifice, Viking, downtown city.
More ideas there.

Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold wrote a great article for the Internet Review of Science Fiction called Tapping the Idea Vein.
They give the situation of taking two words and juxtaposing the ideas associated with them:

Look around the room you’re in right now. Play Sesame Streetin your head. “One of these things is not like the other…” Perhaps something in a photograph or picture on the wall, set alongside the messiest object near you. A picture of a cow and a toner cartridge, for example.

What’s the story there?

Cows symbolize agrarian civilization, food, domestication, leather goods, milk, the American family farm, fertility. A toner cartridge is color (or the soot-black lack thereof, and by extension, Manichean dualism), disposability, the Gillette model of razor marketing, the democratization of print publishing. Now we have two sets of concepts to pair together:

Agrarianism	Color
Food	Blackness
Domestication	Dualism
Leather	Man-made materials
Milk	Marketing innovation
American family farm	Print publishing
Fertility	Disposability

Story titles leap out from this list. “Black Milk.” “Fertile Leather.” “Disposable Fertility.” Likewise ideas, or at least their building blocks. For example, a story set on a book farm. Characters who follow a dualistic religion founded on food groups.

Another technique is reversing the problem.  Perhaps you have a story where the hero’s wife is kidnapped.  A simple reversal would be to have the hero kidnapped and have his wife rescue him instead.  Or perhaps the hero decides to have his wife kidnapped. (Fargo).  Or perhaps the hero is happy his wife has been kidnapped. (Ruthless People).  Or maybe she hasn’t been kidnapped but someone keeps sending him ransom notes. (The Big Lebowski).  Or maybe he finds his wife has kidnapped someone.

Some topics have been written about so often that it’s very hard to generate any new ideas.  Vampires?  The Simpsons had reverse vampires that could only come out during the day.  Try reversing some of the stereotypes.  Vampires are usually portrayed as suave and sexy (Dracula, Interview With the Vampire, etc.) or as monstrous (Nosferatu), but how about fat, white trash vampires?  (Fat White Vampire Blues).

Using lateral thinking can be an excellent way to generate story ideas and solve plot problems.

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Posted by Steph in writing process | 2 comments

Simultaneous submissions

I know all my posts (all three of them …) are turning into this format, but what is the deal with submitting simultaneously to markets? The general rule, at least with genre short stories markets, seems to be “DON’T”. On the other hand, some places say it’s fine. Case in point: I just sent an email to The Lifted Brow, and got an auto-reply that includes the line, “Please don’t query, but as always, please do simultaneously send your work elsewhere.” Obviously you can’t simultaneously submit to markets that specifically ask that you don’t (or shouldn’t anyway; Jed Hartman over at Strange Horizons recently wrote about making a note of it in their submission guidelines and in their auto-response emails, and people sending them anyway), but if there’s a handful that do, you could theoretically send the same story to all of them, and save yourself many moons of waiting. On the other hand, if there’s only one that does, it doesn’t help that much.

In the above post, Hartman also talks about why they don’t take simultaneous submissions, and as someone who’s been doing editorial work for a periodical, I can say that’s pretty much exactly why I hate getting that email from writers that says, “Sorry, but I’ve sold this story somewhere else”. I have been known to read too much into things, but to me, that email is really saying, “Check it out, I’m in demand; you should have been faster, and then you could have had the privilege of publishing this story, na na na na na; not to mention, I totally didn’t read the part in your guidelines where you said DON’T DO THIS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD”, which only  makes me want to write back and say, “Meh, we didn’t really like it that much anyway”. Like a lot of things, the whole “rising above it” never really made sense to me as a child.

Have you ever simultaneously submitted? Ever gotten caught? (Congratulations?) I want to hear these things.

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Posted by Ben in writing process | 0 comments

Lazy sentences (lazy author?)

When editing my own work, the following words keep popping up and are almost always indicators of a sentence that just isn’t right or is carrying a few too many kilos:
- here
- there
- though
- now
These are worse than adverbs for me and deserving of instant death.
I blame the sentences. Tisn’t my fault.

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Posted by aidan in writing process | 6 comments

Choosing What Not to Read

Two of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear about writing are:

* Write more

* Read more

I’ve also read many interviews where writers say they no longer have time to keep up with other novels published in their own genre.

Sturgeon’s oft-mentioned law is that 90% of everything is crud.  These days even if you only concentrate on a particular sub-genre (e.g space opera), the amount of reading material available means that the 10% is far more than anyone has the time to read.

In the pre-Internet days it was much harder to get recommendations for books.  Now it only takes a little bit of web surfing to uncover a slew of interesting sounding books.

Add to this the amount of free online material (magazines, blogs, podcasts, discussion forums, etc).

Another factor is that the more serious you get about writing the more likely it is that you’ll make friends with other writers.  It’s only natural to want to support your friends and read their books.

I keep a file on my computer with list of books I want to read.

There are now more than 600 books on that list.

It’s no longer the case where I’ll read a book simply because I want to read it.  I have to want to read it more than I want to read a lot of other books.

I used to decide which book on my bookshelf I wanted to read first, with the understanding I would read the other books later.  I own at least a couple of hundred books I haven’t read.  Given on average I read around 50 books a year, even if I stopped buying books and going to the library, it would take me a few years to clear my backlog of books to read.

With all of the information and book recommendations available online sometimes less can be more.  The more recommendations available, the strength of each particular recommendation can diminish.  They get lost amongst all the noise.  If someone gives you a list of their 100 favorite books how likely is it you’ll read a particular book on that list versus a book they place in your hand and tell you that you have to read?

Another factor I’ve noticed is that once writers are published they tend to read less fiction and read more non-fiction.

If you’re writing science fiction or fantasy it pays to do a lot of technical or historical research.

I’m working on a novel set in a monastery in an alternate-world feudal Japan and so I’ve been reading books about the history of Japan and  a book written by a Japanese salaryman that spent a year studying to be a monk in one of Japan’s strictest Zen monasteries.

The amount of available reading material has also changed how I read.  I’m a lot less patient.  If a short story hasn’t grabbed me by the first page I move on to something else.  I’m quite happy skimming non-fiction books looking for the parts that interest me.

I’ve also noticed I’m less inclined to read novels by authors I’ve read before.

One of the reasons I read is to encounter new ideas (hence my preferences for science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction).

Of course I still try and read books by my favorite authors.  But if I enjoyed a novel by an author and it’s not one of my favorite books, well maybe I’m more likely to try something from a new author I’ve heard good things about.

There is also the consideration of timing.

Controversial new books (especially non-fiction) can get bumped up my reading list, because it’s fun to read them while others are discussing them.  There’s also the sense of not wanting to be excluded from the conversation when people are talking about books that have made a big impact, such as Harry Potter.  But it would still take a lot more than that to get me interested in reading the Twilight books though.

What you’re currently writing can also influence your choice of fiction reading.
Some writers don’t like to read works in the same genre as they’re working on because they feel they might be influenced too much.

I’ve noticed it can be distracting for me to read works in a different genre from the one I’m working on.  If I read a great dystopian monkey comedy of manners novel, that makes me want to stop my current project and write my own dystopian monkey comedy of manners.

How do you decide what you’re going to read?

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Posted by Steph in writing process | 5 comments

Does “SF” actually mean what I think i...

The short film that I’ve been working on for the last year, and who I thought I might have been done shooting last month is, for various reasons beyond my control, still in the middle of principal photography, hence my notable absence from the blog. Parallel to the film, I’ve been helping out, in small ways, on dotdotdash magazine, a relatively new but (if I’m allowed to say so*) rather exciting lit and art mag run out of my hometown, Perth but with a growing national presence. Issue three, “Home”, is being released on April 1 2010, and submissions are already open for issue four, “Antimatter”. (Submit! /subliminal message)

“Antimatter”, in case the word, or the nature of this blog, or the title of this post, is denotative of a science fiction-themed issue of what up until now has ostensibly been an open genre journal – that is, we’ve published works that might be deemed “genre” (spec fic, but also notably noir and surrealist pieces) alongside the literary, and we’ve been proud to do so. So it’s taking me, personally, some time to adjust to the fact that we’re doing an issue devoted to a genre. Is it weirder that it’s a genre that’s particularly close to my heart? I may not write science fiction preferentially, nor read as much as I would like, as I’ve yet to find an author who I suppose, most broadly, balances the elements I most enjoy reading in other works in the genre (Recs please! /subliminal message). I have, however, been following the spec fic community for a while, and I’d like to think that I’m pretty well versed in the recurring and pervasive discussions that the works, their writers and their readers continue to raise. One of these is the idea of genre snobbery and genre differentiation: the tendency – or, equally the perception of the tendency – for producers of “non-genre” works to look down on genre texts as somehow being “worth” less, culturally. Having a separate genre-themed issue for the magazine feeds directly into my paranoia, as a sometime creator and frequent fan of exactly those genre texts, that ideology is working to segregate us from “the real writers” once again. But in other ways, promotion for the genre outside of its regular haunts can only be a good thing. So, in a lot of ways, I think Antimatter is going to be an adventure for us at dotdotdash, and for me as a writer and, when the situation demands it, editor.

Less “straight-faced”, perhaps, but a no less serious issue for me is the inevitable (and admittedly, belated) realisation I’ve had recently that: hey, not everyone is as involved in spec fic as I am. I was spoiled at Clarion South; there, all we ever talked about was obscure industry news: Realms of Fantasy‘s (temporary) closure, certain well-known editors and their infamously specific tastes, prominent writers’ drug preferences. Monkey punk. The list continues. But now, away from Clarion, I find myself having to explain Sf-related entities – like RaceFail – to people who have no context in which to place them. Sometimes I just give up. After all, most of these people still call it “sci-fi”. I mean, dude! C’mon! Really?**

The usual follow-up to the apoplexy triggered by my hearing “sci-fi” is an explanation of alternate terms: science fiction (yeah, old school), speculative fiction (useful, though blanket, term), and SF. I always understood SF to be an acronym of speculative fiction. Recently, however, I’ve been seeing SF used in mainstream media as clearly being short for science fiction only.

So, the spine of this rather digressive post is: what did you think the term “SF”, in a genre context, stood for? Am I crazy? It wouldn’t be the first time. Comment.

* Admittedly, I’m biased on pretty much every level that I possibly could be, so you should really check it out for yourselves. Available from stockists nationally, and also online. How many times does something have to happen before it stops being subliminal? A question for the ages.

** I tried to explain “skiffy” to someone, but only managed to convince him that I was indeed insane. This impression was probably aided by my increasing agitation (and with great agitation comes great hand gestures) at his inability to comprehend what had initially offended me. My world, in case you hadn’t noticed, is actually very small.

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Posted by Ben in writing advice, writing life, writing process | 3 comments

raison d’ecrire

I’ve finished my first (and second and third) draft of my novel. The first draft took me about 3 years, the next two a few months, and I know I’m not there yet, I’m not at that finished product that I would feel confident in submitting. In fact, I may not be able to get there at all.

I’ve written YA novels before and found that, right or wrong at the time, I didn’t need to redraft a lot. I wrote them, I sent them off soon after, worked with an editor and they were done. Short, sharp, satisfying. For a while. Now, I look back and wonder if I spent enough time on them, if I couldn’t have worked harder on redrafting to a standard that will keep me content to look back at those books and be happy with them. Or is that a pipe dream? Am I always going to look back and see the errors, inconsistencies and literary solecisms in my work ?

This time around, with a manuscript the same length as my previous three novels combined, redrafting is essential. Quite frankly, I’ve overwritten the beginning and underwritten the ending in my rush to finish it. I know what the problems are, I’ve had some feedback from readers that ranges the gamut from compelling mastery (yes, that was from family) to finding it difficult to read (someone more objective). The problem is, and will always be, resisting that intense urge to finish it, wrap it up in a bow and send it off right now. Common advice publishers, agents and established authors give aspiring writers is to rewrite more; you’ve spent all that time writing the first draft, so why not spend a little bit more and polish it up?

So, looking down the barrel of three years of working on a single project, I start to wonder if it’s even of a standard that will be acceptable in a professional market, even after the rewrites. What if it isn’t? Can I accept that it was something that I used to further hone my skills? Can it be a stepping stone to (fingers crossed) future success? To be honest, that’s bloody hard to accept. I don’t have that many books in me and this one took a lot out. To think that all those hours won’t result in a shiny new novel in my hands is very hard to take. And I’m not talking about money (not only). I’m talking about the recognition and reinforcement and validation that comes from having your work accepted by other professionals. It’s easy to say that I write for writing’s sake, for the story, for the act of creation, for the achievement, but I don’t. I write to create stories that others will enjoy. Money may follow, but it hasn’t yet, and may never, so I can dream of it, but I think I have proven to myself that I’m not writing for money.

These are common themes for authors, I would guess. And for artists of all kinds. They are the core of why writing novels can be so demanding. It’s easy to see the final version of a story and be in awe of an author being able to write something so good. In reality, he or she probably didn’t. It was built up, a layer cake of work that resulted in the final version.

So, on that note, in an attempt to aspire to a certain level of quality, I redraft.  

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