1667-1745, a true Irishman who once said, “better belly burst than good liquor be lost.”

Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels not as an epic fantasy – though it is that in many minds – but as social and political commentary.  With that understood, it is clear that  he was a serious man.  He espoused ideas like  “For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.”

Given the Irish struggle back then against the English I have no doubt Swift knew fear.  That he went forward and published his work is to his credit.  He published, heedless of who he insulted in the process.  By comparison, I know many writers who are holding on to works and books written and stuck in drawers out of fear of what, hanging?  No, rejection.

Swift’s take on books was instructive.  He called “books, the children of the brain.”  But I am quite sure he did not mean “children” the way we understand the word these days.  So many look at their work and stories like they are their children.  They have a hard time letting them out of the nest.  They have a hard time letting go.  They fear the world will be cruel to them – but hey, at least you are not risking prison time…

Look, you and I both know there is a lot of mediocre work in print.  I have been known to send young writers to the book store to compare their work with what is on the shelf.  Hopefully, they will come away with a better sense of sentence, paragraph and chapter construction; but at the same time I hope they find works in print which are frankly no better than their own work.

You may think your own work makes the sun rise.  That is probably not a good attitude.  Swift again would have an answer.  “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

Then again, you may think your work would best be put at the bottom of a landfill.  Remember Swift again.  “Every dog must have his day.” 

So, whether you see yourself as a giant or a Lilliputian, put it out there.  So what if they say, “no thank you.”  Send it to someone else.  Write the next one.  Unless your name is Rushdie, you at least don’t have to worry about threats to your life…

It was in 1650 BC when the last human being died.  One of the surviving ancient deities, Poseidon,  hovered over the waters and wept.  The madness was over, but he feared the Earth would be empty forever.  Fortunately, it was not our earth, but it was close.  The only difference between that other earth and our earth was the Traveler was never born over there.  The only difference between the two universes was the creative and variable energies were very strong there and very weak in our universe.

At first, Poseidon thought there might be a chance to save his earth.  He thought to merge the two worlds and thus restore life to his desolate planet.  He drew the other Earth as close as he could, but he found the task of merging the two universes beyond what even the gods could do.  What is more, he discovered that his earth was a mirror image of our own, with Europe pointing to the east rather than the west.  It was not going to work.

It was the goddess Amphitrite, wife of Poseidon on our earth that stumbled into this other earth when they were very close – around 1600 BC.  She offered two suggestions which took hold. 

The first was to allow some people the opportunity to cross over from our earth to the other earth and thus repopulate that world.  In particular, she encouraged those people who appeared to have the ability to use the creative and variable energies in that other universe.  Since the two worlds were at present close, those energies were leaking into our universe and interfering with the normal advance of civilization in our universe.

The second was to set the world into a pattern like the moon where they would slowly come toward conjunction and then fade to a distance.  In this way, there might always be new people able to cross over until the other earth became as populous as our own.  It was hoped that eventually there could be good commerce between the worlds.  Also, it would prevent that creative and variable energy from completely corrupting our world.  That turned out to be wise.

What is creative and variable energy?  It is what you or I might call magic.

The cycle takes 600 years.  For three hundred of those years, you might imagine a half-moon to a full moon and back to a half-moon.  During those years, magic becomes more possible on our earth and for the center 100 to 200 or so years, travel between the worlds is possible.  For the other three hundred years, as the pendulum cycles toward the new moon, magic is not possible on our earth.

You can trace the chart yourself, beginning in 1650 BC.  

You will notice the half-moon occurred in 1875 AD.  Magic in our world once again started to occur.  Travel between the worlds became possible by 1950, and the full moon will arrive in 2025.  In 2175 the two earths will move out of phase sufficiently to where magic will again be virtually impossible on our earth.  But, who knows what will happen by then? 

Oh yes, the worlds have also established a pattern in their conjunction.  Backwards (mirror image and distorted) Europe on the other earth connected to China at first, then Europe, North America, Europe, China, Europe… It is presently over North America.  On a planet where the Sahara was driven into the sea and Europe got shoved to the south, the current “northeast” section of Spain (southeast France) sits along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Kiev sits in the mountains near Boulder, Colorado. You can draw the map.  Maybe someday I will draw it for you…

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For a Tale of the Other Earth please look under the tab above.  Thanks.

My father spent his life editing magazines in New York.  Of course, his was strictly non-fiction, but over the course of growing up I caught several occasionally repeated phrases which are still worth repeating.  Follow:

“It’s okay to speak off the cuff as long as you write it down first.” 

I am thinking of this blog and so many other blogs written by writers and would-be writers.  They say if you want to be a writer these days you need to establish a presence, and a blog is a good way to do that.  I think, though, some bloggers could spend a little more time considering their words.  Put that way is a kindness.  A blog may or may not say something about the person writing it, but it will certainly be taken as saying something about the writer.

My dad was a Civil War buff.  He went to nearly all of the battlefields in his lifetime, and one thing he always liked to do was check for typos.  He would see, for example, how many misspellings of Connecticut he could find cast in bronze forever.  Okay, that was a little weird, but it proves the point.  I don’t have his editor’s eye, but I try to be careful in my posts, both in the writing and in the content.  I would think any would-be writer should.

 “Good writers know what to put into a story.  The best writers know what to leave out.” 

What can I add to that?  My last writerly post was about revising and editing, not rewriting.  In that post I mentioned tightening the prose, but only in passing.  Still, I believe it is imperative for any writer to learn how to be concise.  Yes, at times the prose can be too spare, but the human tendency is to pad things. 

A young man told me recently he finished a good story but it was 35,000 words, a very hard sell in this market.  He asked me if he should expand it to novel length.  So I asked where the other 35,000 (to 50,000) words were going to come from and why will that not be the worst case of padding since Weird Al Yankovic sang about being fat?

Seriously, you need to know how to tell a story if you want to write well, but if you want excellence, you need to know what to leave out.

Then there is this, and I will leave you with this thought.

“Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.”  

Too much back story?  Too much information?  Too many explanations?  Too many graphs and charts and maps so you look like a Glenn Beck wannabe?  You fill in the blank.  Remember, stories are always about people.  They may be alien or fairy people (science fiction and fantasy) or animal people (Narnia or Homeward Bound) but they are people all the same.  Don’t let the facts get in the way.

I can only speak for myself.  And for those of you whose first draft is like a skeleton or like an outline except with complete sentences so rewriting consists of fleshing things out, I can offer little, if any advice.  But for those who finish a story, listen.  Please don’t cut and slash.  I simply don’t believe or buy into the thinking that all first drafts are automatically trash. 

You have worked hard.  Your muse and subconscious as well as your characters have guided and directed you all along the way.  You have every right to feel good about your accomplishment and no reason to feel it is trash.  Think of it as the first grapes of the season.  Sometimes that makes the best wine.  Your only job at this point is to turn those grapes into wine, and while the form may change a bit, everything is already there in the juice.  That much does not have to be substantially changed.

The first thing I do is set the work aside for a “time.”  Usually, that is about two or more weeks.  Then I change the font from my writing font (Times New Roman) to my final font (Courier New) to get a fresh perspective.  Some people like to print it out, but I find that unnecessarily expensive.  The reason editors like courier so much is because it is equally spaced and therefore easy to edit.  For me, the change in font makes the whole work appear fresh.

The second thing I do is go scene by scene which is not necessarily the same thing as chapter by chapter.  A scene, like a movie scene, covers one location and the events that take place there.  It may develop over several chapters.  There may be several scenes in the same chapter.  But I go scene by scene and ask a few simple questions:

What is the purpose of this scene, and did I succeed?

In what way does this move the story forward?

Are the characters true to form in action and dialogue?

Is there foreshadowing?

Are the sub-plot (s) properly accounted for?

Yes, sometimes a whole scene might be deleted as unnecessary.  Also, at times, a paragraph or more may need to be added or things within the scene shuffled a bit…but then I move on.

Third, chapter by chapter I ask less questions.

Does the chapter begin with a hook that keeps the reader interested?

Does it end with a hook that keeps the reader reading?

Is the tension building?

Fourth, I edit.  Now is when I go through and look at HOW I say things and ask if it could be said better – if the prose could be tighter.  With my eye on the scenes and chapters, a lot of the editing has already happened.  Some even edit during the first draft, and I confess that is hard to avoid, though I am careful not to let it impede my progress. 

Editing is precisely what an editor would do – more than mere proofreading.  Sometimes you want just the right word, but I do not recommend writing by thesaurus.  Keep it simple and accessible to your reader.  Watch out for repeated phrases and words.  Watch out for was-ing constructions.  Watch your adverbs and adjectives.  Etc. etc.  All that writerly stuff you have heard.

The editing process can take time.  That’s okay.  Take your time because once you are done, YOU ARE DONE.  Please, O please stop.  Write your synopsis, your query, your cover letter if you will, but then put it on the market and go write your next one.  Please don’t fall into the trap of tweaking – rewriting the work every time you get a no thank you.  It may be that this one will never sell, but I have a rule.  I don’t look at a work deemed “finished” for a minimum of five years, no matter how many no thank yous I get.  I keep too busy working on the next one and the one after that! 

Besides, after five years (or 10), hopefully I will have learned a bit.  Then I may be able to see the flaws and get it in shape, or if not, I may be able to understand why it never sold.  I never understood such things when I was determined to tweak it every couple of months.  Tweaking just kept me frustrated and discouraged.  Now, I follow Yul Brenner’s line in the Ten Commandments.  “So let it be written.  So let it be done.”

Writer’s block, if you believe the PR, is when you don’t know what to write or what to write next.  It is a dearth of ideas, a lull in creativity.  Writer’s drag is nothing like that.

The drag is when you have plenty of ideas, you know what you want to do next in the story, you have a good story idea to explore, but for some reason you just can’t get yourself to sit down and write it.  You wander from reading to some movie to a bath and a nap.  You hit the garden or tackle that long overdue project around the house, or maybe even do something for work.  Anything, rather than write, and the time fritters away.

I suffer from writer’s drag from time to time and as far as I know there is no cure.  It used to really bother me, to think that I had good, maybe great material to work on, but I just could not bring myself to do it.  Then I figured something out.

I can only speak for myself, but I have found that for me, writing is like a workout. A novel is like running a marathon, and it is only natural that there be down time after. Generally, writing seems to work for me like a sound wave, if you can picture that, with peaks (of productivity) and valleys (times of recovery).

Sometimes just sitting down and starting to write is all it takes to break through. Sometimes a good read or a good story on film can get the juices flowing. But most often I just need to rest it for a while, to reset my heart and reboot my creative mind..

During those valley times, I have learned to continue to work in two ways, however, so the frustration level does not get too bad.

1. I blog as a discipline so I am never completely unproductive. I come from a family of journalists and am well aware how annoying but useful deadlines can be. I also preach on occasion and it is helpful to have something to say on Sunday morning.

2. I work on the business of writing. I research agents, markets, networking, promotional and marketing ideas, and do just plain research for story ideas that I am stopped in the middle of or plan to get to, “soon.” Often, the research can get me going again, too.

So, have you ever suffered from writer’s drag?  Don’t fight it.  Give yourself the chance to catch your breath, and please don’t beat yourself up over it.  You are not alone.  As you work through your valley, I will be interested to know how it works out and if you find some good ideas of how to deal with it as you move out of the valley and toward that next peak.

I was reminded in my post concerning writer’s block that sometimes people simply don’t know what to write.  Maybe this will help.

The quote appears in many different forms, but credit tends to go to the poet and philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Santayana’s quotation, in turn, was probably a slight modification of an Edmund Burke (1729-1797) statement, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

I knew this quote for years and thought it wise enough, though not exactly accurate.  History never precisely repeats, though it plays some tight harmonies at times.  When this crossed my desk recently, however, I suddenly saw it in an entirely different way.  I found it inspiring for numerous story ideas and plot twists.  Follow:

1.         This might be a kind of Hell for the evil character in a story after he loses the final confrontation – to have to go back and constantly lose over and over. 

2.         Of course, it need not be a literal Hell.  It might just be in the mind, perhaps in prison, haunted in dreams, replaying the scene again and again – loser.

3.         I once saw an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor and his companion got caught in a time loop.  They worked a way out of it, but think.  To have to repeat the same bit of life over and over.  Would it be worse if it was an indifferent bit of life?  This is an idea used in many stories since that time.

4.         Of course, my next thought was the film Groundhog’s Day.  He eventually got out of it too, but he had some freedom in the process and used that time in interesting ways.  This has also been used in many stories since, most recently in the show, Supernatural.

5.         I suppose this is something that could be used by the bad guy to torment the innocent.  On the other hand, at the end of the Worm Ourboros, everyone is sad because the struggle is over and the days of glory, honor and adventure are done.  But then the envoy arrives and they all cheer because they get to start over again from the beginning.

6.         What if you could really take a do-over?  What if you had a kind of super power?  I do remember one short story where a man had a watch – but the plane blew up and he got sucked out before he could do anything.  (I think he had something like ten seconds).  He couldn’t see the watch in the dark and felt sure he was miscounting the seconds which meant eventually he would go splat!

7.         24

8.         Dorian Gray kind of fits into this kind of thinking, though I am not sure where, exactly.

9.         In Dungeons and Dragons, the time loop is the classic answer to the player who wishes for an infinite number of wishes.

10.       Scrooge did not get to repeat anything, but Christmas Past did give him a chance to see his own past through his own elderly eyes.  It changed him.

11.       Did you happen to catch the Wall Street Journal last week?  They had a chart for the stock market comparing recent months with 1937.  It is eerie how the two lines matched in their ups and downs.  It is frightening to see on the chart just how on the precipice we are.  At this point in 1937, the bottom dropped out and the market lost 30, 40, near 50% in value in a short time.  (That’s why they called it the Great Depression).  Are we facing the same thing?  What if we are?

12.       They say doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity.  I wonder if that might be applied to the human race as a whole…

There.  You have an even dozen thoughts, and I was thinking since I wrote last time about writer’s block, the least I could do this time is offer some ways out.  If you don’t like Santayana, believe me, there are plenty of other quotes out there to choose from.

Is there such a thing?

Some people strongly swear by it and treat it much like a disease in need of a cure.  I have heard plenty of cures, and some are more fantastic than others.  It reminds me of the days of the Bubonic plague in Europe. 

You know, there were people back then who swore the plague was spread by the smell of death.  On the one hand, it encouraged them to dispose of the dead rapidly—which was a good thing.  On the other hand, people doused themselves in perfume and hung strings of fresh picked flowers around their necks so all they could smell was lilac and honeysuckle – or whatever.  I am not sure if the aroma of all that perfume might have been worse.  I am one who avoids those counters at the entrance to department stores.  But I was thinking, the next time you suffer from writer’s block, try hanging a string of fresh cut flowers around your neck.  It might not help, but at least you will smell good for a day or two.

Of course, some people steadfastly deny that writer’s block is real.  You’re just being lazy, they might say.  Buckle down and get back to work.  Sadly, we all know someone who never seems to be bothered by the block disease.  How frustrating!

I can only speak for myself, but what I have discovered is when my work comes to a grinding halt (and all halts should grind) it is because something in my work is not working.  My conscious mind doesn’t know this or see it, but my subconscious will not be fooled.  Somewhere in chapter three (or so) I didn’t set things properly or I started down a different road and left it to dead end.  Maybe one of my characters changed like from worm to butterfly without sufficient time in the cocoon. 

Somewhere, somehow I got off track and occasionally a re-read is all it takes for the mistake to jump out at me.  Sometimes, though, I have to set the work aside and work on something else, or I at least have to sleep on it to grasp the problem.

Now, I am not saying writer’s block is real or illusion.  And I understand how it might be caused by any number of factors from too much stress to too many distractions to too much muchness going on.  But I suggest if like Dorothy you are looking for your heart’s desire, you first try looking no further than your own back yard.  It may well be you missed it or got off somewhere in the work itself and your soul is making your fingers take a time out until it is fixed. 

What is your take on this?

In my last post I spoke about rules – that there are none worth mentioning apart from “is it working?”…………  Does this work?  Is your reader engaged from beginning to end?  Are they hungry for more?

I still believe that is all that ultimately matters, however since writing that post I was reminded of some other kinds of rules that are worth considering.  They come from the Science Fiction master, Robert Heinlein.

Heinlein’s Rules:

1. You must write
2. You must finish what you start
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order
4. You must put your story on the market
5. You must keep it on the market until it has sold

By my experience, rules 2, 3 and 4 are most difficult for most people, though you may not suffer from failing at all three.

Rule number 2 can be applied to more people than I can count – including some graduates of quality writing programs.  Do you have any idea how many drawers, boxes, attics, basements, garages and closets are filled with half-finished works?

Rule number 3 may be the rule that most writers have the hardest time keeping.  No more rewriting. No more rearranging. Give it one good edit if you must, but then move on 

Rule number 4 also applies to countless people.  Put it out there already! And while you are waiting for an agent, editor or publisher to fall in love with it, go and write your next one.

For me, at the moment, I am having the most trouble with rule 5.  A rejection or two and I drawer the thing.  How about you?

Badges?  We don’t need no stinking badges

So did you Strunk & White today?  Chicago Manual?  Did you King On Writing or the more venerable Zinsser On Writing Well?  Eats Shoots and Leaves?  I know, you logged on to some writing site or maybe reviewed some writing magazines and got a whole new list of dos and don’ts.

Sheesh!

Yes, Virginia, there are grammar police.  Some people cannot read a work without a grammar and punctuation microscope; but I am with Oscar Wilde.  He worked hard one morning, all morning deciding to put in a comma.  He worked hard all afternoon as well deciding to take it out again.

Of course you need to check your spill chucker.  I am not suggesting otherwise.  Yes, you need to “poofread.”  Editing is good.  That is why publishers employ people called editors.  But after you have given it the once (or if you can’t help yourself, the twice) over, you need to just go with it.

The plain truth is there are no rules, he said or exclaimed gleefully!

No, wait.  There is one rule worth remembering.  Rules are meant to be broken.  The bottom line for any writing is: does it work?  Is it working?  Have you grabbed your reader at the beginning and not let them go until the end?

If your ten or so Beta readers or critique partners all tell you it is not working, and especially when their reasons follow the same line of thought, pay attention.  Otherwise, go with the flow.  Ask, does this piece so enchant my readers that they beg for more?  If it does, you’ve got something even if you break all the rules.

Your thoughts?

“’Tis a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before.”  Dickens understood sacrifice as a plot form, and if you look close, everything in the Tale of Two Cities leads to that point.  How many love stories (love triangles) have ended when one of the three realizes their love is hopeless so they sacrifice themselves in order for the couple to escape and live “happily ever after?”

If you really want to understand sacrifice as a plot, though, you really need to read the gospels. 

If last time, in the Plot of the temptation and fall we explored all the horror to which the human race can fall, this story explores the opposite.  Here, it is love, honor, nobility and goodness that drive the final decision.  Consider the father or mother who would willingly sacrifice their life for the sake of their children.  And it need not be an actual life that is given.  It might be family, a way of life, a long-held dream. 

Consider the sports star, growing older, who gives up his dream to train the talented youngster; or the matron who fakes an injury so the young understudy can take center stage.  Consider the film Holiday Inn where Bing Crosby swallows his love so that young woman can go off to Hollywood with Fred Astaire and become the star she is destined to be.  The fact that she returns to him at the end of the story makes his sacrifice no less endearing.

In the movie High Noon, Gary Cooper has plans to retire and marry and live happily ever after when he finds out the bad guy will be in town on the noon train.  He cannot leave the town at the mercy of the villain.  He straps on his gun even though it may cost him his life.  In Casablanca, which I already used as an example of a love story, consider the sacrifice Rick makes for the sake of the war against the Nazis.  And consider how many war stories have been stories of great sacrifice for freedom, love, honor, and all the highest ideals of the human animal.

The Plot 

When a person already has high ideals, sacrifice may be the obvious choice.  When a person is mixed, though, as most are, like Rick in Casablanca, there is struggle to do the right thing.  All the same, the opening of the story must show both the rock and the hard place that the character gets into. 

In the middle, the character struggles with the dilemma.  There should be times when it looks like they might not do the right thing after all.  Remember that people do things for a reason, so motivation is as important to this plot as it is to a mystery.  Don’t let the sacrifice be an unexpected impulse at the end even as you seek to keep your reader guessing.  Yes, it is a bit like walking a tightrope.  Lean too much toward the end and the story becomes, so what?  Give no indication of the possible end and the story becomes Huh?  Where did that come from?

Also, if the person’s life is not at stake, make sure the stakes are big enough to interest the reader.  When we see a person of questionable backbone make the necessary sacrifice when the trouble comes to a head, the story can be very satisfying.  It can restore faith in people and help us hold on in our own lives and know that there is something essentially right in the human race after all. 

The end, if the plot has been played right, will be very emotional.  In contrast to the sometimes exaggerated emotions in the plot of the fall, here you need to be careful.  If anything, the emotions need to be underplayed in order to avoid sentimentality or melodrama.  Many these days would consider Dicken’s “far, far better thing” as over the top. 

Better not to make a saint out of your character either.  Consider the end of National Treasure II:  The man who was the bad guy the whole time gave up his life so the hero could live – and it worked because there were just enough suggestions throughout, beginning with his consideration of his own family honor versus just wanting the treasure for greedy reasons.

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You can read all of the Plots of Relationships under the tab On Stories above.  There, you will also find ideas for plots of competition and journey plots.  Happy (productive) reading!