Writing advice available

[Emily]

I actually make a living writing in the real world, and just lately I've been getting bored mid-workday, so I'd be happy to answer questions from AOTK writers about how to improve their work. If you want a sample of my work before you take my advice, I've got two stories up on the site, in which I mimic the styles of Ray Bradbury and John Steinbeck, respectively.

Please note that I don't have time to read and edit whole stories, but I do have time to answer questions. Need plot ideas, characterization tips, dialogue help, description doctoring, or just practical advice on what various implements feel like? I'm right here and bored at least halfway off my ass. Distract me.

[Dr. Weird]

All my dialogue reads like it comes from an insufferable web comic. How do you strike a balance between humor and... well... not sounding like that?

[Emily]

Originally Posted by Dr. Weird

All my dialogue reads like it comes from an insufferable web comic. How do you strike a balance between humor and... well... not sounding like that?

If I understand you, you're concerned that your dialogue is too arch, inappropriately jokey even when it doesn't suit the scene?

What's usually going on there is emotional distancing. A wry, eyebrow-cocked tone of perpetual snark provides an emotional buffer that protects us from vulnerability. I've seen it sometimes in spankees, especially boys. Even over my knee, they'll still be trying to be sarcastic, because their system detects that they're vulnerable (BOY are they vulnerable) and they go straight into the reflexive reaction to vulnerability that they've developed.

So what you need to do is stop trying to be cooler than the story, and don't let your characters try it either. Just commit emotionally to the scene; if need be, use acting techniques and draw on sense memory to inhabit the emotional space of the characters. Don't be afraid that writing emotions other than offhanded wit will make you appear foolish.

[Lakot]

Oooh, I've got one! How do you write good description without droning on? I've never been good at forming mental images of what the writer is describing, so I've always glazed over a bit during those parts of books. Whenever I try to describe something in-story it always seems clunky and horribly out of place.

[Emily]

The key to description is evocation. It is both more efficient and more effective to evoke an image than to describe it precisely. That forces the reader to become an active participant in creating your scene, which is as it should be. Why should you have to do all the work? Engage their imagination, and let them fill things in for you.

A good place to look is song lyrics. The strictures of songwriting force its best practitioners to learn efficiency, and with it, grace. When Johnette Napolitano sings "I'm staring up at the ceiling stain... neon out the window, sirens far away" you know everything you need to know about her apartment, what it looks like, what it smells like, what neighborhood it's in. Kris Kristofferson just has to be "feeling near as faded as my jeans" and we can see him and feel where he's at. If you ever get close to setting your scene with an opening like "The screen door slams; Mary's dress waves. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays." then you have achieved mastery.

In practical terms, don't let your adjectives proliferate, don't use weak or clichéd phrases or comparisons, and if it takes you more than two sentences to describe anything, it had better be really goddamned important.

[Hellball]

I have some serious pacing issues. I can begin stories and end them, and I can write a few cool scenes in between, but I often have trouble connecting all the points. It either ends up going too fast and the characters don't get time to grow, or it gets bogged down in filler. Advice for pacing and fleshing out the middle of a story?

Out of curiosity, what kind of writing do you make your living on?

[JustSarah]

In edition to what you said about brevity, is there any merit to learning specific non rhyming poetry forms in order to isolate a moment and let the reader fill in with their imagination? I came from writing Haiku, Cinquain, Diamante, and other forms like this.D:

[Emily]

Poking a long-dormant thread, let me answer two questions posed... over a year ago. Wow, go me.

Hellball: First question, what you're talking about is structure. Specifically, you're having act-two problems. The simplest breakdown of traditional three-act structure I know is this: Act one, a guy gets stuck in a tree. Act two, he tries to get down but just winds up further up the tree. Act three, he manages to get out of the tree. Act two problems happen when you don't manage to get the guy further up the tree. You need complications, you need to heighten whatever's happening. If it's not getting either better or worse, it's just going around in circles, and the middle is too early for it to start getting better.

Second question, I've been accused of being everyone from a popular sex blogger to an award-winning comic book writer. In actual fact, I am well-known screenwriter Halifax Babbington. Okay, I'm not well-known YET. My first movie doesn't get released until 2179, but it wins Best Screenplay at the Adolfs. (We had to change the name of the Oscars after... some stuff.) Incidentally, don't buy the first-generation time machine. Wait until they release the upgraded version with the code patches.


JustSarah: Some disagree with me about this, but I'm of the opinion that learning to write poetry can only ever improve your prose. Any semi-literate adolescent can write a story, as the internet has taught us. If you can write a villanelle, a sestina, or a ballade, then you've got some skills.