C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

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06/11/2010 • 1:09 AM 0

Writing Advice for Anti-authoritarians

Recently I read a YA novel that omitted all quotation marks. It didn’t hurt a bit because it was so well done. It may have even sped up the read. It’s the sort of thing some grammarians hate. I say tough cookies to some grammarians.

When the rules of proper usage get in the way

between your story and your reader

–and sometimes they will–

dump ’em.

Elmore Leonard says so, too, so it’s not just lil ol’ me. Pedants will say, “Know the rules before you fracture them.” Fine. Then crack ’em open and don’t be so goddamn apologetic about it.

Ooh, and about exclamation points: one in 100,000 words is quite enough, thanks according to Mr. Leonard. (My journalistic mentor referred to the exclamation point in colourful terms. “They’re called dogs’ pricks,” he said.)

Brevity is good, too. It gives you more room for story and story is what your readers sign up for when they open a book.

Filed under: grammar, writing tips, brevity, grammar, writing tips

06/11/2010 • 1:00 AM 0

After All

Stephen King has this little tic that pops up in both his speech and his writing. I’m reading the third in the Dexter series and noticed it there as well. If you have a sentence with the words “after all” in it, you can take that out.

You don’t need it after all.

Filed under: writing tips, writing tips

06/10/2010 • 12:29 PM 1

Three tips about writing characters.

1. Don’t let all your characters sound the same. If two characters are indistinguishable, they may as well be one character.

2. Don’t let one character bang the same note all the time. Characters that have the same range as a triangle in a brass band soon get tiresome, and worse, unbelievable. You aren’t betraying the character’s traits if they are angry yet occasionally sombre. Even wackos in the psych ward take a nap from time to time. Your characters need to act like people, not cartoons.

3. And please, don’t let smart people do dumb things to make a plot work. When you find yourself doing that, you need to step back and think about the plot problem so you can write around it convincingly.

BONUS:

A conclusion is where somebody got tired of thinking.

Filed under: writing tips, character development, writing tips

06/09/2010 • 6:50 PM 0

Enough

I will never be enough.

I will never be perfect.

I will never make enough money.

I will never have enough toys.

I will never be a best-selling author.

I will always be found wanting.

I will always want more respect.

I will never have enough to satisfy my father.

I will never be enough to satisfy my mother.

I will always be up on this cross.

I will always be down in this hole.

I will always be hungry.

I will always be empty.

Every unkind word buries me.

Every thoughtless comment drowns me.

Every harsh remark casually dropped from your stupid mouth

pierces my heart.

I am sadness.

I am rage.

My loser tattoo is indelible.

You will never see me as more than this.

Worse, I will never see me as more than this.

And I will never be happier.

Any happiness I do manage to scratch up won’t last longer

than the next chocolate chip cookie

fresh from the oven

but cooling fast.

Then the next ugly thought kills me again

and again

forever.

So there is a hell after all.

You know what’s best about youth?

It isn’t the vitality, though that’s good.

It isn’t zero responsibility, though that was awesome.

It’s the road that stretches out before you

and you can’t see beyond the horizon.

You could be anything

(even the successful writer you dream you could be.)

But the best thing about youth is when you look

in a girl’s eyes and she sees the man you wish you were

and,

best of all,

you haven’t fucked up yet.

Filed under: Poetry, poetry, youth

06/09/2010 • 5:28 PM 0

The Censor’s Dilemma

Censorship of books in Cuba is an interesting phenomenon. When a book is banned, it’s pushed into the black market and the underground economy scoops it up for the populace. Thankfully.

Whenever a book or a film is decried by would-be censors, or actual censors, the object of their derision is made all the more desireable in the minds of many. I have no doubt JK Rowling would have been a success in any case. However, when numerous religious groups tried to have it banned, they unwittingly contributed to the Harry Potter phenomenon.

If your book is made into a movie, your sales will soar. If you can get somebody to declaim it as an offense to decency or whatever their pet cause happens to be, then you’ll get more media promotion than you could possibly pay for.

When I was a kid a local Baptist church held a rally, proud they were going to burn evil Metal records. They identified the music as a threat to the children. The trouble was, mostly the kids didn’t have any of the offensive records (or had them stashed at a friend’s house.) Their solution was to go out and buy a bunch of AC/DC so they could contribute to the liberating bonfire. Bloody brilliant. (A recent study revealed teens who listen to heavy metal are actually more serene and intelligent as a group.)

To the censors: if you don’t want anybody to read or listen to something you don’t like, ssssshhhhhhh. Don’t read it. Don’t talk about it and don’t tell me what to do with my brain. The moment you start railing against it, I’m putting on my coat to head to Chapters. Look at any list of banned books and you’ll find a lot of great literature there.

Rock on.

Filed under: banning books, Rant, banning books, censors

06/09/2010 • 1:31 PM 0

The Weak Censor Books (plus a travel advisory)

Somebody told me today that when you enter Cuba customs officials take a hard look at the books you plan to read on the beach. If they don’t like your reading choices, they confiscate.

Anything that could be construed as promoting utopian themes, dystopian themes or revolution is taken from you. They’re really serious about wanting the last revolution they had to really be the last revolution they ever have. 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 are on the list among many many others. I wonder if Catcher in the Rye is on the list? That’s teenage rebellion, but still. Rebel without a Cause, The Princess Bride, a whole whack of Shakespeare–the mind boggles. Where would it stop? Maybe Dickens is okay, and Crime and Punishment since that arose from another communist regime. I’m guessing Harlequin romances are huge there, and generally left behind by tourists sick of their beach reading.*

On the one hand, I’m appalled at any form of censorship of free speech. On the other hand, I have to give Castro a bit of quirky respect since he obviously thinks books are important, and ideas expressed in fiction can be dangerous. In the West, where in many ways the written word seems to matter much less, it’s actually refreshing to see somebody get excited about what’s in a book.

Cuba’s government must be awfully fragile to be so queasy.

*Harlequin bad for you. Rot brain. Me know. Me work there one and half years…chicks hot though. Me digress.

BONUS: Funny post about Sarah Palin and Going Rogue here.

Filed under: banning books, publishing, banned books, censorship in Cuba

06/09/2010 • 1:16 PM 0

Mickey Spillane and Presidential Speeches

Whether you sniffed at Mickey Spillane’s prose or not, he was clearly a great guy who wrote a lot of books. (And I, the Jury is very readable stuff. Take a break from Atwood and read something with a plot for a change.)

A lot of people who don’t read, read Spillane. Yeah, I mean men. I do wish more men read. Male readers are becoming a weird minority subculture roughly equal in number to fart huffing fetishists (though I’m not suggesting there’s a set overlap in that example.)*

Spillane had a great life most authors could only dream about. Though prolific, he wasn’t always motivated. However, when his accountant called to tell him he was running out of money again, he suddenly found his muse.

BONUS

*Which reminds me: In a recent post I discussed coming publishing trends. Here’s another: more graphic novels and a new category, graphic short stories (comic books are graphic short stories, but I mean your literary efforts illustrated.)

My own editor confessed that she’s reading shorter and shorter mag articles due to the demands on her attention and her time. The reading shift is even evident in presidential speeches. In Abraham Lincoln’s time, sentences in speeches were 60 words long. In modern times, 20 words is average.

Filed under: Speeches, speechwriting, Writers, Mickey Spillane, presidential speeches, The muse

06/09/2010 • 1:51 AM 0

I’m All @Twitter @ Connection

I’m following 92 people at the moment. Some highlights:

@funnyordie (obvious reasons)

@KMWeiland (good stuff on writing)

@5rivers (ditto plus indie pub stuff)

@mental-floss (for the weird facts)

@pattonoswalt (hilarious comic with a fine eye for the absurd)

@Noni_Writes (great quotes from writers etc.,…)

@pennjillette (because he’s Penn Jillette)

@PikeCraig (could be funny professionally)

@RandyTayler (ditto)

@ThatKevinSmith (because he’s Kevin Smith and is funny professionally)

I follow many others, but some don’t tweet enough and a couple tweet too often. I enjoy certain celebrities (like Bill Maher who’s too busy to Tweet much, I guess) but it’s also interesting to see who is following whom. I catch the latest news on Twitter, so that’s useful, too.

To access Twitter from my IPod, I use Twitterific. The interface is easier to bounce around so I can see who has mentioned me, retweet and mark entries I want to return to easily. I’ve set up my Twitter account so posts go to this blog as well. That way, there is always something new on my website and more reasons for visitors to come by more often. The official blog posts are more important, but my Twitter updates through the day add a lot of changing content to this blog, so double plus good.

BONUS About Connection:

Celebrities are cool and all, but it’s the nearby tweetaholics who have more relevance to me and my business in the long-term. Twitter is entertainment first, but it’s useful to know who is doing what in your area. I’ve already run into a couple of people through Twitter who I’d want to talk to if I had a tech problem. As the social interaction grows connections, I hope they’ll be more aware of me and what I do so I can be useful to them in the future as well.

Twitter is fun. It’s also potentially a fun business tool (besides setting your phone to vibrate and tucking it in your underwear.) The key here, as with all networking, is to reach out as the helpful spirit moves you. Be fun, be funny, be you (as long as you isn’t as asshole.) If, in your networking efforts you come across as a greedy selfish clod who’s only out for him or herself, forget it. You’re putting bad energy out there. But if people interest you, that will come across as a positive thing that can pay dividends downstream.

Now go sign up for @pattonoswalt tweets and laugh.

Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, favorite twitterers, networking, Twitter

06/08/2010 • 9:42 PM 0

A Life in Flash Memory

She was a nurse who saved many lives.

She once sowed up a piglet whose mother had stepped wrong and split its belly wide open.

She saved my brother’s life–he survived encephalitis when no one else did.

She could break the code of a cryptoquote in seconds.

She could recite poetry she’d learned almost eight decades ago.

She was one of the first female town councillors in Nova Scotia.

On her first day of school she was too shy to come to the front of the class to say her name. The teacher tried to spank her for it. It took two of them to do it.

At six she watched her mother die of pneumonia.

She took care of the housework after that.

At seventeen she was the youngest nursing student in Nova Scotia.

At twenty-two she nursed her father through his battle with cancer of the tongue.

She travelled the world and saw most of it. She rode a camel in Africa, had a snake around her neck in Cairo and was blessed by the Pope twice.

She took me to Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany and Disney World. She sent me to Holland, the Hague, Bermuda and university.

What do I remember best?

I remember running and looking over my shoulder. I was heading for a dead end. In my memory she is frozen mid-stride, five steps behind me and closing. She’s got a wooden spoon and a smile.