Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

I might have been more inclined to think of the narrator as female if I knew the author was female.

Will you share the title soon? I'd like to add this one to my reading list. Thank you!

SusanR

Sharon Mock said:

Writing about a loner because it's easier (on so many levels) than writing about somebody with a social network. I was just discussing this with my husband over lunch today, in fact. It's a form of White Room Syndrome, where the story starts in a featureless white room because the author hasn't figured out the setting yet.

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When you see a person dressed all in black, do you assume it's because they're incapable of matching colorful clothing or because they like black?

Frankly, declaring that a writer has made perfectly legitimate creative choices because they're "easier" in some way strikes me as smarmy and misguided.

James D. Macdonald said:

Would it have helped in figuring out the gender of the first person narrator to know that the author is female?

(This is, incidentally, a first novel, published by a major house, 656 pages in trade cloth binding.)

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No, I never assume the narrator is related to the author in any way, unless I have a very good reason to.

The novel is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, published by Little, Brown.

One thing I liked about the opening was the way it spiraled in: From the world, to the city of Amsterdam, to the house, to the library, to the bookshelf, to the book.

Perhaps we'll look at it sentence by sentence anon. (Or perhaps in a couple of months, like the last bunch.)

James D. Macdonald said:

Would it have helped in figuring out the gender of the first person narrator to know that the author is female?

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No. I will read the passage again for an indication of the gender, but didn't pick up on anything the first time.

Could it be possible that men would automatically think that it is a male, and female vise-versa?

I dont know what it is but I also thought the mc was male, probably its the narative tone? Just read male to me.

I'm currently reading the book.

Regarding the narrator's gender, I also assumed it was female from the beginning. I don't know if I made this assumption because the author is female or because I'm female. Just now I went back to look at the opening pages. I don't see any indication of the narrator's gender until "my dress was too long." If you read with the assumption that the narrator is male, it works until then. If you read with the assumption that the narrator is female, it also works.

Obviously, I turned the page. I considered not turning it, but I had spent the money! So I continued and eventually got hooked enough that unless she does something heinous I'm sure I'll finish it.

I'm a guy and I thought it was a female character.

I agree, Petrea.

I like to give a book the chance to show me why it was published. Today, a book being published by a noted publisher has to have some merit. Being a writer, we need to find the reasons why the book was published, and not why we like or don't like the plot, and genre. IMHO.

I recently finished, Extremly loud and incredibly close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

What I've just read in The Historian,reminded me of the lonely-boy angle in Foer's novel, which is an excellent read.

Ken

The reason I kept reading "The Historian" when the first pages (and even the first chapter) didn't grab me was more than just the money I'd spent (although that's part of it). After all I'd heard and read, much of it on this website, about keeping a first novel short, I wanted to find out what intrigued Little, Brown & Co. so much about it to publish a 642-page novel by a first-time novelist.

I'm on page 582, and I'm reading like a writer!

Petrea

I looked at it in the bookstore when it first came out. I put it back on the shelf when after six pages of what seemed to me like nothing but rambling "telling", I hit the line "...this is where my story begins...". And that was where my reading stopped.

HConn said:

When you see a person dressed all in black, do you assume it's because they're incapable of matching colorful clothing or because they like black?

Frankly, declaring that a writer has made perfectly legitimate creative choices because they're "easier" in some way strikes me as smarmy and misguided.

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When I see a person dressed all in black, I assume it's my husband or one of my friends.

Hmm. Keep in mind I figured out what book it was, so I knew it was a first published novel by a new, unestablished writer. Furthermore, I knew some of the choices she'd made (female protagonist, an obsession with history and books) and knew how similar they were to choices I'd made in one of my WIPs.

Just to mix metaphors, I know why I reached for that same outfit. It was at the front of my closet, it was comfortable, and I knew how to put it on. At the time, it was probably the best choice I had. Nevertheless, if I'm going to grow as a writer and an individual I'd better expand my literary wardrobe. One way of doing this is to recognize my own techniques and choices where they occur in other people's writing.

Perhaps part of the problem is that I'd just recently re-read the Turkey City Lexicon, and all the talk of Grubby Apartment Stories and White Room Syndrome -- combined with the process of revision -- has left me sensitive to the literary equivalent of dressing all in black.

(Sorry for the hijack, Uncle Jim!)

By the way, "The Historian" is told in the first person, but there are several "first persons" telling the story, and most of them are not female.

Sharon Mock said:

Just to mix metaphors, I know why I reached for that same outfit. It was at the front of my closet, it was comfortable, and I knew how to put it on. At the time, it was probably the best choice I had. Nevertheless, if I'm going to grow as a writer and an individual I'd better expand my literary wardrobe. One way of doing this is to recognize my own techniques and choices where they occur in other people's writing.

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Sure, it's the same technique, but it's not cool to say she's made the choice for the same reason you might have. All I know about the book is that it's from a new author, involves a certain iconic horror character, and has been slammed by people whose opinion I trust. I'm not going to be reading it.

But there might be excellent story reasons for creating a loner who's spent her whole life with her nose in books. Barring an explicit admission by the author that creating friends for the protagonist was too much work, it isn't fair to hand that label on her.

And how is it harder to have a social network for the protagonist? I think that makes the book easier.

HConn said:

Sure, it's the same technique, but it's not cool to say she's made the choice for the same reason you might have. All I know about the book is that it's from a new author, involves a certain iconic horror character, and has been slammed by people whose opinion I trust. I'm not going to be reading it.

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You're right. It was presumptuous of me, and less than fair.

HConn said:

But there might be excellent story reasons for creating a loner who's spent her whole life with her nose in books. Barring an explicit admission by the author that creating friends for the protagonist was too much work, it isn't fair to hand that label on her.

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I had not intended to place a moral judgment on the author. (Bad writer! No fountain pen!) I should have said that I recognized this particular gambit (to tie back to Logical Chess), and when I tried it, it got me into trouble.

But on the other hand, my own excellent story reasons have never saved me from the problems I've created for myself.

HConn said:

And how is it harder to have a social network for the protagonist? I think that makes the book easier.

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It means creating and juggling more characters. It means working social interaction into the storyline. It means you don't have a ready-made crucible at your disposal, built out of your protagonist's isolation. It means having to see your protagonist and his world more clearly from the outset, instead of starting in an empty white room and going from there.

Of course, I paid for that illusory ease by ending up with a character who wasn't properly bound to her world. Like most short-cuts, it seemed "right" at the time but turned out to be more work in the long run. I've done what I can to remedy things, but I've devised such excellent reasons for my character being a loner and outsider that removing the "white room syndrome" would require a more or less entire rewrite. And frankly, that would be too much effort for not enough reward. I've made the choice to work with what I've got and try to make wiser story decisions in the future.

Myself, I find that adding characters helps. That way the protagonist doesn't have to talk to himself.

Sharon Mock said:

It means creating and juggling more characters. It means working social interaction into the storyline. It means you don't have a ready-made crucible at your disposal, built out of your protagonist's isolation. It means having to see your protagonist and his world more clearly from the outset, instead of starting in an empty white room and going from there.

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A social network is a resource for the writer and the protagonist. Having additional characters simplifies the process of creating a story--you have more people who can help the character, who can clash with them, betray them, sleep with their fiance or just get killed off by the mysterious Count.

If a writer wants to explore the effects of a protagonist's problem on a social group, the network is crucial. If a writer wants to have a character who must face their problem (or strange environment, or whatever) while having no one else to rely on, forgoing the network is crucial.

Maybe it's just me, but I've been writing micro-budget horror scripts for my buddy to produce. I *like* adding characters--it increases the opportunities for conflict, allows me to switch between several conflicts at once, and gives me more people for the monster to kill.

Unfortunately, each new added character is an additional burden--more actors, costumes, scheduling headaches, and so on. It's kinda annoying. I like having as many characters as a story needs. Writing about loners is *work!*

James D. Macdonald said:

Myself, I find that adding characters helps. That way the protagonist doesn't have to talk to himself.

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Jim, Are you talking about characters to help in a scene, and then dropped?

I assume this is what you mean.

I remember you saying to add characters somewhere else and I tried it. The character ended up being really interesting and forced himself into the rest of the book, to date.

You don't want to use Whack-a-Mole characters. Guys who pop up in only one scene, then are never heard from again, unless a) It's really necessary, and b) It's realistic.

Your main character may only see and speak to a bus driver once, during a scene on a bus. In that case, don't give the bus driver a name or description, lest the readers keep waiting for him to show up again.

Use as many characters as you need, but no more. And no fewer. (Hey, this is an art, not a science.)

Yes, it's common for characters who appear in one scene to want to be in the rest of the book. Let them. If they don't add to the finished work you can remove them later.

When you're looking for characters, ask yourself: a) Do I already have a character who can fulfill this function, and b) What else can this character do?

Cherish your minor characters. They'll save you.

Got it,thank you, Jim.


Hey gang, only four more days until Christmas, and the deadline for Uncle Jim's writing excercise.

The last few weeks have been fun and informative with the information and excercises Jim has unselfishly given.

Thank you from me Jim. A joyous year end, and celebration of Christs' birth to you and your family.

I have hope that you can continue to have patience with me, and know that I appreciate you mentoring.

Ken Schneider.

I finished Uncle Jim's writing exercise! Now what happens?

Ooooh, and Merry Christmas everyone

We'll find out after midnight, or in the morning.

Good morning, all!

I hope everyone is having a happy Christmas.

The next part of your writing assignment is this:

While you now have a story with action, adventure, excitment (and a beginning, a middle, and an end), your story has one major problem: It's using a trademarked or copyrighted character. (Some of Sherlock Holmes is public domain now ... but not all, and the parts that come from stage plays and movies are very much not public domain.)

So ... the next part of your task is to file off the serial numbers. Take those trademarked/copyrighted characters and make them into original characters. Remove any identifying information. (You can't just turn CSI: Miami into CSI: Puerto Rico. Go right down to the roots and imagine what crime scene investigation would be like if Sir Bernard Spilsbury had been Swiss. Take out other people's characters and put your own characters in their places.

Part II of this task is to make any "say what?" moments your reader might have due to problems with time-and-space seem plausible, at least for the time the reader has the story in front of him/her. This may mean moving Frankenstein (who is entirely in public domain, at least the book version -- I trust no one used the movie monster?) forward in time and across the sea to Civil War-era New York, or 21st century Geneva. Or it may involve
making Hermes Trismegistus the father of forensic detection, so that 18th c. Switzerland had scholars who could read the evidence in spatter marks by means both occult and mysterious.

New deadline for the rewritten story: 12th Night (January 5th). Oh, and read Twelfth Night by Wm. Shakespeare (or watch it on video).

I hope this hasn't been noted in another thread (I can't keep up with the others and don't even try), but Harlequin has switched to using word processor word counts over the old methods.

More here.

Why I Like Living in America, Part 12407

From CNN:
Turkey drops case against author

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish prosecutors decided not to file charges against novelist Orhan Pamuk for allegedly insulting Turkey's armed forces, but the writer still faces charges that he insulted "Turkishness," said lawyers who asked for his trial.

Nationalist lawyers had petitioned prosecutors to file criminal charges against Pamuk for reportedly telling a German newspaper, Die Welt, in October this year that the military threatened and prevented democratization in Turkey.

European officials have criticized Turkey for putting Pamuk on trial on the "insulting Turkishness" charge and have called on the country to do more to protect freedom of expression. That trial was halted by the judge the day it began Dec. 16 and awaits a Justice Ministry ruling on whether it can continue.

Prosecutors on Thursday decided there were no grounds to try Pamuk for insulting the military, said nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz, who had petitioned the prosecutors asking for Pamuk's trial.

Kerincsiz said he would appeal the decision on Friday.

"It is of course not possible for the prosecutors to make a sound decision under so much pressure," said Kerincsiz. "We've come to the point where we're no longer able to protect our national values. Where will it all end?"

Kerincsiz said the army was portrayed as the enemy of democracy, which he called a "grave insult."

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The story continues at the link.