Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

Buffysquirrel said:

I think I need a permission to write at all certificate. Stapled to my forehead.

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Sounds too painful (unless that's the tone you're hoping for in your writing).

This should cheer you up. You must write better than those folks!

Hathor said:

This should cheer you up. You must write better than those folks!

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I don't know, right now I feel like my current wip is way worse than any of that. Although, I expect I shall feel better in two or three drafts.

Worse than Rabbitania?

Chill -- all first drafts are crap. (I tell myself that, anyway.) It's only after you've revised and polished and think you have material worth submitting...and still mention Rabbitania...you need to worry

If I may interject. . .

Working on a new one, novel I mean, and this one's different. Every other novel I've written (four), I knew the plot before I started. I wrote each one fast, no problem, easy. This one's like pulling teeth. I started it because of NaNo, with a general idea of premise and characters but now I find myself kind of stuck, and I'm putting all this pressure on myself because I'm--

Uncle Jim, pardon me but wtf? How do I get past this impasse? Don't say, Just write the damn thing. If I could do that, I wouldn't be asking your opinion, kind sir.

I look forward to Uncle Jim's answer to this myself.

Being a bit of a pantser (what plot I have in mind ofttimes changes when I see what develops as I write), what I do is to figure out what could happen next that would increase the stakes or raise the tension. I don't try to plan beyond that. If I put pressure on myself to try to plan it all in advance, I freeze and get nothing.

Sometimes I'll stop for the day and tell myself that tomorrow my subconscious will spill out a fix. And damn, I wake up early, sneak out of bed, and start writing.

But, that's me. Let's see what our guru says!

kkbe said:

Uncle Jim, pardon me but wtf? How do I get past this impasse? Don't say, Just write the damn thing. If I could do that, I wouldn't be asking your opinion, kind sir.

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Okay, try this: Who were the characters who were present in the opening scene?

Think of a scene involving all of them that would look good in Imax 3D with Dolby sound as the action/adventure climax of a really exciting movie.

Got that scene? Good!

Now see where those characters are right now in your book.

Get them to that climax. The path can be as contrived as all heck, studded with breathtaking coincidences, but that doesn't matter right now. Get them to that final scene.

You're going to revise it all afterwards anyway.

Uncle Jim, come on. Good grief. You're telling me what? Imagine my two characters at the end of a thrilling action/adventure, filling the screen in blinding Technicolor, Dolby Surround-Sound building to a climactic crescendo?

I'm not being fair. How would you know?

This is the opening scene of my novel: two little kids squatting on the grass, watching a worm. One's 3-1/2, his brother is 8. It ain't no exciting action/adventure, Uncle Jim. The younger one has 'episodes' wherein he channels bad people doing bad things. I kind of know what's going to happen at the end. I have the beginning written. Up to Cpt. 9.

You got a Plan B, Uncle Jim? [ETA: I am humbly asking that question. It sounds like a challenge, like when you wrote, Well do you, punk? No, no, I am asking most humbly. If you don't have a Plan B, I shall thank you profusely whilst slinking back into the darkness from whence I came.]

kkbe said:

This is the opening scene of my novel: two little kids squatting on the grass, watching a worm. One's 3-1/2, his brother is 8. It ain't no exciting action/adventure, Uncle Jim. The younger one has 'episodes' wherein he channels bad people doing bad things. I kind of know what's going to happen at the end. I have the beginning written. Up to Cpt. 9.

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If you know how it begins and you know how it ends, then what are all the logical things that have to happen so that the ending doesn't look like you pulled it out of your butt?

It's your story; Uncle Jim can't tell you what the "right" steps are.

LBlankenship: If you know how it begins and you know how it ends, then what are all the logical things that have to happen so that the ending doesn't look like you pulled it out of your butt?

It's your story; Uncle Jim can't tell you what the "right" steps are.

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Wait, wait. First of all, you ain't the boss of me.

Second of all, how do you know I didn't pull the ending out of my butt, you weren't there.



Thirdly, I'm not asking the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Uncle Jim to write my novel for me. I'm asking him how I can get myself moving. I'm asking how to climb over the hump, which seems vast and insurmountable. Maybe it's just me. Probably is. But this is a new and rather unpleasant state of affairs, for which I seem to have no immediate remedy, hence my question for the wise Uncle Jim.

kkbe said:

Thirdly, I'm not asking the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Uncle Jim to write my novel for me. I'm asking him how I can get myself moving. I'm asking how to climb over the hump, which seems vast and insurmountable. Maybe it's just me. Probably is. But this is a new and rather unpleasant state of affairs, for which I seem to have no immediate remedy, hence my question for the wise Uncle Jim.

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I suspect you are being overly literal. The big ending doesn't need to put all previous action movies to shame, though that was the example UJ gave. The suggestion boils down to, know the big ending of your story. What's the big final sequence that are going to leave the reader smiling and wishing they already had the sequal so they could start reading it right away. Once the big end is firmly in mind, work toward that. Take where your characters are now and shove them toward the big finish. If that's difficult then divide it up further. Have a big middle event that puts in place what you need to move toward the end. The set up event that makes the path to the big finish easier. Like the Moria sequence in the first Lord of the Rings movie. Now you can work toward the big middle. Once you reach there, it's downhill to your big finish, whether it's a big action scene or Miss Marple revealing the murderer.

No one says you have to arrive at that car-crashing, machine-gun-fire at the zombie apocalypse stripper bar, action-adventure climax. It's a place to aim while you're getting words on paper.

So, you have the beginning. You know the end.

Write the end.

What's the next-to-last thing that has to happen to get to that end? Write that bit.

What's the next-to-last thing that has to happen to get you to that scene?

The ending doesn't really need to have a John Williams sound track. But it should be big enough to reward the reader for sticking with you for the previous 300 pages.

If the big climax is a character saying to his wife, "Well, I'm home," then that's your ending.

If the big climax is the narrator saying "He loved Big Brother," that's your ending.

Maybe your characters have a moral crisis. If so, imagine an intimate drama directed by Steven Soderbergh where the look that one character gives another in the final scene before fade-to-black has crushing moral weight and cleanses the soul.

Maybe they're at a party and just the wrong person walks through the door, and the reader knows exactly how the next three minutes will go, so you can say The End and leave it at that.

Give me an ending. Then write toward it.

Or, get a copy of Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms, turn to the chapter on routining a magic show, and follow those steps.

If all else fails, type "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over, single spaced, for ten pages. (Cut-and-paste not allowed.) By the time you're done you'll be ready to type something new.

Here are the two ultimate tricks:

Stop where you in the book. Skip a line. Type a single, centered, hashmark.

Skip a line.

Type: Four years later...

Continue from that point.


OR

Add a character named The Author. Have him enter the scene and start talking with the characters. Put in the dialog tags. The little bits of business (as he fiddles with the button on his left shirt cuff). The description of the room (if they're in a room). Have your characters tell The Author what they're planning to do, how they're planning to do it. The Author nods sympathetically.

Then The Author says, "Show me."

So they do.

Now, go write one page (250 words) of original prose. Come back and tell me when you've done it.

Maybe this is another incarnation of the "dread midbook" talked about a page or so back, but I'm at 42K words, and the story is wrapping up. I think 60K words might be realistic for a final word count, but that still seems pretty short.

I don't want to add scenes just to increase word count, and it gets pretty tedious putting the characters in similar situations just to make the same points made elsewhere. So what's the remedy, Uncle Jim? I'm not really stuck because the story will be complete but shorter than I was expecting.

Sorry, Chris P., hang onto your stogie for a minute. . .

MVK, you're right, I was taking Uncle Jim's advice literally, why do I do that? I get it, thank you.

Uncle Jim, That's what I'm talking 'bout.

I shall travel the lands far and wide spreading The Gospel According To Uncle Jim. I shall be your champion. I shall genuflect at your feet. I shall do the excercise and get back to you.

Thank you, kind sir.

kkbe, I hesitated before adding my two cents because everyone else has given you such great advice, but I was in the exact same situation as you, with a great beginning and end and nada in the middle and I was freaking out. (I'm a bit of a drama queen.)

Anyway, I sat my ass down and glared at the computer screen and typed out a really rough outline that went something like:

1. Okay, so right now they're stuck at this point, with nobody knowing nothing goddammit.
2. Okay, so MC is doing this...I think he'll do this other thing OMG THEN WHAT I HATE YOU, YOU C*CKSUCKER and then I think this happens.
3. In the meantime, this other character is going to do this THEN WHAT AHHHHH
4. And then this other character does this (oh that might work...tie that in with #3?)

Ermm, and so on and so forth. And yeah, write down your thoughts as well. I wrote down my thoughts in caps just so I know it's not actually part of the outline and can easily delete it later on, but it helps to keep typing. Before I knew it, I'd outlined myself out of the rut and was ready to continue.

Putputt: 1. Okay, so right now they're stuck at this point, with nobody knowing nothing goddammit.
2. Okay, so MC is doing this...I think he'll do this other thing OMG THEN WHAT I HATE YOU, YOU C*CKSUCKER and then I think this happens.
3. In the meantime, this other character is going to do this THEN WHAT AHHHHH
4. And then this other character does this (oh that might work...tie that in with #3?)

Ermm, and so on and so forth. And yeah, write down your thoughts as well. I wrote down my thoughts in caps just so I know it's not actually part of the outline and can easily delete it later on, but it helps to keep typing. Before I knew it, I'd outlined myself out of the rut and was ready to continue.

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Putputt, you're killing me. In a good way. I can implement your C*KSUCKING PLAN along with Uncle Jim's suggestions. I do believe they are simpatico.

Thanks you so much, Putputt.

Chris P said:

So what's the remedy, Uncle Jim? I'm not really stuck because the story will be complete but shorter than I was expecting.

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The remedy is to add a subplot. Weave it in from start to end.

Add a new character if you have to, to make that subplot work.

Much Ado About Nothing would have been hella short without Dogberry.

Uncle Jim: Now, go write one page (250 words) of original prose. Come back and tell me when you've done it.

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I've done it. 700+ words. Post #12.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7753162#post7753162

kkbe said:

I've done it. 700+ words.

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Go, you!

Now... do it again!

James D. Macdonald said:

Go, you!

Now... do it again!

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I'm past 14K, Uncle Jim, but I have a question: does this count?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Fingers moving on keyboard ... counts.

The second draft is gonna be hell, though.

James D. Macdonald said:

Fingers moving on keyboard ... counts.

The second draft is gonna be hell, though.

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I shall cross that bridge when I come to it, kind sir. (Now past 15K, btw.)

Uncle Jim,

I'm having an issue. Lately, I've been having trouble not necessarily getting words on the page although that is slightly a problem. However, it's more so keeping them on the page, if that makes sense, i.e. stopping myself from hitting "Backspace" or clicking "Do Not Save". Everything I think up or try to write is usually poor executed or planned out, and thus, I find myself getting into road block easier or at least confusing the backstory already in the first chapter. Things like this happen to me a lot. I mean a lot. I've been thinking that maybe I should treat the whole book like it's the "mucky middle", and BS my way through the whole thing. But I don't know how wise that is. How do I get out of this, and how do I stop it from happening?

I don't know what Uncle Jim is going to advise. He is a very wise man, so you should probably ignore this posting and wait for his.

Still, I shall offer my opinion: I think you're sabotaging yourself. Don't do that.

That sounds ridiculously easy but I'm serious. Just don't do it. It brings to mind something that happened many moons ago. For some reason, a certain long haired girl realized that when she pulled on her hair, a few strands came out. She started getting worried and meanwhile, she keeps tugging it and every time she does, more strands came out.

The next time she sees her doctor, she tells him, "I'm getting worried because every time I pull on my hair, some comes out," and he says, "Quit pulling on your hair."

Silver-Midnight said:

However, it's more so keeping them on the page, if that makes sense, i.e. stopping myself from hitting "Backspace" or clicking "Do Not Save". Everything I think up or try to write is usually poor executed or planned out, and thus, I find myself getting into road block easier or at least confusing the backstory already in the first chapter. Things like this happen to me a lot. I mean a lot.

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In addition to the usual sage advice of "just don't do that," a few small strategies come to mind:

* If the problem is that you're not planning well, take a few minutes to write a description outline of what you want to write. Then, when it's time to bull through and just get the darn draft down, you'll at least have a map of the territory you can refer to as you go. Hopefully that will bolster your confidence that you're writing a real draft and not a tangled mess.

* If the problem is an attack of perfectionism, try tricking yourself. Create a second document, titling it "notes" or something else that says to you "This isn't the real story, this is just babble." Then, talk to yourself about the page. It's OK if it's not perfect - it's just notes. It doesn't even have to be the story. "I want to write about X character who wants Y but Z antagonist has other plans. The protagonist is A years old, grew up in B, loves to spend their time doing C. The story will start when the protagonist notices D has gone wrong..."

* Something else that helps me when I can't seem to get off the BACKSPACE key is to remove the BACKSPACE key from my process. Put away the computer, pick up a lined notebook, and write by hand for awhile. Or try using a typewriter, if you've got one.

All of which sound really simple, but maybe something in there will help. Good luck!

Silver-Midnight, NicoleJLeBoeuf and kkbe both have excellent suggestions. You could also create a file called "Outtakes" and cut the paragraphs you don't want to use into that.

Don't throw anything out. It may be exactly what you want.

Here is my beloved bride and long-time co-author on the subject: http://drdoyleeditorial.com/2012/06/12/five-ways-to-write-a-chapter-and-one-that-worked/