Authors' Thread (New! Improved! Now With 10% More Questions!)

On several occasions, I've set short stories aside and returned to them later. In some cases much later. Years. A few I was able to pick up and begin rewriting as if no time had passed. Others fought me tooth and nail - which is why I'd set them aside in the first place. Unfixable. These I eventually dismantled and cannibalized for spare parts. I assume a long dormant book project to differ only in size.

It may fight you. Or maybe you find that your time away from it has solved whatever riddles made you set it down.

The only thing I know you'll regret is not picking it back up to find out.

Has abject panic ever produced greatness? In at least one famous case, yes. In the early 60s Tom Wolfe couldn't figure out how to write an Esquire story about car customizers. He stewed and fretted and finally, the night before his deadline, he gave up. He just couldn't make sense of the piece. But he knew his editor needed something, and might be able to get another writer to stitch together a feature out of his notes, so Wolfe sat down and - in what may or may not have been a state of actual animal panic - typed up his notes in the form of a letter to his boss.

His boss cut the salutation "Dear Byron", and ran Wolfe's "notes" as written. That was the groundbreaking story, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby."

So, yes, panic can work miracles. In certain cases. If you're Tom Wolfe. Panic, though, is like adrenaline. It'll help you short term, but won't sustain you over the long haul. And a book is a very long haul indeed.

As in a marathon, you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The runner's groove is in the discipline of doing that one small thing again and again and again. One foot in front of the other. Again. Again. Again. The tidy rhythm of manageable routine. Same for writers.

Put your ass in the chair. Every day. Write. Repeat.

The only work you'll ever really regret is the thing you never wrote.

Good luck.

 

Argggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Just needed to be said.

Thanks.

 

When you first begin fiction, is it more important to go right into character development or establish setting?

 

MF -


There's no strict prescription for what needs to happen first in any story or novel.

Some stories begin with setting, others with character, others still with exposition and the unfolding of plot. Young writers should experiment with each.

The quickest way to learn the what and the how of storytelling is to read a lot of fiction. Good fiction. Start there, and see how the masters have done it.

 

Thought for the day:

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention.

-- Shakespeare, Henry V, by way of F_B this morning.

 

Here's Shakespeare's authorial swing tip for the day --


The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.

 

I just read your collection of posts about this subject, Jonesy, and felt the passion in each word. Thanks.

 

Hey, X, thanks man. Signed a new deal last week -- this shit is a sickness -- so I'll have an update in 2009 or so.

 

Pushed this way by the "Do you want to write a book?" thread, and wanted to point out a colleague's experience with an agent. He'd been working with one trying to pitch an idea for a book for quite some time. (It's a good idea, but I think it's a bit limited in potential audience.) He was a bit discouraged, but one day she turns around and says, "Hey. Wanna write a graphic novel?" After much negotiations, he signed a contract and put in his last day at the local rag Friday.

Another example of the value of an agent, I guess.

(P.S. I have an idea for a book that's been bouncing around my head for several years. My two problems are finding the right attack to the story and the fact that a similar story was done on a subject in my own damn state just a few years ago. And laziness. ... My three problems are finding the right attack to the story ...)

 

Del, my friend, might I be so bold as to point you to your signature.

Regards,
CJ

 

Yeah, but the book's on procrastination, and I'm not done practicing

 

I posted a while back about writing a non-fiction book and have been AWOL for a while. The good news is, I now have 60 pages of said book.

For the experts on board, is it best if I keep writing until the end or is now a good time to draft a proposal? I already put together a short one, but it's not all that detailed.

Thanks for your help, I'm sure I'll be begging for more of it as the process continues.

Mahalo (I'm not Hawaiian or anything, but that word is just fun to say)