Differences

I was impressed by how differently some of us viewed the pieces from last night (the 28th of Nov) in suggesting what might be done to make things better. And yet, it seemed we all were able to accept those different viewpoints and move right along. I think we should give ourself a pat on the back. Or perhaps we only confused our fellow writers (one of whom had a midnight publication deadline.) What you say you, fellow writers?

I will look forward to seeing what Jeanne finally decided to post on her blog.

Mary Ann

Publish or Perish?

I was very impressed by anyone's tenacity to stick to the efforts of publishing something for ten years. Amazing. But this precedent should give us all courage.

I doubt that I would try to publish the piece I am working on. I envision it as being just for family.

Thanks for this information.

Mary Ann

Publisher for you family history or memoir?

Checkout the December 2007 copy of The Writer - (I'm not sure if the library subscribes).
Page 14 has a breakthrough story about Betty Grant Henshaw, who wrote an account of growing up in the Oklahoma Hills during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression era.
At 60 years of age she decided to try her hand at writing, took writing classes, joined a writing group and wrote stories about her life.
Then, recognizing that they did not hang together, she drew up an outline (something she said that she should have done at the beginning) and created a book length novel. She spent the next 10 years attending writing conferences, talking to agents and sending out samples of her work, only to receive rejections.
The breakthrough came when a writer friend recognized that her work told the history of the era and suggested she submit it to a university press.

Texas Tech University presses jumped at the chance to publish her memoir and provided editing support and cover design. The book 'Children of the Dust: An Okie Family Story' is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award.
Publication through a university press could apply to any one of several works read in our group.

In a similar vain, page 30 has a six-page step-by-step article by Moira Allen on "How to Write a Family History", which includes interesting sidebars on the 'crazy-quilt memoir' (an alternative to the usual chronological approach), and using birthday letters and tales from the family newsletter as source material.

Foreshadowing

I think of foreshadowing as similar to planting a clue or misdirection (red herring) in a mystery story – you don’t want to be to overt when you do it. Foreshadowing is the subtle positioning of information that usually serves two (or more) purposes.
The first purpose is to provide information relevant at the part of the story that is being told.
The second purpose is to explain something that happens later, for which an explanation at that point in the story would significantly disrupt it.

Here is a simple example from my Finger of Suspicion story.

Early on, I wrote "Kelly fingers, their nails chewed to the quick,”…

The first purpose was to tell the reader about Kelly – anxious, a nail biter, not in a position to be concerned with her looks.

This is then compared (though not specifically) with the long painted fingernails of the kidnapped heiress and finally revealed as the reason Kelly retains her digit (and perhaps her life).

Franklin explains foreshadowing on page 150 of ‘Writing for Story’ as “the technique by which the writer unobtrusively inserts details early in the story that will allow him [or her] to conduct his [or her] dramatic scenes without the necessity of explaining the background details.”

Franklin says that the principle was codified by Anton Chekov as Chekov’s Law, which specifies, “if the opening of a story mentions a shotgun hanging over the mantel, then that shotgun must be fired before the story ends.”

To flashforward or foreshadow?

At our last meeting, I said that flashforward (think of it as the opposite of flashback) is not the same as foreshadowing. I would like to expand on this using information from the book I also mentioned.

According to Jon Franklin in his book 'Writing for Story' "flashforward is a woebegotten technique that usually goes something like:

Joe chose to go to the prom with Alice instead of Sue. In the future that choice would come back again and again to haunt him. But now he was much more attracted to Ann."

Franklin says "the flashforward is most of all intrusive, because it has the effect of the writer's telling a secret, sotto voce, into the reader's ear. Like any other intrusion by the writer, the flashforward reminds the reader that the story is an illusion and thereby destroys the sense that the story is real."

He goes on to say that a professional writer may use flashforward perhaps three times in a lifetime and he suggest that as such editors and critics automatically assume the writer who uses flashforward is an amateur. If he wasn't he or she would have foreshadowed instead.

So if that's flashforward how does foreshadowing work, at least according to a Pulitzer prizewinner?

Of course it's more complicated, but I'll sort out some of Franklin's words and post again later.

Six invites sent out

I have sent out invites to:

Wes, Sarah, Anita, Rob, Mary Ann, and Amy. This is everyone at the meeting tonight, who has not already been invited and signed up.

Follow the instructions to be able to post on this site.

I will invite others after future meeting when they have agreed to receive an invite.

Writing can be such a tease

A jumble of books on the craft of writing competes for space on my crowded bookshelves. One book never finds a resting place there.

It is possibly the best book on writing non-fiction or fiction that I have ever read and has become a go to reference work due to its simplicity of structure and working examples.

I read it cover to cover and now dip in to it for specific topics.

The book makes use of two Pulitzer Prize-winning articles written by the author, who explains in detail every aspect of their construction and execution in easy to understand terms. The author also describes his process for focusing on the key points of the story and achieving a result with which the reader can resonate.

The appendixes contain a dissection of each article with no less than 292 annotations defining the reason or purpose of each word, phrase or thought in the articles.

The small paperback book is truly a remarkable aid to understanding the craft of writing for story.

Don’t forget to ask me for the title and author next Wednesday.

In case you missed the comment I posted, this is the name of the book

Writing for Story
Jon Franklin

More details at Amazon - reviews are "wow this is great" to "anyone who needs this must be a bad writer".

Guess I know where I stand.

Writer & Reader

I find it very hard to write in a way that preserves my sense of my own voice and yet at the same time speaks to the reader. A long time ago I used to write a column in an educational journal on Math and Logo. My "mission" was open–inquiry, setting up situations where students could discover patterns, make hypotheses and then test them to see if they were correct. I was one of three columnists, so mine only appeared every third month. The other two entries were much more prosaic - I thought they often represented all that was wrong with typical math teaching. However, looking back, I think by being true to myself, I was not talking to the readers, and I don't think many, if any, teachers used my ideas in their classrooms. Letters to the editor indicated that teachers did use some of the other columnists' ideas.

In writing my short story, Delinquency, I see some of the same pattern. In the draft I read at the Write Stuff meeting it was a 4th draft), I was focused on the telling of the story. The feedback from the meeting has made me think a lot more about listening to the story - what does the reader hear? There was also positive feedback about the voice of the narrator, except a couple of places where it broke down. Both are necessary: what is important to me, and how do I get the reader to visualize or live that importance so it becomes a shared experience.

And then you publish in one way or another, and you relinquish all rights to the meaning of what you have written, as each reader reads into it his or her own interpretation, often ones unanticipated.

Tim

p.s. As is so often true, writing this has been very helpful. A note turned into something much longer.