You know the old saying, “Fake it ’til you make it?”

I’ve gotten distracted by the three million other things I have to do each day, along with temptations like lounging with a good book or summer television, or just the sheer bliss of sitting on the couch with my dog and my knitting. Because, of course, one of the “advantages” of making my living with a day job is that while I might be tired when I get home at the end of the day, it affords me the luxury of not having to write–and therefore making goofing off far too easy. If I were depending on my writing to pay rent and food, I’d have more incentive for diligent behavior.

But all the while I’m sitting there happily curled up with a good book (written by someone else and therefore stress-free), my conscience is nagging me.

“You can’t be a writer if you don’t write.”

What do you do when you don’t FEEL like writing?

Do you know the trick to getting a good photo of yourself? You don’t just smile with your lips, you smile with your eyes. If your eyes don’t have that certain warmth, that indefinable twinkle, your smile is going to look fake, as if it had been plastered on. So what you do is, as the photographer is aiming the camera, you think of something that makes you want to laugh. Or you remember what it feels like to want to chuckle–your eyelids crinkle, your lips twitch with a smile, and your cheeks lift ever so slightly. Most important, everything about your face warms, lightens, brightens.

The best part is that you can fake this. If someone is pointing a camera at you in one of those forced moments where you have to stand next to someone else and smile for posterity–trick yourself into believing you’re happy to be there. Think about making your eyes look warm, happy, friendly and there you go … suddenly YOU look warm, happy and friendly. It’s all in the eyes. And in the convincing yourself that at that moment, you’re happy.

You have to convince yourself to act the way you want to be.

When I was a kid, this was easy. Nothing easier! I pretended things constantly, all day long. I didn’t just ride my bike–I was actually riding a beautiful stallion with a flowing mane and smooth gait. (Side-saddle, naturally, like a princess. I got remarkably good at riding my bike side-saddle, pedalling with only my left foot, using the toe to help pull the pedals upward.) I had imaginary friends keep me company in boring classes. They’d even walk up to the teacher’s desk during tests and peek at the answers for me. I didn’t just go for walks, I went on adventures like Frodo Baggins.

I was very seldom just my own, mundane self when I was a kid. Everything had more savor when I brought my imagination along. It was a life-saver during boring things like grocery shopping with Mom or stupid assemblies at school. And if I pretended I had magic powers to help me clean my room? It made the cleaning that much more fun.

So, why not pretend to be a “real” writer?

I finally decided that I was going to need to take extreme measures. I was going to have to take definitive, mature action and force myself to write.

I was going to have to Pretend.

What, I asked myself, would a “real” writer be doing? Would she be coming home from work and goofing off? Or would her computer be pulling her toward it constantly, like a planet pulling its satellites? During her boring day at the office, would she be browsing the internet looking for distraction? Or would she be taking every possible minute of spare time to surreptitiously type away at her article?

I decided that I was going to Pretend, just like when I was a kid, but this time I was going to pretend that I was a dedicated, driven, diligent writer. How could I let myself be distracted if a Real Writer wouldn’t? She wouldn’t have time to goof around, so why should I?

In other words, I was going to make-believe I was everything I already want to be … just, without the publishing credits I don’t have yet.

Fantasy and reality have more in common than you think.

The amazing thing? It worked. It turns out that, unlike a child pretending to play piano and just generating dissonant noise, it’s hard to pretend to type without actually producing, well, words. And producing words is what writing is, isn’t it? The more that I pretended to be this successful writer who just happened to have an inconvenient day job, the more I found myself wanting to write. Like a kid playing Detective who stumbles across a real mystery (one of my favorite kinds of books when I was younger), I found myself stumbling across interesting phrases, intriguing ideas. The characters in my novel sat up, yawning, and suddenly started calling out ideas about what they wanted to do next. My non-fiction became more engrossing and invigorating.

The best part? This little trick works for all sorts of thing. If you fake something convincingly enough, you might just find yourself doing it for real.

Oh, and while I was at it? I pretended that my Real Writer had great handwriting and perfect posture, too. I mean, why not? You never know.

I was reading an interview in Time with David McCullough (the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, if the name doesn’t ring a bell), and this question caught my attention:

Q: We don’t write letters on paper anymore. How will this affect the study of history?

The loss of people writing–writing a composition, a letter or a report–is not just the loss for the record. It’s the loss of the process of working your thoughts out on paper, of having an idea that you would never have had if you weren’t [writing]. And that’s a handicap. People [I research] were writing letters every day. That was calisthenics for the brain.

Calisthenics for the brain. Isn’t that a fantastic image?

Because it’s true. Just like my body feels sluggish if I don’t at least get out for a walk with the dog every day, so does my brain on days it doesn’t do much.

Granted, every brain deserves a lazy Sunday curled up with a book or settled on the couch watching sports or a cheesy movie. But … you can’t forget that it’s a muscle that needs to be used, too.

Lots of people realize this already. They do crossword puzzles or play sudoku online. They read everything they can get their hands on, or watch documentaries about obscure subjects on television. They take classes at the community college and visit museums, and learn about new technology on the internet.

I mean, not everybody turns into a couch potato watching reality-tv after dinner every night, right?

But, I love McCullough’s point about the importance of working things out on paper, and how it can lead to ideas you might not have had otherwise.

There’s something to be said for the simple hand-brain coordination of moving a pen across a page. Think of all the notes you took in classes at school when the teacher’s lecture went in one ear, down past the shoulder and out the hand onto the notebook without ever pausing in the brain. And then, haven’t you ever had the experience of doodling, jotting down random, crazy, silly thoughts and then looked at your page and realized you’d just solved a problem, or done something brilliant without consciously thinking about it?

As much as I love typing on a keyboard these days–if only because it’s legible which you can’t exactly say about my handwriting–it’s still a different kind of “writing” than the kind you do with a pen. No matter how good a touch-typist you are. You can’t doodle in a word-processing program, after all.

Mind-mapping is all the rage these days, too–putting all your thoughts and ideas about a project in one place in a seemingly random order so that you can line things up and visually SEE those connections. Everybody’s brain works differently. Some of us are visual thinkers who need visual aids to understand things. Some learn best by hearing, some by reading … but ultimately it comes back to getting the ideas on our heads down on paper.

Whether that paper is made from tree pulp or pixels on a computer screen doesn’t matter, not really. It might matter to historians down the ages who are using Windows 2703-B on their brain-embedded computers and can’t access our lame attempts at digital “permanence” any more, but we can’t be concerned with them. For the moment, what matters is that we not only THINK but that we take our responsibility to record it in some fashion seriously.

Because our brains deserve the workout. Calisthenics for the brain. And the best part? Unlike heading to the gym for an hour of sweat and calorie-burning, at the end of an hour of writing–of drawing connections and getting words and thoughts on paper–you’ve got something solid to show for it.

Now, go and exercise that brain of yours. Write something!

(And, as an interesting side note, I saw this post linked on Twitter today–about the differences between writing by hand or writing by keyboard, which I thought particularly interesting as I mulled over this blog post of my own.)

What do YOU think?

Last time we talked about the reasons people don’t like to write.

Today, we’re going to talk about ways to help them.

• Dictate into a recorder rather than typing. Maybe it’s the physical act of getting words out of your head and onto paper/screen that’s too intimidating. So just try doing it aloud. Countless famous writers in the history of the world have done this.
• Imagine yourself talking to a friend, a client, or a student. Still having trouble getting the words to flow normally? Be conversational and try to think how you would tell this to someone who needs to know.
• ACTUALLY talk to a friend, but record the session to transcribe later. (Bonus points if they can take dictation and do this for you.)
• Take a notebook and go sit somewhere comfortable, away from the scary, empty computer screen. Sometimes just moving to a different, low-key environment helps creativity flow. Writers write in coffeehouses for a reason, you know, and it’s not just the copious amounts of caffeine. (Of course this assumes you’ll be able to read your handwriting later on)
• Jot down notes to yourself in an email. This becomes no-pressure writing because you’re just electronically talking to yourself, but once you send the email, voila, you’ve got text that you can read and edit and tweak.
• Get something, anything, down on the screen. Stilted phrases. Sentence fragments. Half-realized, wandering thoughts. Anything at all. Then walk away and don’t even look at it until tomorrow.
• Then, after your writing has rested, go back and read your fragments, no matter how unstructured, and try to fill them out for people who don’t know as much as you do.
• Ask a friend or family member to read your scribbles and make suggestions on how to fix them.
• Pretend that everything is riding on this–your livelihood, your family, your home. If you don’t get this written, you’ll lose everything.The sun will cease to shine. Your life as you know it will end, so–you’ve GOT to do this.
• Or, if that’s too much pressure (grin), Tell yourself that NOTHING is riding on this. You’re just idly passing the time, randomly putting words on a page just for the hell of it. No pressure.
• Start a journal. I know. You’re having trouble writing the things you need to write and I’m suggesting a completely unnecessary journal of more writing. But, bear with me. Sometimes, all you need to do to be able to write is to PRACTICE writing. You know, somewhere it doesn’t matter in the least, and what you say doesn’t mean anything to anyone but you. The important thing is that you’ll start getting used to putting words on a page.
• Start by describing something. What do you see outside your window? What color are the leaves? Really? Green? That’s the best you can do? What KIND of green? Are they all exactly the same color? Are they plush and healthy? Are they in direct sun so that they’re sparkling? Or in shadow? You can delete this later, but for now, just get your fingers and your brain moving.
• Take typing lessons. Maybe part of your problem is that you don’t feel comfortable enough with a keyboard. Maybe you spend so much time hunt-and-pecking for the letters, your brain’s getting distracted by the mechanics of it. Try one of those typing-tutor programs. Even if you already know how to touch-type, you’ll improve your time and that never hurt anyone. Sometimes just getting used to hitting the keys is enough to segue from “asas asas adad adad afaf afaf agag agag” to real words.
• Type randomly. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what you have to write. If you truly can’t get started, just type random gibberish and work on moving toward full, random sentences, and then into sentences on a topic (any topic), and then, when you’re ready, about whatever you actually should be writing in the first place. (Just, um, don’t forget to delete the gibberish later on.)

Okay … I’m tapped out. What suggestions do YOU have for people who don’t like to write, but have to?

I’ve been told that there are people who don’t like to write.

I know. It was a shock to me, too.

I don’t mean that feeling that writers get when they can’t focus, or when they dread sitting down at their desks and come up with all sorts of other tasks that need to be done right this second in order to put off the inevitable. Word avoidance isn’t what I mean.

No, I’m talking about people who actually don’t like writing. At all. Any form of it. The kinds of people who can just about summon up the energy to write “Happy birthday. Love Dad” on your annual card. Or the people who write one line emails like, “I made reservations for dinner next Saturday,” and then sign it with their initials.

I’m not talking about a 15-year old, either, for whom you might be able to blame the texting thing–Kids These Days don’t know how to write full sentences, we’re told.

No, this not-liking-to-write avoidance transcends adolescence. It affects businessmen trying to write memos, mothers emailing teachers, bloggers struggling to post …

The irony is that, in this computer-driven world of ours, writing is more important than ever, and yet more and more people are completely tongue-tied when faced with a blank page (digital or otherwise).

So … what do you do?

As a person who loves words, loves writing, and (while able to procrastinate with the best of them) can usually find something to write down, it’s hard to comprehend how other people can’t summon up three consecutive sentences. For example, I might mention to, oh, my father, that I “only got 500 words written today,” and he’ll look at me speechlessly and say he can’t imagine writing that much in a month. Or, I’ll casually refer to my novel and its 90,000 words and he’ll tell me that he’s never written that many words in his life. The mere thought of being able to do so astounds him.

Now, my father (and other afflicted souls) have plenty to say. You can sit down and have lively conversations with them where they spread good advice, brilliant ideas, and generally interesting factoids about all sorts of subjects. Yet, when you say, “That’s great. You should write it down,” fear sets in.

I know, I know. Many people don’t like to read, so their familiarity with sentence structure may be weak. They not be facile with words because they’re mere nodding acquaintances. But then there are the people (like my father) who take weekly trips to the library to check out new books to read … and yet the idea of writing more than a sentence or two makes him dig in his heels and say, “I can’t!”

My question to you is … why? What makes this happen?

Next time … tips for these poor, lost individuals.

I’ve been watching the BBC series of “Sherlock,” a modern update of the classic Holmes and Watson stories. (It’s fabulous, by the way.)

One of the hallmarks of the Sherlock Holmes character has always been his relative arrogance. He has such absolute confidence in his abilities and has such a hyper-observant way of viewing the world he simply notices things the rest of us miss–but can’t quite comprehend WHY we don’t see what he sees.

In one of the episodes, Sherlock makes a pronouncement to a room full of blank-faced stares and, in sheer disbelief that the solution is not obvious to everyone else, asks, “What must it be like in your funny little brains?”

I don’t know about you, but this is a question I’ve occasionally had myself. Not because I’m more brilliant than everyone else I know. (Quite the contrary!) But because nobody else THINKS in quite the same way I do, so there are things that are obvious to me that are mysteries to people I’m talking to.

We are all unique, of course, and while there are some things that are fairly obvious to everyone (“When you drop something, it falls to the floor.”), there’s a certain blend of brains, personality, experience, and awareness in each of us that cannot be exactly replicated.

I have a co-worker, who is a smart woman but clearly thinks in directions that are unique to her. As an example: a few years ago, one of our co-workers returned from paternity leave with a pile of photos of his newborn–you know the collection: baby with Mom, baby with Dad, baby with Grandma, and so on. Well, she looked at the pictures and asked, “How many babies were there?” She just assumed that each photo was of different kids. This is an intelligent woman, she just looks at the world in a unique way.

This is one of the things I love about writing.

If I’m writing fiction, I get the opportunity to (try to) explore the way other people think and react to situations–and sometimes the hardest part is dealing with a character fundamentally NOT like me. If being charged by a bull, I’d dive to the side and try to get out of the way, but what if my character would grab a chair and attack the bull? Clearly he doesn’t think like I do, but he’s going to be fun to get to know.

If I’m writing non-fiction, differently-thinking people provide a different challenge–that of getting my message across to people who may think more emotionally, less logically than I do.

Have you ever tried to explain something to a friend until you finally give up because, no matter how many times you try to say, “I turned right because it was the shortest route,” they keep saying things like, “But why wouldn’t you go straight?” Sometimes explaining things is the hardest thing in the world because what’s crystal clear to you is obscure to the other person.

So, the trick … and it’s a hard one … is to put yourself in their place.

• Are you a super-genious to whom everything is clear? Slow yourself (or at least your explanations) down so the poor, normal folks can keep up.
• Are you eminently logical but talking to a group beset with emotions (like, say, sleep-deprived new parents)? Force yourself to remember that all they want is to get some sleep–they don’t need to know the scientific reasons for the baby crying, they just want it to STOP.
• Are you good at mechanics? Excellent–you can break those “how to” instructions down into individual steps, but don’t assume that your readers will know what a flange is if you don’t tell them.
• Are you sympathetic and deeply compassionate? Just remember that the CEOs reading your brochure pay attention to the bottom line and stories about abandoned puppies might not have the same affect as a statistic about how much stray animals cost the town.

Nobody thinks exactly like you do.

This is both your challenge and your greatest gift.

*WWSD: What would Sherlock do?

Well, I sat down at my keyboard today and blew the virtual dust off of my current manuscript. The time-stamp on the document is 10/22/2010 12:24 PM, which means it’s been seven weeks since I opened it.

Seven weeks.

I’m stunned, too. Every year I flirt with the idea of NaNoWriMo as a means of inspiring me to really sit and push through the pages, but I always skive off at the last minute because November’s such a busy month for me. I certainly didn’t plan on abandoning my manuscript altogether for the duration, though. It was like all those thousands of writers–aspiring or professional–sucked all the available words their way, leaving nothing to me. If the writing universe needs a certain number of words to be written each month, well, all those extra writers plugging away at their 50,000 words certainly took care of my share of the load.

The problem is that I’m feeling guilty about neglecting my book. I’ve left my characters in limbo and now that I’m edging my way back into their lives to help them along, I’m still stuck at the same detail I was pondering seven weeks ago.

You would think that if my conscious brain was going to take a 49-day vacation from writing, my subconscious would have the decency to plug away at plot directions and character development, but no. Apparently my entire brain took this time off and just left.

The problem is they forgot to turn my conscience off so that I felt guilty about doing nothing while stuck without the necessary equipment (i.e. my brain) to do anything about it.

I figure I have two choices.

I can either flog myself some more for being a neglectful, slothful writer who let her brain skitter off on a glittering vacation without arranging for the mail to be brought in, or I can just let it go and move on.

What do you do when you’ve had an unexpected break from writing?

Flogging yourself for neglect can be so unattractive, after all, but it’s hard to escape from an advertent conscience.

Shrugging it off is perhaps the wiser choice, but it encourages repeat performances. You don’t necessarily need to ground your kid the first time you find them sneaking out without permission, but you need to say something so they won’t do it again.

What do you think?

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go figure out how to get my character where she needs to be without her protesting too much.

It’s not writer’s block.

I’m not not-writing because I don’t know where the story needs to go, or because I’ve lost interest. It’s not because I’ve grown to hate my chair or my keyboard, or that I needed a change of scenery. The symptoms aren’t really in line with writer’s block.

No, what I’m suffering from, suffering with, is Writer’s Avoidance.

I can’t quite face my manuscript. Every time I try to look it in the eye to reread recent paragraphs or to add new ones, I find my eyes skimming away. You know, in the way you do when you’re trying to avoid a delicate conversation, when you’re about to lie to a friend.

Every time I look at my document, I find my eyes just automatlcally skipping past the monitor to look at the clock, the weather outside the window, or the really fascinating faux-woodgrain in the desk.

I can’t look my manuscript in the eye.

I find this an intriguing dilemma, really. Writing is like any other relationship—you need honest, open lines of communication for it to work, and apparently ours are blocked.

• Maybe I’ve been doing so much reading lately that I’m feeling unfaithful.
  (“I know, darling, I read another novel, but it meant nothing to me! You’re the one I love!”)
• Maybe my conscience is guilty.
  (“Really, I meant to get back to you sooner, but I’ve been busy. I had other things to type.”)
• Maybe we’re growing apart.
  (“You said you’d always be there for me, but sometimes you feel so distant, I can’t reach you at all.”)
• Maybe we know each other too well.
  (“I feel like I know you so well, there’s no excitement, no new surprises any more.”)
• Maybe we’re bored with each other.
  (“I think we should see other manuscripts.…”)
• Maybe we’re not popular enough.
  (“We got turned down by the cool kids again (aka literary agents) for the “After Titanic” book.”>
• Maybe we don’t have a future.
  (“Why should we bother working on the sequel if we can’t get anyone interested in the first book? We should just stay home and wash our hair and pretend we don’t care.”)
• Maybe the timing is bad.
  (“What? I said I’d be back and here I am, ready at the keyboard, and you won’t even look at me.”)
• Maybe the past is getting in the way.
  (“It’s just that, there are so many things in the draft we’re going to have to get rid of, I can’t bear to move forward.”)

I suppose the take-away lesson here is that writing is like any other relationship.

There’s more to it than just showing up—you need to work at it, beguile it, woo it, coax it, flirt with it, flatter it … and when all that charm doesn’t work, sometimes you just have to really face what is and is not working in the relationship. Clear away the cobwebs of over-familiarity and do something different, something daring to bring the magic back.

Obviously, you can’t take your writing away for a romantic weekend of autumn leaf-peeping, but you can throw something expected and new into the mix. Shake your characters up. Take THEM someplace new. Work on an area you haven’t seen in a while—make the manuscript feel special and loved, as if it is the only one that matters to you.

And above all, don’t let its evasiveness beat you. If it won’t meet your eyes, just stare it down in a loving way until it gives in and says, “What?” That’s your opening to jump in with a burst of brilliant prose that will make it weak in the commas and fall in love with you all over again.

Just one more reminder why punctuation is important.

Saturday, when we were slowly, painfully inching our way out of the crowded parking area at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck … even two hours before the fair closed, it took us half an hour to get out of there … we saw this sign.

It’s not a bad sign, really. Noble in intent, well-intentioned, all that.

“Thank you for coming.

If you had a good time tell a friend.

If you didn’t tell us.”

Except … I don’t think it’s saying quite what they want it to say.

The idea is clear. “If you had fun, we hope you tell your friends, but if you didn’t, let us know at the phone number provided so we can presumably fix things for the future.”

But what it really says is, “If you had fun, tell a friend unless you’ve already told us.”

What they really need is a pair of commas.

“If you had a good time, tell a friend.

If you didn’t, tell us.”

It’s not like the average person speeding past this sign at three miles per hour can’t decipher its meaning. They’re not going to take the time to dial the number (that they’ve memorized as they’ve crept toward it) to say, “We had a great time, but since we’re telling you we don’t need to bother telling our friends.”

Most normal people will decipher it correctly.

But … like misplaced apostrophes, it just hurts to see this sort of thing. Especially when it’s a permanent sign, not something someone threw together to announce a garage sale or a lemonade stand. (In fact, misspelled lemonade stand signs are part of their innocent appeal–usually more appealing than the actual lemonade.)

Commas. They’re not just for lists any more.

I’ve been talking about the difference between gathering information for specific reasons or for general information, because sometimes you need to know specific things and sometimes you just want a big, general overview.

Digging into archives to dig out a specific name, a particular fact can be satisfying. Like a detective looking for clues, you know you’re looking for one, certain thing that can prove your hypothesis, or that you can hang your entire story on. It’s like solving a puzzle, and that can be very, very satisfying. But I find that there is as much pleasure in just doing general background reading. The beauty of that is—if you’re not trying to get to a specific place and are just meandering through—you’re going to see so much more, be open to new possibilities.

Okay, say you need to drive from New York to California, you’ve got two possibilities. You can plot the quickest route, climb in the car and head out to the highway and cruise at 70 m.p.h. for the next 10 hours with a couple rest stops. If you persevere, you’ll be there in a week.

Except, you will have missed the chance to see any sights on your way. The Great Lakes? Oh, was that the gleam I saw on the horizon on the way by? The Mississippi River? Well, it was dark when we crossed it. The Rocky Mountains? Oh, I remember those, the car really had to work to get up the incline.

Research is often blinkered—you get so focused on the one piece of information you need, you forget to look around.

Or, maybe you take the Tourist’s approach. You need to get to California, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime journey, so you decide to take advantage. You swing south to stop at the nation’s capital and then head down toward New Orleans, cruising along the Gulf Coast, stopping at the Grand Canyon, and generally just meandering your way across the continent, stopping when you see something interesting, and just taking in the view.

The beauty of reading for general background (as opposed to specific research) is that all the possibilities are open to you.

Just in the last week, I’ve found a few details that have made my creative juices flow.

• Like, for example, after WWI ended, Britain had 2 million more women than men, having lost so many soldiers in the war. One headmistress told her graduating class that only 1 girl in 10 of them would ever get married because there simply was no one left for them to wed; they would have to find something else to do with their lives. For a generation raised to believe that marriage and motherhood were the pinnacle of feminine abilities, that is a terribly frightening statistic.

…I immediately started to wonder, what do you do if you would like to get married but there literally is no one to marry? They’re not just hard to find or “the good ones are taken.” They are dead and gone, and your entire generation, sorry, is out of luck. But, in the meantime, you’ll excuse the rest of us if we look down on you for being a spinster and are reluctant to give you a job because the men need those, can’t you sit in a corner somewhere out of the way? All 2,000,000 of you?

• Or, I needed to know the name of the Governor of New Jersey in 1917 for my main character to shake hands with. It turns out that Walter Evans Edge—a man I’d never heard of—was governor not only during World War I but World War II as well. In between, he served in the U.S. Senate and was ambassador to France until the outbreak of WWII led him to re-enter politics.

… This caught my attention. He must have been a remarkable man. He must have done a wonderful job leading the state in World War I, if the electorate was willing to vote for him again 30 years later. So, why have I never heard of him? Is there a monument somewhere? A plaque? Something that honors a 70-ish year old man for taking up such a hard job again in a time of war? What kind of governor was he? What kind of man?

• Did you know that in 1917, King George V changed the family name from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha to the House of Windsor? This goes way beyond calling Sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” Your name defines you in so many ways–whether it’s the name you were born with, or one you married into (or away from). It’s not something most of us change lightly.

…At a time of war, when hundreds of thousands of young men (and some women) were being slaughtered … what made the British royal family decide to completely change their sense of identity? To cut themselves off from years of German-related pride? Kaiser Wilhelm I was the first-born grandson of Queen Victoria, after all.

But, see? This is the point.

If you’re busy focusing on the one thing you need, you’re not going to have time to take these little mental side trips. And isn’t that what creativity is all about? Visiting the lesser-seen spots, pointing out the inspiring views and interesting history along the way?

(This is part 3 of a series. Read Part 1 HERE. And, Part 2 HERE.)

So, what’s brought this subject up, anyway? (Read Part 1 here.) I’ve been reading about the World War I era to get a feel for it for my Titanic-book sequel. I’m skimming my way through books and websites, picking up ideas and tidbits of (possibly) useful information, but I’m not looking for anything specific.

At this precise moment, I don’t even know what I need to know.

I haven’t worried about the dates of the battles, or the names of the generals—they are not really necessary to my story. My characters don’t know all the details of what was happening at the front, and they don’t really care. They are busy just trying to live their lives.

Background is all about color.

I’m reading these WWI books for an idea of the world my characters lived in. Without some general knowledge of life in 1917-1919, my book would be like a pencil sketch of a person, detailed in itself, but which has no background, no real setting to give it perspective.

When you’re writing—no matter what you’re writing—you want a full-blown painting—rich with color, and with a complete background.

You can’t get that with just a few facts. Anybody who ever sat through a boring history class in school knows this. Bare facts are dry, but stories are interesting. I might know that the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917, but it doesn’t tell me the reasons—the debates at home about German submarines, or trench warfare, the economic involvement with Britain and France, the debate over the draft. My characters might not be busily debating these things in meaningful chapter-long dialogues, but they’re reading them in their morning newspapers, worrying about them when they toss in bed at night.

I don’t need to mention them, I just need to KNOW them, just like I know that my vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt and dog fur, that my cellphone can send text messages, that there are 50 states in the United States of America, and millions of other little bits of information that set me in MY place in time. I know these things that inform my world, but they don’t necessarily have an immediate impact on my daily life.

Research is for when you are looking for something specific.

On the other hand, if I want to describe what my main character wore to meet the Governor, I’m going to need an idea of what fashions were like in 1917. That’s research.

If I need to know the name of the Governor, that’s research.

Did she ride in a car or in a horse-drawn carriage to meet him? Research.

Could he have received an important phone call while she was there? Research.

See? Knowing that telephones are fairly common in 1917 is background, but the minute I need to know for a specific reason, it becomes research. Knowing that there was a governor my character could meet is background (because, of course New Jersey had a governor), but learning his name was research.

Mind you, this distinction is entirely my own personal definition. A lot of the time gleaning background information and doing research are exactly the same—sitting with a book or a handy search-engine, looking for knowledge. But you can read a car’s instruction manual out of pure curiosity and you’re a responsible car owner, or you can read it because your engine is leaking fluids and you need to figure out why right now … the NEED is different.

(This is part 2 of a series. Read Part 1 HERE.)

I’ve had a few thoughts about research rummaging around my head lately, and thought I’d turn them into a blog post, but it turned out to be way too long, so I thought I’d try a series, instead.

There’s a cozy mystery by Alisa Craig with a character famed for writing historical fiction, whose “research” involved randomly flipping a reference book open, sticking a pin into the page, and inserting whatever factoid it skewered into her book. She couldn’t be bothered with real research, she just wanted a few, random things to make it look like she knew what she was talking about.

I think we can all agree that research can be important for writing. Fiction or non-fiction doesn’t matter.

If you’re dealing with facts, they need to be right.

Inaccuracies reflect badly on us, the writers, whether it’s a statistic in a marketing piece, a quote in a blog post, or a historical fact gotten wrong in a piece of fiction. But, still, I feel there’s a difference between “doing research” and “gathering background.”

If I’m writing a piece on air purifiers, I need to know some facts about how they work. I need to know, in general, what they do, why they’re beneficial, and why you should have one. That is not the same as talking about the specific air purifier I might be trying to sell, or what makes it better than its competition. It’s more background-gathering than real, heavy-duty research.

What’s the difference?

The objective.

Research, to my mind, has a specific purpose. You could be looking for the date a war ended, the year a gadget was invented, the name of a company founder, the causes of cancer. These may or may not be questions that have ready answers, but they are specific information needs.

Background, on the other hand, is more general. At what time did having a telephone in the house become common? What was life like in the 1500s? What sort of town was Bath during Jane Austen’s time? Why is going to the dentist important? Is marketing really that useful to my company?

No matter what you’re writing, there’s a certain foundation of knowledge you need to have.

If you’re writing a marketing piece to sell vacuum cleaners, you can probably assume that potential buyers already know what a vacuum is and why they want one—your objective is to tell them why they should by THIS one. But, if you’re selling something that you have no personal knowledge of (say, professional-grade harvesting equipment, Zamboni machines, obscure medical devices), you’re going to need some background first.

You need to have at least a general idea of what you’re talking about if you want to sound even remotely convincing.

If you’re writing fiction, you need to know all sorts of things that might not find their specific way into the text. A story set in 1860 Atlanta will have all kinds of things in the background—the outbreak of Civil War, slavery, Abraham Lincoln’s election, tobacco, the latest hoop skirt fashions, the scent of magnolia blossoms, the tart zing of lemonade, what a hot, Georgia summer feels like without air conditioning, what it was like to travel in a carriage on bumpy roads … you get the idea. Will all of these things have a role in the story? Not necessarily, but they’re THERE. They are things that even a character solely focused on bringing in his cotton crop knows is happening in his world.

Okay … that’s enough for this installment … please share your thoughts below!

Did you know that Writing has a lot in common with any good Fantasy? You know the kind, where a hero faces enormous odds to go on a quest to save the world?

• Skills and Talents: Obviously every good hero needs a skillset. In fantasy, that would be sword play, great strength, nobility of heart. In writing, we’re talking grammar, vocabulary, a talent with words. Before starting your quest, you need to make sure you have the equipment you need.
• Magic: The best part about writing—that magical moment when everything comes together perfectly and you get that “Oh, that’s good” glow of accomplishment. It’s one of the best feelings in the world, and only happens when all the pieces fall precisely into place.
• Wizards and their tricks: Have you noticed how many nifty tools there are for writers these days? We don’t just have just pen and paper, now we’ve got computers, and even they aren’t limited to basic word-processing any more. There are online dictionaries and thesauruses. There are timers to help you focus for blocks of time. There are spelling and grammar checkers. Voice recognition software for when you can’t type. Recorders on your MP3 players for interviews and random thoughts. Organization software to help you keep all your pieces in order. Plus dozens more that I’m missing.
• Quest: Every good fantasy needs a goal, and for writers, it’s that perfect document at the end of the journey. It might be a magazine article, a blog post, a novel, a poem, a piece of perfect sales copy, a spot-on web page … anything, really … but you want writing that is perfect. Strong, clean, noble, brave … all the things a fantasy hero needs to be.
• Apperances can be deceiving: You can’t always believe what you see, though. Just like heroes can look like small, incompetent weaklings, and villains can be handsome and strong, you can’t assume that what you find is what it is. Good writing digs past the surface to explore the true meanings.
• Luck: As important as skill can be, don’t underestimate the importance of luck. You might keep your sword meticulously sharpened, but it’s not going to help you fight a battering-ram. Sometimes, all the skill doesn’t matter if you don’t have the luck and wits to think on your feet. Keep your eyes open to possibilities.
• Danger: Look out! There are distractions trying to pull you from your path! Time-sucks eager to delay you and keep you from your goal! Don’t let yourself be deceived by the innocuous distractions, the ones that make you think, “I can always finish this later. What’s wrong with a little recreation?” They could be evil, trying to prevent you from reaching your goals. Beware!
• Determination will win the day: The only way to successfully complete your quest is if you don’t give in, you don’t give up. Keep your eyes focused on the prize and don’t let yourself be distracted. It’s the only way to win the day.
• Happy Endings: The best fantasy stories always have a happy ending. The article gets published. The book hits the bestseller list. The sales piece sells a million units. The trick is to traverse the dangerous path to get there, but if you’re brave and strong and focused on your goal, you will succeed. That’s what happy endings are all about.
• Sequels: Don’t forget the sequels. Always be ready for more … this could be an actual sequel, as in another piece to follow up the writing you’ve done, to continue the story. OR, it might be an All New Adventure … publishing. If your successful quest is finishing your piece of writing, the obvious next part would be the quest of getting it published so other people can read it.

So–what’s your writing fantasy?

Image by Jenny. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny_twum/

I was reading a book the other day … a highly educated, informative tome with dozens of pages of footnotes and an index as long as your arm. It was written, needless to say, by a well-educated person, published by a well-known publishing house and, no doubt, read over by many a skilled and critical eye for typos and errors.

However, it’s a fact of life, though, that errors slip into even the most carefully produced books.

In this case, it was the “yolk of oppression.”

Instead of the bright yellow center of an egg, the author meant the wooden yoke that harness oxen and other animals to carts, plows and other labor-intensive vehicles.

But there it was, glaring as bright as ever a sunny-side up shone from a dish.

Do I think that the author didn’t know the right word? Of course not.
Do I think he mistyped it? Possibly, or it could have been the type-setter, or any person along the line who made a small little goof. I don’t doubt that the people involvedwere well-trained and attentive to their work, but this was a big project. Huge, in fact. The book is 688 pages (including the back matter). One or two small errors are bound to happen. In cases like these, you more or less just hope that they’re small ones.

The thing that worries me, though, is not that mistakes happen, but that we’ve become so oblivious to them. And, worse, that they happen so often … careless mistakes, misspellings, slips of the fingers, momentary brain-freezes … that we start expecting them.

I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon, but it’s a rare day that I don’t see someone making stupid mistakes when they write. (Sometimes it’s me.) Tweets, message boards, blog posts, emails … But it’s one thing when somebody in a rush types “then it’s leg broke” when describing the titanic crash their curio cabinet made after their bloodhound tried to chase the cat over the top. They got caught up in the story, it happens.

It’s a different matter when you stumble across these kind of mistakes in “formal” media like newspapers, magazines, and books. Headlines, for example. Titles on published books. Billboards. You know, places where professional people put together something for the public to see and made a stupid, glaring mistake.

Mistyping “yoke” for “yolk” is minor. Yes, it caught my eye, but I remembered it mostly because of the humor–the mental image of an angry egg cracking a whip over a group of oppressed people. I’m honestly not holding it against the author or publisher (which is why I’m not publicly outing them).

What worries me, though, is that the more we grant free passes for honest mistakes like these, the more we shrug off the they’re/there/their mistakes and people confusing your for you’re, it means the more we’re simply accepting the new, lowest common denominator.

I realize this makes me sound like a crank with nothing better to worry about. There are wars and famine, disease and despair rampant out there in the world, and I’m worrying about typos?

Except… if we can’t be bothered to look after the little details, how can we be sure that we’re looking after the big ones? How can we be sure that society isn’t being as cavalier about the Big Issues that really do come down to life and death when they regularly disregard the simple, little things like spelling, punctuation and saying “thank you?”

Life is made up of small moments and minor details that add up to a life lived with grace and strength as opposed to one that’s careless and slovenly. You don’t need an immaculate home to be a good, worthy, wonderful person. You might even excuse the mess by saying you’ve been too busy saving the spotted owl and trying to solve the problem of world hunger … you’re focusing on bigger things.

But, when you’ve got a potential donor, or client, or anybody you want to impress at all, appearances matter.

You might not think that one, little typo is the end of the world (and I agree), but stop and ask yourself if it was an honest mistake or something that slipped through because you just didn’t care. The answer can make all the difference between a simple, legitimate mistake and the beginning of a slippery slope covered in eggshells and albumen because we were too darn lazy to clean up the yolks when we dropped the first egg.

Okay, not really. I’m exaggerating. I AM a writer. I enjoy it, I’m good at it, I even make some money from it, in the perfect blend of vocation, hobby, and inclination. I’m the first one to admit that the joy of easily flowing words is incomparable. That blissful state may not happen all that often, but when it does, it’s magic, and one that only another writer can truly appreciate. (You could make an argument for other creative folks, I suppose, but I’m telling this story.)

Anyway, there’s no question that I’m a writer and proud to be one. I can get as caught up in weaving my web of words as the next writer. I find myself drawn to my keyboard periodically through the day for no other reason than to tap out words for a story, an email, or a blog post.

But, my little, guilty secret is that, as much as I enjoy writing, I love reading more.

Reading was my very first addiction, and it’s still my strongest. I can forego chocolate. I can give up television or music. But books? The sheer pleasure of curling up with a good book–especially the rarest of rare things, a brand-new book by a favorite author? Nothing else compares. And with that kind of temptation, I am weak, weak, weak.

This was brought home to me this weekend when I did almost nothing but read.

This started Friday night after I got home from work … after I baked a lemon meringue pie and did all the supper-time kinds of things and checked email and did some knitting … after all the things that have to be done. I stayed up until 2:30 to finish the first book (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s newest Liaden book Mouse and Dragon). The next morning, I started the next (Allison Winn Scotch’s new The One That I Want. I stopped reading for about five hours to celebrated my sister’s birthday and have a little nap, and then I finished that book and started the next (Joanne Harris’ Runemarks). That, I finished around lunch on Sunday, and since it reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones’ Eight Days of Luke, if only because of the Norse god similarities, I pulled that off the shelf and polished it off before supper. Then, because it’s a favorite, I took out Sean Russell’s Beneath the Vaulted Hills.

In just over two days, I read over 1,300 pages.

The thing that amazes me is how easy this is. Reading is my first love. Even when it’s a book I’ve read multiple times, I still get drawn in, still get caught up in what’s happening. Fiction or non-fiction doesn’t matter. Nor does time–I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning with no trouble whatsoever, simply because I wanted to know what happened next. I can spend an entire day doing nothing but read. In fact, curling up in a comfy chair with a book and a cup of tea is practically heaven–especially if my dog is sitting with me.)

I’ll confess, as much as I love writing … it doesn’t pull me in this strongly.

Does this worry me? Do I fret that I’ve missed my calling? That I should somehow have arranged a career that allowed me to read for a living?

No. And I’ll tell you why.

Most of the writers I know became writers because they loved reading.

There are some writers, of course, who write because it’s their job, or because they got into it from the marketing or business side. But most of the writers I know started off as kids with their noses stuck into books, just like me.

So many of us ARE readers, which is exactly what draws us to writing. We may have thought “I want to do that,” when we read a story we loved. We may have read something so appallingly bad we told ourselves, “I can do better than that.” We may have started writing down the stories we had in our heads simply because nobody else seemed to be telling the stories we really wanted.

Being a Reader first and a Writer second only makes me stronger as a writer.

Being an inquiring person, I’ll read almost anything that comes recommended highly enough. I have a wide variety of interests and like to know about things, or to be entertained in new and different ways. I read fiction and non-fiction; books and magazines; websites and blogs.

And–even without thinking about it consciously–this has made me a stronger writer.

By continually reading new things, meeting new ideas, discovering new authors, I have broadened my own horizons and at the same time have developed an eye and ear for “good” writing rather than “bad.” I can appreciate writing styles that are wonderful yet completely different than my own. I can pour withering scorn over the styles that are out-right bad. But … most importantly … I am keeping my love of writing alive by feeding it good things to read.

Like any other skill or talent, writing demands nourishment.

There are writers out there … writers of all types, writing marketing pieces or cookie-cutter novels … who basically write the same thing over and over and over again. I was watching the wonderful “Jeeves and Wooster” series with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry the other night, and in one episode, one of Bertie’s friends is reading a series of novels to his uncle to soften him up to the idea of him marrying a waitress. Every time the camera stops by Bingo and his uncle, you hear “Scornfully she tossed her black/blond/red curls as, eyes snapping, she replied…” The hair color changed from book to book, but the sentence remained the same. Every time.

Now, Bingo’s uncle enjoyed them, and all, but obviously this writer wasn’t doing a damn thing to expand her writerly horizons. She just stuck to what she knew and left it at that. My guess is that, after publishing her first book, she never picked up another book that wasn’t her own again. She never primed the pump or did anything to try to improve or do more. Nothing to generate new ideas.

My contention is that, while curling up with a book or four over the course of a weekend may not seem immediately productive … and I admit that it doesn’t … in fact, it serves a dual purpose. Not only does it give the Reader Me a relaxing visit with somebody else’s words and story for a change, but it reminds the Writer Me that new and different are good, possible, inspiring, and downright fun.

It’s all too easy to get caught in a rut. especially when things are going well, but you owe it to yourself to let that conscious mind relax once in a while while you pull out some fresh flavors, some new ingredients and let it all stew in the background with a dash of inspiration. You never know what might grow out of it.

So, you might be wondering how I’m doing on the Page-A-Day Challenge?

It’s been two weeks since it started, so we’re on day fourteen and I’ve added 23 pages to my manuscript. True, they’re double-spaced pages but still. I started with 179 pages with 48,358 words.

Currently?

• 202 Pages
• 55,372 Words

That’s an increase of 23 pages over 14 days, so I’m definitely meeting the quantity part of the challenge.

Of course, part of Weronika’s challenge was to write quality pages, and that I can’t really speak to. I admit that I’m using this challenge more as incentive to get the draft of this old, patient manuscript done than in trying to get the pages really, really good. After all, isn’t editing easier than dragging the original words out of my head and forcing them onto paper in the first place?

Do you do your best writing in the morning? Or at night?

This is one of those topics that can raise strong opinions.

People who write in the morning say that their brain is fresher, more creative. Their energy level is high, and they can crank out their best work before they’ve had their morning coffee. Or, at least, before lunch.

People who write at night say that their best work comes when their brain is tired after a full day, too tired to snipe and criticize at every sentence. They can focus on their writing with the satisfying knowledge that everything else they needed to do that day is done, and they can get words down on the page while the overly critical portion of their brain naps, dreaming about lists of tasks to do tomorrow.

Personally, I have trouble writing first thing in the morning. I like my sleep too much, and have difficulty enough dragging my eyelids open to get to my day job. The idea of waking up an hour earlier and pulling open the laptop and writing before I’m even out of bed (as I hear some writers do) seems almost obscene, and way too energetic for that hour of the day.

Could I go to bed earlier so I could wake up earlier without grumbling? Maybe, but then I’d lose the time I get some of my best work done. I find when I write later in the day, my inner critic is too busy napping to interfere with my getting words on the page. I like her awake and alert when I’m editing things, but dragging the words for a first draft out to my keyboard? She just gets in the way, trying to be too helpful. “Shouldn’t you have a comma there?” “Is that really the best word to use?” “You forgot to mention the strongest selling point.” It’s like trying to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with a toddler underfoot. She means well, but really isn’t helping a bit.

But, if I wait until she gets tired and nods off? I find I get so much more done, and then I welcome her help with the actual editing process. “You’re right, that spot really does need a comma.”

How about you? Morning? Or Evening?

Of course, maybe you split the difference and write in the afternoons…

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s one of the cardinal rules of writing:

Don’t Forget Your Audience.

This should be obvious. If you’re writing for children, there will be language or graphic scenes that you don’t need to detail. If you’re writing romance novels, on the other hand, you can go into (ahem) a lot more detail.

If you’re writing an article geared toward an elite group of highly educated people in a particular field, you can use a lot more jargon and industry-specific language than you could if you were writing the same article for the general public.

Newspapers are usually geared toward adult readers who presumably have a running knowledge of current events. Magazines and periodicals aim for people with common interests, such as photography, cars, fashion, their home town. Blogs can be directed toward general readers (everyone who thinks dogs are cute!), or focused on very specific people (fans of Holst’s “The Planets,” writers trying to get published, knitters who love making socks).

The point, though, is that you almost always have a specific audience.

But, how do you write differently for different groups?

This is harder to define, but I’d say it comes down to three elements. They’re all related, and the borders are fuzzy, but here’s how I think of them:

Tone.

Friendly. Cool. Informed. Gracious. Intelligent. Condescending. This is your tone of voice.

Think about this. When you get a phone call from a stranger and only have their voice with which to judge how capable they are, how helpful or convincing … it’s their tone that’s going to have the most impact. Do they sound tired? Bored? Excited? Interested?

You could have two marketers call you with the exact same pitch, but one will turn you off, and one will pique your interest … it all comes down to Tone. You’re going to be drawn to the one who sounds friendly and capable, the one who sounds interested in what she is doing and eager to help you.

The same thing goes with writing–it’s your choice how you sound, but that old saw about catching more flies with honey holds true … let your tone of voice show that you care about what you do.

Voice.

This seems similar to Tone, I know, but I think of Voice as how you use the language. A person addressing a conference of etymologists, for example, is going to dust off the fancy vocabulary, like bringing out the good silver for Christmas … but a GOOD writer is going to make that presentation interesting and entertaining, regardless of syllable count. A bad writer? Um, you remember those dense, dry, incomprehensible text books from school, don’t you? The ones that were so darn educated you couldn’t understand a word they said?

Writing can be made more or less accessible simply by the complexity of the language. Are the sentences long or short? Simple or complex? Are the paragraphs long, solid blocks of text? You get the idea. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t sound “smart” and “friendly” at the same time. Or that, if you’re writing for a professional journal that you can’t let your humanity show.

Vocabulary.

All the writing mavens love to tell you to keep your vocabularly simple–that the high-falutin’ words are just going to make you inaccessible, or confusing, or whatever the reason-of-the-week is. Not that I’m denying the truth of this, mind you–too many people simply don’t know what to do with one of those high-priced, fancy vocabularies, any more than they can drive a Lamborghini perfectly on the first try after a lifetime of Chevys.

My point, though, is that sometimes you have to gear your vocabulary to your audience. When talking to a child, we tend to downshift the vocabulary level to make it accessible. “Why don’t you go out to play?” instead of “Perhaps you would care to consider transferring your recreation to an outdoor venue?” Is your vocabulary held to a reasonable level that makes it accessible, yet not so “dumbed down” that you sound like you are constantly talking to a toddler?

I’m all for stretching people’s vocabularies–the more the better–and it never worries me to use a word or two that my readers might not have met before. I’m happy to provide the introduction. But there’s a difference between being in a room filled with familiar faces with just a stranger or two, and a room filled with strangers. If you fill up your writing with words that your readers probably don’t recognize … they’re going to ditch the party and decide to go hang out with their friends, instead.

There’s the built-in censorship element, too, of not using certain types of language in front of young, impressionable ears and eyes. Of writing in a gentlemanly or ladylike manner in such a way that your grandmother could read your work without blushing.

Don’t forget who you’re writing for.

What do you think? Do you write differently for different audiences?

As instructed as part of Weronika’s Page-A-Day Challenge, I’m setting up one post to track my progress.

My “victim” for this challenge is an old manuscript I’m resurrecting. If you don’t already know, I’ve got three novels written.

My first, “After Happily Ever,” was finished back in the mid-1990s and is a retelling of Cinderella, but one which gives the stepmother and stepsisters a fair break and then goes on to tell what happens after the prince finds the girl. It was finished, it is finished, but I recently chopped 30,000 words out of it to make it better, stronger, faster, so … still finished, but much improved.

The second … well more about that in a moment.

The third is “After Titanic” which tells about a young woman who lost her husband on the Titanic on their way back from their honeymoon, and has brought back an orphan with her. He was handed to her as her lifeboat was lowered, and she felt obliged to look after him. Little does she know, though, that the child is enormously wealthy, which brings up all sorts of interesting problems for her as she tries to deal with her grief and restart her life in the midst of gossipy neighbors, a distraught mother-in-law, and nosy reporters poking around, looking for a good story. This one stood unfinished for years while I tried to figure out the legal ramifications of her trying to adopt a rich orphan, on her own, in 1912 when women still couldn’t even vote. But, as of a month or so ago, it is done now, too.

The thing is … my second novel got bumped to the wayside by the Titanic story, and so it has languished even longer, even though it’s about halfway done. 48,000 words, in fact, with a rough outline as to what has to happen in the second half. Not only that, it’s a sort-of sequel to the first book. Not a direct sequel, but one that follows the great-great-great-whatever granddaughter of the couple in my Cinderella story, here in modern day New York. (Or, kind of modern day New York. Judging by the dates I put on each chapter, I started writing this in 1997, and the occasional anachronism regarding cell phones or internet access is kind of amusing. But I’m digressing.)

The thing is, rereading what I’ve got, I’m still pretty intrigued by this story. I like Cynthia and John, the main characters, and I’m tickled by the side-story I squeezed in based on Sleeping Beauty. (Hey, don’t mock the fairy tales.They’re classics for a reason. The originals are far more fascinating than the Disney versions, too.)

So.

For this page-a-day challenge, I’m going to work on finishing this poor book, stuck in limbo for over a decade. I’m a pretty monogamous writer, in that I like to focus on one thing at a time, if I can, and it’s irked me for years that this incomplete novel has been sitting in my “works in progress” folder. For my own peace of mind, I need to at least get the first draft done.

The beginning: 179 pages, 48,358 words.

I’m not usually one to sign up for writing “challenges.” Externally imposed deadlines or goals always seem so … artificial.

But, then … Weronika Janczuk made an excellent point.

We discussed mind tricks for a little while, and the prime example included the “page-a-day” trick. Instead of giving yourself a word count goal or a time goal, all you owe yourself is to write a page a day. The trick here is that you don’t psyche yourself out. And, if the writing comes easily, you’ll end up writing twenty pages before you know it.
And what’s the worst case scenario? You spend one year writing a novel. Typical novels tend to be 350 double-spaced pages or fewer (12 point font, Times). I’ve blogged about the importance of patience, and here’s a way to do multiple things at once: Learn to be patient. Train your discipline. Write good pages. Think about structure and organization day in and day out.

She intrigued me.

Well, Weronika is an intriguing person to begin with, what with still being in high school (for a few more weeks) and having a finished novel. A good one, I hear. I wish I’d had her kind of drive when I was a teenager.

I’m getting off-track.

The POINT I’m endeavoring to make is that it doesn’t actually matter what kind of writing you do.

The POINT is to do it every day.

It’s not about the quantity. It’s not about large, staggering chunks of time in front of your computer screen.

It doesn’t have to be HARD.

But if you sit down every day and write a page, or a blog post, or an article, or whatever it is that you write, even 100 words a day is going to add up … especially when you let yourself relax into it and just let the words flow.

Because, every writer can tell you, the hardest part is SITTING DOWN AND STARTING.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you like being told what to do? Or do you prefer making your own decisions?

I wrote recently, when discussing the “Show, Don’t Tell” rule, that writing is about taking the reader on a voyage of discovery

The minute I typed that, my fingers paused on the keyboard in a “That’s really profound” moment. (Okay, kind of profound.)

I don’t know about you, but the things I most enjoy reading are not posts, books, or articles that simply tell me things. I don’t so much enjoy the bullet-post lists, or the informative articles that sound like lectures. They have their uses, and I’m not saying they’re bad … and certainly, I’ve written them myself … but they’re not my favorites.

The things I enjoy reading are the things that take me along for a ride. It can be a story, a murder-mystery, an article explaining why certain types of red dye are so valuable, or why a certain shampoo is the best for my hair–the genre doesn’t matter.

What makes a difference, what makes me enjoy reading some things more than others, is the EXPERIENCE.

When a writer frames an article  by asking a question at the beginning, and then leading me through the quest to find the answer, I get swept up in the adventure.

When a writer presents me with a mystery and then helps me, step by step, discover the solution, I feel involved.

When a writer takes me to a place that feels real and makes me ask the questions I need to ask, I feel like I was there.

It’s easy to lecture. (I’m doing it right now.) But there’s a reason those old J. Peterman catalogs were so popular. They didn’t just tell you “This is a silk blouse with a flower print.” They wove an exotic story that took you to a place, an image, an idea. They drew you in and let you explore the image of an Arabian bazaar, or a British country house on a warm summer day.

The best kind of writing takes the reader on a voyage of discovery. The kind where you find a better world, or just a better shampoo. The kind where you see the person you want to be, with the lifestyle you want to have.

The kind that reawakens that little child you used to be who looked at the world with wide eyes, asking “Why?”, back when everything was new.

Isn’t that the kind of writer you want to be?

Taking people along on the journey is so much better than just showing them the photographs after you’re back home.

It’s one of the cardinal rules for writing, though you hear it more with fiction than non-fiction. (It applies to both, though.)

Show, Don’t Tell.

Instead of saying,

“He was nice to small children and animals.”

You write,

“As he dashed out the door to put out the fire, he paused to pat the toddler on the head and scratch the dog behind the ears.”

Instead of saying,

“We’re offering great deals!”

You write,

“Buy now and we’ll pay for a European vacation for you and your dozen closest friends!”

Instead of saying,

“The teenager was bored.”

You write,

“Charlie flipped through his pile of video games, dashing them to the floor in disgust, before flinging himself to the couch in despair.”

Instead of saying,

“This is the best tool you’ll ever buy!”

You write,

“This tool not only fixes computers, it will save your marriage, create world peace, and save the environment, all for the low, low price of $19.95.”

Instead of saying,

“Her dress was tacky and cheap.”

You write,

“Her dress was avocado green polyester that had to be a leftover from the 1970s, and the way it clashed with her “Autumn Sunrise” hair made us long for the sunglasses we’d left at the rest stop.”

You get the idea, right?

Good writing is a voyage of discovery.

You want your reader to discover the man is good to children because the reader sees it, not because you told them.

Really, it’s more fun for everybody that way.

You’ve heard writers telling you to eliminate extra words, to tighten up your prose, right? It’s so easy to write with careless zeal, lassoing every word we come across, willy-nilly, just to rope it into our work. If 50 words are good, 60 must be better. There’s no such thing as too long! If we’re too strict with our word usage, our writing is going to sound prim and soulless, and who wants that?

Well, it’s true that a few extraneous words won’t hurt, but … why? Why have them around? Five extra pounds around your waistline might not hurt much, either, but it’s still better to get rid of them. (Or at least keep it to five pounds, not fifteen or fifty.) Moderation is key, even in writing.

How about a live example?

Elle was sure that Edward overestimated her ability to cope. He could know with his mind that this would be an enormous adjustment, but he was so used to being watched and criticized and judged that he did not–could not–realize how hard a transition it was for her. Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to being “royal,” but that was very different than actually being royal. It was like the difference between being smart and being educated. She might have an instinct for this kind of life in her bones, but that did not make the living or the learning any easier.

Yes, it’s all a little flabby.

Elle thought Edward overestimated her ability to cope. He knew this was an enormous adjustment, but he was so used to being watched he did not realize how hard the transition was. He kept telling her this was in her blood, but she still felt like an imposter. Like the difference between being smart and being educated, she might have the instinct in her bones, but that did not make learning to use it any easier.

Changes:

• “Elle thought” instead of “Elle was sure that.” “Thought” may not be the best verb, but it’s still stronger than the passive “was sure that”
• Same thing with “He could know with his mind that” and “He knew.” Not only was the original unduly wordy and round-about, how else do you know things but with your mind?
• I took out the triad of “watched, criticized, and judged” because the repetition and rhythm did nothing for the sentence. Same with the “did not/could not.”
• Changed “Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to being “royal,” but that was very different than actually being royal,” to “He kept telling her this was in her blood, but she still felt like an imposter.” The original sentence also had a round-about structure (“Maybe she was, as he insisted, suited to…”), as well as a completely unnecessary use of italics and quotations. In fact, I kept nothing from the original.
• Combined the last two sentences into one, more streamlined sentence.

Is the second variation perfect? No, but for just a couple minutes’ worth of editing, it’s stronger and more streamlined. It also went from 103 words down to 76.

Easy, right? Now you just have to apply this to everything you’ve written … piece of cake!

No, I’m not saying you can’t use the word “that” at all. It’s such a useful word. In fact, I love “that.” It’s so strong and versatile, it can do almost anything.

• It can be a pronoun. (“That‘s my cousin over there.” “I like the bigger painting better than that one.”)

• It can be an adjective. (“I like that color, don’t you?”)

• It can be an adverb. (“My question’s not that important.”

• It comes included with a wide range of handy idioms. (“That is, I meant to call, but…” “I said no, and that’s that!”)

• But, it can also be a conjunction, introducing subordinate clauses, and that’s where “that” gets into trouble. (“I can’t believe that you liked that movie.” “Then I told her that I loved her, and she just stood there.”)

You’re thinking, “Why is that a problem? What’s wrong with that?” (ahem, see? Using “that” is handy.)

The problem is that “that” as a conjunction is often completely unnecessary. Take another look at those two examples, only, remove the word “that.”

• “I can’t believe you liked that movie.”

• “Then I told her I loved her, and she just stood there.”

You don’t even miss it, do you? The sentence is just as clear, just as good … it’s just that much stronger for the lack of “that.”

Why does this matter? It matters because “that” can change from being a strong, useful word to a lazy, flabby filler in a heartbeat.

Let’s look at this random paragraph, shall we?

I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, either. Not really.” I fumbled with my explanation. “Everything happened so fast, and neither of us expected that the ship would actually go down. It just wasn’t possible, was it? We thought that they were just taking rather extraordinary precautions—not that it was real.” I could not look at their faces, but focused intently on the hall carpet, concentrating on how the blues and reds wove together. “If I had realized that I would never see him again, I would have . . . I don’t know. Said something more? Acted differently? Told him that I loved him one more time?”

“That” makes five appearances in this paragraph, and so far as I’m concerned, only one of them is at all necessary. Do you see which one?

I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, either. Not really.” I fumbled with my explanation. “Everything happened so fast, and neither of us expected the ship would actually go down. It just wasn’t possible, was it? We thought they were just taking rather extraordinary precautions—not that it was real.” I could not look at their faces, but focused intently on the hall carpet, concentrating on how the blues and reds wove together. “If I had realized I would never see him again, I would have . . . I don’t know. Said something more? Acted differently? Told him I loved him one more time?”

This is my new hobby. That-hunting. I find that, now that I am looking for it, I use it way more often than is necessary. It isn’t incorrect, mind you, just … unnecessary. And since good writing is tight, lean, flab-free writing … why would you use words you don’t need?

I’m a bad writer.

I don’t mean that I write badly. You can disagree, of course, but I don’t have any real doubts about my writing ability. My ability to string words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, is pretty reliable. I have weaknesses, but even in unfamiliar writing territory, I always believe that I can fight my way through and find the words I need.

No, I’m a bad writer because there are times when I’d rather let someone else do it.

It’s not that I want other writers to do my work for me. It’s that sometimes I get so sucked in by reading other people’s work in a book, or watching it performed that, frankly, I can’t pull myself out of their stories to write my own. And, this last week, with some of my favorite TV shows having their season finales–not to mention a new episode of my favorite show, NBC’s Chuck–I’ve gotten sucked into watching television while goofing off on Twitter rather than focusing on assembling paragraphs for your entertainment and edification.

But, by the end of the night, I’m regretting the loss of precious time and scolding myself like a dog caught with a stolen slipper. “Bad writer! Bad, bad writer! Look at all the time you wasted!”

Does this make me a bad writer? Or just a lazy one?

This is the question. Many of us started writing in the first place because we enjoyed reading so much and wanted to tell our own stories. Or we were so good at being persuasive we naturally segued into putting it on paper (or on computer screens). Or writing was a way to make a buck, and reading just became part of the preparation necessary to write a good article.

There are lots of reasons to spend some time with other people’s writing.

Education: You have to know the rules, and the fastest, most painless way to learn them is to see them in action. If you read advertently, you can not only pick up the rules of grammar, but also how a sentence should flow, when to use adjectives, which verbs are active and which are passive, how to end a chapter or a sales letter … you get the idea. Watching a master at work is almost as good as working yourself. When you pay attention, you can pick up all sorts of tips–even if what you’re watching is a light-hearted, spy-story television episode.

Inspiration: Reading good quality writing can only help improve yours, by making you aware of what is possible, so that you want to achieve that level too. When you surround yourself with things to aspire to, you naturally gravitate to that level. If you start eating at five-star restaurants, you’re going to be unsatisfied by throwing a piece of pizza in your microwave for dinner. If you see enough stunning, perfect photographs, you’re not going to be happy with your careless snapshots. If your neighbors all have perfect, beautiful yards, you’re going to want to do a little more than just keep your lawn kind of sort of mostly hacked down to pre-jungle heights. You don’t have to have Bill Gates’ bank account to appreciate the finer things in life … and, luckily, even the best writing is cheap to come by. It’s what they say that is priceless.

Relaxation: Sometimes, all you really want to do is relax. You don’t want to think about the work you need to do, or about deadlines, or how to make the best way to replant an African Violet sound interesting. You want someone else to do the heavy lifting for a change. Somebody else can provide the story and plot, depth and twists for a change. You just want to sit back and enjoy the ride. There’s no shame in this. Everyone deserves some R&R once in a while.

And while there are some books/movies/tv shows that are never going to wow you with their writing, there are many that WILL. And I’m not just talking about the elitist kinds that have the prestigious awards in their sights. Nobody ever said “quality” had to be boring. Or that “entertaining” had to be a waste of your time. If curling up with a romance novel or a silly television sitcom makes you happy, do it. Just remember that the ones that are really good are good because (1) the writing works for them and, (2) they know exactly who their audience is.

You can’t be a good writer if you can’t focus and write.

The trick, I keep telling myself, is that it’s fine to do this sort of goofing off once in a while, but it’s a bad, dangerous habit on a regular basis. The internet, especially, is a persuasive place and it can be a huge time-suck, distracting you in the most pleasant way possible from doing what you need to do.

So, having let myself be pulled completely out of focus the last few nights … Am I a bad writer?

Though, luckily, I can redeem myself in my own eyes by reclaiming my focus and … writing.

Isn’t that what YOU should be doing right now?

It’s the 5th Annual Blogger’s Silent Poetry Reading. I’ve participated in 2006, 2007, 2008 over at my knitting blog andin 2008 here. Then last year gave you the Very Special Treat of sharing one of my own poems with you. it went over so well, I thought I’d try it again. It’s a rare, rare thing, so … I hope you like it!

Mourning After
by Deb Boyken

Finally, I stand, my feet firm on the shore,
And look back as the waves of grief lap at my toes.

I successfully navigated the waters, finding air
For my gasping lungs, as the tempest washed over my head.

Yet I fought my way through the waves, leaving
My battered heart no choice but to strive with the rest of me.

I struggled to the beach, victorious but weary, uncaught by
The undertow of despair dragging at my heels.

Looking back at the horizon, I see wave after wave
Baring white teeth which can no longer touch me.

Grief waits, poised to dissolve the sand beneath my feet,
But I’ve charted its greater depths, and ‘ware its watery tricks.

Still, it calls me, sussurrating in the wind, tempting me,
Promising to fill my ears, my mind, with waters of wistful memories.

I stand unmoving, my feet firmly planted on the sands of life,
My hardest challenge now to turn away.

Hmm, interesting… it’s been a while since I read this one.

I sometimes think my life would be easier if there was just one kind of writing that I enjoyed doing. If all I loved was copywriting, I could focus on polishing my marketing technique. If fiction was the all-powerful muse, I could immerse myself in prose and telling great stories. Poetry, word-play, essays, articles, websites … there are so MANY different kinds of writing that I enjoy.

Sometimes nothing will do but to write non-fiction. Hard, edgy facts, temptingly spun to just the angle I want the reader to see. There are times when I want to speak in my own voice and just chat, like I’m doing now. Then there are other times when fiction calls, and I want to concentrate on a story–plots, characters, dialogue, with all the fun of seeing what happens.

For some writers, of course, this is not a problem. They do one type of writing, and do it very well, so they have no need to branch out. A person who has been writing ad copy for twenty years can probably resist the lure of novel-writing. A successful novelist probably doesn’t feel the urge to bang out a marketing campaign. Sure, they may dabble. Novelists adapt their stories into screenplays. Copywriters write articles for trade publications. Poets dig down to produce the occasional short story … but many writers know what they like to write, and they stick to it.

Some of us, though (cough), want to do it all. So, what’s a writer to do? How can a writer deal with being pulled by different muses–fiction and non-fiction–without being torn apart?

In some ways, this is easy … the point is to WRITE, no matter what you are writing.

Writing is like a muscle that needs to be exercised. It’s a skill that needs to be honed. A pot that needs to keep simmering. If you let it get flabby, dull, and cold, it’s just going to be that much harder the next time you sit down to write. You are better off writing descriptions for catalogs or letters to old friends than writing nothing at all. Just … Write. It doesn’t matter what.

Sometimes the Market determines what you write.

If you are between novels, you can write and sell a few short stories, or some articles while you wait to hear back from your publisher. If you are a freelancer facing a lull in paying clients, this is the perfect time to work on that novel. If an editor calls and offers you a contract for a series of articles–even if articles aren’t what you normally do–you should consider it. Don’t forget, writing is not just a hobby or vocation (though it can be those things)–it is also a profession. You should follow your heart and preferences as much as you can, but sometimes you just need to go where the money is.

Is it possible to be a fabulous writer without focusing on one kind of writing?

I think absolutely yes. Far from believing that dabbling in a wide range of writing styles makes me weaker, my technique diluted, I think that it gives me an ever-growing list of skills to fall back on. Knowing how to pace a story makes my ad copy better. Understanding basic marketing techniques makes my query letters stronger. Enjoying the word play of a good poem heightens my appreciation of finding just the right word when I’m writing anything else. Just like a diet of one kind of food is unhealthy (and boring), it’s good to mix things.

A change is as good as a rest.

So, you’ve been slogging on your novel for weeks, concentrating on character development, making sure your scenes are successfully doing whatever they need to do, and frankly, you’re a little tired. The last thing you want to do this morning is to look at your computer keyboard … But, wait! Somebody wants you to write their new webpage. Something new! Something different! Suddenly, you feel inspired. Your fingers fly over the keys, and you produce new copy for them in record time … and, even better, when you look back at your novel? It doesn’t feel like slogging anymore.

Just like a vacation, or pausing for a long walk–sometimes, just doing something else for a while is all we need to reinvigorate ourselves and our writing.

You can use your desire for other types of writing as incentive.

Maybe this only works for me because I am a fiction addict. I love stories. I love to follow a character through the course of a book (or better, a series) until I feel like they’re old friends. Curling up with a new book by a favorite author is one of my all-time favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon–or any afternoon. But, I find that I get so caught up in reading about other people’s characters, I sometimes lose the incentive to focus on my own. So, I’ll put myself on a fiction diet–no reading fiction allowed until I’ve worked on my book. It might seem crazy, but it works, because the need in my blood for plot, character, clues, layers–all the things that make a good story–will ultimately drive me to sit in front of the computer. If my own fiction is all I can get, I am so there.

Similarly, if I’ve been neglecting my blogs … I stop reading other people’s. No blogs, no posts, no updates, no thoughts on the writing industry … so, obviously, I need to write my own.

Balance is never a bad thing.

And, anyway, whoever said that you could only do one? Keeping a healthy balance of gifts, skills, talents, and interests are what make us balanced people. Sure, if you are a prodigy with an enormous gift, you need to focus on that to exclusion of other things, practicing your violin until all hours, but falling behind in biology class. But, with the exception of some rare, truly gifted people … most of us have a variety of normal-sized talents instead of one big one, and it’s better to keep them all in shape. If you love writing fiction and non-fiction, then darn it, write both. Why not?

Personally, I find I need a balance of both–for reading and for writing. Even with television–I watch scripted shows for the stories, but also watch news and documentaries for the factual stuff. If I start getting too much of one, I feel unbalanced, just as if I suddenly ate nothing but sweets … or stopped eating them altogether. I’m happier with a mix. I find the urge to write fiction is strongest when I’m sitting at my desk at my day job, trapped without access to TV or a novel. (Awkward, of course, because that’s when I need to be doing the work they pay me for.) When I’m home watching television or sitting with a book, I find that I want to write blog posts or marketing copy. I need a mix to keep myself happy.

You are only limited by yourself.

Why limit myself? The better I write, the better it is for everyone–me, my readers, and the people who pay me. It doesn’t hurt to have preferences, and a natural bent for a specific style or technique should be encouraged … but who says a violinist can’t branch out to the cello once in a while? Or that a baker can’t get the urge to make a pot of soup for a change? Just because you make your living as a copywriter doesn’t mean you can’t write short stories, too. And if you’ve got a novel you’re working on, why not do some freelancing, too?

Because–limiting your writing because you think you should? That’s like any other diet … it’s going to get very boring very quickly. Variety is the spice of (writing) life!

It’s so easy to tell writers that words are tools and it’s good to have as many in the toolbox as possible. Mixing and matching words to form the perfect sentence, after all, is what writers DO.

But what if your vocabulary is actually getting in your way?

Too Many Choices

First, if you know two dozen ways to describe “happy,” how will you choose the one to use? Joyful? Tickled? Gay? Ecstatic? Merry? Pleased? Glad? Or should you just stick with Happy? These kinds of decisions are just going to slow down the writing process.

Too Confusing

It’s a sad statement on education in this degenerate age, but people just aren’t as familiar with the multitude of words as they used to be. (I’m not talking about YOU; I’m talking about the people who see your copy on websites or sales pieces.) If you have to write to the lowest common denominator and throw out a word like Exemplary or Premiere, you’re just going to confuse people. You’re better off sticking with plain vanilla words with as few syllables as possible.

Too High-Falutin’

Not everyone has your fancy education. (You graduated from high school, right?) You don’t want to go rubbing those elitist SAT words in people’s noses. It will just make them angry. Think to yourself, “Would a two-year old understand this?” and write accordingly.

Too Expensive

These are difficult times, budgets are tight. Why use a five-dollar word when a one-dollar word would work just as well?

Ahem.

Okay, so this may have been a little extreme. Nobody pays five dollars for a word, anymore.

No, seriously … I don’t believe in “dumbing-down” my writing. I assume anyone reading my … well, reading anything, really … has a reasonable grasp of the English language. Will they have the vocabulary of an English professor? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean they speak like an 8-year old, either. (In fact, eight year-olds are extraordinarily bright and absorb vocabulary like sponges.)

There is a fine line, though, between writing intelligent copy that uses the perfect word to describe the joy a customer will feel when they hold the exciting new product you’re selling in their hand, and copy that uses the word “happy” because the writer either didn’t know any alternatives, or assumed the readers were too stupid to know that “content” can mean both “substance” and “happily satisfied.”

Never assume your readers are stupid.

They might not have the extensive vocabulary you have. They may occasionally put apostrophes in inappropriate spots. They may have quit school at 16 to get a job, but that does not, ever, mean they’re simple-minded. People hate being “talked down” to and almost everyone I know has an internal radar that detects patronizing behavior. The minute your copy starts speaking. slowly. and. simply. to. be. very. clear, you’re going to offend at least half of the people reading it.

It doesn’t hurt anyone to learn a new word once in a while.

If “happy” really doesn’t cut it in your copy and you really, truly, desperately want to say “ecstatic” instead–do it. You don’t have to edit out every word that you couldn’t have found in the “Dick and Jane Book of Marketing.” If you want to say “supreme” instead of “best,” go ahead … just remember the point is to be understood as quickly as possible.

But don’t go so overboard that your meaning gets lost

I’m not saying you should start writing obscure, multi-syllabic copy though, either. It might be fun, but if you talk about the “Most advantageous promotion being presented only today,” people might not mean “Best Offer–Limited Time!” The point of good copy is to make your point, and if you fail to do that, you’ve failed.

Keep the headlines simple.

At the very least, keep the eye-catching stuff as straight-forward as you can. You can use more elaborate prose once you’ve got people reading, but you need to catch their attention first.

Ultimately, your vocabulary is a TOOL. You don’t need to use a sledgehammer when a regular hammer will do. You don’t need the fast blades of a food processor when you just need to trim a few vegetables for a salad. You don’t need a blow-torch to light the birthday candles.

In writing, as in so much else, you have to hit just the right level of force.

Because hitting people over the head is no way to convince them of anything. Keep things simple, but make them informative and interesting. Don’t try to impress people with your own vocabulary–if you’re a good writer, you can get your point across without having to go into debt for all those $5-words.

Okay, I’m calling it a draft now. 82,419 words and at long last, my novel is written through the final chapter. Phew!

I’m not entirely sure how long this really took. My guess is I started in 1999. According to my reading list, I read J. Winocour’s “Story of the Titanic” in February 1998, and Stephen Cox’s “Titanic Story” in October 1999, and since reading is one of my favorite forms of research and this takes place immediately after the disaster, that seems a good sign.

So … ten years.

This isn’t saying that the book is DONE, mind you. Oh, no. Lots of work to be done! This is just the first draft, but considering I was stymied for something like 6 years with a 1912-era legal dilemma that I couldn’t find an answer to, getting the story all the way through to the end … no matter how rough and bumpy it might be along the way … is a relief.

Of course, there are lots of things that need fixing, tightening, and there are holes I know I need to plug. But that’s not the point, right? The point is that I’ve got 290 pages of manuscript that at least finally looks kind of like a book.

That’s kind of a nice way to end the year.

Do you know  the most powerful tool a writer has in his or her arsenal?

Telling a story.

I’m not talking about a fairy tale that starts with “Once upon a time” and ends with “happily ever after.” I’m talking about the kind of story that immediately makes your readers interested in what you have to say, and how it affects them.

The best stories start with a character having a problem.

His wife leaves. A hurricane destroys his house. The aliens invade. On top of that, he just got fired from his job  just as his parents are due to come visit, and he’s coming down with a cold. And it’s only Monday. You’re immediately drawn in–HOW is he going to manage?

Or, maybe you prefer non-fiction, and you’re wondering how the doctors will cure the plague, how Louisiana is going to handle massive flooding, or how Abraham Lincoln is going to convince his biggest rivals to help him hold the Union together. It doesn’t matter, which. The point is, you’re going to care.

The gripping stories pull you in right away by making you curious, and making you care about the outcome.

They add some kind of human interest–you’re not just reading about statistics, you’re reading about how the hurricane of the century affected ONE person, or how a global crisis affected one small town. It’s immediate. It’s visceral.

You don’t start with, “Once upon a time, there was unemployment of over 10% and the Great Depression was spread across the globe.” No, you start with “Once upon a time, when every tenth person couldn’t find work, one man was determined to create jobs for every one, no matter what the cost. This is his story.” Focusing on something or someone specific immediately makes your reader want to know what happens next.

This is a powerful, immediate tool. And you should be using it in your copywriting … right this minute. Case Studies are built on this. So is some of the best Copywriting.

Think about it. What’s the best way to get somebody’s attention? You start off with a person, just like them, who woke up one day with a problem, or an idea, something to change the world … and then you tell what they did about it.

Tell a story.

You’ll be glad you did.

(Now, the next question? Ponder this: Would this entire post have been more powerful, more helpful if I had written it as a story? If I had framed it by telling you how this technique has helped me gain clients, or write better copy, making me more successful? Of course it would! Because here’s the other, big secret … Lectures are boring. Stories are fun. Discuss!)

Here’s the other thing about my Dad that confuses me. (Well, there’s more than two, but I’m trying to focus, here.)

When he reads for pleasure, he likes mysteries, or those adventure kinds of stories where the hero saves the world because he uncovered the enemy’s secret plan just in time.

If you give him a book that simply tells a story, though … he’s bored. He wants a plot that’s working to solve something, or to figure something out, otherwise it’s too mundane; there’s no point. Okay, I can appreciate that. I like books like that, too. Yet, if I hand him a book that tells a real-life story of defeating a terrorist plot, or saving the world by deciphering a code just in time, he says that’s boring, too, because it’s history.

Sigh.

No point? Boring?

Obviously my father doesn’t understand the point of a good story … It’s not just that they are entertaining, but they are about problem-solving.

The detective is presented with a twisty murder and must follow the clues to find the killer. The FBI agent catches wind of a plot to destroy the Capitol building and races against time to prevent it. How is that different than reading about the problems the Allies faced in deciphering the Enigma Machine in WWII? Or how we finally stopped the global flu pandemic in 1914? The way those stories play out fascinate me.

Puzzles aren’t limited to mysteries, though.

Even in “quieter” stories, characters in books face problems every day.

They may not be life-and-death, but there are always puzzles to solve. How to make ends meet. How to raise the children after the husband takes off. How to rehabilitate the troubled dog you brought home from the shelter. How to keep your close-knit group of friends together after college. How to find the girl who left the shoe in the ballroom.

The best stories have some kind of conflict, something that need to be solved or fixed or prevented.

Sure, that can be a person with a gun or a vengeful serial killer, but they could also be the character’s own memories that prevent them from succeeding, or the dysfunctional family that comes to him for help every minute of the day.

The trick as a writer (and not just a fiction writer) is to find the problem and tell how the protagonist solved it.

Because, obviously, keeping my father entertained is hard.