Forum: Author Hangout

Hi CW,

I've read several of your books and enjoyed them. You do well with long and complex sentences. I've found that the longer the sentence I use the less real estate I have to build upon.

I admit it's personal preference. I have an older pen name here where I used longer and more complex sentences. The scores are much lower than the mediocre ones I now receive. I realize that a lot of that can be attributed to the lack of technical knowledge of storytelling that I displayed at that time.

I studied minimalism to end the incessant rabbit chasing my stories fell into as I tried to make them "come alive". I realized that everyone builds their own movie set whenever they read a story. I need to give them just enough information so they can build the set to their satisfaction. Finding that balance seems to be a key between a good storytelling and a bad. My fans also seem to enjoy the crisper style minimalism gives

Of course, it doesn't matter how I describe it if the story itself is shit.

lol

Rabbits are a sacrosanct species and chasing them is a great sin.

Depending upon your universe, you either get an increase to your stat 'Bunnies slaughtered' (TES V, Skyrim) or you hear ka-click coming from Bun-Bun (Sluggy Freelance).

Bun-Bun is a SheVa tank. A powerful weapon of war. John Ringo's a Sluggy fan.

Keep in mind that SheVa Nine has a picture of Bun-Bun (the lop) saying, "Let's Rock, Posleen-Boy!" on the front turret (if you can call something where the top is 170 feet off the ground a turret)

Yeah, I know Ringo is a Sluggy fan. I'm a serious Ringo fan. :) (Winterborn by Cruxshadows, all the way!)

I studied minimalism to end the incessant rabbit chasing my stories fell into as I tried to make them "come alive". I realized that everyone builds their own movie set whenever they read a story. I need to give them just enough information so they can build the set to their satisfaction. Finding that balance seems to be a key between a good storytelling and a bad. My fans also seem to enjoy the crisper style minimalism gives

That's especially true with descriptions, as descriptions tend not to 'sink in'. Thus a reader will replace the author's descriptions with their own imagined ones, unless the author makes a point of repeating a character description because it's central to the overall plot.

But, at the same time, you'll often have to 'flesh out' certain story details in order for them to 'come alive' and feel 'real' to readers, so don't skip over the descriptions, though it's fine to minimize them so they don't get overwhelming. But often, it's by paying attention to little details that makes stories so important to readers.

As far as my use of complex sentences, the reason why I get away with it is, despite the complexity of my sentences, they each deal with a single thought, rather than multiple thoughts.

The idea is that readers can only deal with one thought at a time. If you throw too many ideas at once at them, they'll only catch one, fumbling the others. However, if you pitch one, and they receive it, then you can pitch another, and another and another. So it's easy to build complexity over time. Or, as I'm so fond of, using a complex sentence to lay foreshadowing and red herrings (thought are 'asides' of the main thought, rather than separate thoughts).

It took me some time to master those concepts myself, and I continue wrestling with them. The safest approach, however, is to sidestep it by avoiding the complex sentences altogether. 'D

Yes, I'm not literary enough to know the name of the general style. It certainly is a style. I like strong impactful words. My problem is finding ones that convey the exact degree of force I am trying to convey without seeming cliche or breaking the suspension of disbelief. "Hey, this is a fight scene, not epic poetry!"

Thanks for sharing.

Yes, I'm not literary enough to know the name of the general style. It certainly is a style. I like strong impactful words. My problem is finding ones that convey the exact degree of force I am trying to convey without seeming cliche or breaking the suspension of disbelief.

The thesaurus is often an author's best friend (aside from his editors). Learning to recognize repeated words helps too (I cheat, using software to do it). Using cliches is not just a problem, but when you keep repeating the same cliches, it gets pretty overpowering.

"Hey, this is a fight scene, not epic poetry!"

Talking about story pacing (earlier), that's part of your battle with your minimalism/complexity dilemma. In a fight scene, you want fast action, taken in small bits. But afterwards, when the reader needs to catch their breath and the characters have t piece together what happens, longer descriptions of what unfolded help with the character development. (i.e. it's not that those descriptions aren't helpful, but it's more of a story pacing issue of where you put those longer descriptions.

You don't include them in the action scenes, or in the already slow opening scenes, instead you use them to slow down the runaway freight train effect, so you get fast followed by slow, and a steady build-up followed by a rapid resolution. That's why you plan the major story waypoints ahead of time, so you'll know how to pace the story around those goalposts.

Thank you for sharing so much. In earlier stages of my writing, I thought I had to be a novelist so I wrote two books. One of which sold a few copies.

While novel writing is fun, I become obsessed which is decidedly not fun. I burned myself out by working on so many projects that I refused to write for over a year.

When I started writing again I discovered that short stories are the perfect fit for my personality. There's not much of a market for them but the occasional comment and email is payment enough.

What I do find humorous is that as a writer I am a living cliche. Most of my stories have a strong romantic element. I spent a large portion of my career providing physical security and I have been described as a thug more than once. As recently as this past Christmas I was asked to intimidate somebody which is really hilarious as I am an old fat man in bad health.

What rang true for me Crumbly was your statement concerning each complex sentence dealing with a single thought. That's something I can latch onto and experiment with. Thank you for that.

I limit each story to no more than 7,500 words and I don't want to kid myself by writing chapters of a longer story and calling them shorts, lol. That sound just like me. Still, you gave some good advice and I want to try it.

When I started writing again I discovered that short stories are the perfect fit for my personality. There's not much of a market for them but the occasional comment and email is payment enough.

Actually, that's (writing short stories) is the preferred method of learning to write, as it's what most authors do while they're still in school, writing their initial crappy stories where few but their teachers, gf/bf and family are forced to wade through them.

For me though, I'm largely incapable of writing short stories, as each of my ideas, like my sentences, involved complex thoughts which require fairly extensive character development (i.e. the plot and characters require more than just a couple chapters).

In fact, I average around twenty chapters for each of my stories. My shortest book was 16 chapters, but still over 150,000 words! But short, in-depth character studies (like Breakfast at Tiffany's are ideal, as you can explore characters and situations without worrying about the repercussions on other things and other people. Little mini worlds.

For me though, I'm largely incapable of writing short stories, as each of my ideas, like my sentences, involved complex thoughts which require fairly extensive character development (i.e. the plot and characters require more than just a couple chapters).

Due to my recent illness, my capacity to sustain complex thoughts has diminished. TBH it's just too much work to try to build full mini-worlds. I had already decided on short stories prior to almost dying, but at this point, a full-fledged novel would take a year or three to write the first draft.

It can take me literally ten hours to write 1000 words. because I write some then have to do something else or sit and think for 30 minutes. Write another sentence or five, but I love it. Prior to my illness, I could do the same work in an hour. At least, I can still write.

You've got that right. It still stinks though. But I do notice that I am starting to last longer. For the first 2 months I wasn't able to write creatively at all. So I'm not arguing.

You've got that right. It still stinks though. But I do notice that I am starting to last longer. For the first 2 months I wasn't able to write creatively at all. So I'm not arguing.

I can relate. Though my problems were nothing compared to what you're intimating, I had medical-related issues with concentrations (and I still do), which caused me to stop reading novels altogether. That led me to ASSTR and SOL, because the most I could manage was a single chapter at a time. I also switched from books to magazine articles, because they were short enough for me to manage.

Once I figured out the source of my issues, I insisted my doctor cut back my medicine, and suddenly I was semi-functional again. So I set out to accomplish something, and for want of anything better, I tried writing, figuring I could as well as many stories posted here at the time (over the years, the writing skills on the site have increased overall).

You have to adapt and focus on what you still can, but focusing allows you to slowly stretch your limits and expanding what you're capable of.

If my don't mind my waxing eloquent, the biggest difference between short story and novel writers seems to be mostly the focus of the stories they tell. Short story authors (and especially poets) do well with longer stories, but they're less likely to focus exclusively on long stories.

The others, like me, tend to think in terms of complete worlds where the characters overlap and contrast, and the situations evolved and unfold over time.

The biggest difference, though, it capturing most of the story in your head, even before you scrawl it down in a plot outline. I've always plotted my entire novels out in my noggin. Then, I often throw in complicating factors, which force me to sit on the story for some time, merely to figure out how to overcome my own self-imposed roadbloack. It is only once I'm writing, often after a couple months of sitting on a project, that I EVER lay pencil to paper (or, more accurately, keys to keyboard).

However, getting back on topic, short stories are better if you aren't ready for that type of mental juggling with complex concepts. I'm not intending to belittle your efforts, but focusing on short stories is better for improving your writing and exercising you mental muscles.

That said, if you can lay out a longer story in pieces (not all at once as I do), you should be able to sketch out most of a novel's plot, a piece at a time. Once you've accomplished that, you can then work on the longer story a small piece at a time.

I'm not suggesting that you immediately start on your next novel, but merely laying out strategies you might employ when you feel more able to.

By the way, Ross's point are pretty spot on. I agree with most of what he said. Also, as he said, if you drop me a note (follow the link to "Authors" at the top of the page, find me and send me a message with your email) and I'll run the 'word frequency' report for you, so you can get a feel for how frequently you're falling into that trap.

Often, recognizing how often you do something helps you avoid it in the future. That's how I stopped using so many "that"s, "then"s and "just"s, though it hasn't stopped me from continually reusing the exact same words in the same paragraph, so I rely on those automated reports to clean up my own writing.

Due to my recent illness, my capacity to sustain complex thoughts has diminished. TBH it's just too much work to try to build full mini-worlds. I had already decided on short stories prior to almost dying, but at this point, a full-fledged novel would take a year or three to write the first draft.

There's no sense exhausting yourself, because the work suffers when you do, and it impacts your health, which reduces how much you can accomplish over time.

It's better to temper your work, releasing bite-sized pieces, rather than full works which are lacking and which take years to complete.

Besides, each of those short pieces are further fodder for a subsequent longer work—if and when you finally feel up to it.

How did you observe it? I can't remember anyone on this forum ever stating something like that.

Face it, we don't generally discuss writing styles, or how to stitch a story together. Instead, we get bogged down arguing over whether we should eliminate filler words, or whether we're 'showing or telling'.

I'll sometimes wax poetic about literary styles, but I only do it occasionally (see above) when I think someone is receptive to discussing the issues. Most of us are more ready to discuss the weaknesses in porn writing than the strengths in literary works we might read but never talk about.

I think it was Ernest who told me that arguments about more profound aspects of writing resulted in even worse fights than those.

That they did on the old forum. I use what some call a colloquial style and what I was taught as the vernacular style. I use ti because it's less formal and more free flowing. It also has a lot more room for variation than the more formal styles of writing do.

In the book I mentioned earlier I cover all of that. I started that guide back in 2009, and have added to it as more things came up in the discussion which I felt were important. I also start from the very basics which a lot of people here are already past and would skip the first quarter of the book. It's free, so it costs you nothing but time to see if there's anything there you can use.

I'm reasonably certain the fiddling grammar discussions in this forum are not a consequence of learned expertise. I think it was Ernest who told me that arguments about more profound aspects of writing resulted in even worse fights than those.

Sorry, I mistook your intent. My bad.

But, as pedantic as we are all about basic rules of grammar, surely it would help us all to focus on the actual craft of writing, rather than belabor what we should have learned in third grade. :(

If nothing else, it would be interesting to compare which plot techniques other authors use, so we can better pick and choose which we might employ in the future.

Wow! Thanks for relaying the message, Robberhands. Will you please let Ross know I will be emailing him? Thank you.

3. The grammar used will vary with the style and the formal level of the English you sue, so some of what the grammar nazis say won't have an application if you use a style they don't relate to.

And if the grammar you chose doesn't do what you want it do, you definitely should sue it, for all the spare commas it has! 'D

Darian, don't mind this humorous post. Ernest has a long-standing series of typos he traditionally makes, so we sometimes bust his chops over them. They're easily enough cleaned up during editing, so it doesn't affect his writing chops. (Note the double use of "chops" in the same sentence.)

(Note the double use of "chops" in the same sentence.)

at least it wasn't chop, chop.

Hi Ernest,

I've noticed the comma war lol and agree you're not going to please everybody. The same goes for hyphens as well. When I was a child very few words were hyphenated. So I still get confused some times or is it sometimes? lol

I normally just pick a version for a given story and then stick with it for the duration of that story. An example being: tee shirt, tee-shirt, t shirt, or t-shirt. I've seen it printed in all of those ways.

I also prefer the English spelling of certain words over the American. I prefer behaviour over behavior and colour over color. Spellcheck be damned. I do prefer tit over teat though breast is best. Sorry, long day at work and I'm a little slap-happy.

Writing the story I want to write is what makes SOL such an awesome place, Lazeez goes out of his way to take a hands-off approach to our muse as long as we don't put his heiney in the sling. I guard my muse jealously.

I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the thread. I've learned a lot(especially to avoid the dreaded S word).

I've noticed the comma war lol and agree you're not going to please everybody. The same goes for hyphens as well. When I was a child very few words were hyphenated. So I still get confused some times or is it sometimes? lol

I normally just pick a version for a given story and then stick with it for the duration of that story. An example being: tee shirt, tee-shirt, t shirt, or t-shirt. I've seen it printed in all of those ways.

Generally, the 'hyphen wars' you've noted don't apply to words like t-shirt. Instead, they apply to specific English constructions, and are mainly dictated by specific publishing guides, which many of us don't follow.

Specifically, they apply to multi-word adjectives which modify nouns, such as "a never-ending war". Since "ending" can't modify "war", you combine the two words into a single phrase which can.

In other words, don't worry about your hyphens until your editors comment on it. If there's confusion over those types of phrases, then hyphens are usually called for.

some times or is it sometimes

which can actually have two different meanings, and there are some other words like that.

some times or is it sometimes

which can actually have two different meanings, and there are some other words like that.

Or, in other words, sometimes it's "sometimes", while other times it's "some times". See GrammarGirl for details.

Creative Writing and/or English degrees

There's a significant difference between the two, but neither will turn someone into a great storyteller.

From wikipedia (spit):
"In 1982, Rowling took the entrance exams for Oxford University but was not accepted[20] and earned a B.A. in French and Classics at the University of Exeter."

Not Creative Writing or English. I'm not going to bother checking the others you listed.

AJ

Not Creative Writing or English.

That list off the top of my head was those who taught Creative Writing and/or English.

From https://www.biography.com/people/jk-rowling-40998

"A graduate of Exeter University, Rowling moved to Portugal in 1990 to teach English."

ETA: I'm not familiar with the British school system. What is "Classics"? Is that classic literature?

That list off the top of my head was those who taught Creative Writing and/or English.

Strangely enough, many of my friends and acquaintances teach English, but mostly for non-English speakers. There's currently a huge market for it in the UK.

ETA: I'm not familiar with the British school system. What is "Classics"? Is that classic literature?

IIRC, Ancient Greek and Latin literature play a huge part, but it's also about their cultures and history.

AJ

Strangely enough, many of my friends and acquaintances teach English, but mostly for non-English speakers.

I guess there's a difference between teaching English as a second language like Rowling did. She should not have been on the list.

That list off the top of my head was those who taught Creative Writing and/or English.

You left out James Patterson - he 'teaches' Creative Writing, although not as a degree course ;)

AJ

You left out James Patterson

It was just people I remembered teaching English or Creative Writing. I'm sure there are a lot more.

In participating in the sort of nitpicking condemned earlier, I seem to have lost sight of my point. In my own admittedly limited experience, a Creative Writing degree confers no advantage in the race to earn a publishing contract and may actually result in a disadvantage: the stories written by the course junkies in my writers' group are depressingly similar in style and voice.

AJ

the stories written by the course junkies in my writers' group are depressingly similar in style and voice.

My wife had a professor when going for her masters in Creative Writing (poetry) who had Erica Jong as a student. He kept telling my wife to write like her. It was her worst class.

ETA: That's another successful author who had a Creative Writing degree — Erica Jong.

In participating in the sort of nitpicking condemned earlier, I seem to have lost sight of my point. In my own admittedly limited experience, a Creative Writing degree confers no advantage in the race to earn a publishing contract and may actually result in a disadvantage: the stories written by the course junkies in my writers' group are depressingly similar in style and voice.

What does make a difference in the literary field, aren't the creative writing students, but those who've studied poetry and how to phrase sentences so their passages are 'beautiful' in their own right.

On the other hand, the 'story tellers' tend to crank out past paced stories that don't focus on reflective passages and character interactions, but on action and moving the plot along.

Unfortunately, you find best selling and poor-selling authors in both categories, as there aren't many best-selling authors, and virtually every author lives hand to mouth. In fact, the one thing most best-selling authors do have, is the wherewithal, to hire underlings to help them churn out the profitable material, whereas the rest of us have to work three jobs, which leaves little time to sweating out the details of crafting the 'perfect' story. :(