Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - Keep 'Em Reading: Lesson 08

YOUR WRITING YARDSTICK. How do you measure your progress? Learning is a solitary thing. You want to know how good your techniques are before you hit "publish". So, these tips:

Nobody can do your writing for you. You must do it yourself. This fact is both the joy and the despair of beginners the world over.

Dismiss claims nobody can help. That is simply not true.

The history of literature proves that multitudes of writers have learned to write from others, that many writers have trained younger men, and even developed entire schools of craftsmen.

The story of the Elizabethan taverns, of the Queen Anne coffee houses, of the eighteenth century clubs, of the modern colleges and universities — all show craftsmen train others in this, as in any other craft.

Tell some newspaper editor that he cannot teach a cub to write and listen to his raucous laughter.

It is natural, of course, that professional writers should wish the public to believe that their success is the fruit of pure genius. One can hardly expect them to give away their hard-earned knowledge, their trade secrets, for nothing. Many writers cannot explain their methods.

He occasionally forgets his methods, fearing the inability to repeat them.

There is, also, a natural dread upon the part of many writers, lest they confuse others less experienced than themselves, when they talk shop.

Discussions of technical issues, whether in writing or conversation, yield fragmented data unhelpful to novices.

Novice participants, lacking a complete understanding, may become disheartened.

To him they give a picture puzzle to work out, but by withholding several key pieces, prevent him from doing it.

Of course, different writers follow different methods. What are these methods? This chapter will attempt to explain.

All other arts demand initial training; novices sketch, practice finger exercises, etc. Writers do likewise, but seldom discuss this. ‘The author who tells you he never wrote a word he did not sell, is like a violinist who might claim that he never _ touched a violin until he stepped upon the concert platform. In short, he is a shameless liar.

Writers believe deception works because language, being a lifelong tool, provides everyone some mastery.

But a command of language is only a part of literary craftsmanship.

Literary skill, which requires more than just conversation to learn, surpasses this.

Most apprentice writers write a hundred words for every one they publish. Talented writers experience a wider chasm between writing and publishing; the pleasure of writing often precedes the discipline of the profession. However, the last account preserves all this early experimentation. It all comes out in the wash.

The beginner’s chief difficulty, then, lies in his having no yardstick by which to measure his work. Without guidance, he might despair, concluding escape impossible. This is a mistake. Diligent self-help creates personal measuring sticks for beginners. In the long run, he will fare better if he makes it himself.

Measuring Your Story.

To write well and get published, make sure each of your stories is professional. It needs to have a strong narrative. One where you’ve not overlooked anything important, in content or form.

After addressing those issues, prioritize presentation quality when creating your work.

This involves avoiding clichés—overused phrases.

While its strengths include superior style, pattern, freshness, and originality.

Effective style unites presentation of subject and emotion within a single sentence. As the cable connects a captive balloon with the crew on the ground, so your sentence should connect the emotions with your characters. This is the basic reason of style in fiction, and you must strive to keep your words saturated with the mood of your story.

In order to do this, convincing motivation is essential. Remember that when you change the scene, you change the mood of the reader. Time gaps also disrupt narrative flow. For the highest emotional effect, you should therefore have as few changes of scene and of emotion as possible, convincing motivation, and a point of view which permits intense feeling. The simpler, the better. Sudden scene, time, incident, viewpoint changes destroy profound emotion. Beginners especially require repeated reminders: single acts—a murder, a fight, one woman’s action—prove far more impactful than multiple attempts.

Since the beginning, the utmost importance in getting your story read, whether by an editor or a reader, you must learn to write professional beginnings, Beginnings which contain every essential part in the most effective order or arrangement.

To achieve this goal, buy copies of the last six issues of a magazine you wish to write for. This magazine features more popular authors. These are the authors you should study in attempting to sell to that market.

For this, summarize each magazine story written by these popular authors.

You will find a certain similarity of plot pattern.

These similar patterns yield a standard or composite pattern—a basic design the magazine editor approved.

That composite pattern or plot, that basic design, is the blueprint for your stories.

With that in mind, you may substitute other characters, fresh complications, motivations, problems and solutions, and work for something as interesting and plausible as your model.

Avoid only duplicating or equaling your models. Try to outdo them, but on a line of your own.

The model’s story opening pages imply the hero should go right. Next, two pages steer him left. Then you might go straight ahead for four pages. The reader is uncertain of the character’s decision. His final decision comes after a prolonged internal struggle, detailed in the story’s closing pages. The preceding method suits all magazines; however, it’s optimal for pulp paper stock.

Slick magazines showcase prevalent plots and characters; study them. Pulp magazines permit some clichés, but slick magazines tolerate none. The editor is paying for good writing, smooth technique, credible motivation, and what one may call detailed glamour, and he will not pay for anything else. Note that it is not essential to derive your plots from stories dealing with the same material as yours. One can transfer a story about gangsters to the cattle country of the West without changing the plot. Love blossoms on ranches, just as it does on beaches and in nightclubs.

Take care your hero does not evade his decision. He must meet his problem head on. You will find it simpler to make your villains, as well as your heroes, regular Americans. Members of minority groups in this country are sensitive, and resent having a villain wear their clothes and use their mannerisms. Most readers prefer not to identify with minority group members. Therefore, do not make your villain a foreigner unless it is necessary for the story.

All that said, there is a great value in having a diverse team of characters in your story. Again, concentrate on those who you can write with the most emotional involvement. Other characters can be flat or in profile instead of fully rounded, like main characters. See the section later in this book about character development.

In writing Western stories, minor details are sometimes important. Telephones, radios and automobiles are generally taboo. Writers permit the telegraph, and oddly enough, windmills as well. These stories don’t take place in any specific historical period. Their events occur in the Golden West in “the good old days.” That is as near as the reader wishes to be pinned down. And so with fiction: it exists in a never-never land.

And last, typewriters — and keyboards — produce text in only one manner. That is to sit down and pound the thing. Identify your most productive work period; schedule five weekdays. Wasted time is irretrievable.

When your manuscript is ready to go, send it laid flat in a manila envelope strong enough to keep it from being torn or crushed.; Established authors sometimes omit to include postage for return, as they think that puts ideas in the editor’s mind. It is better to send postage; but, for obvious reasons, not a stamped, self-addressed envelope for return.

Keep writing and hoping—and studying current magazines. You will find the life exciting, exasperating, but delightful—both in its labor and its triumphs. You’ll sometimes decide to quit writing—a sign you’ll begin another story soon. Then, one day, you will sell a story, a publication will print it, and you will return to work, striving to surpass your previous best effort. You’ll find writing for publication offers unparalleled excitement.

A Final Check.

Putting words on paper to form a story involves two principles:

• the vital parts, and

• the most effective arrangement.

In the chapters preceding, you have made acquaintance with the vital parts of a story and have considered the principles governing their most effective arrangement. Your success in writing for publication will depend upon your ability to understand what parts are necessary to your particular project and what arrangement of those parts will be most effective for your particular market.

You gain this understanding only by studying fiction, mastering its components and common structures, and through writing practice that uses this knowledge.

Fiction writing should be fun; most writers are happiest writing.

Publishing writing is very competitive; only serious writers succeed. Taking it seriously means doing one’s very best, giving the reader his money’s worth, and more. This means careful planning and repeated revisions.

You may begin by choosing a market to shoot at and then devising a plot or story to fit. You may begin with contrasting characters and so develop a situation; or in a situation for which you provide characters; or with a background or setting out of which your characters and situation emerge. Your story might unfold when resting, especially before sleep. But almost no story was ever so dreamed complete and in perfection. A certain amount of labor had to be spent upon it before it could meet the reader’s requirements.

Having found the idea for your story, you may wish to express it in a synopsis, then build a scenario, adding pointers, plants, and other devices as needed, and finally, write the story.

After you have gained some facility and a fair familiarity with the market at which you aim, you should be able to complete your first draft of the story within four or five working days. After completing the first draft, use the below tests to verify completeness and the effective arrangement of parts.

With the first draft before you, you may then spend one entire working day rewriting it for plot or, shall we say, arrangement or pattern, eliminating everything unnecessary, making sure that all the parts interlock and that everything is in due proportion.

The day following, you will wish to check the characterization, the scenes, setting, and you will wish to rewrite the entire story, this time on the lookout for professional style, smoothness, continuity and the right word.

On the day after, you may devote yourself to a third complete revision in which you attempt to reconcile plot with polish so that both may achieve their maximum effect.

Last, revise your story one more time to give it the high polish, professional style, and emotional impact your reader desires.

Of course, many professional writers revise their stories more often, and some successful writers, even novelists, have made it a rule to rewrite an entire story fifteen times.

If professionals, already successful and experienced, find it worthwhile to rewrite their work so often, no beginner should begrudge the effort and time needed to bring his work up to standard. Only submit your best work; success follows success.

Let’s talk about testing your novel. Four words will define our search.

Unity, progression, proportion, and continuity.

In unity, ask yourself regarding your book, “Does one story dominate the book?” You may have some subplots, you may have some side issues, but is there one central story? The method for selecting that single narrative aligns with our initial question: “What does someone want, and what prevents them?” Have you raised, developed, and answered that question?

Each chapter and scene in your novel, like all novels, must progress toward its climax. If you are not getting closer to the climax, you are in serious trouble. Because you are going around and around in circles. You can correct this.

Confirm these yourself: Does each chapter have some kind of climax? Does this chapter propel the narrative toward its own climax? Does character evolve throughout the book? Does this character remain unchanged throughout the story? Maybe he will have changed. Maybe he will not have changed.

As far as his overall outlook is concerned, is proportion emphasized in the right places? We should allocate more space to fit the event’s importance. This closely relates to the emotional time clock issue. Is your writing style prioritizing major plot points over less significant ones?

And remember being in little our subjective terms. Do these seem large or small for your hero?

Now, how about continuity? Continuity means: does your story hang together? The key is to check if each scene or chapter doesn’t acknowledge the one that comes next.

That explanation might seem unclear; however, it mirrors dialogue techniques. Does a following character’s speech acknowledge a preceding one? An answer to that first question? Does it disappear into some vast, unknown expanse? It’s the same way with the continuity of a book. Each chapter must link to its successor.

First, as you finish your book, keep asking yourself, does one story dominate the book? Does it have unity?

Second, does the story move toward the climax in each chapter? Does it have progression?

Third, is the emphasis in the right place, in proper proportion?

And, Fourth is continuity. Does the story hang together?

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You now know the core forgotten bestseller secret basics. Now it’s time to get your modern-day masterpieces created.

The next course in this series deals with creating and managing the most important element of any written work - the viewpoint character…

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