Allison Pang's A Brush of Darkness Released!

Yup, that’s right, folks. The lovely and talented Allison Pang (and if you don’t believe me on the “talented” thing, perhaps you’ll believe Janet Reid?) saw her debut novel hit the shelves yesterday. Y’know, the one with the pretty, ripped-fishnets, blue-streaked-hair gal on the cover. (It’s over in my right sidebar, in case you missed it. I’ll wait while you look. Go ahead.)

It’s pretty awesome.

Don’t believe me? You can read the first chapter online here.

And then, when you’re done laughing and being intrigued, you can hop over to Bitten by Books and enter the release day contest to win an 8GB iPod Touch! (Note: it’s a regular iPod, not an enchanted one like Abby has that knows what songs you want to hear before you even think of them and has pretty much every song ever made magically loaded on it. I know you wanted one of those, but you can’t have one. They’re imaginary. I think.)

So go! Visit Allison’s blog here, her official author site here, and the official book page here.

Oh, and buy it. Unless you don’t like snark and miniature randy unicorns. In which case you should buy it and give it to someone who *does* like snark and miniature randy unicorns. (And if you don’t like snark, what the hell are you doing reading *my* blog…?)

Happy (day after) release day, Allison!

In Which I Learn That Imitating Another Writer’s Voice is Harder Than I Thought

If you didn’t stop by yesterday, writer-friends, you might not know that I secretly posted on Tawna Fenske’s blog on Wednesday, to see if anyone would cotton to the fact that it wasn’t Tawna who wrote the post. Yah, it’s true.

See, it all started with Jami Gold tweeted about linking to “the inimitable Tawna Fenske” in a blog post. I retweeted Jami’s announcement, but as I did so, I wondered whether Tawna really was, after all, inimitable.  I said to myself, “Self, I bet you could imitate Tawna. After all, you’ve been reading her blog for months now. You could totally fake it.” (It’s possible I still have a little Oppositional Defiance Disorder left in me….)

So I asked Tawna if she’d be willing to run the experiment, and, like a good sport, she was happy to let me hijack her blog for a day. She even turned it into a contest!

Now, the amusing end result was that no one guessed Tawna didn’t write the post. Plenty of people pointed out things that weren’t quite Tawna-ish, but no one came right out and played the guest-author card. Kind of a win, right?

Well, yes and no.

One of the commenters on yesterday’s announcement said:

“Shoot! Now that I read this post before the last one, the weird post doesn't sound like your writing voice at all!”

And she’s right. I couldn’t believe no one pegged it as an impersonation, frankly, because the moment I saw it up on Tawna’s site, with that lovely pink background, I knew it was just flat wrong. Sure, I approximated her voice, but I certainly didn’t nail it (though she was kind enough to say so in her write-up yesterday).

Here’s what I did right:

• Metaphorically related the wine industry to the writing industry. (Tawna’s an unabashed wine lover, so this was a fairly simple approach.)
• Added a few parenthetical acknowledgements of possible double entendres.
• Referenced and linked one of Tawna’s earlier posts.
• Closed with a characteristic “I’ll be doing X” comment. (This one’s easy too—Tawna does it quite regularly.)

Not terrible, I guess, for a post I hacked out in an hour or so with minimal surfing of her archives. But had I done better research and spent more time on it, I could’ve gotten much closer. How? Here’s a few of the ways I went wrong with the post (and this list is by no means exhaustive):

• Tawna’s openings are short, punchy, and to the point. Mine wasn’t. I tend to write longer opening sentences. (She tells me it’s her journalism training that makes her write that way.)
• When she parenthetically acknowledges a double entendre, it’s not with a (heh), it’s with a (snicker).
• Carrie (CKHB) noted that Tawna doesn’t talk about drinking as an avoidance technique. This is true. (I offer exhibit A as proof.) I implied otherwise. That’s a fail.
• Tawna doesn’t use LOLcat images (or LOLbunny images, as the case may be). She takes all her own photographs.
• As some commenters noted, there weren’t any real sex jokes, other than the double entendres. Tawna almost always has one or two giggle-worthy zingers.

What’s the takeaway from all this, then? It’s this: yes, it’s possible to imitate another writer’s voice, but holy avocado-cilantro-lime dip, it’s friggin’ difficult to get it just right without a lot of work! It’s just not worth it, writer-friends.

A writer’s voice is unique. You can’t force it, you can’t copy it, you can’t fake it. Well, you can, but it’ll always be harder to do that than it will be to write in your own natural style. So why bother?

I’m not implying that writing prose under the influence of great authors of the past or present can’t be fun, useful, or good. I’ve written stories in approximations of several voices—mainly Hemingway’s and Woolf’s, since I admire both of them so intensely. But it’s a tough job.

And in the end? The only thing that’ll develop your own voice, dear reader, is the writing. The more you write, the more your individual prose style will coalesce. You can’t force it; it just happens. It’s awesome.

Speaking of that, I’m off to work on coalescing mine. :)

Write on, friends.

P.S. Thank you so much to Tawna for being open to the experiment. Do watch for her debut romantic comedy novel, Making Waves, this coming August!

Blog Shenanigans. Again.

So I wrote a blog post yesterday, writer-friends, but it wasn’t published here. Why didn’t I tell you this, maybe post a link for you to follow and read and enjoy? Well, because it was a secret. Shh….

But now all has been revealed! If you’re curious what I was up to, why not hop on over to Tawna Fenske’s blog and see what she has to say about writerly voice today, huh?

And I’ll be back tomorrow with my own thoughts on voice. Be sure to check back then! I’ll be more fun than a barrel of…fun stuff! (For the record, I find the idea of a barrel of monkeys rather horrifying. Just the sanitary issues alone make me cringe.)

Cheers!

Philly Lit. Night, Part Deux! (Well, more like afternoon, but whatever.)

We interrupt this series on writing techniques to announce the second annual (well, hopefully not annual, but given my procrastinatory nature and how hard it is to nail writers down to any kind of serious freakin’ schedule, it may well turn out to be triannual, the way things have been going) Philly Lit Night!

(Okay, I admit: that long parenthetical aside kind of stole the momentum from that opening sentence. Sorry.)

Anyhow, our local writer cum belly-dancer cum psychology professor, Frankie Diane Mallis (cum is Latin for “with,” is pronounced “koom,” and can be used to join two descriptive nouns when they apply to the same person, you sickos—don’t act like you weren’t thinking what I think you were thinking) and I are putting together a Philly-area writers’ meetup for this coming Sunday, Jan. 23rd, from about 1pm on.

(Okay, I should just quit with the parenthetical asides. They’re kinda distracting, aren’t they?)

Er…yes. So here’s the deal: this coming Sunday, from 1pm on, any and all writers in the Philadelphia area are invited to swing on down to Center City, anytime you want, to hang out, talk writing, play card games, drink coffee, do vodka shots, whatever.

To wit, the agenda:

1 pm: Brunch at the Marathon Grill, 16th & Sansom Streets.

2:30 pm (ish): Chillin’ at the Barnes & Noble on Rittenhouse Square, 18th & Walnut.

5:30 pm (ish): Adjourn to a nearby location, chosen by mutual consent, for snacks and possibly an alcoholic beverage or two.

The reason it’s spread out over the whole afternoon is so that people who don’t have all day to spare can pop in for an hour and chat if they feel like it. I’ll be hanging around the whole time, and Frankie gets back from NYC later in the afternoon, and should show up around 4 pm.

And don’t worry if I’m hanging around by myself at the B&N for a while. I’ll bring a notebook and/or my laptop, and can write to my little heart’s content while I wait for people to show up and prove I’m not a total loser. :)

Interested? Curious? Have a free hour or two this coming Sunday afternoon to chat with fellow writers in the area? Let Frankie or me know, eh?

Email me at simonclarter AT gmail DOT com, or DM me on Twitter (*points to button in sidebar for Twitter-link*), and we’ll coordinate. Yes? Yes.

Hope to see you there, Philly writer-friends!

The Neil Gaiman Master class in Writing*—Part 2: Headhopping vs. POV Shifts

So there I was, minding my own business, doing my usual blog-surfing thing, when Livia (everyone’s favorite YA-writing neuroscientist), wrote a post about how the proliferation of  writing advice found on writer blogs might be obscuring the subtleties necessary in fine writing. In her words:

“The risk is that we internalize sound-bytes like “avoid cliché beginnings, “dialogue tags suck,” “and don't use adverbs.” In the meantime, we forget that The Graveyard Book headhops between points of view, The Hunger Games and Newberry Honor Book Princess Academy start with a character getting out of bed, international bestseller Pillars of the Earth starts with a prologue, and Harry Potter contains a whole lot of adverbs.”

Well said, good lady! It’s a fact that the bog-standard, creative-writing class tropes must be left behind at some point, or one’s writing will stultify.

However!

I did take issue with her Graveyard Book “headhopping” comment. Why? Because “headhopping” is a bit of a pejorative, no? Isn’t this something we’ve been told we should avoid in our writing? Well, yes…and no. Because in my opinion, it’s only headhopping if it’s done poorly. Otherwise it’s simply shifting POVs.

An example, from The Graveyard Book:

“I’ve got a bus to catch,” she said. Scarlett walked up the hill toward the bus-stop and the graveyard, and did not, resolutely did not, look back.

Bod walked beside her. Even to Scarlett he seemed shadowy in the deepening dusk, like something that was almost not there, a shimmer of heat haze, a skittery leaf that for a moment had seemed to be a boy.

“Walk faster,” said Bod. “They’re all looking at you. But don’t run.”

…

The four men stood at the door to number 33. “I don’t like this,” said the big man with the bull neck.

“You don’t like this, Mr. Tar?” said the white-haired man. “None of us like it….”

I redacted a bit there, so you’re not getting the full effect, but you get the idea. We’ve switched from Scarlett’s perspective to that of the men at the door to No. 33. And to be clear, the majority of the novel is written in close 3rd person, from Bod’s point of view, so a jump to anyone else’s perspective (even Scarlett’s) could be termed head-hopping, if it weren’t done so elegantly.

But how is this done? Strangely enough, it’s a very simple technique, and easily learned. The trick is this: when you intend to switch perspectives, introduce the new perspective with one line of scene-setting or action that places us in the new character’s proximity. Yes, it’s that simple.

I’ll demonstrate with another Graveyard Book excerpt:

[Starting in Bod’s POV] A flicker, and Bod was alone in the room once more. He heard a rumble of distant thunder.

In the cluttered darkness of Bolger’s Antiquities, Abanazer Bolger looked up suspiciously, certain that someone was watching him, then realized he was being foolish.

Yup, it’s done that quickly. In the space of one sentence, we’ve switched from Bod’s to Abanazar’s point of view. All it took was a single action.

And an example from my own writing:

She took the book from the shelf and brushed the dust from it. She walked to the chair once more, sat, and began to read.

Just at the moment she opened the book to the page on which her favorite poem was printed in fine, flowing script, Errod Halstaff rolled over in his sleep to find his wife’s side of the bed cold and vacant. He blinked himself angrily awake.

Here we start in the woman’s POV, and, with a single sentence, we transition to Errod’s.

Simple, isn’t it, writer-friends? Once you see how a master like Gaiman does it, you can start to apply it to your own work. (As long as your work’s written in 3rd person, that is. This one’s tough to pull off in 1st person present.)

So what do you think, folks? Have you used this technique? Plan on using it? Neil’s waiting with bated breath for your comments.**

*Neil Gaiman has not authorized this series, but I’d be happy to let him guest post. If he asks nicely, anyway.

**He’s probably not. Sorry.

In which I hook the Query Shark (but she broke the line and swam off)

I didn’t win, but I’ll take it. I think my work here is done.

(You can read the winning entries and congratulate the winners here.)

The Neil Gaiman Master Class in Writing* – Part 1: Openings

I do this now, writer-friends. I can’t read a novel anymore without analyzing it. And I bet you’re a little bit the same way.

See, once you’ve spent a while trying to learn the craft of writing, racking your brains day in and day out to put your own stories together, then take them apart to find what really works in them, you can’t help but do the same kind of thing with published books you happen to pick up. I’ve done it with Hemingway, Woolf, R.A. Salvatore, Mary Shelley, Faulkner, and, most recently, Neil Gaiman himself. And, not content to post reviews over at Goodreads, I figured I’d go ahead and share my thoughts with you here on  the ol’ blog.

(You’re welcome.)

Let’s look at the beginning of American Gods, shall we? Here’s the first paragraph:

Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.

And that’s it. That’s the opener.

So you might be thinking at this point (if you haven’t read the book), Where’s the action? What’s happening here? Shouldn’t something be exploding? WHY ARE WE NOT THRUST RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF A COMPELLING SITUATION!? To which I say, shut up, sit down, and listen. Gaiman’s more subtle than that. (And anyway…prison’s not compelling? Don’t you watch movies?)

See you can start a book with action, or you can start it with character. American Gods starts with character. It starts well with character. How’s that work? It works in four ways, and here they are:

1. Shadow. The main character’s name. And what kind of name is “Shadow,” anyway? A good one. Why? Because it’s not normal. It makes you sit up and wonder, take notice, start asking questions. You’ll find out over the course of the novel that it’s an appropriate name on more than one level. It’s also the first word of the book. That’s a pretty good start.
2. He was big enough and don’t-fuck-with-me enough…. Though it may have been mentioned at some point in the novel, I still have no idea what Shadow’s actual height, hair color, eye color, and complexion are, and I don’t care. I know he’s big, and looks like he’s not to be fucked with. Bam. Character description done. That’s the second sentence.
3. …and taught himself coin tricks…. Right, now this seems like a throwaway detail, but it’s not. Coin tricks and prestidigitation come up again and again in the novel, so this opening line, seemingly innocuous, takes on resonance as the story unfolds. Win. And the 3rd sentence isn’t even finished yet.
4. …and thought about how much he loved his wife. Yeah, and now our main character has some depth. Sure, he’s big and badass, but he loves his wife, so the man has an emotional core to him that we can all pretty much relate to, whether we’re married or not. This assertion, by the by, also sets us up for a couple of pretty severe kicks in the nuts in the next couple of chapters, as the plot reversals kick in and the sh*t hits the fan.

So the lesson in this first Neil Gaiman Master Class in Writing? Your openings don’t have to be big, they don’t have to be flashy, and they don’t even have to have an obvious hook, but they sure as hell have to be interesting. Don’t underestimate the power of a fascinating character as your book’s opener.

And as the title promises, this is just part 1 in a small series I plan on writing lessons from Neil Gaiman. Stay tuned, folks! I’ll be back with more opinionated musings before you can recite the complete works of Shakespeare in English, French, and Latin!**

*Neil Gaiman has not authorized this series, but I’d be happy to let him guest post. If he asks nicely, anyway.

**If you’re fluent in English, French, and Latin, please don’t recite the complete works of Shakespeare in all three languages just to see if I’ll be back before you can finish. I don’t post on any regular schedule here, and it’d be better if we both didn’t have to deal with that kind of disappointment.

An Issue of Style….

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, O (semi-)loyal readers, but I have a few stylistic tics in my prose. It kind of depends on what style I’ve adopted, but I have this habit of dropping sentence fragments here and there, often sans verb. What am I talking about, you ask? (Shame on  you for not noticing! Bad bloggie friend. Bad! *swats with rolled up newspaper*) I’ll demonstrate.

Here’s a little example from that little web serial Mercedes and I wrapped up a couple months ago (it’s collected here if you’re interested in reading the whole thing at one shot):

She raises her head, glares at me through the curtain of her hair. Flutter of eyelashes.

See that? A sentence with no verb. (I highlighted it for you, ‘cause I’m helpful that way.) And let’s not quibble about whether a sequence of words without a verb actually constitutes a sentence. I think you get what I meant, yes? Yes.

When I realized I had that habit, I patted myself on the back a bit, writer-friends. I admit, I thought I was all special for discovering a new way of writing. I had a moment in which I imagined all the literary prize boards of the world piling into my living room at once, clamoring for me to take the money and prizes and can’t we create a special award just for you, you staggeringly creative linguistic genius…? (It got a bit silly.)

Aaannd then I read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Surprise, surprise…he uses the same technique now and then! ZOMG! (There goes that literary prize they were going to name after me.)

Aaannd then I read Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. Guess what technique he uses quite regularly? [insert multiple cranky curse words here]

Boy, I’m not quite as original as I thought.

My point is, no matter how creative you think you’re being, someone—probably someone famous—has already done it, or something like it. Clever we may be, writer-friends, but there have been plenty of clever writers in the history of literature.

So what can you do to stand out? Well…maybe we shouldn’t be trying to stand out, huh? Maybe it’s just that we should focus on what is uniquely ours, and polish that till it shines. That’s not stylistic tricks or clever phrases (‘ cause someone, somewhere, has used that one before, you may be sure). I think, rather, each of us is unique in the way we look at and process the world. No matter how similar two human beings might be (identical twins, anyone?), they’ll still have differences on the inside, views and imaginations that are tied to their particular personhood.

Tell your stories, writer'-friends. You’re the only one who’s ever had an imagination precisely like yours, and only you can tell your stories they way they’re meant to be told.

I’m not worrying about uniqueness anymore. All I can do is tell my stories to the best of my ability. And that’s enough.

So…it’s a New Year

I survived the holidays, y’all! I managed to make it through last-minute Christmas shopping, the end of the year cash-crunch, and what I’ve dubbed The Week of Overstimulated Children, and all it took was a bottle of Sobieski vodka.

Did pretty well, didn’t I?

And now we’re into that lovely time when we’re expected to stumble blearily out of bed (nursing an epic hangover) and, while we sip our first coffee of the new year, make a list of all the things that, come February, we’ll be feeling guilty about not doing. (Resolution #1: Write less rambling sentences.)

This might have helped me a couple days ago.

Which, now I think of it, isn’t something that should be reserved for February alone (feeling guilty, that is). I’ve got plenty of things stacked up in my real-life and writerly to-do lists, and I certainly won’t get to all of them this year, so why not just keep that nagging guilt simmering merrily in the background all the time? Hey, it’s been working for me so far, right? (Resolution #2: Consider a few realistic goals for myself, as opposed to multiple impossible ones.)

One thing I do know is that I need to be writing more. Like, seriously writing. Because apparently tweets and Facebook status updates don’t count toward your daily goal. (You wouldn’t believe how irritable I was when I found that out.) I wrote one really excellent short story last year, and then sold it, but most of the rest of the time I spent screwing around with two different novels, only one of which is a worthwhile story. So I kind of need to write more, and more focusedly, and muck about online less. (Resolution #3: Realize the obvious a bit sooner this year.)

And so, despite the I’m-going-back-to-work-this-week-and-don’t-feel-as-though-I-got-enough-done-on-my-vacation funk that’s come over me this weekend, I’m going to soldier on into the new  year, write as much as humanly possible (while still tending to a wife and three small children and home renovation projects and the small matter of a full-time job), and see if I can’t make a go of this author business. (Resolution #4: Have some stuff published.)

Boy, this post was crankier than normal. Hope I’m not setting the tone for the entire year…. (Resolution #5: Adopt a positive attitude Be happy Enjoy the little things Self-actualize STFU and get to work.)

 

Oh, and happy New Year everyone!  :)