Where Do You Get Names?

On rare occasions where I'm discussing with someone my writing.  When that happens, it's usually with someone who is also a writer of sorts - perhaps a budding writer - and is looking for advice.  Well, probably not looking for advice, but openly discussing their own writing.  I'm sure like most writers when someone is starting out, others around them don't want to chat about the topic for hours on end.  Frankly, I would be surprised if anyone outside of writers wants to do that sort of thing.  I happen o be lucky in that one of my friends often serves as a bouncing-off point for some of my writing.  I run the idea past them for a sanity check.  When first starting out, something that I would do would be to generate random names for my characters.  It would be nothing special.  One story involved a graveyard, so the main character's name was Grady.  Of course, it had to be Grady because that's a gritty no-nonsense name, and anyone that works in a graveyard would have such a name.  And likely they wouldn't be known by their first name to anyone around them.  Purely their last name.

Do I Hear Voices?

I've been writing for a rather long time now - approximately two-thirds of my life.  I did try to start writing while I was in grade school and high school, but between sports and homework, I didn't get very far.  It wasn't until I got to college that I started writing just about anything and everything.  It wasn't during college that I attempted my first book.  The book got to about 8,000 or 10,000 words.  One problem with it - besides being pretty bad - was that it didn't go anywhere.  There weren't any good plot devices or characters.  It was more like the story of what happens with a prisoner for several days in their life.   

During that period, I wrote a lot of short stories.  I would start each one with some kind of quote from a song I liked, a title that is somewhat related to the story, and then I'd bang out the story.  It's not difficult to see that the stories in themselves were pretty bad.  I'm sure any writer who starts out in their craft isn't the best writer.  To be a great chef, you have to break a few eggs and burn some pancakes, right?

How Much Is Too Much?

As I alluded to in a previous post, a friend once stated that I should have the entire background of every major and minor character in any story I write.  I, of course, thought this ludicrous because it would mean I'd spend more time digging into the background of a character than writing their three lines of dialog.  So, of course, I don't write that way.   For most of my characters that are important to the story, I have basic facts like age, a general description (if it's important), where they were born.  Really, I have details of each character if I actually state it o ruse it in the story.  But if the details aren't important because it's an ancillary character, I have no details.  Now, this is what I do, but should you do the same?

Details! Details! Details!

I was discussing this with my editor a few days ago.  We were going over some books and what work proofing needed to be finished.  We began to get into the details of some of the books.  One thing I wanted to make sure he did when going through the books was to look for details that were unnecessary.  As it had turned out, he'd already found some superfluous details in one of the earlier books that I'd take care of.  That brings me to the point of this entry:  details!

It's important to have details with happenings or backgrounds in your writing.  But at times, you won't need it.  I once read a book by a fellow writer who had self-published his book.  I couldn't get through the first chapter.  The book had started out with a military battle with ground troops.  He described in excruciating detail what was happening from start to finish.  What should have been, in my mind, maybe a one or two-page event was about a thirty-page event.  I wasn't alone in this assessment.  The friend who loaned me the book state that same thing about the book.  Now before you think I have to come down to reality in thinking I don't write like that:  you're right!  I like to think that I rarely write like that, but I imagine I do.  

What Do Writers Do?

 A famous author once said that writers do what they do:  they write!  (I can't find who the author was, so I'm paraphrasing.)   I delve into this a bit in the book I Can't Write.  What I have maintained since I first started writing anything of length, was that everyone can write.  If you can talk, then you can write.  Sure it's not exactly easy to put what you want on paper (or in the computer).  You have to find the system that best works for you.  If anyone were to see me writing at my best, they'd think I'm a bit off kilter.  They'd see me with headphones on, listening to music, the lights turned down, and wearing a blindfold.  I listen to music because it helps me focus.  I wear the blindfold so that I don't get caught up on the page with some typo or something.  I plow ahead and keep writing.  I've found by doing this, my writing is much more fluent.  And better.  

Authors Read Too!

Believe it or not, but like most writers, I read a lot too.  When I was a kid, I went to the local library with my mom and sister.  I often checked out too many books before the next time we visited.  But I was more concerned with running out of something to read.   My favorites were usually kid books like Peanuts and then on to adult fiction.  My favorite back then, and still to this day, is science fiction.  In particular, I love hard science fiction.  Over time, I became a voracious reader.  I remember when I read Stephen King's It over a weekend while in college.  I pretty much stayed in my dorm and read it cover to cover.  All 1,138 pages of it!

Thank You, Plato

I'm about 95% sure that if you're reading this, that you know who Plato was.  You may not know much about him, but surely you know he was a philosopher.  For a short history lesson, he was one of the original philosophers from ancient Greek.  Born in Athens in 427 BC, he spent much of life under the tutelage of Socrates.  Like Socrates, he spent that time thinking, philosophizing, pondering.  (While that may sound like a good job, understand that Socrates went to trial for corrupting the youths of Athens.  He was found guilty and put to death.)

Does Size Matter?

A valid question to ask yourself, when writing a story or a book, is how long should it be?  I'd like to say there is some formula for the type of writing you do, but the fact is there isn't.  You can write a story that is 10,000 words long or you can write a novella that is 10,000 words long.  It just depends on what you wish to call it.

But in the end, what someone calls their writing, be it a short story or a novella, it really doesn't matter.  What matters is the size of the story.  If you are able to tell your story in 10,000 words - or perhaps even 1,000 words! - then it's the right size.  

Where To Start

One of the hardest things I had to go through was learning to write a book.  I was just out of high school when I attempted my first novel.  I didn't get much farther than about 5,000 words.  At the time I didn't have any idea on how to write a book, let alone have an idea that could take up as much space as a novel.  When I had the occasion to look back at that first novel attempt and re-read what I wrote, I unashamedly admit the writing is quite awful.  So I was left to do the next best thing:  write a short story.  I also got to re-read some of those old short stories that I wrote back then.  I wasn't the least bit surprised that they were about as good as my first novel attempt.  Oh, the writing wasn't completely horrible.  At least not 100%.   Some of them did have a little redeeming quality, albeit not much.  What they lacked was the experience of writing.  Like anything else, it would take years to develop the writing craft.  It's been said that anyone can master a skill by putting in 10,000 hours.  Writing is no different.

The Who What Now? 

When I first started writing years and years ago, I never liked how my non-protagonist characters sounded in my head. I realize that may sound rather odd if you read it out loud. But if you’re like me, then you have the conversation in your head while writing it. The problem I had in the early writing was that both characters in any conversation sounded like me. That meant the conversations weren’t interesting if it’s the same person. One of the ways that I got around that was by eventually using some techniques that I’ll include below.