3 Ways to Survive the Twitter Tidal Wave

Twitter repeats itself – like a parrot. This is a parrot. See what I did there?

Image © Elwood W. McKay III

As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Twitter is an amazing resource for writers. In fact, it’s an amazing resource for any creative, any professional, or indeed any creative professional. Never before has so much up-to-the-minute, field-specific information and advice been so readily available.

That said, Twitter does have at least one major flaw – sometimes it’s just overwhelmingly big. Where once we had to seek out the elusive stream of writerly knowledge, we’re now bombarded by a continuous tidal wave of information. It’s easy to be swept away.

If you’re not completely turned off by the information overload, you may be giving yourself an aneurism trying to keep up with it all. I’ve suffered from both in the past, so here are three strategies I’ve come up with to make sense of it all.

1) Don’t click on every link you see.

I’m an unpublished writer. If, like me, you follow hoards of other writers, journalists, agents, publishers, and so forth, then you’ll be receiving a steady stream of fascinating blog links every second of the day.

The question is, how much of that information is useful to you right now? While it may be tempting for me to read up on techniques for writing agent queries, the fact is I’ve still got the better part of a novel left to write! Writing tips are the only thing that have practical value to me at present.

My advice is to only check out links that might be of practical use to you right now, or in the very near future. People will still be tweeting the other stuff when you’re ready for it. It’s not going anywhere.

2) Don’t repeat yourself.

The nature of Twitter and the blog-o-globe means that there are at least 50 people posting essentially identical advice, at least 50 times a day. But there’s no need for you to read it more than once. The cunning blogger will find creative new ways of presenting old information, but don’t be fooled!

If you see a link that appears to cover a topic you already know about, don’t be tempted to click on it just for the sake of self-assurance. There’s some security and satisfaction in being told what you already know, but don’t give in to the instinct – it’s a time waster.

3) Know when to stop.

I used to have Tweetdeck loaded in the background all day every day. Every few seconds a notification would appear with a potentially interesting link, and I’d instinctively check it out, just in case I risked missing out on the most important piece of writerly advice ever. I didn’t get much work done.

The whole point of Twitter is that it’s a never-ending stream of information. It’s not going to turn itself off. You have to do it.

Sometimes it can be tempting to give in to paranoia, and think that you’re going to miss that crucial piece of advice or information, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few months, it’s that Twitter repeats itself.

Yes, you may miss that information, but the good stuff never goes away. People retweet. Others incorporate the information into their blog post, and tweet the link. Weeks later, completely different people stumble across the blog posts, and tweet the links again.

Limit your Twitter use, and have faith that the truly useful links will find you.

Do you have difficulty surviving the Twitter tidal wave? Were these suggestions useful to you? Do you have any other advice for dealing with the information overload? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

3 Ways to Increase Your Writing Productivity

Coffee can increase productivity over short periods. It can also increase trips to the toilet.

Image © Idea go

So you want to increase your writing productivity, eh? Don’t we all! I’m not claiming to be an expert, but here are three tips and techniques that have helped me massively. Maybe they could help you too.

1) Get up at the crack of midnight.

Ok, maybe not midnight, but try to get up as early as you can manage without adversely affecting your sleep. Recently, I started going to bed around 9 or 10pm, and getting up at 5am. This gives me a few hours in the morning to do nothing but write, without worldly distractions.

For maximum effect, I recommend showering immediately to wake yourself up, and drinking copious amounts of coffee – but not a drop of caffeine from six-hours-to-bedtime onwards. You’ll need deep, perfect sleep to keep up the routine. And for those who have difficulty getting out of bed at the best of times, try putting your alarm on the other side of the room, so you have no choice but to leave the bed!

This is a harsh but rewarding regime.

2) Turn off Twitter!

So, you’ve cut out the distractions that you can’t normally control by writing in the middle of the night – what next? Well, that just leaves the distractions that you can control, mainly because they’re self-inflicted!

Twitter is the worst culprit here, but reading the news, checking up on your regular sites, anxiously clicking ‘refresh’ to view your latest blog traffic – these are all completely unnecessary activities that are not only eating into your writing time, but also putting you in entirely the wrong frame of mind.

And if you’re anything like me, then as soon as you start playing around in that browser window, you’re lost. Regardless of how much you struggle to focus on the writing, you will find some excuse to keep shifting back to the browser every few minutes. It’s a total productivity killer.

There’s only one solution – for those few hours that you’ve set aside to write, turn the clock back to 1989. No internet. Not one page. Not one tweet. You’ll thank yourself for it.

3) Do something you hate.

Well, maybe not something you hate – I wouldn’t necessarily try to force you into something horrendous! – but I genuinely believe it’s beneficial for any creative person to have something in their lives that they wish wasn’t. For you, it may be your menial job, the housework, or the weekly shop. For me, it’s my menial job, the housework, and the weekly shop.

I’m never more motivated to write than when there’s something unpleasant preventing me from doing it. That passion for not doing the hated activity can be translated into a passion for the writing.

For example, I’m paid not much more than minimum-wage – this means that my employer values a whole hour of my time at approximately the same level as the supermarket values a dead chicken.

My time is worth more than that. Your time is worth more than that. I’ll be writing as soon as I get home, in the impassioned knowledge that at least I am valuing my time appropriately.

Did you find these suggestions helpful? Have any of them worked for you? Got any better ideas?! Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

5 Writing Links of Awesome #1

Five links. Five die. Coincidence…?

Image © healingdream

Yip-yo! Welcome to the first entry of my regular Friday series, in which I offer up all the very best writerly linky-links I’ve accumulated from Twitter during the previous week. It really is an amazing source of information and advice. Behold:

The Ten Traits of a True Writer by Liz Kessler

If you think you’re too messy and disorganised to be a writer, think again. Liz tells it like it really is, and makes us all feel better – hurrah!

3 Tips – When Characters lose Character by Pam Parker

In redrafting my novel I found that the voice of Gwillum, my protagonist, was becoming somewhat generic. It can happen all too easily. Pam’s prompts could help you bring your characters back to life.

50 Problem Words and Phrases by Mark Nichol

A comprehensive list of all those common word misuses and misunderstandings. I’ve always considered myself to be flawless in this area, but even I learned a thing or two. An invaluable resource in your quest to avoid looking foolish.

40 Twitter Hashtags for Writers by Simon Kewin

If you want to discover more blog posts like these, then you really need to be investigating these hastags. If you want other people to discover you, then you need to be using them yourself. And if you’re not on Twitter, and don’t know what a hashtag is, then for god’s sake sort yourself out! How do you live?!

How to Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

Whether you’re a writer, or involved in any other kind of creative activity, this is without doubt the best article you’ll read this week. Encouraging, informative and entertaining. Trust me, you have to read it.

That’s all for this week. If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, why not check out the rest of this week’s posts, for more advice, suggestions and resources. The popular ones are listed off to the right.

Have a good weekend!

Writing – The Best Medium for the Creative Author

The world is in the palm of your hand. Be careful with it. If you think you’re going to sneeze, pass it to Bernard.

Image © Danilo Rizzuti

I’m a creative person, and always have been. If you’re reading this, you probably are too. I make no claims as to the quality of anything I’ve ever produced, but I’ve always been driven by an instinct and a passion to create. Ever since I was able to write and draw, and particularly since I was able to use a computer, I’ve been producing stories, poems, pictures, comic strips, animations, 3D characters, dioramas, and music.

At least 90% of the these things have been awful.

My mother liked them, but that was probably a given. Part of the trouble with trying to do everything is that you end up being good at nothing. I desperately needed wider recognition, and for that I needed to excel at something. I took a degree in computer game design.

It seemed perfect. I already had a million ideas for great games knocking around in my head. The course took my creative instincts, moulded them, and sharpened them. I understood the key creative principles and rules of the medium. I knew how to make a great game.

At least, I thought I did. After completing the course, it turned out that no-one wants to employ someone who knows all the principles, but has few practical skills. I’d been taught how to create 3D models, texture, and animate to an acceptable level, but acceptable isn’t good enough for a professional game studio – you have to be the best.

What I hadn’t realised while I was at university was that the people who were bound for success were focusing like laser-beams on the one element of game design that interested them, and becoming very, very good at it.

In retrospect, I don’t think this was ever going to be an option for me. Not only am I a total control-freak, but the creative impulse is too strong – if I can’t be the sole creative force behind a project, I at least need to have the biggest, loudest voice. People on creative teams tend not to appreciate that.

So it turns out that writing is a more perfect fit than I previously imagined. Why? Because I get full creative control, whilst having to be very, very good at only one thing – the writing.

Yes, I know we can break writing down into various subsets of skills, but as a single discipline it’s entirely possible for an individual to master. The same can’t be said for computer games or film – argue the merits of the auteur theory if you like, but writing is the benchmark against which all notions of the ‘auteur’ or ‘author’ must be measured.

Generally, most media production only allows you to be a single element of a much wider process. For some, that’s fine – they’re content to become masters of their particular domain. For others, that’s just not enough – they want to master the whole process, to become creators of whole worlds and everything in them, to set themselves above the gods.

For those people, writing is surely the only medium.

How do you make your creative voice heard? Is writing the only suitable medium for the lone author, or are there others? Why is writing the best fit for you? Click on ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Writing Fiction – Do the Research (but don’t be constrained by it)

These headphones are conducting rigorous research – are you?

Image © healingdream

I recently finished the first draft of my novel, and I knew immediately it would need a lot of changes. I’d been constructing a unique fantasy world as I wrote, and the world I ended up with was a lot more complex than the one I started with – more complex, but not necessarily richer.

Mainly this was because I’d gradually created a culture based on the technologies of nuclear weaponry, opencast mining, and basketry, yet knew almost nothing about any of those topics. Thorough research was needed.

A good research plan, followed rigorously, can enrich your fiction – its settings, histories and characters – by adding background detail. Even if the things you learn never make it onto the page, having the information in your head will give you more confidence in the topics you’re addressing.

It may even be the case that you’ve totally misunderstood a subject, and you have to make major rewrites. Irritating, but better to find out after the first draft than when an agent or publisher takes it upon themselves to check up on these things! Don’t assume you know about something just because it featured in an episode of CSI!

At the other end of the spectrum, the research may open your eyes to so many new possibilities that your imagination is fired up all over again, and you can’t wait to make those rewrites. I’m delighted to report that this is exactly what happened to me.

One important thing to note is that research should enhance your writing, but not smother your creativity. Don’t give yourself so much research to do that there’s no time left for the actual writing – be tactical, and only choose topics that are central to your characters or setting.

Also, don’t feel that you have to cram all of the fascinating new information you discover onto the page. Only incorporate the information that’s relevant to the reader.

Most importantly, don’t aim for perfect realism at the expense of a good story. Rich, detailed fiction benefits from being grounded in some sense of reality, not from emulating it – that’s called a ‘textbook’ or ‘the news’!

Are you a writer? How much research do you generally do? Do you make a research plan? And how deeply does your research inform the finished product? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Writing Fiction - The Rule of Three

In Britain, the middle hand is very rude. Except when Churchill does it. Then it isn’t. For some reason.

Image © arztsamui

It’s been suggested that, because humans are wired to look for patterns, and because three is the minimum number of anything required to form a pattern, we naturally find structures of three particularly satisfying.

They’re short. They’re punchy. They’re memorable.

This is why narratives are often comprised of three acts, why fairy tales often include groups of three talking animals, and why characters often succeed at something on the third attempt.

This structure is now so ingrained in the popular subconscious that people expect things to come in threes, even if they’re not actively aware of it. They’ll become confused and agitated, like lambs at a bestiality rave, if a character takes four attempts to succeed at a task, or if the story unexpectedly concludes at the end of the second act.

As writers, we need to use this information to our advantage. I wouldn’t recommend making every element of your story crop up in threes, because that would make it surreal and predictable (an unlikely combination, and certainly not a good one); just be aware of it.

Anything particularly significant should probably have a whiff of ‘threeness’ about it. Perhaps the hero only succeeds in killing the Dark Lord on their third encounter. Perhaps he (yes, fine – or ‘she’) must overcome three distinct barriers to reach the Dark Lord. Or perhaps the Dark Lord can only be killed by destroying the three component parts of his consciousness.

People expect it, like it, and remember it.

That said, you can also use your writerly knowledge of the ‘rule of three’ to work against the reader’s expectations, from time to time. Unexpectedly kill the Dark Lord on the second encounter, only for the reader to later discover that he’s transferred his dying essence into the hero’s mind, and must be battled one more time inside the hero’s own psyche.

Why not check your manuscript to see whether you’re working with the rule of three, or against it. I can’t honestly say it’s something I’ve had at the forefront of my mind whilst writing Gwillum Hobnail, so I’ll be looking out for it (or it’s absence) myself as I work on the second draft.

Do you use the rule of three? How closely do you follow it? Is it important, or just a load of old guff? Add a comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

How to Write a Layered Narrative–Some Suggestions

If you haven’t got the patience to write a layered narrative, simply create one by piling other people’s novels on top of each other.

Image © Paul

In redrafting my WIP novel, Gwillum Hobnail’s Affairs of the Undershade, I’ve come to the realisation that the structure of the narrative is a bit muddled. Having read it through carefully, it seems that I’ve been inadvertently writing three different, but linked, narrative strands – a primary narrative, a secondary narrative, and a meta-narrative.

By separating these out, both in my mind and on the page, I’m confident that I can tell a much richer story, much more clearly. The following principles could be applied just as effectively to a stage play, an epic poem, or possibly a very long scarf. Hopefully some of you will find them useful.

 

Primary Narrative

This is the main story, the one that’s driving the entire novel forwards. It takes up most of the word count, and is the primary focus of the reader’s attention and interest. It’s almost always going to be written in the past tense.

Every novel needs a primary narrative – that’s essentially what a story is. There’s plenty of excellent advice for general story writing out there, and all of it can be applied to the primary narrative, so without further ado, I’ll move on…

 

Secondary Narrative

This is a second, different, but related story, woven throughout the primary narrative. The two can be linked either directly through the narrative, or thematically. Sometimes it can be used as a ‘frame’ for the primary narrative, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which begins and ends with Frankenstein searching for the Creature in the Arctic (secondary), during which time he recounts how the Creature was originally created, and how it escaped (primary).

Having a character from the novel narrate the story opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, because they can be recounting past events whilst simultaneously alluding to related events happening to them in the present tense.

Alternatively, the secondary narrative could take place within the same tense and time-frame as the primary narrative, but tell of completely different events. These events may appear unrelated until later on, when both narratives converge, as in Pulp Fiction.

In fact, Pulp Fiction layers numerous narratives in this way. You too could opt for a tertiary or even a quaternary narrative, if you’re brave enough, and think you can avoid confusing the reader.

Just remember – there’s no point in having a secondary narrative if it doesn’t relate to or enhance the primary narrative. If it doesn’t do either of those things, it probably needs to be a separate novel.

 

Meta-Narrative

I don’t know if there is such a phrase as ‘meta-narrative’ – I may have just invented it, but it works. This is essentially a story that isn’t told directly, but is implied by the information strewn throughout the primary and secondary narratives.

Essentially, rather than explaining a sequence of events to the reader, you are allowing them to slowly build up a picture of these events for themselves.

For example, Affairs of the Undershade is set in a post-cataclysmic world. The events that led to the cataclysm (which in turn shaped the setting of the novel) are never made explicit, but there are enough hints buried within the myths, locations and conversations of the primary narrative for the attentive reader to form a complete picture.

Crucially, nothing in the meta-narrative should be essential to the reader’s understanding of the primary narrative. You can’t assume that the reader will be that observant. It’s just enhances the primary narrative for those who are.

 

Finally, after all that, I’ll say this – be wary of over-plotting! It’s all about balance. Probably.

Are you writing a novel? What narrative structure are you using? Click the ‘comments’ button below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

How to Write a Unique Setting for your Fiction

There could be some orcs in those trees. Or a hen. Or something.

Image © Evgeni Dinev

Writing a fantasy novel is rewarding, but tricky. I’m currently on the second draft of my first fantasy novel, and one of the things I really want to improve on is the sense of place. I want the settings in my story to seem real, alive and vibrant.

To help with this, I’ve devised a Location Reference Sheet. There are various character reference sheets floating around the internet to help write richer characters, and I’m convinced that locations can benefit from the same treatment. Since I am truly the nicest, cuddliest, kindest man in the world, I’ve decided to share it with you.

The reference sheet is designed as a resource for writers of all speculative fiction, but will be particularly useful to writers of fantasy or sci-fi. It should help you to maintain consistency when writing about a setting, and help you find a deeper understanding of the locations in your story or novel.

The document is available from Google Docs as either a DOC or PDF:

Location Reference Sheet for writers.doc

Location Reference Sheet for writers.pdf

You can download the document by clicking the ‘File’ tab towards the top-left, then selecting ‘Download Original’.

The way I see it, the more detail and thought you put into a setting, the more engaging it will be for the reader. In the first draft of my novel, Gwillum Hobnail’s Affairs of the Undershade, the subterranean setting suffered from being just a series of big caves – because that’s what it was in my head.

Now that I’ve thought more about the history of the locations, the bizarre wildlife, and the unique challenges of living underground, the Undershade is shaping up to be a much more interesting place.

When you know enough about your setting, and can picture it in your mind’s eye, the evocative descriptions practically write themselves.

Are you writing a fantasy or sci-fi novel? Did you find the Location Reference Sheet useful? Click the ‘comments’ button below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

3 Ways To Write A Great Blog

‘Blogging’ is a difficult topic to illustrate, so I have selected this grumpy dog. Deal with it.

Image © Maggie Smith

I recently wrote a post on how ‘write what you know’ is the worst writing advice ever. Well, I’m here today to confess that I was wrong.

No, the worst writing advice ever is, inexplicably, located over at Jody Hedlund’s blog - hidden within the subtext of her first point, here. Jody is normally a font of writerly wisdom*, so it’s particularly disappointing to find her willing aspiring writers to be boring.

The advice she gives is this:

Pick blog post titles carefully.

The subtext, as I see it, is this:

Make sure your blog post titles are as simple, transparent, generic and obvious as possible, because humans are witless, easily-confused chumps, who will refuse to investigate anything that fails to promise clear and immediate rewards.

Jody goes on to say that ‘this is not the day and age for cutesy, creative titles’. I have decided to regard this as a personal attack on my good self – the fact that Jody has never met me (and has no idea who I am) is frankly irrelevant, such is my rage.

Furthermore, here we have a professional writer advocating that other writers be less creative.

Of course, it isn’t fair to point the finger at Jody. It’s not her fault that we live in an age of search-engine optimisation and attention spans shorter than a mayfly’s todger.

That said, there’s something fundamentally distasteful about whoring ourselves out to potential readers by deliberately dumbing-down, particularly if you’re the kind of person who enjoys writing whimsical or cryptic titles.

I’ve even read advice insisting that every paragraph should start with a phrase chosen to bump the post to the top of search results! And let’s not be coy – a lot of this is done in an effort to boost advertising revenues or book sales, not simply because the blogger has something to say.

Why stop there? Why not optimise every sentence? In fact, why not start every word with a dollar sign, $just $to $be $safe?

I don’t know about you, but I can immediately tell the difference between an interesting/entertaining/thoughtful blog, and one that has been mechanically crafted to generate traffic. Sometimes the latter type can still be worth the read, but it’s sacrificed its soul nonetheless.

I suppose now would be a good time to fulfil the promise of my own generic, carefully-crafted blog title, so here we go:

3 Ways To Write A Great Blog

1. Follow good writing advice, not good blogging advice.

People who blog for its own sake are soulless traffic-whores, know as bloggers. People who blog to express themselves in an interesting/entertaining/thoughtful way are called writers. One is indifferent to the concept of creativity, the other thrives on it – which are you?

2. Write blog posts that you would want to read, not blog posts that you think the internetz will like.

If you write some generic crap that doesn’t particularly interest you, just to appeal to others, then not only will your writerly muscles become flaccid, but you’re probably duplicating the work of 100,000 other soulless morons.

Write about something that appeals to you, enjoy yourself, and hope against hope that your uniqueness will generate that following you’re hoping for (I’m still waiting for this to happen).

3. Go for a walk.

This is good advice for any writer. It clears the mind, and invites fresh ideas. Probably. Also, I couldn’t really think of a suitable third point, so I went with this.

There you go – 3 ways to write a great blog. Not ‘how to be a successful blogger’ or ‘how to generate blog traffic’ – how to write a great blog.

You’re a writer. Be creative. Don’t let anyone persuade you otherwise.

 

* I linked to some great posts of Jody Hedlund’s just a few days ago. They’re well worth a read.

Writing Tips to Shame Your Mother

This mother has offered poor writing advice, and is rightly ashamed.

Image © Graur Razvan Ionut

Let me start by stating that no mothers will actually be shamed in the making of this post. I simply needed an arresting title, and recalled with amusement a menu I read recently, offering ‘Sunday Roasts to Shame Your Mother’. The title is nonsense – the advice that follows isn’t.

This compilation of excellent blog posts I’ve read since joining Twitter is loosely targeted at those who, like me, are near the beginning of their writing ‘career’. That said, there are things here that every writer should remind themselves of from time to time, and even general principles that can be adapted and applied to any creative enterprise.

This is where I shut up and let others more wisdomous than I do the talking:

Writer Reality Check – Kristen Lamb

Top Ten List of Advice for Aspiring Writers – Jody Hedlund

Six Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Writing My First Novel – Krista Van Dolzer

A Litmus Test For Your Opening Scene – Roni Loren

Potential First Chapter Problems – Jody Hedlund

Hooking The Reader And Never Letting Go – Kristen Lamb

Are These Filter Words Weakening Your Fiction? - Suzannah Windsor Freeman

The Problem – and Reality – of Adding –LY – LuAnne Schindler

50 Rhetorical Devices for Rational Writing – Mark Nichol

Think of this as kind of a ‘Best Of’ list – I’ll be compiling more in the future, and the advice I take an interest in will probably reflect where I am on my personal writing ‘journey’. You know what, brief aside…

I detest the word ‘journey’, as applied to a string of related experiences when attempting to learn a new subject or skill. I’m not on a mystical quest for god’s sake. From now on, I’ll be using my own acronym – STring Of Related Experiences WHen Attempting To Learn A New Skill – STORE WHATLANS. Aside over…

I hope that these links have been helpful to you, and have assisted in furthering your own personal Store Whatlans.

Did you find these links useful? Do you agree with the advice, or do you think that some of it is open to argument? E-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk or leave a comment below.

Don’t Write What You Know

 

This cat is boring. Don’t write about it. No-one will care.

Image © Carlos Porto

To me, ‘write what you know’ must be the worst advice ever. Who comes up with this nonsense? Yet it sticks, presumably just because it can be expressed in a short, memorable sentence.

If I were to write purely about what I know, I’d either have to write a book about the tedious grind of being an entry-level chef, or a compendium of inane factoids about Doctor Who. Cynically, I’m going to suggest that most other writers probably have equally ‘understated’ lives. Did I euphemistically use the word ‘understated’ – I meant to say ‘shit-boring’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that writers as a group tend to lead boring lives – I’m saying that humans as a group tend to lead boring lives. I happen to know some of them personally, and they just won’t shut up about it – sometimes I wish I had the balls to just yawn in their faces and walk away.

Anyway, most of us wouldn’t want to read a book based on our own tedious lives and useless knowledge, so why should anyone else? Sadly, I get the impression that an army of failed-authors-in-waiting are even now slaving over their fifth, unpublished, semiautobiographical work, about an ordinary person who solves predictable crimes at the weekend with the help of their cat.

I think the problem arises because people take ‘write what you know’ literally – a much better piece of advice might be to write what you understand. There must be an almost infinite number of topics I can get to grips with, without having first-hand experience or a university degree in the subject area concerned.

So I suppose this is my advice to other writers, and to myself – for god’s sake, DON’T write about what you know. It bores the shit out of the rest of us. Research something fascinating, bizarre or implausible, understand it, and write about that instead.

Are you writing a novel about an ordinary person who solves predictable crimes at the weekend with the help of their cat? Please don’t e-mail me at pithytitle@live.co.uk or leave a comment below. Just stop writing.

What Are YOU Looking At?

 

Image © Salvatore Vuono

Here’s a shocker – a post on my personal writing blog that’s actually about my personal writing, actually. No rants about our broken society or meandering diatribes on spoon-licking aliens this week. Instead, I have an interesting question for you, the answer to which has a direct bearing on my unusual manuscript. The question is this;

Can accurate visual descriptions ever undermine, rather than reinforce, the strength of a written narrative?

My protagonist, Gwillum Hobnail (who is also the story’s narrator), is blind. Not only is he blind, but he is slightly dim-witted, very susceptible to suggestion, and has only the most basic understanding of the world around him. Gwillum makes up for this with an overactive imagination. He fills the gaps in his knowledge and understanding with invented explanations, locations, words, and even people.

Despite all this, Gwillum is ultimately unable to give visual descriptions of his world, real or imagined, due to the fact that he doesn’t know what seeing is. When a visual description cannot be avoided, both Gwillum and I turn to his companion, Crawly Steve, a mute worm who communicates by tapping on Gwillum’s toes in code.

What I wonder is, am I doing Gwillum a disservice by regularly resorting to the one sense that he can’t make use of himself? Should I have the courage to rely on Gwillum’s limited senses and wild imagination more often? Will the narrative be stronger if the reader is truly forced to experience the world from Gwillum’s perspective? Or will the reader feel alienated without the touchstone of the visual?

I’m finally approaching the end of my first draft, and as time has gone on I’ve resorted more and more often to visual descriptions, and I’m concerned that the story’s unique selling point has been diminished as a result.

My current plan is to use draft two to re-establish the more eclectic and eccentric tone present in the first half of the manuscript. After that I’ll be sending it out to others for feedback – if they feel it needs more conventional visual descriptions, so be it.

So, what do you think? Can accurate visual descriptions ever undermine, rather than reinforce, the strength of a written narrative? Comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk.

Flash Fiction – 3 Sentence Template

 

Image © Ian Kahn

The great talent of Edgar Allan Poe has inspired me to work on some short stories of my own. It’s a welcome break from my novel, which is slowly but surely turning into a doubt-ridden grind. Also, there are lots of ways to get quality short stories in front of readers quickly, and it would be nice to receive some kind of feedback after nearly five months of going at this writing business in a serious way.

Since I’m essentially a dork, with an inherent love of systems and strategies, I quickly developed and implemented something I’m pompously calling the ‘3 Sentence Template’ for writing short stories and flash fiction. My theory is that I should be able to write three amazing sentences representing the beginning, middle and end of a story, then link them together as succinctly as possible, and hopefully end up with a quality piece of writing.

This is how it works:

Sentence 1 – Introduction

The very first sentence of the story should create an evocative setup that clearly indicates or implies the nature of the protagonist and setting, ideally in an unusual manner.

Example: Golden California sun crispened Eddy’s already dry skin, and warmed his blackened heart with the promise of hot, delicious, living brain.

Sentence 2 – Disaster

The second sentence, designed to appear somewhere in the middle of the story, should describe the most improbably gut-rending, heart-wrenching, hopeless scenario possible for the protagonist, again, as evocatively as possible.

Example: There was something almost restful about the hum of the motor, the purring of the blades gently displacing the air across his throat, and the joyful, expectant faces of the children.

Sentence 3 – Twist

This should be the very last sentence of the story. It should be punchy, ominous, and suitable for using as the punch-line to a shocking twist.

Example: Death was good.

Once I’ve written my three sentences, I proceed to fill in the gaps in whatever manner seems best. It’s a surprising amount of fun working out how you get from one to the next – sort of like a writing exercise, but you also get a finished piece of work at the end of it.

I’ve tried it with two stories so far, and I’m reasonably pleased with both. The first is called Two Heads Are Better Than One, and uses the example sentences above. The second is called The Good Boy, and actually has a complete, layered narrative, based on this method, using only three sentences!

As I’m hoping to get both stories featured on Every Day Fiction, I can’t publish them here just yet. I’ll have to wait to see whether they’re accepted but, one way or another, you’ll get to read them in the near future!

Do you write short stories or flash fiction? Do you have any quirky plotting techniques? Let the world know by leaving a comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk.

Pyramid Scheme

 

‘Space/Time Continuum’ by Lee Coventry

Pyramid apologies if you have stumbled into this post hoping for information on pyramids, perhaps for a school history project. I'm afraid you've been misled. Contrary to all the evidence, this post concerns pyramids in only the most tenuous fashion. Allow me to explain. Pyramid.
 
Pyramid having looked at the stats for my fledgling blog, it seems that my most popular post, by a considerable margin, is something I wrote back in October called Be The Pyramid, an ill-conceived rant about social injustice. After checking out Google AdWords, the reason becomes clear - the word 'pyramid' is an incredibly popular search term, and my rant was inadvertently search-engine-optimised. Pyramid.

Pyramid the post you are currently reading is a shameless attempt to capitalise on this phenomenon, and thus confuse more people into reading my blog. Hence my use of the word 'pyramid' in prominent locations throughout the text. Pyramoo. Whoops, I meant to say Pyramid.

That's not to say I won't be providing genuine value for the unwary surfer caught in my pyramid web. For your amusement and edification, I present The 3 Pyramid Ponderings of Jimble:

Pyramid Pondering The Firste (A poem simply entitled 'Pyramid'.) Pyramid Khufu's body, carried deep, inside his wond'rous pyramid, His servants lay his soul to sleep, in granite tomb, and close the lid.

Pyramid Pondering The Seconde (Fun with grammar.) I recently discovered that ‘Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo’ is a grammatically correct sentence. Don’t believe me? Look at this. By this reasoning, we can be fairly confident that ‘Pyramid pyramid Pyramid pyramid pyramid pyramid Pyramid pyramid’ is also grammatically correct. Probably. Despite the fact that I do not fully understand the reasoning behind the ‘buffalo’ sentence, I feel no need to research this further.

Pyramid Pondering The Thirde (A strange phenomenon.) This pondering exists solely to draw your attention to the fact that, now that you have read the word 'pyramid' so many times, it's starting to sound a little bit odd, isn't it? Py-ra-mid.

Pyramid.

Bad Writing

This looks very interesting. I suspect that any creative person who has ever fretted about being too amateur would benefit from watching this documentary. I only suspect this since I haven't actually seen it.

Unfortunately, there appear to be no immediate plans to screen it in the UK. I've contacted the producers about it, and they now seem to be under the delusion that I am affiliated with a prominent Cardiff art cinema. I am sorely tempted to play the producers off against the cinema, claiming to represent both of them.

Clearly this would be slightly eccentric, but it's a measure of just how badly I'd like to see this film. If anyone based in the UK (and, ideally, Cardiff) genuinely is affiliated with some kind of plausible screening location, please get in touch with these people at BadWritingTheMovie.com.