5 Fun Tips to be a More Writerly Writer

Real writers use a quill and wear glasses. Then they take pictures of them.

So, you think you’re a writer do you? I suppose you sit quietly at your desk, diligently knocking out 2,000 words a day, scouring the internet for tips to improve your prose? Pah! That’s not the way of the true writer. There are writers, and then there are writerly writers. Allow me to enlighten you…

1) Carry a notebook.

It should be leather-bound – the more expensive, the better. For maximum effect, wait until a friend is mid-way through a sentence, then whip it out and start making notes, laughing quietly to yourself. Then refuse to let them see, claiming that they wouldn’t understand.

2) Own at least 4 different colours of pen.

These are for editing. Red can be used to draw attention to plot inconsistencies. Green is for additions and amendments to the prose itself. Blue should draw attention to the sections where you deliberately missed out whole paragraphs to come back to later, then forgot about. Black has no special significance – it’s just black.

3) Work in the local cafe.

There is absolutely no point in being a writer unless everyone knows about it, so find a prominent public place and write there. Remember to invest in an oversized laptop with a particularly noisy keyboard, thump the table in consternation at the end of each sentence, and stare absent-mindedly at other patrons to freak them out. This is how most writers attract the attention of agents.

4) Wear a bow tie.

Another top tip to let everyone know you’re a writer is to wear a bow tie. Only writers wear bow ties – anyone wearing a bow tie who is not a writer is an impostor, and must have their bow tie confiscated on the spot. It is legal to do this. If you are uncomfortable wearing a bow tie in public, start slowly with a cravat and work your way up.

5) Get yourself all worked up.

The natural-born writer can only be truly creative when pacing up and down and ranting loudly to themselves, ideally under the heavy influence of coffee or alcohol – or both. Try to remember to write down some of the things you rant about for later use. Combine this with strategy 3 for maximum writer points. Top score!

Are you a writerly writer, or merely a writer? How many bow ties do you own? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk

Image © Simon Howden

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 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 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

How to Blog Successfully in Two Separate Space-time Continuities

This kiwi represents the splitting in half of Pithy Postmodern Title. In time, each half will grow into a whole new kiwi. Probably.

Image © FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since my last post, I’ve been thinking a lot, not just about the relative merits of search-engine-optimisation, but also about what this very blog is actually for, and how successfully it’s achieving the loose goals I’ve set for it.

It’s become clear to me that I’m trying to do two very different things in a single space, and it’s causing me to trip over my own feet. This is meant to be a blog that engages with the writing and literary community, and at the moment it just isn’t doing that. Not even close.

So, I’ve come to a decision – Pithy Postmodern Title is to be hacked mercilessly in two. This blog, which you will notice has already been renamed Pithy Postmodern Writing, will continue to be updated regularly with writing advice, links, suggestions, resources, intellectual exercises, and the like.

I’ll be making more of an effort to get eyes on the page, through more representative post titles, more concise writing, and tangibly useful information for writers within every post.

All of the the other guff – the amusing rants, nonsensical humour, whimsical poetry, etc – will be spun out into a new blog called Pithy Postmodern Soapbox. This blog will stay true to the principle of giving search-engine-optimisation the finger, and trying to grow an audience organically, simply by being unique.

I’m quite excited about it, because I think there’s real scope for it to forge its own identity and do some really interesting things. Stay tuned.

The new blog can be found at www.pithysoapbox.blogspot.org

It’s looking slightly empty at the moment, but that will soon change. Why not follow them both, for a double-dose of Jamie in your face?

Are you a blog? Have you ever been hacked mercilessly in two? [Insert pointless, unengaging question here]? Comment, e-mail, etc.

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.