Post 31 on Connie Green’s 30 Day Challenge – Having an Idea
Posted on | January 7, 2010 | 2 Comments
As most of you may already know (or wondered, seeing all the posts for the last month being numbered for some reason,) a month ago I accepted Connie Regan Green’s challenge to write 30 blog posts in 30 days. Being a bit of a show-off, I’m doing 31.
Did I know I would complete the challenge when I started it? No, of course not. I was determined to finish it, but didn’t know whether or not I could, didn’t know if I’d have that much to say. I certainly didn’t want to put any posts on our blog that weren’t useful to our students and readers. What I decided to do, then, was just do what I normally do, write about the process of writing. It’s something I know a lot about, have done a fair amount of study on and have done the practical bit of actually writing.
Because of the commitment to write the posts and the commitment to have them be worthwhile and useful, ideas seemed to come to me about subjects I could write about. There were days, however, when the idea wasn’t right there, but my thought was, what if I were Dave Berry or Erma Bombeck and had to write an article every week day of my entire life. Not having an idea isn’t an excuse when you’re getting paid buckets of money. So how do you find something worthwhile to write about?
I talk about this in terms of fiction a lot. When you’re stuck, journal in a stream-of-consciousness way. Just write. Write anything. (Or type anything.) Even if it’s “I don’t have any idea what to write. I still don’t have any idea what to write. No ideas are coming to me in this stupid exercise.” Even that will work. Also, I recommend imagining work. Imagine yourself into other circumstances and lives using your five senses.
I also suggest to look around yourself and simply described something or someone you can see. The lamp. The cat. Your brother-in-law. Again, use all five senses.
Do these ideas work for non-fiction, for writing informational articles or creating information products? As they say in Sweden, Ya, sure, you betcha. For some of the articles I wrote for this challenge, I looked at questions that people asked us about writing. I also looked at questions I’ve always asked, some of which I hadn’t yet found answers to. I imagined myself as a new writer, to remember what it felt like to not know anything about it. I looked around my living room and allowed things to make suggestions to me.
And sometimes, I just started typing. You’d think that most of what I typed when I did that wouldn’t end up in the final article, but you’d be surprised at how much would. I know I was surprised, even though I’ve used that technique often in my writing career. I would just start typing nonsense, and sense would show up quite uninvited. All by itself. Ideas would appear. The subconscious has lots to give back to us because we’ve fed it so much information. And it doesn’t like to stay quiet, so when you just type randomly, the subconscious will have its way.
Then it was just a matter of shaping those ideas, expanding on them, doing any research necessary and allowing them to be written.
I trust that you have found something useful in my posts these last several days. I trust that your thoughts have been provoked, and your creativity intrigued. I know you’ve probably disagreed with some of it, and to that I say, Very Good! If everyone agreed with everything, the world would be a very boring place, and none of us would have much opportunity to learn and grow. I know I’ve learned a lot from this challenge, and from the responses to some of my posts.
To finish the challenge, then, I say, continue writing! It’s what a writer does.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Join us in our course on writing a short story. Find out about it at You Can Write a Short Story – http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/class – hurry, the classes start next week.
Post 30 – All’s Well that Ends Well
Posted on | January 5, 2010 | 4 Comments
This is my penultimate post in Connie Green’s 30 day challenge (I’ll end with 31 posts. I’ve always been an overachiever. Okay, a teacher’s pet. You can say it.) Because of this, and because I’ve already covered Beginnings and Middles, today I’ll talk about endings, and use Mr. Shakespeare’s title without compunction or permission.
What is an ending? That is where the ultimate consequence or result of what is set in motion in the middle is realized. (The ultimate consequence can be implied rather than explicitly described.) Again, simple.
Endings, however, in life and in stories, can be varied and can be confusing. They can be unsatisfying and they can be thought provoking. They can be trite, they can be abrupt, they can be sentimental. Some are happy, some tragic, some, contrived. Like in life, some are perfect, some are messy. Some stories, The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton is a prime example, end by very consciously not ending. Don’t be fooled. Even that influential story has an ending, it is just rather enigmatic.
Endings can also be circular, where they lead back to the beginning. They can be the beginning, as in Pinter’s play Betrayal or Christopher Nolan’s movie Memento. In both these examples, the beginning explains everything.
Often, stories will end at a new beginning. The hero will come home, look around at his life, then look out his door at the new possibilities and adventures awaiting him. (Hollywood loves this kind of ending, because it leaves the possibility of a lucrative sequel wide open.)
Many writers, notably O Henry and Guy de Maupassant, end their stories with a completely unexpected twist. This is a very satisfying, but not easy, technique. A twist that makes no sense is worse than a cliche ending. A twist has to make sense, given everything that has lead up to it. If you can master that, however, you will be a master story teller.
Some writers, especially beginning writers, will often be tempted to resolve every issue in the story, and resolve them completely. The cliche way to say this is “tie everything up with a neat bow”. This is unnecessary. It is also rarely satisfying to the reader. Resolve your main conflicts if you must, but you can resolve them with a question rather than with an answer. This can leave the reader thinking.
Just because the ultimate consequence of what is set in motion are realized, it doesn’t at all mean that it is all necessarily resolved.
I’ll end this essay about ending with a quote from novelist Jerry Pournelle. “And meanwhile, the storytellers like me and Anderson, Silverberg… we tell stories. People like them. They want to know how it comes out, they want to know what the ending is.”
If your reader wants to know how things come out, in the end that’s a good story.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Listen to the replay of our tele-seminar on the process of writing – go to http://CreativeWritingStrategyTips.com/
Post 29 – The Muddle in the Middle
Posted on | January 5, 2010 | 5 Comments
A few days ago I posted about beginnings of stories, which can actually happen in the beginning, the middle or the end of the written work. Now let’s look at the middle.
Often, I’ve heard that the basic reason that much writing doesn’t quite work is “the muddle in the middle.” I think this can be true. A writer will have a great idea for a story, will know where it starts and know where it ends. He will write a great beginning, and a good or great ending. But then he must get from one to the other and is often confused as to how to do that.
First, remember that confusion is a very high and powerful state to be in. Don’t fight it, celebrate it.
Then, there are things you can do to help you on your way.
What is the middle? What is set in motion in the beginning progresses and develops, often in unexpected ways. Again, pretty basic and simple.
The middle is also most of your story, not just the middle third of it. This intimidates some writers. Don’t let it intimidate you. You’re the one in charge of the beast and your story will thank you if you take the reins firmly. To stretch a metaphor a little. Which can be fun.
So what do you do? First, step away from the computer and do some imagining work. You’ll need to know your characters. You’ll need to know your settings. Imagine them well before you start to write. Give them quirks, if you want. The characters, I mean, not the settings. Although giving the settings quirks might be fun, too.
Once you’ve imagined them, write down what you imagined. This is for you, just notes, not part of the story itself, although much of it may end up in the story.
Once you’ve done this, if the getting from A to Z still doesn’t become clear, throw some circumstances at your characters (or settings. Or both) to see how they would react to them. Again, this is just for yourself, but again, a lot of it could influence your story in very interesting ways.
The main piece of advice I have, however, once you feel you know your people and where and when they are sufficiently, is to imagine the unfolding of the events of the story. Live through it in the senses of your mind. Feel the events, smell them, hear them, see them, taste them. Do this before you are actually writing it all down. If something occurs to you in this imagining, make a note of it, but keep imagining.
Then just tell the tale you’ve imagined. This will be the basis of the story, and, since you’ve come to it organically and have personally experienced it yourself, anything that is missing will become obvious. The muddle will melt and the middle will move meaningfully forward. To use too many alliterations. Which can also be fun.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Listen to the replay of our tele-seminar on the process of writing – go to http://CreativeWritingStrategyTips.com/
Post 28 – Passion
Posted on | January 4, 2010 | 7 Comments
Passion has always been my favorite word (well, maybe not always, I suspect when I was a kid, it was more like “fun” and when I was a teenager, it was more like “angst” but, hey, I’m an old fogy now and if I say always, take it how you like it!)
I love when people discover their passion. Or passions. I love when people start moving toward their passion. It moves me to watch people grow as they realize that they can live from their passion. I have many passions, but almost all of them revolve around creativity. When I taught an acting class, it was called Passion for Acting. One reason Steve and I started this blog was because of our passion for writing and the writing process.
And that passion translates for us into opportunity.
I was determined not to write a post about New Year’s resolutions, but my good friend Andy Dolph recently wrote about them in a way that made me think, and I’d like to share that with you. (He got the idea from Erica Douglas, who has been doing this for many years.)
That is, the “theme word”. (Or, for all you Twitter people, #themeword.) Chose a word that will be a theme for the next year, and build your goals and action around that word. My goals for the new year are already a lot about writing and teaching writing, but this idea made sense to me. As soon as I read the notion in Andy’s blog, the word “passion” shouted itself in my head. It was obvious.
What it means for me in this context is to continue to develop all aspects of passion for myself. Develop my writing, making a grand living doing that and teaching that, traveling (another passion) which I can then do more readily, and, of course, having the common meaning of passion in my life – i.e. someone to share it with.
Think that about covers it. I’ve already declared 2010 an exciting year. With this, I’m now that much more excited. I recommend you do the same. Choose a word. Write down for yourself what it means to you. Remind yourself of that word as the months go by. On January 1, 2011, reflect on how that word shaped and enhanced your life.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Don’t Forget! Our free tele-seminar on the process of writing is tonight! (Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 5 pm PST, 8 pm EST. ) To listen, go to http://CreativeWritingStrategyTips.com/
Post 27 – Mythic Journeys
Posted on | January 3, 2010 | 6 Comments
I’ve talked a lot in recent posts, about myths that artists carry around that, unacknowledged, can thwart their creativity. I’d like to change tack a little and talk about myth itself. Myths are important to the development and cohesion of a society, and often art is where the myths are codified and perpetuated.
The early Greek plays were often almost religious ceremonies, where the mythos of the people was presented in an exciting way. Most, if not all, art during the early days of Christianity was for the purpose of expressing Christian stories, philosophy, iconography and ideology. This was true through the “age of enlightenment”, which started in the 1500’s with the alchemists and went into the late 1700’s. Even during that time, “enlightenment” or “reason”, which were the buzz words of the age, if you’d allow me to use a dreadful anachronism, were couched in terms that agreed with, or at least didn’t greatly break from, religious thought.
Joseph Campbell talked long and interestingly about the “Hero’s Journey” and how it relates to modern Western society, and he said it much better than I could hope to (that word does creep in, doesn’t it!) but here I’ll make an attempt to add to that discussion.
The hero’s journey in Western myth, as described and defined by many people who have studied it, (briefly and condensed) starts with the hero having an opportunity that makes a change in his life, creates an entirely new situation. There is then a change of plans, or a second turning point. He reaches a point where he can no longer go back (the point of no return), then a major setback, after which he gives his final effort, leading to the climax, then resolution. This “formula” is an interesting thing to take into your writing.
I don’t in any way advocate forcing your story to meet these story points. The reason for presenting them is that, we in the West are already attuned to this journey subconsciously, because our stories and myths, the ones we hold inside, the ones we learned to interact with others with, the ones we subconsciously live our life through, have followed a version of this timeline. It has become ingrained in our thought process. If this is so, it would serve the artist to tap in to this structure in order to talk directly to the readers’ innards.
A great example of where this was used very, very consciously was in the movie Star Wars. George Lucas studied Joseph Campbell and very purposefully and directly used his ideas of the hero’s journey in the script of his movie. Whether or not you personally like Star Wars, you must admit that it entered into the national consciousness very, very quickly and has continued to live there for many years. (Even given the horrible second trilogy that threatened to dethrone the original three! Just my opinion.)
I am not one to espouse a formula in your writing or creation of art. I love experimentation and risk in art. I do, however, see the power of studying what others have done that has worked for them, adjusting that to your own voice and using it with abandon!
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Don’t Forget! Geoff and Steve will be holding a free tele-seminar on the process of writing tomorrow, Monday, January 4th at 5 pm PST. Go to the seminar page on our site to find out more, and to register for it – http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/seminar)
Post 26 – Hope, the Enemy of Art
Posted on | January 2, 2010 | 14 Comments
I hate the word “hope”.
I’m going to let that sentence stand there by itself for a moment. In fact, I’ll repeat it.
I hate the word “hope”.
How can I hate it? The word means looking for a brighter future, it is a vision of a greater life. It is the basis of a political philosophy that desires utopia. Pheh.
When you hope, you immediately give up your power, you immediately give over to the fates your responsibility to do anything more. I hope this will work. I hope I get inspired. I hope they don’t mess up the government. I hope I can keep my New Years resolutions. When most people use the word hope, they’ve already decided that whatever they hope for probably won’t happen. Once that decision is made, it probably won’t. “But I am not responsible. After all, I hoped, didn’t I? What more can I do?”
Plenty. There is plenty more you can do.
This is very insidious in art. Hope is the enemy of art. I used to tell my acting students, don’t hope. Do. Do the work so hope is unnecessary. Do your homework. Do your imagining work. Take control of the process by laying a firm foundation of lived in circumstances and there is no need for hope. I tell you, my fellow writers, the same thing.
When you hope in art, you are telling yourself that there is a possibility that it won’t happen. When you give yourself that possibility, you stop being creative. Don’t hope. If you need to do something, trust instead. Don’t hope your resolutions will work, trust that you created a new year filled with well imagined possibilities. Trust that your vote counts and make sure it’s heard, don’t hope they will get it right this time. Trust that you can create, that you’ve done the imaging work, that the work will move you, that the Muse will then whisper in your ear.
Give up hope. Then do something.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Don’t Forget! Geoff and Steve will be holding a free tele-seminar on the process of writing on Monday, January 4th at 5 pm PST. Go to the seminar page on our site to find out more, and to register for it – http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/seminar)
Post 25 – Beginnings at the Beginning
Posted on | January 1, 2010 | 7 Comments
It’s a new year, and as such, I thought I’d talk a little about beginnings. The western notion of story structure (no, it’s not Universal, I’ll talk about that in another post) dictates a beginning, a middle and an end. It dictates setups and payoffs. It dictates some sort of change to happen to a circumstance or a character.
In the beginning, something happens that sets something else in motion. Pretty simple.
In linear story structure (1~2~3) the beginning happens where you would expect it, at the beginning, but there are many other ways of doing it. There is a device called framing, where you “frame” your story with the last scene. (3~1~2~3.) Usually, with this device, the last scene is broken in two and the story starts with the first half and ends with the second half of that scene. Sometimes the last scene is repeated, but on the second reading, we know much more, so it seems new, the meanings of the moments seem different. The beginning happens second in this technique.
Sometime, you might tweak this even further and start at the middle, then go back to the beginning and tell the story through to the end. (2~1~2~3.) This can be a very exciting way to tell a story when handled well. It creates an immediate intrigue, then goes back to explain what lead up to it, how it happened, then resolves it.
One of my favorite non traditional story telling techniques is the non-linear structure, where things happen completely out of sequence and the reader isn’t sure of anything until the final moments of the story. (3~2~6~1~4. Or something.) In these, the beginning can be in the middle or, as with the movie “Memento
Even within these non linear or non traditional ways to tell a story, however, the piece itself has a beginning. It needs that moment or event that makes the reader want to know what’s next. No matter where in your story you start, starting on something that creates tension or surprise or confusion or recognition or something is very highly recommended. At least in the Western notion of story structure.
Happy beginnings! The rest of the story is wide open!
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
P.S. Don’t Forget! Geoff and Steve will be holding a free tele-seminar on the process of writing on Monday, January 4th at 5 pm PST. Go to the seminar page on our site to find out more, and to register for it – http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/seminar)
Post 24 – Confusion
Posted on | December 31, 2009 | 4 Comments
(SPECIAL NOTE: Geoff and Steve will be holding a free tele-seminar on the process of writing on Monday, January 4th at 5 pm PST. Go to the seminar page on our site to find out more, and to register for it – http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/seminar)
There is a philosopher, I forget who, who has a scale of emotions with apathy and depression on the lower end. Confusion is a very high state. I’ve always thought that questions are much more powerful than answers. We are thrown (like a potter throws clay) to want the answers, but when we have the courage and fortitude to allow ourselves to stay in the question, in the confusion, the Universe opens up for us.
This is relevant for creativity. When we “know” how to do something, when we know the outcome and every piece in between, there is no room for those wonderful little blips that the unconscious loves to throws our way on a project that we’ve been dwelling on for some time. I like to map out my stories, consider them, design them, if you want to call it that, but when I sit down to write, I am always looking at the story pouring out on my computer screen as if it were something someone else wrote, as if I were reading, as my Mom used to say, “a thumping good piece of literature.”
With this as a way of looking at it, the story will often surprise you. Your character will often surprise you and refuse to do what you think they should. Writer Annie Proulx said she’d never experienced characters coming to life in that way and thought it was something writers say to sound mystical. That is until she wrote Brokeback Mountain. She had been imaging Ennis del Mar Jack Twist for so long and so deeply, with such compassion and emotion, that they did surprise her. She had once called the “falling in love” with your characters “repugnant”, but then she wrote that story.
I like going into a project confused, unsure. It’s an exciting place to be. I recommend it for anyone who feels they don’t have the creative juices to write. Or anyone who does.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
Post 23 – Writing a Short Story
Posted on | December 30, 2009 | No Comments
I love short stories. I have read them all my life. I have had subscriptions to New Yorker, AGNI, Omni, Asimov and other magazines just so I could read the short stories. I have collections from Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post. And, of course, many, many collections of science fiction short stories.
I have written short stories most of my life. I think I wrote my first one when I was, perhaps, eight or nine. My mother kept a copy of it, but I have no idea what has become of it. My earlier stories were dark and brooding, the product of a self-pitying teenaged mind. I still have a few of them around. They amuse me. I want to hug that kid, then tell him to get over it.
Over the years, I’ve honed my writing. Eventually, I began to notice that, although each story I wrote demanded it’s own creative process, I approached each one in a very similar way. It seemed magical and intuitive, but there was something familiar about it each time.
Several years ago, about the same time I started writing with Steve Mancini, I started examining the process I used to write. It seemed very close, again, to the process Steve and I used to write together. I realized, as I looked at it dispassionately, that the process was repeatable, that it could be replicated. That it could be taught to others. This was an exciting discovery.
After Steve and I wrote our how-to guide on writing with a partner that we give away for free, we thought about what else we have to offer, what else people ask us about. It seems to me that I’ve always heard that writing fiction seems a mystery to many who would love to do it. I am committed to people finding and pursuing their passions, and what better way than to de-mystify the process of writing a short story.
So Steve and I wrote a how-to guide on just that. Since we published it, we have gotten several notes from people that, using the book and following along with it, they have written their first short story. Whenever I hear this, my chest glows a little with proud warmth. As I have said before, I cry at supermarket openings, so you know I tear up when we get those messages.
If you have ever thought you’d like to write, or if you’ve ever been confused by any of the parts of the process, I urge you to get our book. If you are a writer and find yourself overwhelmed with ideas or lack any new ideas, or if you frequently experience what people call “writer’s block”, I urge you to get our book.
It’s called “On Writing a Short Story” and you can find it at http://www.WritingAShortStory.com
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
Post 22 – Why Art?
Posted on | December 29, 2009 | 6 Comments
I know people who would rather not be challenged in their lives. They prefer a comfortable job and, as my friend and mentor Pat O’Bryan calls it, a McLife. It’s valid. It has confuses me, but, as the philosopher said, confusion is a very high state and understanding is the booby prize, so I don’t need to understand it, I just need to accept it.
It’s valid, but it’s not for me and never has been. I’ve held jobs often in my life, but always considered them a way to support my habit of creating art. (An often very bad habit, I assure you, much like smoking, but without all the ashes and nicotine stains.) I have not yet found the proper balance between work, money and freedom. Lately I’ve been working ten to twelve hours a day almost seven days a week in order to make it all come together, in order to create something worthy of society and worthy of myself, looking for that moment when “it” starts to take care of itself and I can go see plays in London’s West End for a week or two, then blithely write my heart out.
I have also long been amazed (I first started noticing it when I was in junior high school) at many American’s pride in their own ignorance. They want to be ignorant, and distrust those who aren’t. I don’t say all Americans, or any one class of Americans, but I see it as a very large portion of my fellow citizens. Again, it confuses me. I am so passionate about wanting to know everything about everything, I don’t get people who don’t want to know anything about anything.
Again, I suppose, it’s valid. Most of us have come from peasant stock, and the way to survive as a peasant is to lay low, not be noticed and do as you’re told. That’s what you do, and that’s what you teach your children. I absolutely come from peasant stock, so it would seem that I should also want to lay low, but I also come from parents who questioned, examined and wanted to shake things up, so I inherited some of that, too. I like to cause ripples. (I do it nicely, of course. Usually.) One of the best ways to cause ripples, to question, to shake things up, is through art. With art, it can be done either didactically or subtly. I’ve used both. (Yes, believe it or not, I can be subtle.) Subtlety usually works better.
There will always be people who are bosses and always be people who are employees. How could we have bridges and power stations and the West End theatres and the Internet itself if that weren’t so? However, and I’ve said this before, I think that art, the creation of it and the consumption of it in all of it’s messy iterations, is what makes a society live, thrive. The bridges and power stations and theatres are just the trappings, the tools needed for society to function and survive. In order for it to thrive, there is art.
In this day of mass media, the Internet, social networking, etc., the peasants have been given the keys to the castle in a way not ever seen in history.
Only some of them (us) will accept the keys. This is valid. I want my own set.
~Geoff Hoff
Co-author of such how-to guides as On Writing With a Partner and On Writing a Short Story.
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