Tag: writing tips (Page 3 of 3)

The Power of Revision

September 17, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

Here’s a fact of fiction writing: nobody gets it right on the first try.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “great books aren’t written—they’re rewritten.” I totally buy this. It’s the power of revision. It’s chiseling a block of formless stone into a statue. I found this out first-hand with a recent project.

A few years ago, I wrote a manuscript entitled Who the Hell is Julian Strange? It was a novel about a famous rock star, Julian Strange, who got whacked. The rest of the story was about all that happened in the wake of his murder. The novel’s ensemble cast featured a journalist writing Strange’s biography, Strange’s former band mate, Strange’s biggest fan (also kind of a stalker), and a few others. One of those others was a mopey Los Angeles police detective named Gerald Barkley.

For a while, Who the Hell is Julian Strange? felt like an Infinity Draft (more info on what that means here). I started and restarted and found nothing interesting enough to keep me going. Finally, I shelved the project.

Months passed. Eventually, it was my turn to submit to my biweekly writer’s group meeting. I went delving through my files and found a chapter about a guy named Gerald Barkley.

I’d almost forgotten about this piece. One line in particular jumped out at me:

“Detective Barkley sipped at his seltzer. He wondered if anyone would make a toast to him when he died.

Seemed unlikely.”

I’m not sure what it was about this sentence that I liked so much, but I wanted to learn more about Gerald Barkley. Why does he care about his death? Why does he have such a low opinion of himself? Where is he? (Also, I liked that he likes seltzer. I like seltzer.)

I revised my entire draft, this time focusing on Gerald Barkley instead of Julian Strange. Since the former is more relatable than the latter, I found the essential conflict worked much better. The characters felt natural and authentic rather than cartoonish and forced. When I finished my new draft, I renamed it Gerald Barkley Rocks.

But choosing a new focal character wasn’t all I did. I revised. I revised for about eight months before I shared with family and friends. I spent even more time afterward refining Barkley’s story. I asked myself, “Does this book stink?” It went through many iterations, but finally, I got my story to a place I like. Gerald Barkley Rocks is not yet published, but it will be soon. I’ll let you know more details when I have them.

Anyway, my point with this post is simple: revision is essential. The first draft is never, ever good enough. Characters change, plotlines shift, and your work decides its own path. Keep on revising until you discover the story you were meant to tell. You’ll dig the results.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

3 Signs You’re Starting Your Story in the Wrong Place

September 10, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

Story Beginning

Beginnings. They’re a pain.

Starting your story might be the most challenging part of any short story, book, script, or whatever. It’s difficult to pinpoint that exact moment when the festivities should commence, and when it’s most appropriate for readers to enter your world.

In fact, your story might start in the wrong place without you even knowing it. Here are three signs that’s the case (and some suggestions on fixing it):

1. Readers Think Your Intro Needs Work

Last time I submitted a book to my writer’s group, many members were iffy on my first chapter. To put it simply, they found it boring. When I cut the chapter, I found the piece worked much better. You might find a similar solution in your work.

Why does this happen? It’s often because we’re still getting to know our characters. We might not even have a firm grasp on what our book is about, let alone our characters’ personalities. We have to explore through writing, and most of the time that exploration is done in beginning chapters. These chapters prove useful for writers, though not especially interesting for readers. Write them, learn from them, then cut them.

2. You’re Not Excited By Your Beginning Chapters

This is a telltale sign of a story starting in the wrong place. If you can’t get excited about your writing, why should anyone else?

Copywriting guru Joseph Sugarman said the purpose of the first sentence of copy is to get the reader to read the second sentence. Similarly, the purpose of a story’s beginning is to get readers to read the rest. So trust your intuition. If you feel your writing isn’t grabbing readers, it probably isn’t.

In this case, try starting elsewhere. Try a different scene, or focus on another character, or cut your previous intro entirely. When you find the right fit, you’ll feel it.

3. You Constantly Reference Events Preceding the First Chapter

Flashbacks are one thing. Constantly referencing events from before is quite another. If your first chapter is entirely backward-facing, it might be because you’ve started your story not too early, but too late. It’s uncommon, but it happens.

This is tricky. Some stories might have many flashbacks, even with a proper beginning. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, for instance, is about both the present and the past. There are two parallel timelines, so numerous flashbacks are essential to the plot itself.

If you’re unsure, consider leaning on the first two signs for reference. They could point you in the right direction.

In Conclusion

Beginnings are a pain, but they don’t have to be. Regroup. Restart. Trim where necessary. Begin your story with a flourish.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

Enter Late, Leave Early

April 2, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

No, the title of this post is not a reference to party etiquette. Rather, it’s a writing principle you might’ve heard before. When composing a scene, it’s often best to begin that scene as late as possible, then end it as early as possible.

Want to bring this concept to your own writing? Here are some thoughts on how to do it.

Entering Late

Dialogue should sound like real people talking, but only to a certain extent. One of my professors described good dialogue as, “The way people would talk if they had time to think of the perfect words.” This makes perfect sense to me. Because if our dialgoue sounds exactly like everyday speech, we’re going to get an annoyingly high percentage of “ums,” “uhs,” and “you knows.”

Now how does entering late/leaving early apply to writing fiction? Well, just think of all the pleasantries we exchange at the beginning and end of most conversations. They’re perfectly acceptable in a casual chat—less so in fiction. For example…

“Hey Marcel, how you doing?”

“Craig, what’s up, man? I’m doing alright. Yourself?”

“Good man, good. Just watching some X-Files. You busy right now?”

“I can talk for a second. What’s up?”

“Well, I uh, I heard the bad news. That’s tough man. People gotta stay off their cell phones when they drive.”

There. We finally arrived at the subject of Marcel and Craig’s discussion: a car accident. Problem is, we entered this conversation too late; the first four lines of dialogue really don’t do anything relevant (although one has to wonder what X-Files episode Craig is watching).

Here’s what it might look like if we start the conversation a bit later:

“Hello?”

“Tell me it isn’t totaled.”

“Hey Craig. Haven’t heard from the auto shop yet. Fingers crossed.”

Since we entered the scene later, we’re thrown right into the action. No messing around with inane chatter at the beginning. This leads to better scenes, better dialogue, and better stories.

Leaving Early

When you reach the end of an article, do you skip over the conclusion? Writing a scene is no different. Once you’ve made your point, people are less interested in anything that comes after. As writers, we should strive to end our scenes before that happens. Here’s another example using the characters from the previous scene:

“I’m just lucky to be alive.”

“Totally Marcel, totally. It was like a super bad wreck. But hey, you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

“You said it, man.”

“Well, I better get going. The smoking dude just showed up.”

“Oh snap. Alright, later Craig.”

“See ya, Marcel.”

Though I haven’t written the whole scene, let’s presume Marcel and Craig have been discussing the accident. When we leave conversations too late, characters tend to restate what’s been said before. It’s super boring. This scene probably should’ve ended after that first sentence.

And another thing: I mentioned this in a previous post about line breaks, but I think it deserves repeating here. Statements are most profound when they come before a break. So the final sentence before your scene ends should be a good one. Which sounds better to you: “I’m just lucky to be alive,” or “See ya, Marcel”? The answer’s pretty clear.

Conclusion

In an effort to follow my own advice, I’m going to keep things short. Enter late, leave early. You’ll love the results.

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. To stay current with Kyle’s work, subscribe to his email newsletter. He promises not to spam you.

Should You Lie to Your Fellow Writers?

March 12, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

Imagine this. You just read a fellow writer’s work. Maybe this is a friend, a member of your writer’s group, a classmate. Whoever it is, you read their writing with the objective of giving them honest feedback.

One problem: you hated the piece you just read.

Okay, I know Mom always said hate is a strong word. But this is going to happen. Even if your fellow writers are very talented, you’re unlikely to enjoy their each and every work. Our preferences and interests don’t always line up with everyone else’s. At any rate, you’ve just read a piece you didn’t particularly care for. And now you’ve got to give feedback on it.

Now what? Should you tell your fellow writer the truth? That you think what they wrote just wasn’t very good? Or worse, that you thought it was plain bad?

You will almost certainly have these thoughts about other people’s writing. When you do, I strongly believe you should simply lie to your fellow writers.

As we all know, writing is a pain in the ass. It takes years to get good at, and even then there’s always something left to improve upon. It’s a process of drafts, revisions, meticulous editing, feedback collection, then repetition. Writing is hard. It requires a constant stream of dedication and positivity.

So when a reader reviews a written work in a preliminary stage and tells the author they hated it, such negative feedback can destroy the author’s confidence. It’s these kinds of comments that make writers quit on their projects, completely restructure their work, or say to themselves, “I guess I’ll never be a very good author.” There is, after all, such a thing as being too honest.

The basic gist: If our objective is to help a fellow writer get better at writing, sometimes it’s necessary to lie.

I’m not advocating an “It’s perfect!” approach, whereby authors simply pat each other on the back at every turn, pretending everything’s amazing and every page is publishable. This kind of attitude won’t help anyone achieve their potential. Rather, I’m advocating a balanced approach. If you can’t find anything you like about a particular piece, make something up. There are glimmers of success to be found in all writing, no matter how much we dislike it.

Also, I want to make it clear that I’m talking about writing in its preliminary stages here, not finished writing. If you read a published book and hate it, you’re certainly entitled to share your opinion. But a published book is finished, and therefore open to any kind of feedback, negative or otherwise. (Just try to be respectful.)

On the other hand, for unfinished manuscripts and the people working on them, one-star ratings are useless. In the nascent stages of development, writers need equal amounts of praise and constructive criticism. It helps us stay motivated and finish projects.

Yes, all comments on a work in progress should be constructive in nature. Simply saying, “I didn’t like it” does nothing to help a writer improve their work. The best readers offer solutions rather than only point out problems.

For example, imagine you just read a really bad manuscript. Here’s an example of some honest, yet constructive feedback you might provide:

I think this piece has a lot of potential. One place where I think you could concentrate additional time is on your protagonist. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t really like her, either. In this draft, she’s just sort of there. I have a very hard time connecting with her, I think because I don’t know enough about her. If you provide additional details into her past which explain why she behaves the way she does, I think it might be easier to identify with her.

Here we’ve started on a positive: “I think this piece has a lot of potential.” We’re acknowledging that the piece isn’t quite there yet, but that it can get there with the proper improvements. It’s also useful to start on a positive note because we writers are often sensitive folk. We want people to like our writing!

Next, we delve into specifics rather than generalities. Even if the entire piece really is a prolonged snore, lie to the author. Get specific about the boringness. Here we’ve highlighted an important element: the main character. Notice that we didn’t just write, “I don’t like her.” We’re communicating exactly what we think isn’t working. In our opinion, we don’t know enough about her. And then, finally, we offer a solution to the specific problem we’ve identified.

This is where we should be totally honest. Remember, the primary reason an author asks you to read their work is so they can make it better. Your general opinions on the quality of the work are often secondary. Because the truth is, first drafts are always bad. Writers know this. They just want to make them better.

So if a writer you know asks for feedback on a draft and you simply hate that draft, lie to them. Find something, anything you think they did right. Identify specific points where they can improve, rather than making sweeping, and ultimately unhelpful, negative statements.

Think of it as a fib if you have to. It’ll help your fellow writers very much.

Unearned and Pointless: When Character Deaths Don’t Work

November 20, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

From Amazon

In fiction, everything happens for a reason. So when characters bite the dust, the audience wants to understand why. (Unless we’re talking about someone like Joffrey Lannister. In which case, reasons need not apply.)

A film called Trick ‘r Treat got me thinking about this topic. I really enjoyed this movie. It’s a horror-comedy Halloween anthology film featuring a murderous school principal, zombie children, and a demonic trick or treater. I loved pretty much every minute of this film—except for the very first scene.

It begins with two characters: Emma and Henry. They’ve just returned from a night of trick or treating, and Emma decides to dismantle their Halloween decorations, since she knows Henry won’t do it. Henry’s kind of like, “Yeah. True.” He also points out that removing decorations before the night’s over goes against tradition. Emma does it anyway.

As she’s putting away the decorations, an unseen assailant murders her. Henry comes out later and finds Emma’s dismembered corpse in the yard. And…scene!

Okay, this is a horror movie. The mortality rate for characters in horror films is far above the national average. And, as I mentioned, I think this is an excellent film. Yet I have an issue with this scene because the character’s death feels undeserved and pointless.

First of all, when we meet Emma and Henry, Henry feels like the character more deserving of death (no offense, Henry). He’s dopey and clueless. Plus, he won’t help with the stupid decorations. Emma, on the other hand, seems like a perfectly likable character. She doesn’t do anything in the scene to make her death feel earned aside from breaking the rules of Halloween. Yet she isn’t ware of the rules (nor is the audience) until it’s too late.

Here’s the thing about character deaths: Oftentimes they should feel either earned or significant to the plot. Otherwise, they feel cheap. If the villain dies at the end, no one minds. If the main character’s best friend dies and that death has no further bearing on the plot, something’s off.

I’ve seen cheap character deaths in other films as well, and they’re just as jarring. For instance, in Jurassic World, there’s an assistant character named Zara who’s needlessly and brutally eaten by dinosaurs. It isn’t just the character’s death that’s jarring—it’s the way she dies, being dropped into the waiting jaws of a sea monster. Seems unnecessarily nasty.

As mentioned earlier, I’ll admit that genre bends this rule somewhat. We expect character to die in horror films, often in gruesome ways. This makes sense, considering the genre is all about scaring its audience.

Still, the best works of fiction, horror or not, should strive to make character deaths feel earned. Deaths are plot points, after all, so like any plot point, the preceding actions must progress toward them. If an author/filmmaker doesn’t work toward a character’s demise (whether it’s a nasty one or just a regular one), it can often feel hollow. Plus, if a perfectly innocent character gets killed in a really awful way, audiences are likely to be repelled.

Character deaths work best when they’re earned or they serve a purpose to the plot. Striking that perfect balance is a challenge, one that even experienced filmmakers and authors don’t always get right.

Okay, I’m gonna go clean up my Halloween decorations. Wish me luck.

When to Show and When to Tell

July 17, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

Show, don’t tell.

If you’ve ever taken a writing course of any kind, you’ve probably heard that phrase.

If you haven’t, the meaning is pretty simple: don’t come out and tell your readers everything they need to know. Instead, show them examples and specific situations that support what you’re trying to say. Doing so often solidifies your points a little better than straight telling.

I agree with this phrase to a certain extent. However, sometimes it’s best to understand when one should show and when one should tell.

Showing everything and telling nothing can slow a narrative to a crawl. In many instances, simply telling the reader what they need to know keeps the pace moving. For example, you don’t need to show that your main character has red hair. That can come off as silly, with some other character saying, “My, what red hair you have.” It disrupts the flow of your story and makes your characters sound like they’re explaining details to the reader. That’s a big no-no.

Instead, one might write, “Her hair was the same shade of red as fresh autumn leaves.” Here we’re telling the reader through the authorial voice, which feels more natural than one character explaining details about another.

One might also tell rather than show in an effort to avoid confusion. For example, let’s say that there’s a magical substance in your world that allows people to fly. To show this, you have a scene in which a character drinks the drink, and then flies away.

As a reader, I might not make the connection between the drink and the flight. I might think that the drink is just a drink, and that the character can fly at will. Without being explicit about the connection between the two, I might miss it.

Instead, let’s try telling the reader about the drink’s magical properties through narration. Show them how it feels to fly, sure, but tell them the essential information so it doesn’t get lost.

The moment the first drop touched her tongue, she felt herself growing lighter. Another sip and she rose off the ground, rose higher, higher, higher still. She knew none of it would be possible without the drink.

Showing and telling are both tools in the writer’s toolbox. Showing is the most valuable of the two, though it isn’t the only one we should use. When appropriate, we need to tell our readers what they need to know. Doing so could make a huge difference in our writing.

How the Cosmic Eating Contest Went Awry

May 1, 2017 / Kyle A. Massa

(Disclaimer: the title of this blog post has nothing to do with its content. Rather, it’s meant to get you to read the piece. Apologies to those interested in cosmic eating contests.)

I went to an art show last week with my mom. She entered a painting of my aunt’s cat (it was the best one there, in my opinion). Before the winners were announced, we browsed through the other paintings. Each had a title, and one in particular caught my eye.

Its name was: “Waiting for the Slutty Nun.” I needed to see this piece.

No, I don’t have a thing for slutty nuns. Rather, the title was so outrageous, so striking, that I couldn’t not be interested in the painting. I wasn’t the only one; people chattered about the piece before they’d even seen it.

For me, this experience reinforced the idea that a good title is essential for any piece of art. An accurate label isn’t enough. If we want to get people excited about our work before they even see it, a good title is essential.

For writers, the title of a book or story is often the first point of contact between the reader and the work. If they’ve never heard of you or your writing before, you want to make a good first impression. A great title sparks that initial interest—which is exactly what we’re looking for.

Furthermore, a good title can help our work stand out from others. For instance, let’s say you wrote a truly outstanding crime novel. It’s suspenseful, unpredictable, and exciting. Plus, it’s unlike other crime novels because it takes place on the moon. Clearly, this is a pretty unusual story. Yet if you give it a generic title like “The Murder,” you’re not showing how your piece is different from others.

Lastly, great titles are perfectly paired with their stories. I’m thinking of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Imagine if that book had a different title, like The Firemen or The Book Burners. Wouldn’t it just not be the same? No other title quite captures the essence of the story so perfectly (451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper ignites, by the way). Plus, that title would never fit quite right on any other novel. Fahrenheit 451 is the perfect name for that book, and only that book.

For us writers and artists in general, I think agonizing over the perfect title is well worth it. Let’s not settle for the generic—let’s be inventive. Evocative. Bold. Or, if you’re a nun, maybe even a little slutty?

Subconflict, and Lots of It

September 6, 2016 / Kyle A. Massa

Novels are cool, but they’re tough to write.

I’ve been working on manuscript about a rock and roll star who inexplicably rises from the dead. Think Mick Jagger meets Jesus Christ. I think the premise is interesting and I like the characters, but once I really got into it, I found that the story was slowing down. It just wasn’t interesting to me anymore.

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my story until some time later, while I was reading Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (all hail his majesty). I got about a hundred pages in and realized the key difference between King’s book and mine: he had tons of subconflict, and I didn’t.

Of course, conflict is one of the cornerstones of story. If people aren’t fighting about something, then you don’t have much of a plot. I don’t think I quite realized just how much conflict you really need to sustain a reader’s interest for three, four, or five hundred pages.

Let’s look at Lisey’s Story for a moment. As you might’ve guessed, it’s a story about Lisey Landon, wife of late author Scott Landon. As I mentioned before, there’s a lot going on in Lisey’s life. She’s still coming to terms with the loss of her husband, while also figuring out what to do with his estate. In addition, her sister Amanda is on suicide watch. Also, a mysterious whacko is after Scott’s supposed lost manuscripts. Oh, and Lisey’s also being stalked by some kind of cosmic monster which only appears in reflective surfaces.

I count five separate conflicts in there. And those are just the most prominent ones.

Managing all this conflict can be pretty tough. On the one hand, once you set up your dominos, you should probably give them a push, right?

But here’s the tricky part: oftentimes, some conflicts should go unanswered. When books resolve all their conflicts neatly, you might feel like everything was a bit too easy.

For example, at the end of Lisey’s Story (spoilers ahead!), Lisey never defeats the monster that plagued her late husband and has now set its sights on her. In fact, by the end of the book, the creature might very well still get her at any time.

That might sound like a loose knot, but it really isn’t. It works because some of the best fiction mirrors life, and in life, there are some conflicts you’re just never going to solve. (Although hopefully if you’re being stalked by a cosmic horror, you can figure that one out.) Plus, I think it’s a mistake to answer all your readers’ questions. Don’t leave them satisfied—leave them wanting more!

When it comes to conflict, the challenge is to balance resolution with open-endedness. I think you’ll like the results.