Writing

Timeless Storytelling

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Frederick Buechner wrote (as quoted by John Eldredge in The Sacred Romance) that “there has never been an age that has not produced fairy tales.” Eldredge adds, “There is something deeply true about a fairy tale. It is a timeless form of storytelling because it..captures both our deepest fears and highest hopes.” Buechner also wrote:

…the world is full of darkness and danger and ambiguity…There are fierce dragons who guard the treasure…To take the wrong turning of the path is to risk being lost in the forest forever, and an awful price has to be paid…It is a world of dark and dangerous quests…

In other words, fairy tales, fantasy and other fiction are not purely escapist in their design. They remind of us of the world we live in as so many try to pretend it is not that way. Those stories also remind of us of what burns inside us and tell us not to suppress hope, courage and wonder.

That is why Storytelling is an essential part of our culture that must never disappear.

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The Short of It

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Writing short stories is a bit of a lost art. Few authors center their efforts on shorts, instead they are always looking to produce that great novel. There are few Ray Bradburys out there, but not many, who are (or were) defined by their shorter tales. The late master wrote hundreds and combined others into classics like The Martian Chronicles. Short stories may not be what they once were, but they are not dead.

Take Jaimie M. Engle‘s The Dredge. Set in an Orwellian future of oppression, Will Marrok has a gift of sight into the future. He is told what unfolds hinges on his actions. In a novel, one has hundreds of pages to detail an evil dystopian Regime, a reluctant hero and the people in his path. Jaimie manages to impress these into the reader’s mind in 68 pages. The hero always wins in the end, but the question is how will he? It may not be what readers expect, but the best kind of ending.

One worthy of Bradbury.

dredge

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Imagination

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Darrick Dean

A few posts ago, I wrote on authors having a little fun with their books. Sure, every genre has its expectations as far as realism, details and plausibility. There will always be those “experts” that catch you on every “mistake” – whether you intended it or not. Most authors don’t mind getting corrections, but being an writer also means knowing when to deviate from the rules. For goodness sake, you’re writing about trolls or mutants or unstoppable heroes. Even when grounding it in some sort of plausibility, there’s still a bit of implausibility built in. Sure, if you’re writing The Hunt for Red October, your submarines cannot suddenly turn invisible or fly. Writing with that level of realism isn’t easy, though authors like Tom Clancy did it all the time. Even writers of techno thrillers and “hard sci-fi” don’t always follow the rules. A.E. van Vogt wrote many years ago (1952):

At the moment I regret none of the liberties I took with science in my science fiction. There was always a wealth of fact, enough, so it seemed to me, to carry the fantasy element. Even then, I rationalized what I did. I told myself whenever I had doubts: “The Story’s the thing.” I still believe that.

So, you see, being a writer is to know when to break the rules and, perhaps, make it seem like you aren’t breaking them. Or you write your story no matter what it takes, because ultimately it’s not realism even in the most realistic books that catch readers.

It’s Imagination.

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What is Through the Veil?

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Soon the veil will thin and not all beyond is meant to be found…

Tentative sequence and titles of the Watchers of the Light series announced here. More previews coming soon.

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Would Tolkien and Lewis Make the Cut?

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Darrick Dean

There’s been much debate among Christian writers on what writing “Christian Fiction” means. The artificial rules of Corporate Christian Publishing would eliminate many of the well-known writers who were Christians. These would include J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, as Donovan M. Neal writes. Many Christian writers – like writers of all beliefs – just want to write their story. A story informed by their beliefs (again, like all writers), but where their beliefs come through organically – not forced or contrived by some sort of formula. I’ve read books from all sorts of authors who want to lecture or preach to their readers. Really, it’s the difference between good and bad writing.

That’s not to say there isn’t anything good on the Christian Fiction shelf. There’s good and bad in all fiction markets and genres. Part of the debate also concerns the pros and cons of having your fiction labeled by your religion. If you are writing for a specific audience, then I suppose it’s fine, though religion is still bit of an unique way to classify fiction. Yes, there are other examples of targeting this or that demographic.

In the end, regardless of a writer’s beliefs, they shouldn’t spend their time figuring out how to be successful in getting certain people to read their books. They should write their story.

Readers should demand it.

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Realism or Escapist Entertainment?

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Ever know someone who can’t just let themselves enjoy a book or movie? “That movie is just completely implausible and unrealistic,” they say. “But it’s about alien robots!” you respond. Not everything has to be dead serious. Can you write purely for entertainment?

We have examined how a writer can be entertaining and thoughtful, about writing with your own voice and readers misunderstanding your book. These are all important considerations to a writer, but can he or she write more for pure entertainment? Sure they can.

Ultimately, an author’s beliefs or views come out somewhere in a book, but they don’t even have to be the central theme – or a theme at all. Think of all the barely plausible thrillers, and the movies that come from them such as 007, and how entertaining they are. Edgar Rice Burroughs nearly invented the swashbuckling “man finds himself in alien world/culture and must survive one peril after another to get the (native) girl in the end” scenario. He used the archetype in nearly every book he wrote, but through changing the details and characters he made each an original, breathless read.

Sure, his books weren’t without comments on society and such, but for the immersive reader they are the perfect escape. An immersive reader disappears into a book and doesn’t analyze or critique or try to figure it out. They want to be pulled in and, if the writer is good, the reader will catch whatever themes and messages work their way into the story. There’s nothing wrong with starting with a message, so long as it is organically delivered. However, most authors are seeking to tell a story first and foremost. Some may be doing so for pure escapism. Robert Adams writes at the start of his Horseclans series:

The following tale is a fantasy, pure and simple. It is a flight of sheer imagination. It contains no hidden meanings and none should be read into it…rather, [this is] intended for the enjoyment of any man or woman who has ever felt a twinge of that atavistic urge to draw a yard of sharp, flashing steel and with a wild war cry recklessly spur a vicious stallion against impossible odds.

It’s your story. Have a little fun.

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Publishing Numbers “Wildly Wrong”

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Didn’t have a chance to post this weekend, so I’ll send you over to Robert Bidinotto’s article, “New Data Demolish Key Claims by Big Publishers.” Therein he discusses the data released by author Hugh Howey which reveals some interesting insights on the state of publishing.

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Improving Your Craft

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Darrick Dean

The other day I discussed some tips on writing dialogue.  Roz Morris gives some more insight in keeping your dialogue from being awkward or stilted.  Hayley Knighten reveals the 5 Worst Ways to Start Your Novel.  Lastly, Lynette Noni explains how to create a real fantasy world.

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How Do Your Characters Speak?

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Dialogue seems awfully easy in English class, yet many writers get it wrong. You see, dialogue in novels isn’t supposed to be realistic.

“Huh?” you say.

If you wrote dialogue with all the little extras – the pauses, the unecessary words (um, like…), every variation from accent or region – it would be very tedious. In everyday speech, the brain processes out these things. When a writer tries to include all of them in the name of “realism,” they only annoy the reader. One has to be very selective in where such items are included, a specific purpose for each.

It’s also easy to drift too far into unrealistic speech.  Characters (rarely anyway) launch into paragraphs long commentary. People don’t talk this way and this is usually a sign of author intrusion. That is, the author wants to teach the reader something , lecture them or impart some wonderful piece of knowledge to them. These “info dumps” are just telling instead of showing. Find a more organic way to include the information in your story. Very often you’ll find that the delete button is in order. Make sure it sounds like your character is talking and not you.

Many writers abhor short sentences, believing if it’s short that it must be grammatically incorrect. This is not true. Shortened dialogue can signify tempo, or change of it, of the scene. This is very popular in television scripts. Do people really talk like this? Rarely, but in writing it imparts necessary information to the reader (or viewer).

How should people talk in your books? There’s a great line in the film National Treasure that gives us insight. Nicholas Cage’s character says something profound to his female friend. She replies that people really don’t talk like that, to which he says, “No, but they think like that.”  People’s thoughts are usually clearer, more reasoned and more detailed than what comes out of their mouths. So dialogue, out of necessity, must project a bit more than normal speech, but not too much more.

Who said writing was easy?

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Write With Your Voice, Not Someone Else’s

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Darrick Dean

Too often authors write what they think people want to read. Or they try to conform to the established expectations of a genre. The problem with these things are that the writer isn’t being true to themselves. Their writing suffers in the process. Author Morgan Busse writes in “Surprised by My Own Voice:”

I write fantasy. When most people think of fantasy, they think of J.R.R. Tolkien. His voice is eloquent, lengthy, lyrical, and full of description. Many fantasy writers share a similar kind of voice…

However, my voice is different. I discovered my voice after writing Daughter of Light, the first book in my epic fantasy series. My writing voice is blunt, short, and to the point. I tell the story in a strong, quick tempo, moving along at a clip pace. Not the style usually employed by the average fantasy writer.

A couple reviews reflected the fact that some readers did not like my voice. They wanted the poetic sound usually found in fantasy.

I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to try and change my voice. I believed I needed to write in a certain way in order to be a fantasy writer. It was like trying to write a square word into a round story. It didn’t work. In fact, those scenes stuck out so bad that my editor called me on it. He gave me the freedom to be me, and to write like me.

Don’t let others define you. Find your voice and let it be heard.

Or read.

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