Building Opening Sentences - Something appealing/Something appalling

Tell the audience what's going to happen - that was the advice of choreographer Jerome Robbins to Stephen Sondheim about how to open "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." The result was the wonderful, fun song "Comedy Tonight."

When I saw this in a bio of Robbins broadcast this weekend (and I am paraphrasing since I don't have access to the original), I couldn't help but thing of how Thackeray and other novelists of his time would begin chapters with spoilers like "In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign." I've written in the past about how titles and subtitles (including "In which" beginnings) can launch writers into their drafts. It's also possible to construct first sentences (for books, chapters, and scenes) that can get the juices flowing.

Many writers freeze when the get to first sentences because there is so much pressure to set the scene, create a great hook, and introduce the character perfectly. If such a sentence comes to you, fine. If not, that means you're human. Get to work putting the story down and worry about the perfect opening sentence when you are rewriting you work. Here are five approaches:

1. Call me Ishmael. (Moby-Dick) - Write down something the character says. If you can get a character talking, he or she is likely to keep talking for a full scene. Take advantage of that.
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. (Pride and Prejudice) - Start with a premise, your thesis (if you know it). Most of us had to do this is school so the words that follow, the proofs, should come easily. This approach works well if you have something to say.
3. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. (The Trial) - Begin with the protagonist's problem. Then move on to what it means to him or her. What might be done to solve it.
4. This is the saddest story I have ever heard. (The Good Soldier) - Make a promise to the reader. Make it as big as you dare. And then try to fulfill it.
5. It was a pleasure to burn. (Fahrenheit 451) - Start with a sentence that is charged with emotion. If you have a visceral reaction to it, you can ride that emotion through the sentences that follow it. Once you establish an emotion, you can turn it, for even more fun.

Now, any of these approaches might give you exactly right sentence or one that would never work. It doesn't matter if it gets you started. Since getting started seems to be the bane of most writers, that's a good thing. You can find 100 opening sentences on infoplease.

If all of these leave you scratching your head, try answering these versions of the journalists' questions.

• When and where does the scene take place?
• Who is this scene about?
• What happened to him or her?
• How did it happen?
• Why should I (the reader) care?

Be specific and clear. And, again don't worry if you need to change your answers later on. Just get started.

Are you bedeviled about how to begin? How do you construct your opening sentences?

Shock Treatment for Storytellers

The further you get into a novel, the more likely that the essence of your story will hide from you. Side characters want to tell their stories. Main characters wander into dark alleys. Outlines and note seem to be written in a different language. 

Some sort of shock treatment is in order.

My first resort when this happens is to return to my List of Ten for the book. I almost always find a potent reminder of why I wanted to tell the story to begin with.  And, more often than not, I add to the list before I leave it, renewing my enthusiasm and focus.

Sometimes I interview my character or write him/her a letter. This get the voice of the character back into my head (and often the problem is shutting it up).

Recently, I was teaching my Flash Fiction course, and we got into a discussion about setting. With Flash Fiction, setting can make or break the story, and my main point was to think of places where interesting things happen. Some obvious ones are police stations, hospitals, weddings, funerals, and battlefields. But, if you think less dramatically, you can think of places and situtations where conflicts occur over mundane things. In the class, we talked about people trying to renew their drivers licenses, buying suits for teenage boys, blind dates, and so on.

Make the list long enough, and you're apt to react strongly to one of the places or situations. You'll feel that nibble of inspiration. The next step is to put someone into the place or situation who surprises the audience. We workshopped an emergency room in the class and ended up having two people arrive who had been sewn together -- arms, sides, hips, legs, and feet. The didn 't get along, and their stories on how this happened didn't match.

What we ended up with was drastic, but entertaining.

Think of how you might take this route to get to the essence of your story. What is the place or situation that will put your character into the most uncomfortable position. Can you include an element that will surprise your reader? What conflict could push it as hard as possible? Could you write this as a Flash Fiction (1000 words or less) story?

If so, your story will come back to life, and you'll have a reference point as you go forward. You also may learn more about you character and what your story will be.

NaNoWriMo Success 2 - Fast Drafting

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Write for the moment. In the case  of NaNoWriMo, that means recognizing that 50,000 words in a month is a stunt, not a normal practice for most novelists (probably including fulltime novelists). That’s why, as I wrote in my NaNoWriMo prep post, you need to understand ahead of time what your goals are.

Certainly one goal should be to have fun. Yes, the serious, beautiful, and successful novel Water for Elephants came out of NaNoWriMo, and I would love for one of you to have a similar achievement. The odds of that happening, however, are not great. And if you are not used to marathon writing, don’t pressure yourself to create a bestseller. Don’t expect to have a deliverable manuscript on December 1, either. Rewriting happens (and should). I'll share some thoughts for the days after NaNoWriMO in my next post.

Here are eight things to keep in mind when you hear the virtual staring gun go off on November 1:

• Set a timer - This will help to put you on task. And it will tell you when you are "finished" for the day. (Feel free to keep writing.)
• Break the ice - Get a few words down as soon as your session begins. Those blank pages are deadly.
• Work forward - Do not rewrite as you go. Rewriting is for later. Add words, build pages, create scenes, and finish chapters.
• Give yourself permission -
• To write nonsense (don't judge)
• To write poorly (it can be fixed)
• To write sideways (meaning going away from an outline, letting a character take you where she wants you to go)
• Consider experimenting - Feel free to write in ways you've never written before. Play around with the possibilities. Make notes after a session about how it feels and what you've learned.
• Don’t hurt yourself - Be willing to push yourself, but don't press to the point of pain. Give yourself more latitude, but don't get sloppy.
• Celebrate success - Every day.
• Shrug off failure - Didn't make you word count? It's one day out of thirty. See if you can understand what went wrong. And do a little more tomorrow.

You can find more suggestion on drafting your novel in past HTWF posts. Let me know if you choose to use any of them for NaNoWriMo. Among your many goals, I hope becoming a productive writer is one of them. That will come when you use the time to build good habits, master new techniques, and build your confidence.

Draft 8 - Ten Tips for Getting Dialogue onto the Page

The characters we love and remember, with few exceptions, become real to us through dialogue. For many readers listening to the characters is the best part of the book -- so much so that they scan or even skip narration to get to the dialogue. The most effective dialogue moves the story forward, reveals character, and sounds distinct. It is compact, rich in subtext, and, like poetry, begs to be read out loud.

This can put a lot of pressure on the writer. How can you do all these things at once? What if the voices in your head refuse to be lyrical, on task, and engaging? What if the voices don't even show up?

Last time, I talked about preparing to write dialogue. Do that work ahead of time (and I always advocate setting things up the day before so the muse has time to get his/her act together), and your chances of having the words flow will increase. But what if they don't? Here are ten suggestions to get you going and keep you going when you have a dialogue-filled scene:

1. Depend on the rewrite - Give yourself permission to do a second rate job. All the magic of dialogue? It rarely comes through in the first draft. The good news is that it doesn't have to. You have as many chances to get it right as you want. Don't make life impossible for yourself. Have some fun.
2. Get the voices in your head - Sometimes you can't shut them up, but try to summon the voices if you don't hear them. Picture the characters. Ask a few questions out loud and have them respond out loud. Be rude to them and get under their skins.  Or lure them in. If they still don't show up, fake it. They are likely to join you after a few painful exchanges on the page that make them sound wrong.
3. Find the heart of the scene - Ideally, you already know what the characters want (or, better yet, desperately need) before you start writing, and you have some sense of why this scene is part of the overall story. If not, go ahead and work yourself into the scene with as much "Hi. How are you" and such as you need to, but watch for where a character get involved and emotional. This is the real start and gives you what you want. Then make sure the other character responds to this. As in improv, your characters need to accept what comes their way. Don't let them change the subject (or succeed in changing the subject).
4. Lean on the contrasts - The bigger the differences are between your characters, the easier it is for them to be interested in each other and come into conflict
5. Look for beats - The best dialogue changes in direction. Important information is revealed. Goals are redirected. Stakes change. A good scene has three to five of the beats. If everything is the scene is working out as expected, have a character throw a monkey wrench into it.
6. Bring it to a clear ending - Make sure, even if you have to note it down in an explicit way that won't survive rewrite, that the scene arrives somewhere. Good scenes generally answer the scene question (with the character get what she needs) with "no" or "yes, but." And, when you're drafting, don't cheat by interrupting the conversation with someone coming through the door with a gun. Finish the scene. You can always restructure it to be cut off in the rewrite.
7. Try dialogue only - Good scenes are broken up with action, body language, thoughts, and description. But these can slow you down in the drafting stage. If you suspect you can go faster by ignoring or only briefly noting these, do it. Leave the "he saids" for later.
8. Act - No part of writing is more like acting that dialogue. Do what actors do. Stand up so your body is freed. Use prompts and props to bring out the character.
9. Change your tools - If the keyboard isn't working, shift to longhand. Or dictation (my preference for dialogue).
10. Remember who's there - It is difficult to shift back and forth between different heads. But your scene may require three or more characters. That makes it all too easy for the writer to unintentionally put a character to the side for an extended period of time. He or she gets forgotten, often even in rewrites. While most scenes feature two characters, the other characters can play a vital role. They can screw things up for one or the other of the featured characters by asking a question or throwing in a fact at just the wrong time. This needs to happen "in character," of course, but make them essential to the scene.

Use these suggestions only as you need to. They are helps, not step-by-step instructions. And, though they may help you create a better first draft, the goal here is to get the words on paper. Perfecting those words is what the dialogue is about.

If any of this helps, please let me know. And, if you have your own tricks for drafting dialogue, please share them here.

Bigger 12 -The Confidence Factor

I have confidence in confidence alone!
Besides Which you see I have confidence
In me!

-- Richard Rodgers

This morning, I woke up with a country song, complete wiht lyrics I never knew I'd memorized, running through my head. When I write speeches, quotes from Abe Lincoln, Hunter S. Thompson, or Seneca show up at just the right time to clarify a point. I never know what useful or instructive snippet will pop up in my mind, but I've learned to pay attention.

The lyrics above, about confidence, arrived as I was reading a self-published novel. While the back of my mind was pointing out formal errors in spelling, grammar, and structure, the rest of me was lost in the story. It isn't unusual for this to happen if the plot has me hooked. I'm often sucked in when the author has taken time to build a minimal amount of empathy for the character, the need is clear, and there are a few surprises.

None of this was really happening in the work I was reading (though, I'm sure from the author's other work that all will be well eventually). What kept me turning the pages was confidence alone. Absolutely nothing about the work was tentative. I could tell he knew he deserved my time.

My favorites works of art and the stories that entertain me most seem to glow with self confidence. The artists, whether they are writers, actors, directors, or contributors in less obvious ways, like lighting, are all in. They bet everything, knowing they'll win. And I can't help but go along.

Where does such confidence some from? I'm not sure. I've put together a tentative list, and I'd love to see additions from readers:

• Mastery - With some writers, you can tell from the first sentences that they have taken the time and effort to learn the techniques and approaches of storytelling. In particular, they have an array of tools to choose from. They use the right one, and they execute flawlessly.
• Warts and all - Does it seem to be a contradiction to say the confident writers have humility? I've found the best are willing to expose their weaknesses -- prejudice, bad judgment, ignorance -- on the page in a matter-of-fact way that grounds their strengths. You know that, like you, they are flawed, and that makes their hard-won wisdom all the more valuable.
• Attitude - Confident writers seem to approach their work with a sense that they will succeed. That bleeds through on every page.
• Bona fides - I love it when writers have done their homework and understand their subjects in detail. They don't need to bury me with facts to prove they know what they're talking about. They may only expose ten percent of what they learned, but it is the right ten percent.
• Respect - I have confidence in the writer if the writer has confidence in me. Don't talk down or get overly explicit, or I'll walk away.
• Voice - Confident writers don't sound like anyone else but themselves. It may even be that confidence is what we mean when we speak of the writer's voice.
• Courage - When a writer goes someplace difficult -- when he or she takes a risk in the story, in exposing a sensitive issue, in sharing a dark moment, or in speaking truth to power -- don't you want to go along?

As a clarification, I'm not talking about charm. That is another way to lure people in. It may have confidence included, but charm relies mostly on sensual appeal, the ability to reflect back attitudes and emotion, and deception (such as telling us what we want to hear). Charm is to confidence what infatuation is to true love. A charming person's impact is likely to fade after they leave the room or when you discover your wallet is empty. Beware of Prince Charming.

Also, confident art may include less than confident characters, and usually does. I saw play Philip Seymour Hoffman play Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway. No one could imagine that Willy is confident, but the actor playing him inhabited the role without hesitation. He commanded the stage even as his character's weaknesses were exposed. "Attention must be paid?" No kidding.

I am coming to believe that you can't write a bigger story without confidence that shows through. Mastering the tools is a requirement, and writers should never stop working to perfect their craft. Some people also find pep talks useful. And I know people who keep a worthy adversary in mind when they sit down to write -- often with "Screw you, [editor or other worthy adversary]" scrawled on Post-It above their writing space.

Writing fast helps. It shuts down the inner critic. A "What the hell?" attitude enables confidence. I've seen the difference with my students who have jumped in and decided to have some fun. They may (usually) end up with horrifyingly crude pages, but the text is engaging in ways their more considered work isn't. Rewriting, not drafting, is the best time for doubts.

How does confidence affect your writing? Have you found ways to instill it? What are your favorite approaches?

Draft 7 - Writing with Intent

It may seem that writers create something out of nothing. Often when I sit down to write, I have no more going on in my head than a hankering for English Breakfast tea. Luckily, somewhere beyond my conscious mind, the elves are at work putting together words and images and ideas.

Those elves are sloppy. Whatever they do comes through as a mishmash that may touch my heart, but is sure to insult my inner critic: 

•  What’s with all those adverbs? 
• Could dialogue be more wooden?
• Are you trying to gross me out?
• That’s a cliché!

Peace, my little friend. I know you will make it all right during revisions.

It helps to keep the inner critic calm if I the prose has something to do with my current project and if I have an occasional thrill along the way. That doesn’t always happen. (You have those days, too, right?) The trick I use to have more writing sessions that are full of words I can use and positive moments is writing with intent.

With nonfiction, writing with intent is pretty straightforward. I have already defined the purpose of the work and the audience beforehand. I know what tune I want the audience humming when they are through.

I’ve done my research, so there is plenty of content to draw from. And, though the ultimate choice on structure will determine how successful the piece will be, I can always fall back to using a conventional structure, like the inverted pyramid, for my first draft.

You plotters probably have many of the these answers at hand – research done, audience in focus, protagonist’s goal and motivation for the scene defined and the disaster at the end of the scene specified. A hardcore plotter knows a lot when he or she sits down – which is why plotters don’t get stuck as often.

But… Is there hope for pantsers (like me)? Yes. Usually, a pantser sits down with something that can be turned into intent.

• If the character is speaking (or you hear dialogue) or you have a clear idea, the intent is to capture it faithfully, wherever it goes. 
• If the scene’s ending is in mind, the intent is to bridge from the last scene to that ending. It may be clear how that could be done (if so, good). If it’s not, brainstorming ten or more ways to link the two endings and choosing one can provide intent. But do this the day before, so the elves have something to work with. 
• You may sit down with a strong emotion (or develop one through prompts or actor’s exercises), and the intent here would be to convey that emotion. I often find that beginning with words and phrases that reflect my mood, rather than with sentences, gets me off to a good start. 
• For lack of a better word, you may sit down with an orientation toward the scene. This is a sense of possibility that, for me, is a recognition that I am in the story space. It feels roughly equivalent to my taking myself to my grandfather’s farm or my first grade classroom via imagination. When I find myself oriented within the story, I allow myself to be present. This is the only pantser circumstance I know of where intent might be counterproductive. Any attempt to focus, can move me out of this space, so I wait and allow the story possibilities to overwhelm me. And then I come back to the real world and convey as much of that experience as I can.

But what if you have nothing? Ideally, you have something available from the day before. I never finish a writing day without writing a full sentence about what the next day’s task will be.

Otherwise, your intent becomes very basic – putting down nouns and verbs. This is what Damon Knight called (with more explicit language) defecating masonry. Every professional I know has had to do this. The most useful preparation for this is an appeal to your commitment to being a writer. Whatever mantra reminds you of your promise to yourself, your dedication to your vocation, your obligation to your audience, and your conviction in your identity as a writer – now is the time to pull it out and start chanting.

What about you? Does your intent when you sit down make your writing session more productive? How do you make sure you begin with intent?

Those Voices in Your Head

No, you are not crazy. Hearing voices is completely normal for a writer. It also can be a source of amazing productivity to the point where it becomes difficult to capture all the words as they burst forth.

Capture There have been times when I have had words streaming through my head until I sat at the keyboard. Then nothing. I have no idea why this is, but a quick switch to pencil and paper usually saves the day. (Sometimes, when the words are all over the place, I need one of my flip chart pages so I can put words on a page in relation to space. Very odd things result, with big, bold script and tiny cribbed notes to myself. Also, arrows, circles, and pen scribbles with different colored inks.)

Dictation can also work here. Whatever the voice wants, I do. In addition, I make a point of taking the time to honor the voice, even when it is inconvenient (say, the middle of the night).

Cultivation Voices often come with no prompting. When they don't, I have a number of techniques:

• I interview the voice.
• I do automatic writing.
• I write exactly what feels worst and most inappropriate so the voice will fight back.
• I use acting techniques to tap into an emotion that seems likely to attract the voice.
• I do something physical and stop thinking about the story entirely.
• I avoid books, movies, and songs that have strong voices that are NOT mine.

Kinds The voice may be the one used for first-person narration or is my principle for a speech. This is pretty straightforward.

For third-person works, it could be any of the characters. If it is a main character, this is almost always useful. I got a tip at a conference to cultivate the villain's voice first. This is sometimes disturbing, but I have to admit that it comes more easily and with more force than the voice of the protagonist.

If the voice is that of a secondary character, it can be a problem. Pushy secondary characters can take over and try to tell their stories. Occasionally, this is the story that should be told, but more often (in my experience), it is a distraction.

Finally, there is the voice of the muse. My muse has come in loud and clear during plotting, especially when there is a turning point. She also shows up when I am facing a blank screen that calls for a new story. She is always right, even when she's wrong.

Which voices do you hear? How do you handle them? Which make you more productive? Which get in the way of productivity?

Picking up the Thread - Reentering the Interrupted Story

When you are in the middle of writing a story, working at full speed with the next scene in plain sight, coming up the with the next words is (usually) easy. When you have been away from a story, you're apt to be lost, disoriented, and stalled.

You can end up in this situation if your commitment fails, you are working from a collection of notes that came together while you were dedicated to another work, or life gets in the way. For me, it usually happens when I am forced to redirect because of a deadline on another work. But whatever has taken you away from a work in progress and allowed it to grow cold, there are things you can do.

• Read it aloud to get the sound of the story in your head again. (It is best to do this the day before.)
• Write a list of ten things you love about your story. These can be about any element that appeals to you, but the ones that get your pulse going (twist endings, witty characters, heartbreaks) are more likely to help you reenter the story world than the practical ones (high concepts, saleability, editorial interest).
• Interview your villain. (You can interview your protagonist, too, but the villain is more likely to be chatty and engaging at the draft stage.) Be sure to ask rude questions.
• Write a pastiche of a scene in your story. It can be one that is already written. I once did this for a story of mine, recreating a favorite scene in the styles of Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mark Twain. It got my engines going again, and it started a flood of ideas for new scenes.

Please note that all of these are "writerly activity." It's not a good idea to count such work against your day's goals. Nonetheless, you may find these exercises valuable as you work to pick up the thread of your story and get back to the fast draft.

What do you do to get back into a story that has gone cold?

Draft 6 - Swept Away

Words come. Rushing. Tumbling. In a torrent that seems to have no end. Two odd pieces fit together for something new, or a character begins to chatter, or a vivid dream sweeps you out of this world and into a land of wonder.

Congratulations. This is a good thing, and it can become the basis for a work you and your readers will cherish. You may capture all there is in detailed notes or you may end up writing complete scenes. Either is fine.

But you are cheating on your work in progress. Assuming you have prepared for the day’s writing with details on what you intend to write, do you still have the commitment? Will you honor the promise you made to yourself the day before? Will you have anything left to offer?

Professional writers complete their work. They meet their deadlines. And even after a luscious detour with a strange and wonderful new story, they go back to the familiar work they have invested in and do the job. They may stray, but they come back.

They are well aware of the professional risks story promiscuity represents. Most pros chased infatuation after infatuation when they were beginners. And, if they were writing articles and short stories, they could get away with it. But, being drawn away from a book-length work is serious. This is especially true when you are writing the middle when the prose it ugly, the story arc is showing cracks, and the manuscript seems like a mistake. Tempting new stories seek out authors during those desperate times and lure them in.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with being swept away and dallying with the new story for a while, but promiscuous habits can lead to a series of uncompleted works and unfulfilled promises. Infatuations burn out, and people who do not take a professional approach end up with piles of unfinished manuscripts.

Go ahead. Indulge yourself. But keep you promises. Finish your book.

Tools for Writing 1 - The Joy of Dictation

I use Dragon Dictate for about half of my drafting. By switching back and forth from typing to dictating, I have cut my chances of repetitive stress injuries in half, but there are other benefits:

• Now that the program allows for a more natural flow of words (vs. one word at a time), I get to hear the prose, especially the dialogue, from the time of its creation.
• I write about 20% faster with dictation.
• I am discouraged from rewriting as I write, which keeps me in a creative mind and avoids interference from the editor in my head.

For me, adjusting to dictation was as difficult as my transition from writing by hand to using a typewriter and from using a typewriter to using a computer (about a month of upset in each case). But I will admit that I have advantages in being a bit of a techie and in having early experience (as part of IBM Research) with dictation. This is not to say that the experience is painless or perfect, even today.

• Dictation seems to work better with nonfiction than fiction. The names and cadences of dialogue seem to throw the program at times.
• Sometimes the emotion is muted because fully acting things out makes for strange errors. Also, I am tethered by my headset.
• When I see an input error, it distracts me from the drafting. This usually is only a slight bump in the flow. However, I have been known to get frustrated and fight with the system (and angry voices do not transcribe well.)

Nevertheless, I would hate to go back to just typing. For one thing, I like the "feel" of dictating. Just as some writers edit better from printed copy and some brainstorming works better with a pencil and piece of paper (in my case, a poster-size page), dictating provides an option for capturing mood, emotion, and flow that other approaches do not. When I begin a writing journey, it's as if I have a fleet of cars rather than one vehicle for commuting. That gives me one more edge as I explore the limits of productivity.

 

Draft 5 - Writing in the Fourth Person

I audited a writing course with John Casey, and he mentioned once how people seemed to be speaking more and more in the fourth person.

Fourth person?

Some conversations seem to consist almost entirely of quotes from movies, tv, and other media - the fourth person. John didn't make any disparaging remarks about this practice (he was talking to college students after all), but I have often recalled it when I've been trapped in a conversation that is almost devoid of wit and originality. Other people seem to be totally engaged as all the pop culture buttons are pushed - but why?

I am an advocate of getting words on paper quickly, of not worrying about getting every fact right, about filling out all the descriptions, or about writing scenes destined to be cut. Creator first, editor second. But with this license comes responsibility. When you get words flowing, it is easy to begin spouting shopworn, secondhand material. A little of this isn't fatal. Too much is, at best, a waste of time. At worst, it can feel close enough to right to lead to self delusion.

I have written whole chapters and complete short stories in the fourth person. Luckily, I was called on it, and I had the sense to admit my mistakes. I have a sixth sense for the "this is really easy" feeling now.  So good friends can help you.  (Note, the kind of plot borrowing that writers do all the time is not the issue here.)

How do you avoid this?

• Prepare properly by reaching for emotions before you begin to write. Acting techniques help.
• Make it a habit to take risks with your writing.
• Journal your own experiences and do primary research, so you have authentic material to draw from.
• After you finish an especially easy and painless session, make a note. Then look the next day to see if the work is shallow and lacks honesty.
• Imagine reading the writing ten years into the future, and see if anything is too much of the current era.

Writing in the fourth person can sneak up on you, but it is unlikely to be a persistent problem. Just being aware of the danger is usually enough to keep it at bay. In my experience, more people are held back by the fear of sloppy and lazy writing than by actually committing the fourth person to paper. With a few precautions, you can write fast without falling into this trap.

Guest Post - Write Faster with Scrivener

It's my delight to welcome Gwen Hernandez as the first HTWF Guest Blogger. Gwen is the author of Scrivener For Dummies (Aug 2012, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.), and the teacher of popular online Scrivener classes for Mac and Windows. Before she started using Scrivener to tap her right brain for tales of romance and suspense, she worked as a computer programmer, business school instructor, and manufacturing engineer. Learn more about her book or classes, and get free Scrivener tips, at www.gwenhernandez.com.


Looking for ways to be a more productive writer? Consider Scrivener. This writing software—available for both Mac and PC—not only lets you write the way that works best for you, it also provides some handy features for motoring through your manuscript at top speed.
What do you do when you’re in the writing flow and you suddenly realize you need to change something two chapters back, or you have a great new idea for the ending twist? Don’t stop your momentum by going off to work on those other sections.

I create a file within my project that I call Change Log. When inspiration strikes, I jot a few notes in the Change Log and then get back to what I was working on. Not only does this keep me moving forward, but I find that many times I end up changing my mind about the “great idea” later, so waiting to make the change saves me even more time since I don’t have to undo it if a better idea comes along.

If you come to a section of your story and realize you don’t have the information you need, or you just can’t seem to get the words right, don’t stare at it for three hours. Add an annotation—a colored bubble of text that stores notes and reminders right within the text—and move on. Alternatively, you can add a comment, which creates a colored link to a word or phrase, and shows up in the Inspector instead of embedded in the text. You can use the Formatting Finder to easily search for annotations later.

Are you trying to meet a specific word count goal for your manuscript? Do you need daily goals to keep you on track? Scrivener has you covered with project and session targets. Just enter your manuscript goal and your daily goal. Scrivener tracks your progress and provides a colored bar to show you how you’re doing.

To track your progress within a single document, use a document target. This is handy if you have a minimum scene length, or are working on an article or story with a specified word count requirement.
Do you find the main Scrivener interface distracting? Try working in Composition mode (called Full Screen in the Windows version). Not only does this calming view block out the busy-ness, you can choose your favorite background color, and (currently on Mac only) even add a background image.

Scrivener can also help you keep your research at your fingertips. No more searching through stacks of printouts or trying to find the right Internet bookmark. Simply import documents you refer to regularly into the Research folder in your project. For websites that you frequent while writing, you can add a Reference so you can quickly open the site when you need it.

Those are just a few of the many ways Scrivener can increase your writing productivity. Got questions? Ask away. I’ll check in throughout the day to answer them. Thanks to Peter for having me today!

Writing Prep 4 - Ten reasons to love your story

Are you ready to fall in love with your project? To go beyond infatuation? Love is really the strongest lever you can have to get it finished with all of its grand potential, and I have a suggestion. Force yourself to write a list of reasons why this is the project for you. Why you are driven to get this story, article or argument down on paper. Write ten (or more) reasons, and write in full sentences so you know what you meant later on. (I like to take things a step further and order the list.

Here's what I wrote for a non-fiction WIP, Ingenious Daughter. 

1. Jane achieved in a "man's field" at a time when this was almost unheard of.
2. Jane did not have the education or the credentials that were expected.
3. Jane was dragged into the field against her will by an ambitious father, and then fell in love with the work.
4. Jane mastered the work, achieving what her father could not.
5. She inspired neighbors, including Native Americans, to help her.
6. Jane attracted famous admirers in North America and Europe.
7. Jane had to face down her formidable father to continue her work.
8. Jane's contributions were erased from history by a careless and even misogynist clique.
9. Jane inspired a generation of women, 150 years after her death anyway.
10. Jane lived not far from where I live.

In this case, it was the character that captured my heart. At other times, it has been the concept, or the possibility for a series, or the social cause. Whatever hooks you most should be on the list.

Now, if your infatuation with your story is such that you can't wait. That you must write the first sentence, first scene or first chapter, go ahead. But infatuation is not love. If you have a file cabinet (or disk drive) full of fragments of stories, you know what I mean. Love requires something more substantial. So even though you know this is the story for you (right now), write the list. You'll thank me for two reasons.

First, because this list provides a means to explore your theme in a way that does not lock you into an outline that is too confining. You may want that outline later on, but not before you understand more about the possibilities. The ten reasons will probably push you enough to think about and articulate aspects of your story that would not otherwise be made clear this early.

Second, you can look back at this list when your writing sprint becomes a slog. It will remind you why you liked your protagonist. Why you needed to write this piece. Why your readers will stand up and cheer when they experience your genius. The list has the power to save you from adding to your pile of incomplete manuscripts by reminding you of why you committed your time and imagination to this particular work.

If you are already far into your story, don't hesitate to make your list of ten. It still has value. In fact, I use my lists when I prepare to pitch or when I write query letters. Give it a try, and tell me what you think.

Eat the Elephant

Since I hang around writers, I regularly hear these laments:

"I still have to write my synopsis."

"I haven't been able to write chapter 3."

""My article is due, and I haven't started it yet."

            Etc.

This is heady, frustrating stuff. I always feel pain, the same kind of pain I feel when it is my synopsis or chapter or article.  How can anyone take on such a frightful task, composing elegant, engaging sentences suffused with meaning that magically come together in a lyrical whole that amuses people and rouses them to action? How do you get the damned thing done?

Because you read the title, you know how. Just as you can't swallow an elephant whole, some tasks can't be done in one action. You need to break them up into manageable bits. 

So a few dozen milliseconds after my stomach wrenches at the prospect of, say, writing a commencement speech in three days, I begin to think about how the task can be broken up into smaller bits. What are my key questions. Which people should I talk to? Which Web sites should I visit. How do I dig into the history? What are the possible themes?

You don't have to get the whole job done in creative sweep. You can do a little work on this, and then on this, and… then it's done.

I once got an editing assignment for a book that was half written and stalled. The deadline for a draft was six weeks out. The publication date could not be moved. I had no expertise in the subject area.  

I immediately put aside all concerns post-draft work (proofing, editing, illustrations, etc.). I'd get to those later. Focusing on the draft, the number one thing was an accessible structure. (This is true for almost all nonfiction.) My first jobs became:

• reading through existing material
• talking with the author about his intent
• investigating structures that achieve the intent

Each of these jobs is specific and limited. I was lucky to get great cooperation from the author, including his agreement to my doing rewriting and adding a considerable amount of new material. Looking for smaller tasks made the assignment -- delivering the draft in six weeks -- possible, and, ultimately, the book was done on time and well-received. When you shrink the work down to size, it gets easier.

What do you do to break up the writing tasks you face?

Draft 3 - How to choose the best reader to write to

Last time, I wrote about the importance of addressing your first draft to one specific person. But who should that person be? What are the criteria for choosing the initial proxy for the vast hordes you hope will treasure your work?

When I'm writing a speech, the fastest way to the answer is a conversation with the host:

• Tell me about the worst speech ever to this audience and why it went so badly, and
• Tell me about the best speech ever to this audience, and why it worked.

The responses to the first are immediate and invaluable. The speaker's language was too simple/complex. The speaker talked about what he/she was interested in, not about why we invited him/her. The speaker talked about facts without any emotion or point of view. Etc.

I probe on these, getting the specifics (without revealing who the hapless speaker was), and I have a wealth of information on what does not work. There is always something that would have appealed to me had I been in the audience, and that is a good reminder that a speech written that only delights me can be an ineffective speech.

Getting a response on the best speech usually is not as automatic. Here I really need to exercise my skills as an interviewer, often helping them put themselves back into the audience on that happy day. The specifics of what worked are usually easy for me to abstract, and they are gold nuggets for my own work.

My final step is to imagine who I know who would have hated the worst speech and loved the best. This person is my audience.

I've taken similar approaches with nonfiction books and articles, and editors have been extremely good at providing advice for these. Reading successes and failures helps for both fiction and nonfiction.  Ultimately, you want to find someone you know who:

• Has similar interests to my ideal audience,
• Is comfortable with their vocabulary,
• Has about the same attention span,
• Is similarly knowledgeable,
• Has about the same "hot button" tolerance (regarding sex, religion, violence, politics),
• Has similar values and perspectives, and
• Will accept you as the source on this topic to a comparable degree.

Such knowledge will direct your pacing, word choice, examples, and means of engaging the reader. If you win with your proxy reader, you will probably succeed with your target audience as well.

Draft 1 - Stop endless looping

Do you go back after you draft a page, a paragraph or a sentence and immediately begin fixing it? Even worse, do you write a little further, and then go back and do some more fixing on what you just "fixed"? I call this looping, and it is the most common impediment to productive writing among my students. It can lead to complete paralysis, and there's a reason for that -- the part of your brain that composes is not the same part that edits.

Shifting back and forth wastes time and energy. Even worse, it provides an opening for editor in your head (who hates everything) to seize control. Most productive writers separate the act of drafting and the act of editing. As Casey Wyatt says in her blog,"I can fix it later."

If you don't loop, don't start. If you have a habit of looping, it can be tough to break. Here are a few suggestions:

• Give yourself permission to write badly. Do this every day for at least a week. Remember, it can always be fixed later on.
• Join a writing sprint (as Casey does), race against a timer, or use a forced march program like Write or Die! Some of my students have also found it useful to shrink their text editing windows down so they can only see a line or two at a time.
• Keep you forward momentum (and avoid distracting research) by inserting a word or symbol whenever the exactly right word, number or fact doesn't come readily to mind. For years, I have put the word "bagel" into my texts, and then searched for the bagels. (Luckily, I don't write about food.) I heard Jenna Kernan speak recently, and I was delighted to hear she uses the same technique, inserting asterisks (***).
• Use a dictation program. I use Dragon Dictate for at least half my drafting. It works better for nonfiction than fiction, but it still is faster than typing for me. And it is almost impossible to loop when you are dictating.

 However you do it, break the habit of looping. You'll probably find that your productivity will increase significantly, even though you will be spending more time later on editing.

Do you loop? Do you have a trick to stop yourself?

Up Your Productivity

Welcome to “How to Write FAST.” The intent of this blog is to increase your productivity as a writer, whether you write articles, scripts, short stories, novels or blogs.

There are as many reasons why people want to increase their productivity as there are why people write. Bloggers may want to post frequently enough to attract an audience. Journalists may need to deliver copy on deadline. Genre novelists may need to produce enough to keep editors and agents happy. Academics may be facing “publish or perish.”

I began to learn how to write more quickly when I took a job as a radio producer. I was responsible for three radio programs every week, and the work included research, taped and edited interviews, sound effects, and recording with a voice talent. The stories also had to be cleared by the interviewee, which sometimes meant rewriting. A year into that job, I found that I was writing three times faster than I had been. I didn’t have much choice. If I didn’t write the copy in a timely way, the stations that carried us would have to rerun an old show. (It had happened to my predecessor, and that was one of the reasons I got the job.)

What do you mean by fast? Really, anyone can write quickly. The trick is to write more productively. That is, you don’t want to simply put more words on paper. You want to get more of your manuscript done for each hour of work.

To get faster, I first needed to understand where I slowed (or stopped) myself. The first limit was attitude. All the myths around having just the right setting or being inspired held me back. I’ve heard that Salman Rushdie, before the fatwa the turned him into a fugitive, needed to have everything exactly right before he could sit down and do his day’s writing. If a pencil was out of place, the day was ruined. But as he moved from safe house to safe house, he found he could write in the midst of chaos.

Doesn’t fast mean lousy? It can, if you lower your standards for final copy. So don’t do that.

You’ve heard Voltaire’s “the perfect is the enemy of the good”? He was on to something. Another problem I had as a beginning writer was the concern that I would blemish the page with unworthy prose. I had to get over that. A mentor of mine, Damon Knight, gave the best advice: “It’s not a watercolor.”

Whatever you write can be fixed. It can be made better. But you can only improve something that exists, so you need to get something onto the page. Giving yourself permission to write a paragraph that stinks or a chapter that will be discarded or a novel that requires several revisions is part of becoming more productive. Nothing you write needs to be shared. And, until it is published (or, at least until it is in galleys), you can polish, tune and edit.

So productivity can take a hit before you start writing, as you draft and as you rewrite. No step in the process is immune from obstacles that can slow or even stop your progress.

And no one’s challenges are the same. Some people struggle to put themselves in front of the keyboard, but they sail through rewrites. Some people write every day, but make no progress. And some people can spin off first drafts by the dozen, but they can never quite get their manuscript revised.

This blog will look at each stage and offer advice, tips and exercises to help you improve your productivity. It’s almost a sure bet that you’ll find some posts are more valuable than others because of what you need now and where you are in your writer’s journey. My hope is that, overall, you will build that knowledge and skills you need to reach your productivity goals and achieve the success you desire as a writer.