How Not To Write a Novel by Newman and Mittelmark

How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the funniest books I've ever read. I read it on the train and at home and laughed out loud all the time. People must have thought I was crazy. Awesome. I'd like to read it twice. Probably will.

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I didn't kill the dog.

To my upset reviewer: honest, I didn't. The dog isn't even in my world for me to kill. I would never kill a dog or hurt any animal. The monster killed the dog in the story; but don't worry - it's not real.

Grammar and what it ain't.

I get sick of people complaining about poor "grammar" when they don't know what it is.  My initial bachelor's degree was in linguistics and I really like grammar. When they say grammar, you often find that people really mean punctuation & spelling. Here's a link to a great post where a great man/woman says it better by far than I.

Writing Books

I read other books. I'm currently learning Arabic and doing a course on advanced nursing and I still find time to read fiction and write what I laughingly call stories.

I do like a good book on writing though. You will remember my recent obsession with plotting. I am reading Writing the Breakout Novel: Winning Advice from a Top Agent and His Best-selling Client

and also Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

I found these from Plot and Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot that Grips Readers from Start to Finish (Write Great Fiction)

I like the self editing book. But it's focused on 'wordsmithery' not plotting. Is this a bad thing? No. Good.

I always liked the wordsmithery aspect of writing, having read too many literary novels that went on about nothing much but were written like a dream. I was an aspiring poet once, let's not forget. But, when I check which books are outselling mine on Amazon, in the same categories (yes there are some), I find that within the first paragraph they have committed cardinal sins against wordsmithery - beginning with three paragraphs of narrative exposition for example. And they still outsell! The reason they outsell, IMHO, is that they are good stories. They may be poorly edited and have a multitude of other failings, but if they have a good story, people can't put them down.

That don't mean I'm going to give up trying to write nice tho.

Something New For Me

Lamia, or the Dark Tower

Drostan mab Lear, bard, wanderer and ladies' man, leaves the castle of his married lover before dawn and takes the road through the haunted forest of Brocéliande. In his arrogance, he boasts that he will meet and tame the evil dark lady of the forest because "she's only a woman…" 

She entraps him in the dark woods and brings him to her tower. There, fully in her power, she tells him she will keep him alive as long as his musical talent and lovemaking entertain her. She begins to bend him to her will. He says he will never love her. And then she makes him an offer... 

Moral Satisfaction - Dwight Swain and John Yorke

Still reading Dwight V Swain Techniques of the Selling Writer. When he's talking about a satisfying story resolution he says that the reader wants the focal character either rewarded or punished because of he deals with the moral theme of the story (I paraphrase). He talks about the choice a character has between what is expedient and what is morally right. So, the character faces a dilemma between the fast buck and the long righteous walk. If he chooses the fast buck then the reader is satisfied when he does not achieve his desire. If he takes the heroic but morally right choice, then the reader wants him to be rewarded.

On page 191, he talks how you show the action of the FC in dealing with his dilemma: no need for words, just show him doing the right (or wrong thing). He also says

"...you can fool the world, and sometimes you can even fool yourself. But you can't fool your own feelings. They tell the truth about you, every time, without regard for rationalizations or excuses.

That's why climax is so vital. Only as we see a man in crisis, when under stress he acts on feeling, can we gain the final, conclusive proof we need to determine whether or not he deserves the goal he seeks." 

Now, Dwight can come over as old-fashioned in wanting stories where the good guy is rewarded for being good. But what he says about a person acting on feelings and thus displaying what he/she really echoes something that I read in John Yorke's book Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them

This was only published in 2013. On p. 127, Yorke says:

"The conflict between how we wish to be perceived and how we really feel is at the root of all character." 

Yorke says, in this book, that the whole character arc is the person's journey from portraying the false image of how they want to be perceived to being how they really are at the end. Just the same as Swain!

Yorke talks about a character's wants and needs. What he wants is related to his facade, or as Jung would say, his Persona. What he needs  is related to his Self (in Jungian terms again).

Based on what Swain said - what the character needs is to serve moral rectitude. And both writers talk about the importance of the story to humans being that it portrays order against the chaos and unpredictability of the Universe.

Someone else said, A kiss may not be the truth - but it's what we wish were true.

So go and kiss someone. Or not. But if you do, please obtain their consent beforehand.

Dwight V. Swain and Me

You will be familiar with my ongoing fascination with the wisdom of writing gurus who want to help you write better. First it was Blake Snyder, then John Yorke then I listened to the words of Michael Moorcock and Lester Dent. My latest find is Dwight V. Swain. I like his gnarly voice on the podcast I listened to. Gnarly has a different meaning in American I'm aware because one of the reviews for my stories said it was 'gnarly'. I think that was good. Yep, I've checked - it is good, and doesn't mean covered in knobs (well it does sometimes.

So, I am reading Dwight V. Swain at the moment. There are some very useful blogs about his technique. Check out Phillip McColllum's blog entry on Scene and Sequel  but also Katie Ganshert's post on "Motivation-Reaction Units".

I love a bit of jargon.

So I went over The Beast of Whitby and tried to get my Motivation/Reaction Unit in place and arrange them in Scenes and Sequels.

The benefit of this for me was that Blake Snyder and John Yorke and also Christopher Vogler (to a lesser extent) gave an overarching story structure. Yorke makes the point that Acts and Scenes are fractal - so that they should mirror the overall story arc.  Swain tells you exactly how to do that.

So, you have (Inciting incident) -> reaction -> dilemma -> decision -> goal -> conflict -> disaster.

And you repeat it. So each scene has that form, and each act has that form and the whole story is built from those bricks. This works well with John Yorke's idea of a five act structure being implicit in all stories.

I don't buy that every story is the Hero's Journey however, though I like Joseph Campbell a lot. There are lots of archetypal experiences that light us up - Leaving Home, Finding a Mate, Facing Death, Being Predated, Finding our Place in the Tribe's Pecking Order, Raising Young.

I don't know why I've given them all capital letters...

Peace dudes - be gnarly!

TW.