Category: Pen to Paper

Pen to Paper: Foreshadowing

Posted on by bryon

Foreshadowing is a skill a writer must master as he works toward making art. It requires a delicate touch: if it’s too subtle, the reader will miss it; if it’s too heavy-handed, the rest of the story is unnecessary.

You can build in foreshadowing details as you go, leading the reader even as you write. Or when you get to the end of the story and realize that you need to add this element, you can go back and put it where it needs to go. The reader won’t know you stuck it in later. Sometimes, a sentence you write just as part of the narrative ends up as foreshadowing; you successfully lead yourself through your own story.

Author Cathy Clamp tells how she uses foreshadowing to alert her readers to elements of the story she wants to emphasize. The Foreshadowing page at UDL Editions gives some excellent examples of foreshadowing.

Most of us read Shirley Jackson’s famous short story “The Lottery” when we were in school. Schoolbytes shows us how Jackson used foreshadowing to hint at what was to come. And BookRags summarizes the ways William Shakespeare foreshadowed the action in Macbeth.

Do you have a favorite example of foreshadowing to share?

Pen to Paper: Another Writing Tool

Posted on by bryon

There are more ways to write a story than there are writers. There are perhaps endless techniques and tools and philosophies. Start at the beginning and work forward. Start in the middle and give the reader a little of the beginning as necessary. Let character drive the plot. Let theme drive the plot. Don’t bother with a plot.

Here’s one more tool for your writerly toolbox, courtesy of Ray Rhamey at Writer Unboxed. I haven’t tried it yet, though I may do so soon. It looks (perhaps deceptively) simple and straightforward, and I can see this might be a useful tool for breaking through writer’s block.

After this, there is a brief discussion of one reason why stories are important. It’s something I hadn’t seen put into words before, but it makes sense to me.

Pen to Paper: Banned Books Week 2011

Posted on by bryon

To commemorate Banned Books Week 2011, the present board of the Charlton (MA) Public Library voted to override an earlier board and shelve a particular version of Eve’s Diary by Mark Twain. The seductive line drawings were apparently too much for one library board member to cope with back in 1906. As usual, Twain gets the last laugh.

But the censors are still out in force: since 1982, some 11,000 books have been challenged.

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Pen to Paper: We Will Be Replaced, Too

Posted on by bryon

As previously noted, it’s getting harder to find and hold onto a decent job. And awfully few of the alleged job creators – the ones the Republicans say we can’t tax because they need that money to create jobs – are creating jobs.

I had held out hope that those of us who put one word after another to create meaning might be spared the ax. Oh, sure, newspapers have been shedding jobs for almost a decade; I’ve known that since I lost my newspaper job in 2003. Under the right circumstances, though, those jobs could come back.

Or not. Not when advances like this are being made in the field of artificial intelligence. Read it first, then continue here.

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Pen to Paper: Advice For Younger Writers

Posted on by bryon

With school well underway across the land, here’s something for Catsignal’s younger readers and writers.

John Scalzi tweeted yesterday: “Just found a bunch of short stories I wrote when I was a teenager. Oh my. They are NOT good.”

This comment is virtually a follow-up to an essay he wrote in 2006 giving advice to teenage writers. While much writing advice is good for novice writers of any age, this piece is directed straight at the 13- to 19-year-old crowd. Keep reading past Number 1, no matter badly it annoys you. Scalzi hits various nails squarely atop their heads, and this is advice you can bank on.

Follow that up with wisdom from John Steinbeck and a variety of useful things from Ralph Fletcher. That’s enough for now; I don’t want to keep you from your homework.

Pen to Paper: Practical Haiku

Posted on by bryon

Dylan Tweney is (among other fascinating things) a popular modern haiku poet. You can read a few of his haiku at his Tinywords site.

Below is his slideshow, “Practical Haiku: How Reading and Writing an Ancient Form of Poetry Can Change Your Life.” This is a nice introduction or re-introduction to haiku, showing us in haiku-like brevity the value of this form of poetry. Enjoy.

Practical Haiku: How Reading and Writing an Ancient Form of Poetry Can Change Your Life

View more presentations from Dylan Tweney

Pen to Paper: Writers and Alcohol

Posted on by bryon

Let me be clear at the outset that I have no hatchet to grind, let alone to smash a tavern with. I am a teetotaler but strictly from medical necessity (it’s a migraine trigger) rather than preference (how do you think I learned it’s a migraine trigger?).

No, this entry comes about because I have collected some interesting quotations about writers and drinking. I think they would look a bit peculiar in the Wednesday Quotation spot bereft of larger context, so I decided to provide the context, and the quotations, here.

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Pen to Paper: YA, It’s Good Literature

Posted on by bryon

I’ve begun scoping out the Young Adult section of my favorite area library. No one has asked if I have a learning disability, or if I’m getting a book for my child, or whether I’m a pervert trolling for youngsters; libraries are polite places. But if someone ever did clear a questioning throat, I always have a ready response: This is where the cool stuff is happening in books today.

YA librarian Gretchen Kolderup explains her involvement – both professional and personal – with YA literature. She gives us a good feel for what YA lit is and isn’t, and how it differs from adult literature. This point stands out for me: “YA lit has a freshness that I really enjoy, and it rarely gets bogged down in its own self-importance.”

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Pen to Paper: Conflict

Posted on by bryon

In his Worlds of Wonder, David Gerrold reminds us that a story is about a problem.

First, it’s about the details of resistance; then it’s about the details of acceptance, discovery and interaction; and finally, it’s about the details of resolution. So storytelling is about creating interesting problems – looking to see why they are problems, looking to see why the hero has made this a problem, looking to see what the hero has to give up, and finally what the hero has to become to resolve the problem.

J. Timothy King has written, “Conflict is the engine that drives a story forward. And not just any conflict, but relevant, meaningful conflict that matters to the protagonist and to the reader.” Further, “Conflict is a perception by the reader that compelling change has occurred and will occur.” (Bold face is King’s.) And Holly Lisle tells us, “Conflict is, simply put, change. Anytime something changes, it creates ripples that will be good for some people, bad for others.”

Here are three essays that highlight the various forms of conflict and how to make use of them in your stories.

* Laura Backes: For Successful Fiction, Add Conflict – Twice. Backes is primarily writing about books for youngsters, but the advice carries over into all other fiction.

* Susan Vaughan: Conflict. Don’t let the snappy title (which I also used) fool you: she offers valuable insight into external and internal conflicts.

* Chuck Wendig: 25 Ways to Fuck with Your Characters (or, ‘Building Conflict One Cruelty at a Time’). The title will give you the merest hint about the sort of language you’ll find here. I’m easy with that, but I do want to caution my more sensitive readers. Wendig has a great list of tried and true ways to put conflict into your story. It would be easy enough to write 25 stories working your way down the list and then starting over.

Pen to Paper: The British Hate American English

Posted on by bryon

BBC journalist Matthew Engel has written about how American words and phrases continue to pour into British common usage. Some intrusions he doesn’t mind; others, though, are fighting words, such as hospitalize and outage.

Engel invites his readers to comment. Sometimes, a British friend sticks up for us, as the one who reminds us that “oftentimes” was used by Banquo in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Others note that British English has its own ugly words and turns of phrase. And some say that much from the list is not strictly or even necessarily American usage; some is, in fact, old British use or even just bad grammar common to both countries (or, perhaps, it’s Business English, a mess unto itself).

The only British usage that I can recall making any sort of foothold here recently is snogging (kissing), which came from the Harry Potter books. It’s a terribly unlovely word, and I’m glad it seems to have largely disappeared again.

It’s all quite entertaining and points to the frequent observation that the United States and Great Britain are separated by a common language. It should serve, too, as a reminder that any collection of sounds can stand for any real-world object or occurrence so long as there’s agreement on it. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Where would any good English be without Shakespeare?