Head Full of Ideas

I was at a writers’ event recently where a panel of well-know mystery writers talked about the writing process.
Julia Spencer-Fleming set the crowd into a fit of giggles (it was that kind of crowd) when she said, “Writing is like sex – there’s really no wrong way to do it.”
Ah, Ms. Spencer-Fleming. You must be blessed.
On one hand, she had a good point – like sex, there are no prescribed rules for the writing process. Every writer does it his or her own way. Some need a detailed outline before they start, some just start going and see what happens.
Dennis Lehane, also on the panel, made the great point that yeah, there are some successful writers who do very well doing specific outlines before they sit down to write the books. But the ones who just sit down to write and let it take them wherever it goes write better, more creative books.
But, getting back to the sex metaphor: You can know where you’re going or not know where you’re going. But it sure helps to have some idea of what the parts are and how they work before you get started.
Because, as most women know, there IS a wrong way to do sex.
But chances are, the person doing it wrong just doesn’t get it. (Don’t worry, Mom, this is about writing, not sex. Just let me get the metaphor out of the way.)
Preparation is important. Knowing what the parts are, what they do, and where they go. Having an idea what will work for the person (the reader!) on the other end. Making sure attention is paid and care is taken to get things right.
And not thinking you’re done before you really are.
And if you don’t get all that right, the person may not say anything. They may not complain. They may even come back for more. But they won’t recommend you to their friends.
This all comes to mind with some recent editing jobs.
The one (see November 3 blog entry) who couldn’t spell to the point I started to wonder if it was some kind of joke tossed at me to test whether I really knew how to edit. Every single word that could possibly be spelled wrong was. If there were a number of different ways to spell a word – where, were, we’re, weir (yes, weir!), ware, wear – he chose the wrong one. It’s too painful to revisit it here.
And now I am editing a totally different, but equally, um, unschooled, manuscript.
First of all, it’s all in the present tense. Well, actually, it’s supposed to be, but as anyone who has tried to write an entire, in this case 103,000-word, book, in the present tense knows, it just doesn’t take about half the time. On top of it, there’s little punctuation, hardly any attribution for dialogue, no tone, setting, background, character development. I could go on.
Someone told this guy his book read more like a movie script that a book. And yeah, it does. Not a very good movie script, either. And his instructions to me, the editor? Fix it.
And like the dutiful partner – yes, we’re back to the metaphor – I’ll endure. Grit my teeth and think of England (or in my case, a nice quiet cabin on a lake somewhere where no one can find me) and remind myself that this is how I pay the mortgage (not the lake cabin, unfortunately).
The guy who wrote it had an idea that he wanted to write a book. So he sat down and wrote. Then pronounced himself done. Apparently never bothering to find out even the tiniest thing about writing. And this information is everywhere. Thank you Internet. It still appalls me that someone who decides he’s going to write a book doesn’t bother to find out even the basics of how a book is put together. What’s expected as far as punctuation, spelling, verb tense. I mean, forget the rest of the stuff that makes a book good – tone, style, character development – I could go on. At least be able to punctuate a sentence.
Wouldn’t it be nice if he and the previous client, and everyone else who has a huge urge to write, had taken the time to do a little homework? To learn how to write a book? To learn the basics? Wouldn’t that be so much better for the reader? So much more satisfying? And ultimately, better for the writer, too. Right?
It’s true. Julia Spencer-Fleming and Dennis Lehane (who write really good books) are right. There’s no wrong writing process. Just like there’s no wrong way to have sex.
But knowing some stuff separates what can be an uncomfortable, unsatisfying, or downright horrific experience from what can be a really nice one. Or even an earth-shattering one.
It’s the stuff that separates someone who has actually “written” a book from those who fumble along, are satisfied at the end, but just haven’t noticed that the reader is putting on her clothes and slipping out in the night, never to return.

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One of my all-time favorite movie lines is from the move Night Shift, when one character, watching cartoons, exclaims, “That Barney Rubble, what an actor!”
I laugh whenever I think about it.
Because he’s a cartoon character, not a real person. Get it? So he couldn’t really be an actor because he doesn’t exist. And the guy who says it is funny, too, because he thinks Barney’s a real person. See? That’s what makes it funny? Okay, I know you probably got it in the first place, but I wanted to belabor the point.
Because I think of that line every time I read that a celebrity has written a book. And the onslaught of celebrity book writers has been relentless. I know because I read People magazine every week. (I really do and I’m not ashamed to admit it.)
Jenny McCarthy: “I never read a book in my life, and now I’ve written seven!”
One of the Bush daughters, who mused about writing a children’s book and Mom and other daughter went for a walk (sorry, can’t keep those girls straight) and when they got back, first daughter had written a book! And it was published! Because it was so good!
Actor James Franco, who People magazine gushed has a degree in creative writing. Oooh! He’s so smart! Of course he’d write a book! And by the way, creative writing degree? English degree? Join the friggin’ club, pretty boy. So do most of the unpublished writers in America.
Snookie from Jersey Shore!
Richard Castle, who isn’t even a real person, but a fictional character on TV. Yes, his hardcover book is out there on the front shelf front and center at Borders. Which means some poor hack wrote a book, allowed the powers that be to put a fictional TV character’s name on it, and now he doesn’t even have the satisfaction of walking into Borders and seeing his own book on the shelf with his own name on it. Wow, a real Richard Castle book! Hope I get his autograph at the book signing!
Boy those celebrities (real or fictional)–what writers!
Few topics gall people who write for a living, or want to write for a living, the way the celebrity writer phenomena does.
So to torture the Barney Rubble metaphor further, let’s say there’s a good actor, Olivier good. And he’s slogging away in a local community theater playing Hamlet because, face it, he’s nobody and lives in Buttboil, Nowherestate, and has to work for a living.
And every night he goes home to see a bunch of hacks mugging it up on some idiot sitcom, let’s call it Cliched Gender Strereotype People Reciting Hackneyed Lines. Barney Rubble all over again. Because the acting on those shows can only be described as Rubblesque.
Let’s say one day you, a writer who also lives in Buttboil and have an appreciation for the arts because, well, maybe like celebrity James Franco, you have a degree in creative writing (ooh, so smart!). Or were an English major! And appreciate Shakespeare. So you go see the play, because your cable’s out (happens a lot in Buttboil) or something. And something really cool happens. That actor is good. And instead of watching a play, you’re transfixed for three hours as you watch some poor slob (Hamlet. Stay with me) have the worst weekend of his life. And it doesn’t matter that both of you live in Buttboil, and that even as you watch the play, a bunch of no-talent bags of potatoes are mugging it up to some of the most hackneyed lines in the universe on TV, because you are, for three hours at least, being moved the way Shakespeare intended. Because that nobody actor IS good. And you go home not giving a crap about what you missed on TV, because you just saw the real thing.
And that’s the secret of being a writer, too. Forget Barney Rubble (and Snookie and Jenny McCarthy and Richard Castle). You know by now — groused about it with fellow writers at Starbucks enough — that the publishing industry doesn’t care about art. It cares about money. And if a name on a book will sell it, that’s all that’s needed.
And face it, you’re nobody.
But that’s not bad, okay? That’s good. It’s really good.
Because if your book is good, and you’re a good writer, not even Olivier-good (metaphor, I know he wasn’t a writer), but just really good, maybe even James Franco-good (metaphor again!), and you work at it hard enough, somebody will recognize that and your book will get published.
And people will read it. And they’ll be moved. Somebody way across the country from Buttboil, somebody who’s not your mom, who doesn’t even know you and has never heard your name before, will read your book and for a few hours be transported because you are so good at what you do.
Because you’re a writer.
And you’ll walk into Borders and see your book on a shelf and know it’s there because you are a good writer.
And I guarantee that at that moment, the Barney Rubbles of the world (and the Snookies and Jenny McCarthy and Richard Castle) won’t matter one little bit.

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I recently edited a book in which the protagonist, a physicist, was a genius. Unfortunately, the writer of the book was not. This became a problem when the writer had the genius physicist say things that bowled over his colleagues, who would murmur to each other how brilliant he was. As a reader and editor, however, I was underwhelmed.
The same thing happened recently when I watched a movie in which the lovely Clive Owen was “the top sportswriter in Australia.” The movie could have pulled this off, and I would have bought it because, come on, it was Clive Owen, except that excerpts from his writing appeared on screen. Now, being a sports fan most of my life, as well as a sports editor for years, I have read some damn fine sportswriting. Either Australia is a black hole when it comes to sports writing or, more likely, the writers of the movie just weren’t good sports writers themselves.
Both of these instances bring to mind a good rule for good writing: Paint with a broad brush.
Your protagonist is a genius physicist? Unless you are one too, give the impression of what he says when he says something “brilliant” rather than the exact words.
Your main character is a “top sports writer?” Just say it, don’t quote his articles. Because there’s going to be someone out there who has read really good sports writing, and that person will cringe.
Coincidentally, I saw the movie and edited the book about the physicist (who saves the world, in case you were wondering) around the same time I had several conversations about sex scenes in books with a variety of people. We pretty much all agreed, despite the variety of people I had this conversation with. Unless deliberately writing porn, it’s better to give the impression of what’s going on, than get into a lot of graphic descriptions of body parts and that type of thing. Why? Because different things are sexy, or poignant, or moving, to different people. Something the writer may think is really hot may make a reader burst out laughing. Those cute little sweet things people say to each other in the sack? Or those really, really hot things? They’re different for everyone.
In a lot of cases when writing a book, details are good. But there are some instances where they’re not and they’ll throw the whole thing right off the rails and the more detailed you are, the more readers you lose.
So if you’re not as smart as your protagonist, or as talented, or you’re writing about a subject that everyone is going to have a strong, but differing opinion on, ask yourself if you’d be better off painting with a broad brush.

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There was a letter this morning in Walter Scott’s Personality Parade in Parade magazine that made me spit out my Raisin Bran.

It really did.

The letter writer, who is a huge fan of mystery writers P.D. James and Elizabeth George (as am I!) “recently discovered” that both writers use the word “detritus” in every book. the letter writer ended this sentence with an exclamation point, the strangeness and and crazy coincidence of these two literary mystery writers using the same word being worthy of that excited surprise. She wondered if this was some kind of code between them.

“Walter Scott,” in “his” answer (c’mon, we all know there’s no Walter Scott) admitted that “we had to get out our dictionary for that one.”

Really, “Walter”? Really?

I was so worked up by the whole thing, I had to get up from the table a minute and take a lap around the kitchen.

First off, is detritus really that odd a word? So odd that a reader supposedly well-read enough to enjoy both Elizabeth George and P.D. James would wonder if its repeated use were a secret code?

And I use that word in my book. If a reader doesn’t recognize that word, what other words doesn’t she recognize?

And if she doesn’t, who else doesn’t?

Am I part of a secret society that I don’t even know about? If the other members are Elizabeth George and P.D. James, sign me up!

So my initial disdain and disgust changed to genuine worry.

How many of the words in my book won’t potential readers understand? And then it follows, how many ideas? How many plot lines? How much of the subtle give and take between characters? Do I use words people don’t understand without even knowing it?

There’s a fine line writers walk between practicing their craft well and making their work accessible. There are a lot of things that make a book less readable, some of which I’ve touched on in other posts: poor grammar, punctuation, bad writing, etc.

But good writing can hurt in a way, too. Words are the biggest tool we have. But like every tool, they must be used correctly. Just knowing different words doesn’t mean they should be used. The right word has to go in the right spot. Even the right word can be the wrong word sometimes. Too many unusual words will hurt a book as much as dangling modifiers and adverb epidemics.

On the other hand, no writer should have to dumb down his or her writing.

If the word is a good one and the right one, the reader should be able to figure out what it means by its context and move on without slowing down.

So part of the book revision process calls for examining the words used. Is there an “odd” word that you use a lot? Use the “find” button on hour Microsoft Word and see how many times it’s in there. Maybe another word would be better. Is the context right? Does the word do it’s job? Then keep it in.

Thinking about detritus, I can’t honestly ever remember using it in conversation. But I didn’t think twice before putting it in my book.

And I like it there. It works where it is. It’s obvious what it means. And I’m going to keep it there.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a secret society meeting to attend. I promised P.D. James I’d bring the beer today.

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When I was growing up, we had a lot of music in our house. All types. And as a very young kid I became fascinated with the way songwriters used words.

One of my favorites was, and still is, Ian Tyson. And even at the age of 9 or 10, I found myself transformed by the way he expressed himself. One line in particular, from “Summer Wages” always stood out: “So I worked on the towboats, with my slippery city shoes, which I swore I would never do again. Through the gray fog-bound straits where the cedars stand watching…” As a kid, I couldn’t articulate why I found that line so powerful.

Now, as an adult, I see it. It has everything a well-written line needs: You know where the narrator is and you know where his head is. It has tone, mood, setting, and plot. I feel like that line is always in my head somewhere.

The words we hear and read become part of the fabric of our brains and, make us the writers we are.

I became fascinated with the mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers as a young teen. I couldn’t get enough of her books, reading them over and over again. What made her great was her emphasis on character. Because she wrote mysteries, she had a good plot. But her characters drove the story, which was a new concept to a 14-year-old.

She, too, became part of the fabric of my writer’s brain.

Last fall, as I really dug in on writing my mystery novel, I was trying to think of books I’ve read that have formed that fabric. There was one book I read about 20 years ago that has been hovering around in my brain since. I couldn’t remember the title, just that it was about a baseball umpire, the author’s first name was John, and it was beautifully written. I tore my house apart for trying to find it and couldn’t. So I Googled “novel John umpire” and slogged through an Internet wasteland of junk until I found it. The Conduct of the Game by John Hough Jr. I had to have it. I bought a used paperback copy for $3. The minute it arrived at my house, I opened it to the first page and read these lines:

“Lucinda Fragosi — even her name was gawky. She was a born victim, a mournful, sparrow-faced little man of a girl who lurched when she walked and hunched when she sat and wiped her nose with the back of her skinny hand.”

I remembered immediately what I had loved so much about the book. John Hough Jr.’s obvious love of the English language and ability to use it to move others is enough to almost make me cry. Another thread in the fabric.

Frequently, all too frequently, as a book editor, I am told by writers that they don’t read. I am amazed, but not surprised. Amazed that anyone who is planning on spending months or even years hunched over a keyboard with nothing but his brain and the words in it doesn’t have enough of a love of words to spend any time with other peoples’. If not for the pleasure of it, at least to see how it’s done. But not surprised, because their writing shows it. It’s often graceless, wordy, overblown. And the punctuation is appalling.
I don’t expect John Hough Jr.
God knows, I’m certainly not him.
But the lack of appreciation for the written word and the complete ignorance of the joy it can bring is apparent with these non-readers.

When I talk to these writers, I urge them to read. Sometimes I get an argument. If they don’t understand the pleasure they can get from reading others’ words, how do they expect anyone to enjoy reading theirs?

Words, the right ones, strung together in the right order, are the most powerful thing on earth.

Want to be a writer? Read some words. Find the ones you like and figure out what that writer did that made them work so well. Then find your own and get down to business.

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