And the competition continues to toughen in our quest to encapsulize our best critique advice in 50 words or less.
Game statsDay: 2
Contestants to date: 12
Possible winners: 12
Possible controversy: Contradictory advice, or just a different way of saying the same thing?
Countdown to winner-dom: 7 days
Attributes displayed: sincerity, thoughtfulness, humor, experience
Pat BrownWriters, as a group, are a friendly bunch, always eager to talk about their profession and are free with their advice to noobs. But sometimes that advice just plain sucks. Like the maxim that you should write what you know. I sputter and get all puffed up like an irate blowfish -- not a pretty sight, I assure you -- when I hear that. I almost always follow that in my most scathing voice that I guess that means Jeffrey Deaver has admitted to being a mass murderer and a quadriplegic. That Stephen King -- well I don't want to go there except to say that is one scary dude. What do you mean, he's a nice guy? Clearly you haven't read The Shining or It. Not convinced the experts are wrong? Then when did Frank Herbert ride on the back of a giant sandworm or Ray Bradbury sail the canals on a Mars that never even existed?
Telling lies is human nature, and I think embellishing even when we tell the truth is too. I have the feeling when early hunter-gatherers huddled around the fire at night listening to the howling of wolves or the roar of lions off in the veldt, that every story they told wasn't exactly the honest to god truth. I'm betting the best tribal hunters told extravagant tales of their exploits against all manner of monsters and how they fended them off with great feats of wisdom and strength. They made those stories up and even when everyone else around the fire knew it, they went along with it. Why? Because the lies made the stories better.
If all we could write about was stuff we actually did, just try to imagine how dull our fiction would be. I'm putting myself to sleep thinking about it.
So my advice? Ignore most of the advice you're told. Write what you want to write, and if that means doing some research, then go out and find out about that subject. But don't handicap yourself or stifle your imagination. We need good storytellers today as much as those proto-humans did. We may not be listening to lions roaring in our backyards, but we have our own stressors and a good story can carry us to other worlds and help us feel better. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Jim HockerMy late wife, Karla Hocker, was a published novelist who taught writing workshops, too. I think her best piece of advice was: "Use as few adjectives as possible. The best way to reveal the personality of your characters is through dialogue, not description."
Kathy McIntoshMake writing a whole body experience. Keep your chin up, your feet on the ground, your mind limber and open to new lessons and ideas, your heart set on the goal of becoming a published writer, and your butt in the chair.
Alan TraceySomeday you will open an envelope. You’ll see a letter from a firm, and you will think seriously, very seriously, about placing a pile of feces on that firm’s doorstep, and setting it on fire. At that moment, I tell you this…do not back down. It’ll make a great story.
Karen HartleyWrite, Write, Write
Keep lines tight
When Vision is bright
Give Ideas light
Wake in the middle
of the night and
Write, Write, Write
Bibi Emerson Shortt (pen name Wilkins MacQueen)
Read more than you write.
Then write more than you read.
Examine profound moments in. (My mother, if she weren’t already dead in the coffin before me, would have died again if she knew she was going into eternity with a bad dye job.)
Get it? Find grains of truth.
Ronnie DauberWrite what you know, what you see and what you feel. Whether you’ve been there, done that or studied it, make sure you write it with the conscience that the reader knows it, too. We all know what it means to assume, so don’t challenge your reading audience with ignorance.
Conda DouglasA writer reads, reads, reads, then writes, writes, writes, then edits, edits, edits, then submits, submits, submits, then repeats, repeats, repeats.
Moment-by-Moment Game Play AnalysisWell, folks, what began as a modest game of smarts and wisdom has turned into an international Olympics of know-how and inspiration.
And the crowd goes wild!
Eight more writing-abled minds have poured their efforts into this marathon of critique advice, garnered through years of practice, pain dilligence.
This second day of competition opened with a strong, heartfelt, tell-all by talented writer (and inspirer of writers) Pat Brown. He clearly decided to forego the 50-word limit in order to level with writers about an accepting, self-aware, damn-the-torpedoes perspective. A bold, sincere move!
Jim Hocker threw in a fast, graceful move he picked up from his lovely wife, who sounds like she inspired many a writer.
Kathy McIntosh exploded into action with her simile of writer-as-physical-being, reminding us we are not actually disembodied brains floating about, much as we like to stay lost in our own minds.
Alan Tracey risked all in his natty bid to nab kudos where other writers fear to tread, that highly literary world of symbolism. I'm sure we'll continue to ponder his advice for decades to come. (Should he get extra points for including a writing challenge? "Someday you will open an envelope...")
Karen Hartley trips a saucy path through the maelstrom with her lilting rhyme, rhyme, rhyme.
Bibi Emerson Shortt should get extra points not only for the uniqueness of her name, but for the fact she's a Canadian English teach in Thailand, which is only slightly less impressive than an English-speaking, Korean-teaching Canadian in Thailand. But we shall show no favoritism here! She, like Alan, challenges us to think, think, think besides write, write, write.
Ronnie Dauber takes a bold stab at telling us what we often forget, but need to remember: don't assume your audience is ignorant! (Do you think our world leaders adhere to that notion?)
Conda slips in with an ingenious piece of camouflage, appearing to stutter, when really she's driving through with what it takes to stay in the game: more endurance than anyone else to repeat the process over and over again.
A marvelous day and one for the history books, people.
Let's hear from you, crowd. Woohoo!
Happy writing.
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