Writerly Notes

From Minicon 2000

Panel on Good vs Evil

• ‘Story’ is a force of nature, ‘plot’ is a literary device. (Patricia Wrede?)
• Evil is when you let your bad habits get the better of you. (Steven Brust)
• In stories, the villain (usually) has a plan, and the good guy is reacting to the villain.

Panel on the Expository Lump

• One device is the As-You-Know-Bob. Two characters who know what’s going on discuss the situation, thus filling in the reader.
• Rule of thumb: Don’t explain something before the reader cares about it.
• Strive for raisins in the pudding, not lumps in the pudding.

From Chicon 2000

• artist vs craftsman
  • Art: it’s something you can’t not do.
• The character’s motive is not the author’s motive. In fact, the motives may conflict.
• “Watch what you say around me—I may write it down.”
• Overheard in the huxters’ room: “Failure is not an option. It comes built into the software.”

From the Pendragons meeting 2001–02–04

• Sentence fragments are like condiments—they draw attention to themselves.
  • Mickey: “A writer should be allowed one sentence fragment per novel—and it had better be for something damned important.”
• The whole group recommends Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight V. Swain.
• Chuck: “Use shorter sentences. They speed the story along.”
• Fix the passive verbs. Actually, this means weak verbs versus strong verbs. Not passive voice versus active voice.
• Have people do things with their bodies. This is good for tags and breaks in dialogue. Have ‘em look around the room, at the things going on around ‘em.

From the Pendragons meeting 2001–05–20

• Prune job—the opposite of a plum job.
• Jeff Nikkel was showing off Cosmic Dancer by Amit Goswami.
  • Basic science for science fiction writers.
  • It’s a bit too basic for me, although I would evitably learn something from it.
  • But it’s worth keeping in mind to recommend to other writers.
• In third-person narrative, avoid using the second person for impersonal actions.
  • For example, “To get to Carnegie Hall, you have to practice, practice, practice.”
  • Instead, you should say it’s better to say, “To get to Carnegie Hall, it’s necessary to practice, practice, practice.”
  • It may be okay in first-person narrative, because people talk that way.
• Jennifer: “Thou shalt love thy daily life.”

From the Pendragons meeting 2001–07–08

Mickey: “When somebody touches you, you’ll notice and react.”

From the Pendragons meeting 2002–09–08:

• Genya (a response to children who complain that something “isn’t fair!”): “Fair? Fair’s not till August.”
• Becky: Without physical character descriptions, it’s harder to follow who’s doing what.

From Icon 26. Consuite bull session on Sunday morning, 2001–10–14

Bill ‘Biljon’ Johnson: “I try to put two things on every page. One is a reason to like this page, and the other is a reason to go on to the next page.”

From the Pendragons meeting 2002–12–08.

Description from Matt Moody’s story “Forever”:

From Speculations issue 51.

From “What To Do If Your Spooky Sputters” by Steven E. Wedel:

From the Pendragons meeting 2003–02–09.

• Genya, commenting on Matt Moody’s story “Eden’s Heart”:
  • “You’ve got a point-of-view spaceship, zipping from person to person, and it made me kind of seasick.”
  • The story had multiple POVs and switched them often and rapidly.

From the Pendragons meeting 2003–04–06.

Curt Rostenback, several times:

From the Pendragons meeting 2003–09–07.

Mickey’s general rule about the characters’ plan(s):

• If the plan isn’t going to work, run through the plan in advance, so the reader can share in the characters’ dismay.
• If the plan is going to work, don’t bother telling the reader the plan, just show it unfold.

From ICON 2003–10–10 through −12.

During the panel of war-stories from new writers:

• According to Mike Williamson: “Have a disaster every 10,000 words.”
• Professional touches for correspondence:
  • Preprinted letterhead.
  • Mailing labels.
  • #10 envelopes with return address.
  • #9 return-mail envelopes (by design, they fit nicely inside a #10).

From Demicon 2004–04–30 through −05–02.

From a writing panel: a synopsis is a selling job. It has to sell the novel to the editor.