I’m taking a class this semester on how to teach writing workshops. It’s an interesting class, but not my point today. While slogging through the first of five textbooks (five! Eeek!), I came across a cool idea:

Writing is a tool for thinking. It’s a medium, a process for identifying or organizing our thoughts, reconsidering an issue from a new direction, or solving a problem.

And if writing is thinking, then we can look at the entire act of drafting and revising as one of exploration and discovery. (Which personally, sounds much more exciting than revising).

While this is probably common sense, I found it fascinating to see it articulated. And I wonder what it means for my process of writing.

I certainly find it true that while writing, the very act of writing gives me new ideas and new thoughts I would have never had otherwise. The very act of writing propels the new ideas which will be scribbled down next.

I just started a huge round of revisions on a manuscript I finished six months ago. And you know what else I noticed? The more I work on the revision, the more I try to clarify and consolidate, the more I learn about my characters. As I keep revising, I find tweaks in the plot that make it all come together at a new depth. I find ways to increase characterization. I’m not just editing, but thinking it through from new angles as I revise, and strengthening the story in the process.

And how about plotting? If we get ideas from the writing process itself, is it possible to plot out a whole book ahead of time? If we learn characterization from writing the characters, can we ever really know them at the beginning of a book?

So what do you think? Does the very act of writing create new ideas to write? Or do you wait for ideas and then write them down? Do you plot, or do you wait for ideas to come from the writing itself? Do you agree that writing is a medium for thinking?

I re-read a book this week I’ve read several times before–Envy, by Sandra Brown. She’s a particularly favorite author of mine, so re-reading one of her books wasn’t a surprise. It’s often listed as her best, so again, no surprise.

What is a surprise is this is a book in which the author took a oft-used plot device–one that I usually abhor–and turned into a book I not only loved, but devoured for the upteenth time.

It’s the character-as-writer thing. Anybody else bothered by this, or is it just me? You know the book about the quiet, shy, romance writer who has a boring sex life and so then decides to have a one-night stand with the hottie neighbor to expand her repertoire? Or the book about the publishing executive or agent who has a high powered career despite the baby she gave up for adoption way back when.

For some reason, the peek into the publishing world inside my fiction drives me batty. Perhaps because my real life is filled with the publishing biz, I don’t want it invading my fiction. But I think it’s more than that. It’s hard for me to get invested in a character who is a writer, because it reminds me that I’m reading the results of…well…a writer. I can’t forget I’m reading a book. I can’t dive into the story, into the setting, into a new world.

Or maybe characters who are also writers feel so close to Mary-Sue characters that I just get too twitchy to keep reading.

But in this particular book, the heroine is a high-powered editor. Her husband and father are editors, running a NY Publishing house. The hero is a writer. Not only is the hero a writer, but whole sections of his current work-in-progress are within the book. It’s novel-within-a-novel structure.

Any one of these things would normally make me shudder. Maybe I could be talked into reading it once and grudgingly admitting to enjoying it. But to read, and read, and re-read, and dwell on, and think about….to be utterly engrossed by a plot device I hate, is rare.

The structure and the concept are cliche, not doubt about it. A novel being written by the struggling-writer-character actually inserted into the narrative. Yikes. But the emotion, the depth, the characters, the heart…all of it make this a book I can’t forget instead of just a cliche.

In a recent RWR article, Christina Dodd mentioned suggested we not think of them as cliches, but as myths. All cultures have them, stories that speak to the human emotional experience, stories which have remained virtually the same for millennia. Embrace the cliche, she says, after all, they’re stories we’ve loved forever. Just give it heart.

So what do you think? What cliche, or myth, do you hate most? Ever been blown away by how it was handled? Do you agree that cliches are simply passed-down myths, a starting point, rather than something to avoid? What cliches do you absolutely love to read over and over?

People attack the beginning of things differently. Some wade in carefully, with plans and plots, others cannonball off the high dive and see where it gets them.

We’ve all had our own struggles with the beginning. How much backstory, how soon the characters need to meet, how many questions to raise.

I’ve spent a lot of time reading recently, and there’s one other factor that I’ve picked up on recently. The wade-in-with-floaties-vs-the-high-dive factor.

Some books start you off slow. One character, one day. You know what they’re up to, you know what their goal is, and they’ve just started on their quest to achieve said goal. Or you’re showing them in their ordinary world.

Either way, you introduce the reader to your character. You provide the floaties, point to the pool, and say, “It’s warm, I promise.”

Then there’s the other way. Those books where you’re dropped into the center of the action. Books where the characters already know each other, or where the quest has already started. This is a bit like chanting “Jump!” while someone stands on the high-dive.

Now, neither way is bad. Just like each of you had an immediate answer to the question “high dive or floaties?” We all have ways we approach new beginnings, be they books or learning to swim.

As a reader, as I’ve gorged myself through more Regency and Romantic Suspense than I can count, I’ve noticed something. I kind of like a beginning that’s in the middle.

Some authors can pull off this thing where I feel like I’ve been placed in the action without all the messy splash of a cannonball. Where it feels like the character was just going about their life one minute, and then the next, I was in it shadowing them like a long lost best friend. There’s no introductory moment. No, “Hi, this is Ashely, and she’s a Sagittarius who enjoys long walks and is currently about to be in conflict with hunk next door.”

Sometimes the first chapter feels like that. Like we’re getting the introductions and set up out of the way. Like everything’s being explained and laid out in front of us to set the stage. Every now and then, it almost feels like that character didn’t exist until she was introduced on that page (if I can say that about characters who actually exist only on a page). Others feel like they have a life before and after the book, just like ours, and we were simply gifted enough to watch for a bit.

So which do you prefer? Do you want all out action, complete with the messy cannon ball splash, a gentle introduction, or somewhere in the middle? Do you like characters that feel like live on outside the pages?

Two things are happening as I write this blog. One (and most obviously), I’m watching Ghost busters. Two, I just returned from a week at school.

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For the past week, I’ve been immersed in classes, workshops, critiques, presentations, and hotel elevator conversations about writing. I even got to meet the agent in person, and got a few minutes to chat with her one-on-one.

I’ve only been to one writing conference, but I have a feeling that conferences and my twice-yearly week-long residency as part of my Writing Popular Fiction program are quite similar. There’s an energy that comes over me, both to inspire and challenge me. I get to learn new things, and share what I know with other writers. I get a variety of critiques and comments from readers of all genres.

Some of the critiques were constructive, tactful, and inordinately helpful. Those I look forward to each semester, and will use well. I always prepare for those “other” critiques, those who will bash me for the sake of bashing, and during those, I grit my teeth, smile politely, and move on. As Chance recently reminded us, there’s no point in listening the bashers, especially ones you don’t know, or those who’s opinion you don’t hold in high esteem to start with. But this semester, I got lucky — no bashing, only helpful, critical and very well-thought-out advice.

When I return, I’m desperate to write, eager to put my fingers on the keyboard. Usually, I’m bursting with excitement. So in lieu of being able to attend conferences, I use this week not just to re-charge my batteries, but to be inspired, to be challenged by other writers, and generally just share that writer-ly atmosphere that the poor staff at the Marriott must plain dread (we do tend to take over the hotel — sorry about that!).

How do you get that enthusiasm and energy for writing? Are you going to Nationals? Have you already gone through the list of panels and highlighted all the ones you’re dying to attend? (even though I can’t go, I still do that!). Are you going to smaller, more intimate conference? Do you have writerly friends you meet with who encourage and inspire you? Or is your writerly connection limited to online interaction? Do you find online interaction just as helpful as in-person? Or do you prefer a healthy mix of both? Basically, when you’ve lost that passion we all need so desperately, who do you call?

I use a lot of idioms in my writing. We all do, I’m sure. They’re part of the English language, part of the way we think and speak and write.

One of my favorite parts of the show NCIS is watching Ziva struggling to learn English idioms. On a technical level, her English is flawless. Her grammar and sentence structure perfect. And then she’ll say something like, “I think he’s on a goat.”

“A sheep, maybe?” she’ll say when all she gets is funny looks. “Oh, a lamb! He’s on a lamb!” Uh, you mean he’s “on the lamb,” honey. As in, he’s on the run. But to a non-native speaker, “he’s on a goat” makes just as much sense as “he’s on the lamb.” It’d be easy to get confused.

I got to play with this recently in my own WIP. My hero is Spanish. He speaks perfect English, but he doesn’t know idioms, like most non-native speakers:

“You need more protection,” he said. “I want someone in this flat with you at all times, preferably me.”

“No.”

“No? You’re sitting here like a duck.”

“It’s sitting duck,” I said absently. “Not sitting like a duck. Sitting like a duck doesn’t make any sense. It’s–”

“Josephine.”

I met his eyes across the table. His were soft, concerned. Almost pitying. “I don’t need your protection,” I spit out. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And I bloody well don’t need your pity.”

But the bigger problem I’ve run into is Josephine’s idioms and language. She’s Irish, not American. She doesn’t use the same idioms American English-speakers use. And until I had to pull every idiom out of her dialog and narrative, I had no idea how many I used.

Take this for example:

Growing up inside the leadership of the IRA gives you certain talents. Knowledge the average civilian would never gain while sitting on the couch, munching french fries and staring at the television.

I heard Luken’s “Go, go, go,” felt the subtle change in the air that signaled a change in who had the upper hand, and hit the deck face-first. That split second, before the automatic rifle-fire opened up above my head, saved my life. A civilian would have put their hands in the air, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights, and then promptly would have been riddled with bullet holes. I was nice and cozy—and bullet-hole free—on the dusty rock floor.

Can you spot how many American-specific phrases and idioms are in just those two paragraphs? Words and phrases an Irish woman wouldn’t understand, let alone use. (And just so you don’t think I always write like this, I added more just for the example )

So let’s try a fun exercise today. If you write contemps, pretend the characters of your current WIP are British, rather than American. Give your characters a British accent and expressions. Stick them in a lift, eating biscuits, or watching the telly. How different do they sound, just by swapping American phrases and idioms for British ones? Or, if you write historicals, try giving your characters modern dialog. How differently to do they think and speak if they lived in 2010 rather than 1815?

p.s. — I won’t be able to reply until after noon today, but have fun without me and I’ll catch up as soon as I can!

I’ve spent a bit of time up in the middle of the night this week and with all this new “free time” you’d think I’d get somewhere on my WIP.  It’s hard, though, to make significant progress when typing with one hand.   So, when I get fed up with the hunt and peck method, I’ve been reading Anna  Campbell’s latest effort, My Reckless Surrender.

I could sing the praises of this book–its well-drawn characters, the marvelous intrigue, Campbell’s masterful storytelling–but I’d like to focus on its sheer sexiness.  Campbell’s writing is chock full of sexual tension.  Not that there isn’t sex in the book– there is.  And though its well written, it’s all the other things around the sex that are making the book so sexy for me.   The characters are incredibly in tune with each other and the hero is sweetly chivalrous.   It’s all very romantic and sigh-inducing.

So of course, I start asking myself if I manage this effect in my own stuff.  My answer?  I have no idea but I’m sure as hell going to try.

What do you think builds sexiness?   Romance?  Explicitness?   Hyper awareness or some kind of sweetness between them?  What books do it well and why do you think so?

I’ll try to get here as much as I can but play amongst yourselves.  Hal’s going to wrangle the comments today.  And be nice to the monkey.  Little bastard ran off with my new kiddo’s eye patch.

I’m always looking for ways to add more description to my writing. It’s like I have these characters, this plot, and it’s all happening against an empty backdrop (or at least, if not empty, then definitely sparse).

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I stumbled upon a tip on how to deal with this particular problem, and thought I’d share. The tip (that’s a bit of an “oh duh” one): set everything to action. A house isn’t large and stately. It sprawls down the side of a mountain. Palm trees aren’t planted at 10 foot intervals. They stand guard, fronds reaching to grasp snatches of pre-dawn light, at ten foot intervals across the front of the house.

The replacement of “was” or some other boring verb with an action verb like sprawl or stand or reach completely changes the dynamic of the description. Even the replacement verbs aren’t spectacular, but the new sentences give readers a picture of a house that’s alive and breathing, not just one “The house was large and stately, and palm trees were planted at 10 foot intervals across the front.”

When we look around us, our eye is automatically drawn to anything moving. Try it. Look out the window at the pretty scenery, and our eyes will zoom directly to the bird flying past, or the cat slinking away, or the bowing of a tree from the wind.

Any movement creates a natural sort of curiosity. Not a lot of it — no one’s gripping the oh-shit handles in their car, yelling, “Oh my god, there goes the hawk! He’s swooping, he’s swooping! Will he catch anything? Oh the suspense!”

But we do wonder what the hawk is doing just enough to let our eyes be drawn to his movement. Now, this isn’t to say that descriptions of still things shouldn’t be in your novel, or every description has to include big, melodramatic movements.

Just that when our description feels staid and boring, or when description isn’t there at all, setting the scenery into motion can breathe new life into your writing.

Here’s an awesome example from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:

The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun dials and brick walls and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the sides in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.

The scenery is moving and breathing, not just relegated to the background. My large and stately house? Here’s what I ended up with in the end:

The pinkish hue of the stone walls gave no hint to the violence and bloodshed they contained. The house sprawled low and wide, turrets and eaves haphazardly stacked atop; a bastion of defense and Spanish architecture. Palm trees were granted sentry duty, standing tall, fronds reaching for snatches of pre-dawn light, at ten foot intervals across the front. Craggy mountain tops wore the green flush of summer; guarding from the rear, they remained silent and unmoved.

Your turn! As a fun exercise, describe some aspect of the room you’re sitting in — be it your office or living room or bathroom. . . . you know, where ever you read the Revenge (and if it’s the bathroom, maybe lie?). Set the description to life. What’s the stapler doing? The coffee table? Just for fun, let’s take this idea of action waaaaaay too far!