Mick Silva posted them in condensed form.


If you're not in a hurry, here's the regular version of Kurt Vonnegut's list:

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

-- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1999), 9-10.

Labels: linky goodness, master wordsmiths give advice, tips, writing fiction

My first day count of 862 is pathetic.

Today's goal: 2000+

If you're a Christian writing fantasy or science fiction for NaNo, drop by my thread.

Labels: fantasy novel, NaNoWriMo, word count and progress, writing challenge

If you write fantasy fiction--or even if you don't--you'll have an interesting time over at Fangs, Fur & Fey. Browse the entries for the past week or so. They've been posting the actual query letters that authors wrote for novels that ended up selling.

Check them out.

Labels: blog buddies, fantasy novel, first novel, query letter

The last line of the "process" below made me smile. But wait, don't read ahead.

Here's Sandra Glahn's novel-writing process, taken from an interview over at Jennifer Tiszai's blog:

Take us through your process of writing a novel briefly— from conception to revision.

Once I have a germ idea, I come up with the beginning, middle, and end. Then I figure out the in-between points. Next, I create the main characters. I have four pages of questions I answer for each. About thirty percent of novel-crafting for me is the pre-writing imaginative work on the plot and character sketches. Then I choose a setting. I ask myself how I can use setting to communicate something. Where was Jezebel when she stole the vineyard? In Jezreel. Where was she years later when dogs ate her? Jezreel. The setting tells more than a place. It says something about the character of God. So I try to choose a setting that communicates on a deeper level. All the time I’m making these choices, I deliberate about the best way to tell the story. First-person? Third-person? Who will be the main POV character? Why?

After that I craft a proposal. It starts with a one-paragraph synopsis. While my agent shops it around, I develop the summary into a chapter-by-chapter outline. And then I make a file for each chapter and start dumping in ideas.

When my agent has some success, he calls. Here’'s what happens from there…

Editorial person really likes it
He or she takes it to the marketing meeting
I wait forever for that meeting to happen
Marketing approves it
I wait for them to agree on an offer
They issue an offer
I reel from the shock of how low it is
I negotiate
I wait for them to draw up the contract
I receive and sign the contract
I write the book
I send the book to the publisher.
They send the first half of the advance
I spend it all in one place
I wait for them to edit it
I wait a while longer for them to edit it
They send back the manuscript with lots of changes needed immediately
I edit it again
I wait
And wait
They send a galley proof, which they need back immediately
I edit it yet again
I watch helplessly as the release date gets delayed--again
I wait forever for my progeny to arrive in the mail
Finally, I hold my masterpiece in my hands
I find a typo

Labels: author interviews, editorial process, novel, planning the novel, writing life, writing process

The "she" being Sarah Monette. If you subscribe to SF mags, you'll surely have come across a story of hers.

Here's the world-building blog entry.

One of the five things she lists--and one we've all got to watch for, right-- is this:

2. Never world-build through infodump.


(N.b., there is a difference between an "infodump" and "exposition." Robin McKinley world-builds through exposition at the beginning of Spindle's End; Diana Wynne Jones world-builds through exposition at the beginning of Howl's Moving Castle. These are both markedly different from the infodump world-building at the beginning of the book I'm reading right now, James White's Ambulance Ship.)

I will say that the difference between infodump and exposition may come down to the talent the writer has with prose and the voice used. I read and loved both Spindle's End (one of my very fave fantasy novels, and perhaps my favorite based on a fairy tale) and Howl's Moving Castle (which also made for a terrif animated film by Miyazaki).

Years ago, the first pages of Spindle's End captivated me in the bookstore and I hurried home to read it. That's exposition that grabs, not infodump that bores. But it may be subjective, too. What you find exhilirating exposition may make me yawn. Ultimately, any writer who really has a voice and a handle on craft should be able to make the delivery of narrative into exposition rather than infodump. :::shrug:::

I know when I'm reading stories as an editor, I look to see if the information is strongly attached to character. If I'm getting the sense of a person's POV, even if it's a longish stretch of narrative, if it has that personality filtering through, then I don't count that as infodump. And it could be the voice/personality of the author or of a particular character. But I need to sense LIFE.

Infodump has a flatness, a sort of, "Here it is: I think you need to know this, so there. Read it. Now I can go on with the interesting stuff."

If it's compelling exposition, it has a sense of vibrancy, of a living thing behind it. It has a bit of depth or snap or sparkle--something that says this isn't just a report for a teacher or dry information. The difference, say, between:

The planet Alomus, a vacation destination for that sector of the galaxy and known throughout the cosmos for its dyes, was an astonishingly vivid blue. The discovery of Alomus had changed human wedding traditions. Brides stopped wearing white and started wearing Alomus blue. Honeymoon bookings for trips to Earth plummeted and Alomus became the intergalactic Niagara. The riches that the dyes and tourism brought in turned the planet into something that an old historian might have termed a den of sin.

That's not utterly horrible, and it does convey information about the planet, as well as a bit about the voice ("astonishingly" and "den of sin"), but it's not all that vivid itself.


And this:

Alomus glowed the exact blue of Korina's grandmother's eyes on those days when her grandmother was up to no good. On the ultimate day of mischief for her grandmother--the day she married Korina's grandfater--the bride had worn a gown of Alomus blue. They'd had to sell one of their vacation homes to afford it. There was irony there. Alomus, pleasure planet, the number one honeymoon hotspot, and the provider of priceless blue dyes. Why did everything end up having something to do with her dead grandmother and the planet waiting for her to land?

Or this:

Alomus blue. Now, there was a color for dreaming. Deep and alive, so famous and coveted that a citizen of my home planet would happily spend five years of overtime pay to afford a robe dipped in the dyes only found within the sea-floating vegetation of the pleasure planet. So desired that the number one justification for murder on the planet was poaching of the dye-waters. The number two was seduction of a newlywed.

Three different ways of saying a planet is blue and three different voices used in saying it. Granted, none of those bits is long enough to really count as infodump, but it was for example. Infodump would go on in the manner of example one--just throwing stuff out there. The others hint at things pertaining to people. To the characters viewing the planet.

Anyway, go see what Sarah M. has to say.

Labels: characterization, craft of writing, infodump, links, narrative and exposition, tips, worldbuilding

One of the people I met early on in my internet meanderings is author Elizabeth White, a Christian Women's Fiction/Romance author.

Pam Meyers has an interview with Beth, where she discusses how she develops her characters:

A lot of a novelist's job is armchair psychology. Why do people behave the way they do? I study and listen to people constantly. I find myself interviewing if I meet someone interesting. It's a lot of fun.

Read the entry at A Writer's Journey and even get a chance to win a copy of Beth's OFF THE RECORD!

Labels: author interviews, characterization, craft of writing

Author Kathy Carmichael supplies a pretty useful tool for generating a pitch--a pertinent encapsulation of your story--over at her website:

The Pitch Generator

Try it.

Kathy also has very good synopsis articles.

Labels: linky goodness, pitch, synopsis, tools and resources for writers

Dave Long, acquisitions editor at Bethany House, posted about characters and their coffee joneses:

What I See a Lot of in Proposals (and Novels)

He says:

I am well into my fourth year as an acquisitions editor and after all this time I feel compelled to mention that the amount of coffee mentioned in proposals (particularly in contemporary fiction) and CBA novels I've seen is crazy.

And often not just mentions, but eloquent raptures on the drink. Or, quite often, heroes and heroines who can't function without the stuff. Ah caffeine--the evangelical crack.

Don't know why I'm mentioning other than I've just looked at three proposals in a row that should be underwritten by Starbucks.

I'm gonna have to agree. I've seen more than one contest entry that makes a huge deal of coffee early on. I start to wonder if the writer was getting their first cup of the day and in raptures about it, ergo, it's on the page.

You've been warned. Watch that.

And I say that as gal who orders up several bags of fresh-roasted TORREO coffees every couple months, and who has sampled cups of excellence, who has Italian espresso, Greek, Colombian, Yemeni, and Kenyan coffees in her kitchen right now.

I'll also mention one more thing that's become rather cliche: chocolate in Women's Fiction.

It's gotten to the point that if I open a book to sample some pages and it mentions that tired old dependence on chocolate, I put it down. If the writer can't do anything but mimic a zillion Chick Lits or Women's Fiction chocoholics, then I don't expect much else fresh in the chapters thereafter. Ho-hum.

Now, coffee and chocolate are very important. I consume both daily. Both for pleasure and health reasons, believe it or not. The coffee to control the sugar issues and to help with the breathing issues. The ounce of dark chocolate for the arteries. (I used to only like milk chocolate, but I evolved into the healthier stuff.)

If you can do something unique and vivid with love for or addiction to either, then go for it. But try not to make it that prominent (unless you are a prose whiz who has endless knowledge of the stuff and can knock the socks off even the most jaded reader.)

Otherwise, you know, find something else. Be different.

I remember years and years ago (maybe late 80's), I read a romance where the hero goes to the kitchen and fixes himself his fave cup of...green tea.

That was BEFORE green tea was the rage. That was back when some folks might go, "What dat?" And it made the character stand out for me. Not a typical cup o' joe dude. No. GREEN TEA. (It made me think ninjas and stuff.)

In my WIP, my heroine has a thing for cherry sticks. Another sour lemon drops. And another character is a smoothie enthusiast. (As am I. I have five quarts of fresh smoothies and juices in my fridge RIGHT NOW.) I need to think of something else for the villain. :)

So, you've been warned. Coffee and chocolate...watch out. Be extra-creative or don't focus on it, at least on the early pages and your proposals.

And please, if you write Women's Fiction, don't make me put your book back on the shelf cause you mention chocolate on the first dang pages, and in no fresh way at that.

If you can find a new way to get chocolate in there, power to you.

Labels: characterization, editors, novel, proposal