Structure Versus Slapdash

  

An author friend messaged me earlier this week. Apparently he’d been lying awake at night thinking about my advice. I recently tried to convince him that planning his novel was a good way to get him out of a block. He’d contacted me to say he wasn’t sure that planning stories worked for him, actually for any writer. He thought perhaps “making stuff up as you went along” was better.

Hmm…

Indeed, he went further, suggesting that if a writer did something right, like accidentally write a good book, then they were likely to be more surprised than anyone. Clearly he’d been obsessing far too much over this whole issue. In the end he let me know he was of the opinion that most writers really didn’t know what they were doing and that if they did by chance create something wonderful, it was a probably a total fluke.

To be honest I think this attitude is pretty dumb. Sad actually. And wrong.

My experience tells me it’s clear many authors know exactly what they’re doing from start to finish. And they know instinctively that pre-planning a novel is the most effective way of creating something that will approximate a decent first draft.

I have spent enough time encouraging new authors to know the very worst thing you can do is to make up novel fiction as you go along because this will always create massive problems when it comes to structure, sense, and the proliferation of logic flaws. In short, to borrow the old adage, when you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

True, many great pieces of writing can be created as a result of naked inspiration, or unstructured, flowing thought. Many authors too, swear by letting their imaginations run free, by allowing their creativity to fly unencumbered. Yes, all these techniques can work. You can even use these same techniques to augment your planned structures!

Seriously, blocked writers often need to convince themselves of all kinds of silliness to get them back on the writing path. Ego and arrogance can play a part. Bending the truth can be helpful on occasion, even lying to yourself. I know that at certain points in their career, many would-be writers assume they need learn nothing more and just hope for the best.

My author friend I assume needed to reject my advice, at least for a while, to get to a more positive place. But I would argue that undermining the self-evident might not be the best way forward.

There is much a writer can learn without relying on the hard way, that is through trial and error, by using up much of their potentially productive time by writing badly when they could have learned a few useful conventions that are already widely accepted.

To be honest, I would have been more convinced by his argument if he’d made a better case. I found his writing, at least in his messages to me, to be almost incoherent. This may sound cruel and prematurely judgmental but If his books are anything like his texting style, he clearly has a lot to learn about technique, not to mention grammar and punctuation.

You might say you can’t tell a person’s literary style from their emails, their texts and DMs, and I would disagree. These things are important. Careful writers know you should get “text-speak” right if you’re going to message properly.

Because that’s what writers do. That’s their true purpose: to communicate effectively.

It’s not fair to write badly and then expect other people like editors to “fix” your work.

It’s lazy for one. Insulting actually. And ultimately disrespectful.

Why would you subject your editor to painful errors that you could easily cure yourself from making? Especially simple things like using conventional punctuation - the bane of an editor’s life.

This whole issue is related to the other age-old writing question. Which is better: plotting or pantsing?

The easiest way to get to the bottom of this issue is to ask a room full of writers for the answer. (Something I have often done!)

The experienced will say plotting (planning) while new authors will say pantsing (making it up as you go along). I think this result is to do with the difference between fear of failure and experience (reality). Because beginners can’t trust their fragile egos to perform under pressure while professionals know nothing is as dependable as hard work.

Newbies think writing should be fun, even if they don’t create anything. Professionals think the fun is in actually creating something.

New writers tend to make the same mistakes over and over. Advice is really only there to help you look more professional. There’s nothing to be afraid of. If you enjoy the struggle of not knowing the correct ways to write - or you like learning in public, that’s fine. Do that if you don’t like to follow the rules and conventions designed to help you.

The rules on point of view, show don’t tell, structure, the hero’s journey, dialogue, characterization, pacing, style, and punctuation et al, these are all necessary protocols that you can’t ignore or say don’t matter.

Because they do.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy

PS: My author friend still hasn’t got past his block. Good job I’m also blessed with patience!

Help Yourself to Writing Success

  

“I had no idea we were surrounded by so many birds until I started looking out the window.” My photographer wife said this to me the other day and I immediately thought, there’s an article, or a life lesson, in there somewhere.
 

Opportunities can be around us all of the time but we don’t see them because we weren’t specifically looking for them.

I once spoke to a New York publisher who said the world didn’t need more self-help books. Clearly the sentiment is not true but I do understand it is harder to get them published these days, unless you’re a doctor, psychologist, or a celebrity. And even then…

I hear that Arnold Schwarzenegger is having trouble promoting his latest self-help book because he’s old school. He believes in self-determination, making something of yourself. This astonishing guy worked his ass off to get what he got. From bodybuilding to learning English to schmoozing with Hollywood producers and politicians.

Arnie’s whole life is an advert for successful self-help. And yet because the newly woke claim it’s unfair to say you are responsible for your own destiny, he can’t advertise his book properly. He has to maintain his message is about helping others, being of service, which I suppose in a round about way, it is. But primarily his book acts as a warning that if you’re not excited by your life, it’s likely because you haven’t taken responsibility for your own actions. You’re just hanging on in quiet desperation.

At least it’s now politically correct to do that.

But is a life of unfulfilled dreams what you want?

Funny world we live in. It’s become wrong to say that we have the innate ability to change our lives. Self-help has become tainted by the “woke” generation who say you can’t tell people that focus and hard work is the answer because success is apparently not possible for everyone.

Okay, I accept that some will never make something of themselves because they’re disadvantaged. But is it wrong to encourage the rest of us to make better decisions?

The self-help genre certainly helped me. Reading motivational books in the past helped me understand that failure, a life of drab acceptance, was a choice. That losing touch with our dreams and our potential was often the result of bad decision-making.

Without self-help books I would never have started my own business or written my books and courses. Or discovered that helping people achieve their dreams is the best thing I could have done with my life. Self-help books and their authors taught me so much about myself. I would never have been the person I am today without the lessons I learned from the greatest motivators of the 20th Century.

People like Anthony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, Susan Jeffers, Wayne Dyer, Joe Vitale. These people inspired the heck out of me. Now - allegedly - they’re close to cancellation for making people feel insecure, giving false hope, because reality does not reward the majority.

So what?

Does that mean we shouldn’t at least try to better ourselves?

Why does modern PC politics want to make us all the same? Isn’t that Communism? What happened to self-improvement? Ambition? Dreaming? Wishing? Hoping?

They say it’s unfair to make people aspire to goals that will never happen to them. That’s realism they say. But isn’t that the point? You can often only achieve your dreams if you are unrealistic. All great artists and inventors and visionaries are unrealistic. That’s how they achieve their extraordinary results.

Sure, not everyone can be Arnie but at least he’s providing a road-map if we wanted one. Surely not everyone thinks that super-success is impossible.

What would be the point to a world where everyone wanted to be average?

Some people see different things when they look out of the window. Especially when they’re shown there are different things out there. Better ways of running your life, of interacting with people, of showing compassion, working together to create superior futures.

Artists, creators, and entrepreneurs tend to want to change the world, improve on it, and that’s a good thing, right? The fact is self-help gurus never say that everyone can change, that every single person on Earth can be successful. No, they only ever try to appeal to the minority who want to improve themselves, those who demand more from themselves. Plus, in a sense, you might argue that most self-help writers are actually just writing for themselves. I think in publishing, this phenomenon is a given.

Let’s face it. The people we look up to never accept ordinary - and we know it.

Focus, hard work, and making your own luck really are the secrets to success.

Actors know it. Musicians know it. Even plumbers know it.

I have my own simple success motto:

Always keep your promises, especially the one you make to yourself.

That’s it. Easy to remember too.

Author success is about writing, publishing, marketing, filling your hours with creative activity, focused on the main goal, and not stopping until you’re there, wherever you want to be.

And if by chance you don’t make it, at least you had a bloody good go.  

That’s surely what matters.

After all, we only ever regret the things we didn’t do.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy

Writing By The Rules

I’m not sure whether you have the same scenario in your country but around here - South Australia - they’re desperately trying to get people to use self-checkouts in supermarkets. Clearly a bid to save money by not having to employ staff to help their customers through a checkout.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of resistance to this idea. In fact Woolworths claim that around three-quarters of people express their irritation at self-service checkouts by stealing a couple of items each time they use them. Woolies estimate they’re losing, depending on the store’s location, between 7% to 20% of their revenue because of this mild form of protest.

Apparently there’s a phenomenon known as “psychological reactivity” which is when you try to enforce rules that people don’t like, the effort makes them break the law on purpose, just to show their disapproval. Like the way a baby will refuse to eat broccoli. Or a teenager will react against a curfew. Or a billionaire will resist paying taxes.

Writers are like this when it comes to genre writing. Many writers don’t like to follow rules. They see guidelines as disruptive to creativity. Or spoiling the fun. Consequently authors who like writing crime or romance or fantasy may slide easily into a bestselling genre, while those who do not like rules will fall outside of genre classifications and, as a result, find gaining an audience much more difficult.

Authors may not relish genre labels and avoid limiting classifications - but ironically readers prefer them. Genre helps readers find writers they may potentially enjoy.

While genre authors may gain sales, fame, and success, there will always be wannabe “literary” writers who write work that meanders aimlessly from one unfocused topic to the next, from one intricately plotted moment to another unrelated flight of fancy.

Seriously, literary fiction doesn’t sell well because readers don’t know what they’re getting. Genre fiction sells for the precise opposite reason. Readers want and expect a genre piece to behave in a certain way. The characters in genre are recognizable as belonging to the type of story the reader wants to read. The action unfolds as envisaged, or if not, in a way that is surprising and fresh to a reader of that genre.

I guess it’s all about your intention. Do you want book sales or merely the satisfaction of creating art? You probably want a bit of both.

Writing to create art can be very taxing mentally and emotionally and often doesn’t work, especially if you’re a perfectionist. The good thing about genre writing is that you can satisfy a genre reader even when the writing isn’t great. On the other hand, when you work to get around genre conventions you may fail abysmally. Better to be bad than to miss the mark altogether.

Val McDermid is a genre crime writer who said something interesting recently. In one of her books she mentioned that telling a gripping story is only half of the job of the author. The other half is making readers like your characters and your story. Too many wannabe writers get so wrapped up in hyper reality, wallowing in sex, grit, and violence, trying hard to be original but often losing the sympathy of the reader along the way.

There’s no point to being outrageous if you do not create empathy.

My partner and I have just binge watched Dead To Me. The only two seasons of this fun black comedy exemplify much of what I’m trying to say here.

All the characters do bad things, break the law, cause harm and upset but, and here’s the kicker, they’re all likable for different reasons.  

Interestingly too, the Christina Applegate character (Jen) was compelling and sympathetic all the time she was gorgeous and sexy. Her willfulness was attractive. Her ability to get away with her crimes seemed right somehow…

But, through no fault of her own - in real life - the actress contracted MS and started to put on weight. Tragic and sad, yes, and no great crime surely but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t like her character as much. I stopped wanting her to get away with her crimes. I wanted her to suffer and take responsibility for her actions. Why? Simply because she was no longer beautiful. This taught me a hugely valuable lesson about fiction and our willing suspension of disbelief. Also, I realized why movie stars have to be good-looking. Because, despite the best efforts of writers, their characters often don’t work if they’re not.

Okay. I hate myself for being shallow and for playing to my own prejudices

But we all have inbuilt prejudices.

Rules and conventions are there for a reason. They express ideas that are universal.

It’s about balance at the end of the day. If you’re writing a thriller and you focus on a psychopath to explore his motivation, you’d better have a nice person on the other side of the coin that your reader can root for, someone they can trust and feel at ease “being” while they are reading your book.
Look at your own fictional characters and ask, would anyone want to be them?

Can a reader really lose themselves in your story?

Or is your desire for so-called “originality” more important than your reader’s needs?
 
Keep Writing!

Rob’s Writing Academy