writing craft – Page 9 – Patricia J. Parsons

When is a book too long?

Posted on 9 Mar 2015 by Patricia J. Parsons

I just started reading a book that clocks in at over 900 pages. 900 pages! Just imagine that. Before I bought it I read the online reviews on Amazon. The reviews were good but one issue kept cropping up: the book was too long. In fact, this particular novelist is known for her long books, usually in the vicinity of 500-600 pages. I’d read several before. I haven’t read a book that long since I read Herman Wouk’s wonderful “Winds of War” which is over 1000 pages in pocket paperback size.

This got me thinking: How long should a book really be?

If you are to believe Chuck Sambucino (whose work in Writer’s Digest I do admire), any book over 110,000 words is too long.[1] This seems entirely too didactic to me unless we’re talking about specific genres such as children’s books. That would mean that many very famous and well-loved masterpieces are “too long.” Of course, any bad piece of writing is too long even at 60,000 words which he further suggests is too short. It’s not that cut and dried.

Kurt Vonnegut reputedly gave this advice to writers: “Start as close to the end as possible,”[2] which suggests to me that there is likely a place in every story that is the best place to enter it. Indeed, I believe that this applies equally to non-fiction and fiction. Starting too far from the end means that you’ll include far too much extraneous material.

I really don’t believe that here is any ideal length. If a story sustains itself for a long session, then that’s probably right. However, over the years I’ve challenged students to take their best 1000 words for example, and edit it ruthlessly down to half that length. Then, I’ve said, you’ve got really tight writing. You have to do it without losing the message of the piece and leave out every extraneous word. They hate it because they want to keep every bon mot, every personal device and turn of phrase.

When William Faulkner said, “In writing, you must kill your darlings,” this is exactly what he meant. (Note: This phrase has been variously attributed to Anton Chekov and Oscar Wilde, among many others. I’m going to stick with Faulkner.)

Not every word we write needs to make it to our reader. Keeping unnecessary material suggests to me one of two things: either you are a serious narcissist who believes that every word you write is precious, or you are seriously in need of an editor. And in that royal “you” I include myself sometimes. We all do it. I’ve even argued with editors about their opinions on some things to leave out. They usually win.

For beginning writers, I think that the biggest pitfall in keeping the story to the essentials is including too much backstory. Backstory is for us – the writers – so that we can come to know and animate in our own imaginations our characters and the places they where they live and breathe. This applies equally to fiction and non-fiction. Knowing how to reveal and how much to reveal is the key to a tight story. When I’m reading I can always tell when a writer wants the reader to know just how much research he or she put into a story. And I shouldn’t be able to sense that. Just as in our interactions with people around us, our interactions with books can have TMI: too much information.

I think that it’s wise to understand that your notebook s and the material contained in them are first and foremost for you, the writer. Making a decision about how much of that you need to share with your readers is one of the keys to good writing.

I’ll let you know how I feel about the 900-word book – if I ever get through it!

[1] Chuck Sambucino. Word Count for Novels and Children’s Books: The Definitive Post. Writers’ Digest online. http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/word-count-for-novels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post

[2] Kurt Vonnegut: 8 Basics of Creative Writing. http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/538

Backstory, Ideas generation, Journals, Writing craft

A writer’s letter to Santa Claus

Posted on 16 Dec 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

What do you give a writer for Christmas? Most of the lists of suggested gifts are filled with things like computer writing software, printer paper and coffee cups emblazoned with bon mots from writers who have gone before us. I have a different view of what a writer – like me at least – really covets. So, apart from the Moleskines which I covet every year, Santa Claus is really the only one who can fill this list. I’d like to share my 2014 letter to Santa with other writers and aspiring writers.

“Dear Santa:

So we come to the end of another year. It’s been a year of writing, not writing, writing some more, editing manuscripts, madly searching for a publisher, and taking a foray into self-publishing. Well, you know what I’ve been through this year. I’ve worked hard so I know you’ll look kindly on this writer’s little Christmas list.

First, I would like a few Moleskines.[1] I know that they’re expensive as notebooks go. I know that other people in my life can provide these as well – but one can never have enough Moleskine notebooks, can one? After all if they’re good enough for Ernest Hemingway, they’re good enough for the rest of us. I also know that most of my work is digital. But I can’t shake my addiction to those brightly-colored covers. I seem to be inspired to write just by looking at them. Or at least I’m inspired to think about writing. That’s a first step in any project, isn’t it?
Now to the things that only you can give me. First I’d like the gift of a continually open mind. Let me see ideas everywhere I go and in everything I do (then the Moleskines become very useful, right?). Let that open mind accompany me when I read the newspaper, eavesdrop on conversations in restaurants and airports – well, you get the idea.
I’d also like the gift of patience in the rewriting and editing process. That feeling that comes at the end of a finished manuscript at long last is wonderful, but can put me off from the rigors that are then required in the revision process. I need that forbearance more than anything else to get me through that part of the writing process.
Then, Santa, although I know it might be difficult, I’d like the gift of compassion for all those agents and editors who can’t seem to answer their email in a timely fashion – even when they’ve requested the proposal or manuscript. *deep breath*
I’d also like the gift of creativity so that I can see old ideas in new ways. I have journals filled with all those ideas from my sometimes open mind (see #1), but they are often derivative or jotted down on a whim leaving me without a clue as to context later. Please let me revisit those journals and consider how to turn those ideas on their heads or inside out to come up with a truly innovative approach to the material.
Finally, thicken my skin just a little bit as I prepare to send out a manuscript to readers for pre-publication comment. I’m sure they won’t all love it (as they should).

Well, that’s it for this year Santa. I’m planning another hard-working writing year and hope to be able to share with you at the end of 2015 just how far I’ve come with these gifts of Christmas 2014. Merry Christmas!”

[1] For the uninitiated, Moleskines are (as their web site says): “…the heir and successor to the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries: among them Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway…” You can read about them at http://www.moleskine.com/en/moleskine-world and buy them all over the world in book stores and online. The paper is great and the array of sizes and colors amazing.

Creativity, Writing

Why we write what we write

Posted on 8 Sep 20148 Sep 2014 by Patricia J. Parsons

Just like most writers out there in the twenty-first century, I follow a number of writer/author groups and blogs. I suspect, though, that I follow far fewer than many writers. I believe we need to spend more time writing than talking about writing; but that’s just me. Apart from the extreme time suck involved in participation in these online groups, one of the other primary reasons for my reluctance to get more involved is because I really don’t find that many kindred spirits in them. Perhaps that shouldn’t matter to me, but it does.

For example, just this morning, I received an email from a LinkedIn site that I follow in a general kind of way. A participant in the discussion posted the following gem as a discussion starter:

“I want to embark on fiction but I just do not have the imagination to concoct stories and plots. Can anyone share with me how successful novelists repeatedly fabricate stories?”

Now, I would expect bona fide writers on this forum to weigh in as follows: If you have no imagination and no stories to tell, you clearly shouldn’t write fiction. End of story. But, no, that’s not what they said.

One actually started his response by saying that it was a great question. A great question? Are you kidding? It is a moronic question in my view and epitomizes what’s wrong with open access to publishing. There are so many people out there today who actually do have stories to tell and can’t get them published that I shudder to think what will happen to the literary world when self-published books become nothing more than the yearnings of wannabe fiction writers who really want to have written a book – not to actually write one.

Another “writer” suggested to the poster without imagination that he simply mine his own life. That should be good. No imagination needed there, I guess.

Someone else told him to read. Another told him to take a ride on public transport – in response to the very astute comment of one responder who actually had the temerity to say, “If you lack the imagination…why start?” Bravo to that honest writer who is like me. What a surprise it was for me to find a like-minded writer in an online forum.

What I want to know is why someone wants to write fiction if he has no story to tell and admits upfront that he lacks imagination. All the creative thinking suggestions in the world will not help if there is no imagination to carry an idea through.

Arthur Schopenhauer thought a lot about writing and why we write.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer probably had it right in The Art of Literature when he said, “There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the subject’s sake, and those who write for writing’s sake. […] The truth is that when an author begins to write for the sake of covering paper, he is cheating the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.” People can write whatever they want and I encourage them to do so. Much of what we write, however, should not be published.

I think that there are people who truly want to write because they have something they want to say, and those who simply want to have written a book. The former makes a life –even if it doesn’t’ pay the bills. The latter makes for good cocktail hour conversation.