I often struggle with knowing when a story is finished. Rarely am I completely confident that the line I’ve just written is the last one. It happens once in a while. You write a killer line and you just know it’s the story’s finale. But that doesn’t mean the story is done, finished… it may still need filling in, a paragraph here, more dialogue there. Finishing means that the story is as good as it is going to be, or rather—as good as you can make it. It’s hard to let stories go… Sometimes we have to make the choice, decide, and just stop.  Sometimes, even though the story isn’t perfect, we have nothing left to say.

How do you know when you’re finished? When a story or novel is done?

Here are 5 writers’ thoughts on finishing…

1.      Depending on the genre you’re writing in, there are different ways of establishing what we call closure. For instance, if you’re writing a very short piece, such as a poem or prose poem with a “miniature narrative,” you can actually print out variants of the work and have two or three or more endings. And you can read through them quickly and live with them for a few days or weeks and see, in a kind of dispassionate way, what seems best.

       –Joyce Carol Oates

2.      There are two points of exhilaration for me when I’m writing. There’s the point when I think, I’ve got something here and can keep going. And then there’s the point when I write the final word and, I say, “Okay, that’s done.” I once heard William Gaddis say he wrote long books because he didn’t like them to end.  And I can understand that.  The satisfaction of writing a book lasts longer than the satisfaction of finishing a book.

–Joanna Scott

3.      I often describe my way of writing as using a divining rod. I mentally picture the fork-shaped branch and just try and let go and let it guide me. I think the story is off in one direction and then it will suddenly veer left and hit a spot I wouldn’t have expected. My endings come this way as well, driven by the emotion of the piece, and often sooner than I planned for.  The hard part is going back and making the changes to the text so that it all bends properly in the right way—intersecting road signs, basically—so that when the end appears, the readers feel that they’ve arrived at the right place.

–Hannah Tinti

4.      As Evan Connell is reputed to have said, “I’m done when I start to put back the commas I’ve just taken out.” In my own case, I’m finished with a book when I can’t think of a single thing more to do to it, or for it, or with it.

 –Charles Baxter

5.      In a very traditional way, I want an end to be dramatic in a localized sense, and I want it to be in some ways conclusive of the major concerns of the book that I just wrote. Knowing whether or not I’ve done that is also very intuitive. There is a sense to an ending in my practice that feels very full.  I feel like all of the things that have been in the book up to now have sort of, in a sense, been fully terminated.

–Richard Ford

-From Off the Page, Writers Talk about Beginnings, Endings, and Everything in Between

 edited by Carole Burns

Friday, February 05, 2010 8:57:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

“Writing is the way I ground myself, what keeps me sane. Writing is the way I try and make sense of my life, try to find meaning in accident, reasons why what happens happens-even though I know that why is a distraction, and meaning you have to cobble together yourself. Sometimes just holding a pen in my hand and writing milk butter eggs sugar calms me. Truth is what I’m ultimately after, truth or clarity. I think that’s what we’re all after, truth, although I’d never have said such a thing when I was young.  And I write non-fiction because you can’t get away with anything when it’s just you and the page. What would be the point?  Who would you be kidding? Why bother writing at all? Once in a while you come too close to an uncomfortable truth, and your writing goes flat, and your instinct might be to change the subject. But this is the most interesting of moments. There is so much to be found out. You can either stare at the page and realize hot dog, this is a safe to be cracked, or you can crawl under the covers and take a nice nap.”

-Abigail Thomas, on telling the truth, and why she writes non-fiction

Read more about Abigail’s writing life here.

Friday, February 05, 2010 12:14:11 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

One of my teachers always said that the revision process required an entirely different part of the brain. When it comes to revision, she said, you have to think more like a scientist, like a problem solver. I posted about “solving the puzzle” not too long ago… the idea that we sometimes have to put aside our artist’s hat and switch it for our critic’s hat. Revision can be a much more intellectual process, while the creation part, the getting it down is more artistic and magical and we don’t always stop to think, analyze, and develop.

I’m always thinking about revision, always begging people to fess up and enlighten me on their process. I mentioned before a professor who looked at me wide eyed, like a deer in the headlights, when I asked him about his process. Why, I don’t know, I don’t know at all, he said. He really didn’t know how he did it, he just did it.  Let me think about it, he said.

Thankfully, I recently came across author Laurie Halse Anderson’s website. She is the author of Speak, Wintergirls, and many other titles.  Her live journal is chock full of revision tips. Whether or not these will work for me remains to be seen, but I am always open to new suggestions, new tricks, new advice. Here are some of Laurie’s revision tips that I’ll be trying:

1.      Spend a week away from your draft. Anderson says: “When you finish a first draft, don't look at it for at least a week. Clean up your desk and catch up on your reading. Do some journaling about what you thought the story was at the beginning of the draft and how it changed when you were writing. Make a list of those pesky little thoughts that are bugging you about places where your characters might not be consistent or major plot issues. Do this without rereading your pages!”

2.      See the Scene. “Read each scene and highlight each mention of a sense other than sight. Any scenes that only have visual details need to be revised to sneak in one or more of the other senses. If you are having a hard time with this, picture the scene in your mind. Now imagine you are the character, and close your (the character's eyes) what other sensory information is still available?”

3.      Pare down Dialogue. Anderson offers some great tips for revising dialogue when it seems to be running a little too long. She asserts that more action, more verbs are needed. She recommends doing this:

·         Choose a dialogue heavy scene

·         Brainstorm about what kinds of actions the characters might be doing while they are having this conversation. F. ex., mom and son arguing at the grocery store about if he can borrow the car Friday night. Potential actions: picking out groceries (be specific!), checking labels, returning groceries to shelf (possibility for character development! Does this character go to the trouble of returning item where it belongs or not?), smelling squeezing, poking. More character development: are items neatly stacked in cart, or thrown in?

·         Inset actions into dialogue

·         See where you can trim dialog by allowing characters' actions to speak louder than their words.

4.      Attempt a POV change. If you aren’t sure you’re writing from the best POV, Anderson suggests this tip: “Take your favorite chapter and rewrite from a different POV; shift from third to first, or first to third, or if you are bold and way smarter than me, experiment with the second person POV. Or.... (and.....) fool around with the tense structure. If your story is told in present tense, rewrite that favorite chapter in past tense. If you've written the whole thing in past tense, try out that chapter in present tense. What's the point of all this mucking around? It helps you see your characters and the Story from a slightly altered perspective.”

5.      Say Goodbye to Adverbs. “Evaluate every adverb in your story. Can any of them be removed by using a stronger verb? Make it so.”

Check out Laurie’s Live Journal for even more revision tips…oh, and you have to watch this great video about the construction of her “room of her own,” her very new, beautiful writing space. We all wish for a space as wonderful as this someday!

“The key to turning out good stuff is rewriting.  The key to grinding it out is consistency.”

-Forrest McDonald

 photo credit: LSH

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 6:40:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1] 

“You begin by hard work and discipline, digging in the dirt until your fingers are bloody; and suddenly the characters find themselves. The setting is in place. The cellos have picked up the mood and are keeping the whole act together, while the background a low drum beats. Now you have only to watch the characters and write down what they say.

At such moments you are in what August Wilson calls “the land of magic.” And, with the words flowing forth, nothing, nothing in this world, can equal the pleasure—not skiing or sailing, not sex, not flying off cliffs with wings strapped to your shoulders—because in those pure moments you are in perfect balance, soaring with the universe.” 

 -Sophy Burnham, For Writers Only

photo credit: GiftTrap

Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:10:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [2] 

You read about it all the time—the writer who wrote her entire novel in stolen bits of time. In the car while her kids were at gymnastics class. In the early morning, before anyone else was up, when the day was only hers. While waiting at the doctor’s office. In a coffee shop between meetings. You read it all the time—a page a day equals a novel a year. Seems easy enough, right? So why aren’t we all writing that novel a year?

Three things come to mind to me. For me. Perfectionism, pressure, and procrastination. We all have different reasons why we don’t write. These are three of mine. I am a wild perfectionist. If I can’t do something right, I’d prefer not to do it at all. Either the house is sparkling clean or there are, as my husband calls them, explosions everywhere. Either I read the book in three days or I don’t pick it up at all. It’s exhausting, really. I believe I MUST commit to four hours a day of writing. It’s unreasonable. Sometimes we don’t have hours. I build it up, you know, convince myself I am not a real writer unless I have a structured writing schedule and produce 1,000 words a day. And then there’s Pressure which is Perfectionism’s evil cousin. I must finish the story. I must finish the story and it must be the best story I’ve ever written. I must write something meaningful, beautiful, touching. I must finish this novel by May. If I don’t finish it by May, then I’ve failed. Pressure. The stress of it breaks you down and then you Procrastinate. You procrastinate because how can one possible be capable of all this? It’s just too much and the task is too daunting so you empty the dishwasher instead. You do other work, work that could have waited. You call people. Hello, hello, you say, you ask them what they’re doing, what they’re eating, if they’ll come save you from your misery.

We all have walls, you know? We all have our things. Whatever they are, we can’t let them get in the way of our goals. Procrastinating, for me, is draining. William James said: “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” It’s so true. The weight of it in your mind, the project you so badly want to complete, and know you can complete. There’s that blank screen staring at you, a reminder of the undone. And then suddenly you are a big fat failure. You didn’t write today, yesterday, or the day before. It’s too late. Forget it. You’ll never write again. And while all this is highly dramatic, there is one truth: That there are a million ways to lose a work day, but not a single way to get those days back.

I’ve realized these things about myself. I’ve realized those three Ps are going to try and stand in my way. And by realizing it, understanding it, I win half the battle I think. We have good days, bad days. My best friend said this to me over coffee and egg and cheeses the other morning: I am finally able to appreciate the ebbs and flows of life.   I, too, am trying to appreciate, embrace, the ebbs and flows of a writing life. Some days we write well. Other days we just write. And so my ongoing mantra has become this: Ten minutes of writing is something. Bad writing is something. Something is better than nothing.

And it gets easier. Thank goodness. You write for ten minutes and suddenly you’re into it, you’re rolling, going, inspired. You want to write more and realize how easy it is once you just get started.

I also plan to buy a new notebook, something I can carry around with me so I can catch some words on the page during those stolen bits of time.

Writers write. Butt in chair. It’s that simple.

What are your walls? Your things? What keeps you from writing?

“Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change- this is the rhythm of living. Out of our overconfidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.”

 –Bruce Barton

 photo credit: UniverityNinja

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 7:51:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [4] 

You know how they say that sometimes the best thing is to put the work down, put it away, and not think about it for a while? That time will help, that distance from the piece will allow you to see it with clear eyes? This just seems to be the truest thing in the world to me right now. I just looked at a piece I wrote in early December.  I took it out, dusted it off, and read it like a critic. And wow—I was really able to see the holes, the dead ends, the parts that read less genuinely than others. It almost didn’t feel as if it were my own story, but rather a classmate’s, a friend’s. I was merely the reader, the one willing to soak in the story and offer constructive criticism. This was great! The ability to finally be both the writer and the critic. This has never come naturally for me. I wasn’t always able to remove myself, step back, and read with a critic’s eye. I’d latched onto my darlings like you wouldn’t believe. But something has happened. Is it age? Experience? Did I finally heed that old rule, really pay attention to it by allowing ENOUGH time between writing and revising? But how much time really is enough? It seems some people can put work aside for a night, a day, a week, and still revise honestly and ruthlessly. I think I need more time. I need to forget about the work in order to then be surprised by it.

And so what now? Here’s what I noticed about my piece: There was no real present action. No thread strong enough to really drive the story forward. The characters needed more developing. The story begged for more physical description, especially scenic description. Look at me! Here I am, knowing exactly what this story needs. Or, at least, knowing what the first round of revisions entails.  Frank O’Connor said, “I don’t care what the writing’s like [at this stage], any sort of rubbish. It’s the design of the story which is the most important.” This rings so true. Before, I seemed to be taken, wooed, by the first draft, it was my greatest love! The making it up part. The rush of creation. I hated the revision process, the time dedicated to designing the story. I hated putting my critic’s hat on, strategizing how the puzzle fit together. But now I feel differently. I’m excited about the challenge of designing it, locking it together in a way that makes it work.

A professor once recommended we write everything down. That we take detailed notes about every revision choice. Another piece of advice that is finally sticking. Writing it down is essential. It’s like making a list before going to sleep at night—it clears your head, organizes your thoughts, and allows you to move forward.

And now I am off to make those changes: to add the way the sky bled during the sunset, how her skinny arms shook as she bailed out the boat. I will write about the gentle way her father took her hand, about her crooked bangs she cut herself. There needs to be more dialogue. Less flashbacks. I’m excited to cut and add, to take my time with sentences, to slow down and solve this puzzle. This time away has not only made me see more clearly, but it has refreshed the creative well, drummed up some much needed excitement.

How much time away from a piece works best for you? What does it take for you to put on your critic's hat?

“Writing is a kind of free fall that you then go back and edit and shape.” 

-Allan Gurganus

photo credit:Communication Currents

Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:29:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [3] 

I’m so excited to get my hands on author Dani Shapiro’s upcoming memoir, Devotion, which is available next month. The memoir is about her “search for something to believe.” You can watch the book trailer on her website here. I remember reading Shapiro’s first beautifully written memoir, Slow Motion, years ago and just being blown away by it. And her blog, Moments of Being, is one of my favorite author blogs…It always gets me thinking. Every post explores aspects of the writing process and writing life. Recently, she posed this question:

How do we find the quiet space we need in which to write?

I’ve wondered about this myself.  There’s the phone ringing, the dog barking, all those other chores and responsibilities that keep us frazzled. And there’s also the chaos in our minds. Those thoughts that keep us awake at night, the obsessions that unravel us. How do we quiet all this? Make space for new thoughts, creative thoughts?

Here’s an excerpt from Shapiro’s blog:

How do we find the quiet space we need in which to write? By this I don't mean finding rooms of our own. I've written before about rooms of our own, which are important, if not essential. But physical space isn't the whole story. In order to write, by which I don't mean dashing off quick, half-thought-through emails or addressing envelopes, but rather, the process of being led to the page by the words and thoughts themselves, we need quiet inside ourselves. Emotional, psychological, spiritual, mental silence. A snow globe comes to mind; shake it up, watch the flurry of whiteness until finally it's all settled at the bottom and the thing itself--the image, the symbol, the panorama, is clear and visible.

An old professor of mine told us she used to write only on Wednesdays and every Wednesday she would take a bath before she began her process.  The bath, she said, calmed her. And by choosing a specific day to write, she was able to mentally plan for the work ahead of her.  Another teacher of mine said he would lock himself in the smallest place possible, a place with no windows, no view, nothing to distract him from the world inside his head. A good friend writes songs—this relaxes her. Another uses positive affirmations: I will focus on nothing but my writing. The rest can wait. I’ve tried music. Classical. And it helps a bit, it does. Candles are nice, too. You can kind of stare into them, lose yourself, which helps empty the mind. I suppose meditation would work well. Sitting there, even if it’s for ten minutes, and letting one’s thoughts run their course until they’ve tired themselves out and surrendered. Writing outside always seems to clear my head. There is something about nature that relaxes one’s inner dialogue.

And how--as writers--can we possibly know ourselves, be our own best instrument--if we can't hear what's in there, Shapiro says.

Yes, there is a lot in there. We have the capability of creating great art, of making things up, putting things down, developing worlds of fiction (and non-fiction). But if we can’t access that play, those pure thoughts, than our art can suffer.

Deep breaths, my yoga teacher friend always says. Deep breaths.

Perhaps that’s a start?

How do you slow down? How do you quiet your mind?  Read Dani Shapiro’s full post, On the noise in my head, to see how the author copes.

“To have a quiet mind is to possess one's mind wholly; to have a calm spirit is to possess one's self.” –Hamilton Mabie

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 4:34:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0] 

Happy Friday, All. I found some great writing advice and writing reflections in The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction and thought I’d share it with all of you… Enjoy and happy writing!

1.       Edwidge Danticat on finishing…

The biggest obstacle in terms of the writing itself is finding something that keeps you writing and allows you to finish pieces. I was always struggling with that self-doubt about what I was doing, sometimes with the material, sometimes with the process itself. Someone gave me the best advice I’ve ever had. I couldn’t finish anything I had started because they never lived up to what I had in my mind, and this friend said that my writing never matched my vision because the mind is infinite and there are only so many words in any language. Once I settled with that, I could continue to write

2.      Chang-rae Lee on individuality…

Don’t listen to anyone else. Its great to get opinions and advice, but you need to follow the particular private passion and obsession that you have for a story, giving no quarter to anything else. In the end, that’s where writers come up with something unique. That’s why novels still mean something even in this age—they’re distinctive performances, utterly singular and surprising. Follow your passion. Feed your obsessions and in the end that will work best.

3.      Jayne Anne Phillips on language...

It’s the same process no matter what I’m working on. I work according to language. I work starting with language, so that my process is simply to work my way into the next sentence. Sustaining the voice of a book is level one, where I have to stay to move forward. I work very slowly, until I find my way into the middle of the book and I know what to write next by reading what I’ve already written until I know where to go next.

4.      Lynn Freed on place...

When the writing comes properly, the place is there, available to me. If I have to strain to know a place, I’m in the wrong fiction. I’m always saying to students that one must colonize the territory of the fiction. It is the only metaphor that seems to carry with it the presumptuousness of fiction, the sense of making a place one’s own. In this case, I mean it literally. One has to make it one’s own, so that, in a way, it is more than real; it is assumed.

5.      Joyce Thompson on beginning...

After you have the kernel of a book in mind, hold off starting to write it as long as you can, until you absolutely can’t wait any longer. All the time you’re not writing, your subconscious is writing anyway, so when you actually do start, you know a good deal more of the story than you imagined.

 ***

Friday, January 15, 2010 7:33:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [2] 

I’ve struggled with the AM I GETTING WORSE complex as many of you know… I mean, you want to think you’re getting better. Don’t most writers look back at their earlier works and shake their heads with wonder at how much they’ve grown? You know, you do all the right things: You put in more time. Work harder. Work better. You rely less on style, on showing off. Care more about being truthful, honest. You care more about your characters-- they become real, specific people, people you could pick out of a crowd, not easily drawn archetypes. 

I said to one of my writer friends once that I wondered if a good barometer, a good indicator that we were getting better was acceptance into a literary journal or magazine. Finally someone else saying yes, you’re there, you’re ready, you’re work is good enough. I don’t know about that anymore. Is that really the best measurement? You’ll publish when you’re ready, people always say. When the work is ready.  Perhaps this is true.  But what about in the meantime? What if we’re not submitting to journals yet? What if we’re not interested in publication at this point? What are the indicators that we’re getting better?

Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days, offers these signs that one is improving. Do you agree with them? I suppose if we must measure our writing, some of these indicators are, if nothing else, a sign that we’re headed in the right direction, aware of the process, improving.

A checklist to measure your writing progress:

·         Your verbs are lively and diverse

·         You write with fewer clichés

·         Your sentences vary in length and structure

·         Your writing is truthful and honest. You don’t hold back

·         You don’t overwrite, nor are you stingy with words

·         You’ve eliminated generalities; you write in specifics

·         Your images are fresh

·         Adverbs have all but disappeared from your writing

·         You don’t pull all your punches

I definitely believe some of these indicators are signs of strong prose work. The one that resonates with me most is: You don’t pull all your punches. Again, this goes back to the idea of writing with truth in mind, not writing with the need to impress a teacher or classmate, to show off one’s prose prowess.  I think this feat is easier said than done. It’s not easy digging to the truth. Sometimes we tend to skim the surface, stay safe, rely on our one-two punch. But I’m losing track here. The idea is assessment. How possible it is? One of my writing school friends received an A- in her workshop class. When she emailed the professor for an explanation he said: “I reserve my A’s for the most brilliant writers.” What does that mean exactly? This was only one man’s opinion of brilliance. Was my friend really not an A writer?  

Writing is a subjective process. A wildly subjective process. Reeve’s above indicators feel more like general reminders to me. I’ll take them whenever offered.  But perhaps the one true barometer of greatness is the reaction your work evokes.  And it will not, will never evoke the same reaction in every person. This is why remaining true to one’s vision is so darn important.There’s this quote, I can’t quite remember it exactly, but it’s something like this: Write for everyone else and no one will like it, but write for yourself and many people will love it. It’s about singular, honest work. People connect to authenticity. Does someone feel something when they finish reading your piece? You can break many of the above rules and still create a magical world on the page. I guess when it comes to good writing you just know it when you read it. You lose track of time, your heart beats faster, you might even tear up. You nod and say yes, yes! because you just know the words have been placed so perfectly on the page. They were meant to be. They couldn’t possibly be any other way.

“In good writing, words become one with things.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9:12:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [1]