Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail

Tuesdays with Story
November 6, 2020

The first word . . .

In an October 1935 article in Esquire ( “Monologue to the Maestro: A High Seas Letter”) Ernest Hemingway offers this advice to a young writer:

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.”

Tuesday evening on Zoom . . .

A fair number of us zoomed in to work through the chapters of six of our colleagues. Here is some of what was said:

— Kashmira Sheth (chapters 16-18, Journey to Swaraj). . . One of the comments was explanation of foreign words. Other concern was to show Mayur’s concerns for Veena’s wellbeing. I will work on those things. Thanks so much. 

— Jaime Nelson Noven (chapter 4, part 1, Outsleep). . . We discussed Vince’s set and how it could use some audience interaction and reactions to help with clarity and tone. It was pointed out that several aspects of Mrs. Haro’s disguise don’t hold water. Larry hopes to see a reveal of why Mrs. Haro is Rice’s favorite patient. Thanks, all!

— Huckle Rahr (chapter 27-28, Wolf Healer). . . This week most people enjoyed the clash between Jade and Candice. That said, I was advised to make it more action, less thinking, a fight is more reaction than contemplation. The other comments were on verb tense, ‘ing’ words and the cyclical nature in which I had put together my chapters.

— John Schneller (chapter 29, Broken rewrite) . . . Several scene clarifications were discussed. Why Kotel stands in the rain, size of the lamb walking alongside, and physical elements of the ironwood tree…all need clarification. The chapter did provide an enjoyable read for most, especially those who like dragons coming back from near death experiences. The closing hook still remains under consideration. Thanks!

— Amber Boudreau (chapters 38-39, Mavis). . . The last two chapters of Amber’s urban fantasy were mostly well-received. Kashmira pointed out that a specific body part of a few different characters keeps getting noticed by the main character. Huckleberry had a problem with how one character could have seen another if they were seated facing away from them and John thought another character was over-effusive in his physical reaction to Mavis and that she would be more freaked out by his hugging her.

— Larry Sommers (chapter 26-28, Dizzy). . . Huckle wondered whether the backhoe in the graveyard would have been yellow in the 1950s; John and Jerry suggested it would be better if Dewey had dug the grave with a hand shovel. Kashmira suggested when Izzy tunes out of the grownups’ financial discussion, he wouldn’t even have been aware of it but just would have followed his own train of thought. Jamie and others felt Izzy’s anxiety over his father’s departure was not handled plausibly. When Izzy gets out of Patch’s car, Jerry suggested that he steps right into snow and ice; Kashmira pointed out he would immediately be on the lookout for Irma. Thanks, everybody!

Who’s up next . . . 

November 17

Kashmira Sheth (chapter, Journey to Swaraj)

Mike Austin (???)

Jack Freiburger (???)

Amit Trivedi (chapter, Keeper of the Keys)

John Schneller (chapter, Broken rewrite)

Jerry Peterson (chapter 13, For Want of a Hand)

Our editor . . .

Larry Sommers is our editor this month. If you have something you’d like to have included in our next issue, do email it to him.

Why bother writing when the world is on fire . . .

Sci-fi author Gareth Powell, in a recent blog post, talks about why we should be writing in this time of turmoil. Here are the first paragraphs:

Fiction is a conversation with itself, with the present and with the future. Even if everything goes wrong and the human race dwindles away to nothing, at least we will have had books. We will have recorded and shared our thoughts and ideas. Our experience of being human in a vast, cool and unsympathetic cosmos. We will have lived, and said to the world, “This is who we were and what we dreamed of and wondered about.”

And then, of course, there’s the possibility our words might inspire others to change our future. Our hopes, empathy, and warnings might galvanise young readers to go into engineering, politics, science, agriculture…

For me, to quit writing would be to give up on life. It would be to admit defeat. Because, after all, who really wants to live in a world without the beauty of books?

As writers or artists, we’re often preoccupied with our work. But sometimes, real world events intrude and leave us feeling unable to summon the energy to be creative, or leave us questioning the value of art in the face of tragedy.

When there’s a disaster or an unfolding crisis on the news, it can sometimes paralyse us. Why am I writing books about spaceships or painting pictures of abstract nudes, you might think, when there’s been an appalling disaster or terrorist attack, or when the economy’s tanking and the threat of global warming seems so pressing and bleak? How can art possibly matter in such a world? What’s the point?

How do we, in short, keep functioning in a crisis?

You need to read Powell’s answer. Here’s the link to his post: https://www.garethlpowell.com/why-bother-writing-when-the-world-is-on-fire/

The world of writing, according to Stephen King . . .

“One of the things I try to do in my books is play fair with all the characters and try to respect them and love them. What I really love to do, and I think I’ve had some success for this, is for readers to feel like they know all the characters. That they’re getting a feel of roundness in the characters, the good stuff, the bad stuff. I want you to care about the people. The good people, I want you to fall in love with. … The bad people, I want you to see why they’re bad.”

— Excerpted from a Stephen King interview that ran in The Washington Post on October 30.

Perspective on Tuesdays With Story, from John Schneller . . .

“I am reminded of the value and attributes of our Tuesdays critique group this week. We have an eclectic group of writers with varied genre interests. We have adverb and adjective killers, comma experts … a wealthy supply of conjunctions that need to find new homes … no shortage of shifters and werewolves, dialogue experts, publication rookies and veterans, fun prose and poetry … but above all else good friends and good readers. We sometimes see things differently due to differing genres. Some folks are quirky, some love hints, some love clarity.”

The last word . . .

“The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful.”

—Ray Bradbury, from “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, 2001