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Category: On Writing
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Writers on Writing: Thaisa Frank
This week, Yuvi Zalkow interviewed Thaisa Frank for The Rumpus. They met at the bar of the Hotel Rex, where Frank, author most recently of Enchantment, talked about where stories come from, among other things. I’ve long admired Frank, beginning with her story collection A Brief History of Camouflage, have often taught her work in creative writing classes, and in recent years have been honored to get to know her.
In the intro, Zalkow says that the interview itself felt a bit like being inside a Thaisa Frank story. If you’ve read her work, you’ll have a vague and disturbing sense of what that means. When stepping into a Thaisa Frank story, it’s almost impossible not to feel displaced, as if you’ve walked into a dark, empty bar and have brought none of the right equipment, not to mention the right frame of mind, to encounter whatever it is you’re about to encounter. When I first came across her stories in a San Francisco bookshop fifteen years ago, I felt as though I’d fallen through the rabbit hole. The stories in Enchantment, magical in every way, unexpected at every turn, seem to come from a different universe.
Read on for some of the highlights from the interview, which you’ll find in its entirety on The Rumpus.
On where stories come from:
I often feel there’s a triggering event that makes me want to start a story. There is a title often, but the title contains the stuff of the story. The title is like a packed piñata, even if it’s made of iron and I have to beat it and beat it for the stuff to come out.
On what happens when the story turns out not to be anything like the story you intended to write:
And it’s the failure of the intended story that usually guarantees, if not success, then the forward motion of the final story.
On surrealism:
Old-fashioned surrealism is where you take one or two extraordinary things and have them in a world that obeys all the laws of reality…I’m also very interested in classic surrealism, where you take one thing that really couldn’t happen —like how Kafka took a guy and turned him into a bug—but after that, everything proceeds pretty logically.
On what’s missing from the teaching of fiction
…one of the things we don’t have in teaching fiction is a true poetics of fiction—a way of talking about fiction without getting tangled up in the content.
Read the Rumpus interview with Thaisa Frank. Visit Thaisa Frank’s website. Visit Yuvi Zalkow’s website.
Writers: Submit your work to the Fiction Attic Press First Novel Contest.
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Novella Writing – a Map for Getting Started
The first thing you need to know about writing a novel is that there are no easy answers. There’s no magic formula for novel-writing. Every novel demands its own structure, its own pace, its own way of looking at the world.
Still with me? Good. Because, as it turns out, novel writing isn’t just a head-banging exercise in utter frustration and despair (although, trust me, sometimes it is just that). It’s also a deep swim into your own head space, a really fun adventure, and one of the most thrillingly creative things a person can do. It’s your world; you get to make it, populate it, cultivate it, and bring all of the pieces together.
If you’re ready to take on the challenge of writing a novel, continue reading for 10 steps to get your started.
1. Consider the setting.
Setting encompasses not only place, but also time. Where does your novel happen, and when?2. Consider the point of view.
Who is telling the story, from what distance? Do you have a first-person narrator who is at the center of the action, an omniscient narrator who is able to go into the thoughts of any character at any time, a limited third person narration that sticks closely to one character? (more…) -
Writers on Writing: Elizabeth Black (or Why You Need an Agent)
I’m currently reading a wonderful novel, Elizabeth Black’s The Drowning House. It’s a debut novel that will be published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in January. I received the book from the publisher a few days ago and, since the moment I opened it, I’ve had a difficult time putting it down.
The novel is set in Galveston, Texas. I’ve never been to Galveston, but the setting nevertheless feels eerily familiar. I’m from Alabama’s Gulf Coast, and Black skillfully evokes the heat, humidity, and the languid desire to do nothing that pervades Gulf Coast life. The Drowning House is a mystery that works on several levels, and it’s also a beautifully realized story about grief. The narrator, a photographer, has returned home to Galveston after the death of her young daughter to do research for an exhibition. She finds herself drawn into the circle of an old family friend who is also the town’s wealthiest citizen, and is compelled to ask questions that no one in this closed-off community wants to answer.
Elizabeth Black’s post about her own road to publication, which began at the Writers League of Texas Agents Conference, serves as a great primer on how to meet an agent, and why it’s so important to have one. It’s also a very realistic account of the long slog to publication.
We spent almost two years making revisions to The Drowning House, beginning with some larger changes (like eliminating a plot line to allow other key elements to emerge) and proceeding through two line edits. I’m a single mother with a full-time job, and my older daughter was married last fall, so it was a busy time for me.
A good agent doesn’t just act as a middleman between writer and publisher. A good agent helps you make the book the best it can be before putting it in the right hands. A good agent knows what editor might be on the lookout for a book like yours, and her relationships with publishers are invaluable. A good agent will help you get through the tough times when it seems as though the book might never be published. Without my agent, whom I trust implicitly and who has been a tremendously savvy advocate for my work, I’d be utterly adrift in the publishing world.
Of course, anyone can forgo the agent and publishing house these days and upload a book to Smashwords, Kindle, Nook, or iTunes. But the reality is that a self-published book simply doesn’t have the same level of editorial vetting as a book that goes the traditional route; nor does it have the all-important marketing that, in many cases, can make a book. One crucial element of marketing is the distribution of the ARC (advanced reading copies) not only to reviewers and booksellers, but also to other authors, with a request that they read the book and, if they like it, offer a cover quote. Self-published books rarely, if ever, get reviewed in The New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle, and very few will ever have the advantage of the booksellers’ interest pre-publication. The Drowning House came to me unsolicited, and I’ve never met the author; but because it came from an imprint I respect, and because it came in paperback (not as lines of text on an e-reader), I opened it and began reading. And I kept reading, and I imagine I’ll finish it tonight. It’s a terrific novel, and I suspect there are a number of other potential supporters feeling the same way I’m feeling about this book right now. The fact that the book will likely hit the stands with rave reviews, and that it will be available in brick-and-mortar bookstores, where huge numbers of readers still go to browse and buy the booksellers’ recommended reads, will give it a far better chance of success than most self-published novels ever have.
So, if you’re really serious about your novel, before you slap it up on Amazon and leave it to swim with the sharks, consider what you might be missing. Consider the readers you might lose by not giving your book a chance it deserves.
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How to Submit a Story for Publication
So you’ve written a story, revised it, and are ready to send it out. Here are a few tips for submitting your stories for publication to literary journals and other magazines.
• Until recently, submitting to literary journals meant buying loads of stamps, weighing your manila envelopes at the post office, and including self-addressed, stamped envelopes. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Most literary magazines have an online submission form, and most prefer online submissions to hard copies.
• If the literary magazine asks for a cover letter with your submission, make it brief. Your letter should mention where you’ve published in the past, and should include a very short bio. Your cover letter should NOT explain or praise the story. That is very bad form, and will likely result in your story being deleted before it is even read.
• Do submit to more than one place at once. Five is a good number to start with.
• Never send a publication a second story before the editors have responded to the first.
• Never call to check on the progress of your submission.
• Shorter stories (8-15 pages) are more likely to be accepted than very long stories.
• Always double-space your story, use one-inch margins, and indent every paragraph!
Here are some of the best online resources for anyone looking to submit fiction:
Newpages.com—litmags, publishers, and book reviewswww.webdelsol.com–Contains many useful links to literary magazines and resources for writers.
Mid-American Review–Contains useful links under “Writer’s Tools” link.
www.zuzu.com–Same concept as Webdelsol, but with even more links to literary magazines and e-zines
More great resources to check out before you submit:
• Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books)–This is probably the best; it covers many of the better publications with detailed descriptions of tastes, editorial guidelines, payment, and rights.• Pushcart Prize Anthology (Pushcart Press)–Annual anthology of the best of literary magazines and presses selected by editors themselves; you’ll not only find fiction in here, but a list addresses of prize-winning magazines and presses.
For current publishing opportunities, check out the Writer’s Chronicle, published by the Associated Writing Programs (www.awpwriter.org) and Poets and Writers Magazine (my personal favorite), which has upcoming deadlines for literary contests, as well as calls for submissions. Go to www.pw.org
Some of my favorite literary magazines:
Glimmer Train Fourteen Hills The Sun
Other Voices Alaska Quarterly Review Mid-American Review
Ploughshares Granta Boulevard
Story Quarterly Quick Fiction Online:
CutBank South Carolina Review Nerve (sexy stuff only)
Missouri Review Bellevue Literary Review Blackbird
Mississippi Review Gulf Coast Identity Theory
North Dakota Quarterly Sycamore Review Exquisite CorpseAny publication is a big boon and a definite validation of your talent, but here are the magazines that can really jump-start a career: The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Zoetrope, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review. It never hurts to send to these guys as long as you’re sending out a bulk submission. All of them except McSweeney’s & The Paris Review publish mainly agented material, but occasionally a non-agented submissions will make it into the magazine..
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How to Start a Story
One of the questions I hear frequently from aspiring writers is, “How do I start a story?” Even seasoned writers have days when the story won’t come. Talking to a reporter for Interview Magazine in 1995, Martin Amis said of novel-writing, “If I come up against a brick wall, I’ll just go and play snooker or something or sleep on it, and my subconscious will fix it for me.” Good advice, for sure. But if snooker and the subconscious don’t do it for you, here are a few tips to get you going.- You can begin “in medias res,” or in the middle of the action. When you’re telling a friend a story, you rarely begin with, “I was born in such-and-such hospital in such-and-such city.” Rather, you jump forward to the exciting part, the middle of the action of your own life. “I was standing in front of the old movie theater on Amsterdam Avenue when…”
- You can begin with a character in a strange or tense situation (Gregor Samsa wakes up as a cockroach in “The Metamorphosis”, Mersault is on trial for murder in “The Stranger”).
- You can begin with a line or two that describes the setting, then move on to who is in the setting, and why. (more…)
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Creative Fidgeting
courtesy of WFMU An article by Roland Rotz, Ph.D., in ADDitude Magazine this month claims you shouldn’t fight the fidget, especially when it comes to children with ADHD:
Doing two things at once, it turns out, can actually help focus the ADHD brain on a primary task.
Experts believe that engaging in an activity that uses a sense other than what’s required for your primary task — listening to music while reading a social studies textbook, for example — can enhance focus and improve performance in children with attention deficit disorder. These secondary tasks are called fidgets — mindless activities you can do while working on a primary task.
Rotz recommends walking, moving around, doodling, using multicolored pens and pencils, keeping your hands busy, listening to music, and chewing gum.
I think anyone–with or without ADHD–can benefit from a bit of creative fidgeting. When I’m stuck in a novel I’m writing, it always helps to get up and move around. When we lived in the Outer Richmond in San Francisco, I used to take long walks on Ocean Beach (well, yes, that does sound like a personal ad, but I did!), and I never came home from one of those walks without a few paragraphs in my head. Something about the zen aspect of moving with no invited noise–I never wear headphones when I walk, so the noise was that of the waves and water, and the hum of traffic on the Great Highway–intensified my focus, such that I would write in my mind as I walked, repeating the sentences in order to memorize them.
I say “invited noise” because, while noise is inescapable, we don’t have to invite it in. Turning off the headphones when you’re running or walking, or turning off the TV when you’re on the treadmill, or turning off the radio in the car, is a way of keeping the endless, not-so-ambiant noise at bay. Of course, one of the fidgeting activities recommended in the ATTitude article is listening to music–so it really depends on the person. My husband always listens to music when he’s writing or reading, and it works for him, but anything with words completely stumps me, because the words crowd out the ones I’m trying to write down. That’s why I can’t write in cafes, which is a method some of my writer friends swear by.
Think about your own creative process. Are there any kinds of fidgeting you do that bring you focus?
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Writers on Writing: Kathryn Stockett’s tale of never giving up, despite rejection
More Magazine features an essay by Kathryn Stockett, author of the wildly successful novel The Help, now a wildly successful film. It’s an old story, but worth repeating: novelist gets a zillion rejections, or 60, to be more precise, before finally landing an agent, a publisher, and a long-running spot at the top of just about every bestseller list you can imagine.Stockett’s advice for writers and anyone else who keeps hitting a brick wall? “Give in to your obsession.”
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In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help. But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books.
For Stockett, 61 was the magic number. With The Year of Fog, my magic number wasn’t far behind. I like to believe that every good book has a magic number, that books will find their way into the hands of a receptive agent and editor given enough time and persistence. For me, the agent was Valerie Borchardt, and the editor was Caitlin Alexander, and I consider my book very fortunate to have fallen into their hands.
So if you have a book that keeps coming back with a form letter that says, “Unfortunately, this book is not quite right for us,” don’t give up. Envision in your mind a magic number. You don’t know it yet. No one does. It could be twenty rejections from now, or forty. Or it could be just one.
Related: What if the only thing standing between you and publication is a great revision? Visit the Book Doctor now. -
What writers can learn from late, great music man John Carter
In July’s obit section, WORD magazine remembers John Carter, songwriter, producer, and A&R man extraordinaire, who “was instrumental in the careers of and a passionate supporter of Bob Seger, The Motels, Sammy Hagar, Melissa Etheridge, Tori Amos, David and David, and … Tina Turner.”WORD quotes an interview for industry website Taxi, in which Carter said that “the one thing he had learned was that over 70 percent of hit records have titles containing nouns.”
All kinds of songs become successful, and therefore can be held up as examples to encourage someone that what they’re doing is right, but I think, in general, it’s an English lesson. Lyrics are important It’s about a story. It’s about a great title. The title should have a big noun in it. Some of the best songs are even proper nouns. Nouns, baby, nouns!”
If you think about it, the same principle applies to good writing of any kind. One, “it’s about a story.” And two, it’s specific: proper nouns are nothing if not specific. It’s the very old, very true creative writing 101 lesson: you get to the universal by way of the personal. You reach many by focusing on the struggle of one. It’s easy to find great books with a proper noun in the title:
Ulysses
Lolita
Portnoy’s Complaint
The Great Gatsby
Jane Eyre
Madame BovaryOkay, you get the picture. Of course, this is not to say it has to be a proper noun. I can think of equally exciting books that have only improper nouns (I don’t think that’s a thing, really, but I like the sound of it) in the title.
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Bluest Eye
Things Fall Apart (what can be less specific than things?)
Brave New WorldYou’ll note, however, that all of the books in the latter category get very specific very quickly, with characters whose personal and unique struggles have a universal quality. Scout moves us not because she’s archetypal, but because she is a very specific child at a very specific time and place, engaged in a universal struggle played out in the tragedy of one man and one town.
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Writers on Writing: And All the Ships At Sea
I wanted to share an interesting email I received last week from a reader:
I’m a Marine stationed over at Camp Pendleton in California. While I was on deployment, I found The Year Of Fog in the small ship library…I was a part of an expeditionary unit sitting off the coast of Burma last year after their country was ravaged by a natural disaster. I mean this in the greatest sincerity when I say that reading and finishing your story was truly all I looked forward to the 2 months I spent sitting on a ship, counting the days until I could come home. I’m not sure what it was, but I found myself very sympathetic and attached to the main character. I almost wish the story hadn’t ended. Or at least had ended the way I was expecting. Again, thank you for your story.
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Writers on Writing: Joshilyn Jackson, in the carpool lane
Roxanne Ravenel over at All Things Girl conducted a wonderful two-part interview with Joshilyn Jackson, whose new novel, Backseat Saints, will surely satisfy her fans and earn her many new ones. Joshilyn talks about her love-hate relationship with the South (“I am truly happy nowhere else, and yet I am angry with it, so I don’t imagine I am finished writing about it”), what she reads, and why she thinks writing groups are a good idea, among other things.
My favorite bit of the interview involves Joshilyn’s writing process (or lack thereof). This pretty much sums my process up, too, sans ballet (my boy is more into ninjas).
Oh Lord, I wish I had a process. It would be so much more efficient. I write on three different computers and mail the updated files to my g-mail account to download the latest every time I switch. I write at home in bed on my ancient craptoposaurus, at home in my office on my desktop, and I drag my little netbook everywhere to write in coffee shops and carpool lines and while waiting on a folding chair for my youngest to finish her ballet lesson. I do not have set working hours, either. I write in seizures, disappearing to borrowed vacation homes, off season, to draft twenty thousand words in four days, and then I don’t open a single file again for two weeks, then I’ll be up at three am for nine days in a row, revising. It’s a ridiculous, stupid way to work, and I cannot recommend it. It’s also the only way that works for me.
