Rob Bignell's Blog, page 370

Northwind Book and Fiber in
Spooner, Wis., is carrying my recent book, Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin. Headin’ to the Cabin describes more than a 100 day hiking trails in Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Polk, St. Croix, Sawyer and Washburn counties, including more than two dozen in the Spooner area. An independently owned bookstore, Northwind Book and Fiber features titles by local authors and on local subjects, as well as locally made art and jewelry. The bookstore is located at 205 Walnut St. in Spooner.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

The St. Paul (Minn.)

Pioneer Press ran an article about my recent book, Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin in Wednesday’s edition. Headin’ to the Cabin describes more than a 100 day hiking trails in Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Polk, St. Croix, Sawyer and Washburn counties. Of the book, the Pioneer Press wrote, “Instead of focusing on the more popular backcountry trails, he decided to find good trails that would be easily accessible from people’s cabins throughout the area.” The article appears on page A5 or can be read online.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

You’d think
someone with a college education would know whether or not to use an apostrophe, but apparently they don’t teach this anymore.



The professor says use an apostrophe. Why you ask, o seeker of knowledge? Because bachelor has two meanings: An unmarried man and someone (male or female) who has earned a college degree. Since the degree is owned by this graduate, an apostrophe is needed to show possession.

One more thing: Lowercase bachelor unless giving the name of a specific degree. So you can have a bachelor’s degree or a Bachelor of Arts Degree.



Bonus for advanced students seeking additional coursework: The same rules apply for masters degree vs. master’s degree.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

When writing
any story, your goal ought to be to create and maintain a fictional dream, or an “illusion that there is no filter between reader and events that the reader is actually experiencing what he is reading,” as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. defines it.



For the reader, one of the joys of literature is to be immersed in the fictional dream. As a writer, there may be no greater disservice to your reader than to break this illusion. As science fiction author and editor Stanley Schmidt once wrote, “Your job as a writer is to make your reader forget that he or she is reading …”



The stronger the fictional dream, the more immediate the story and its characters are to the reader. The payoff for the author is that his story’s message will stick longer with the reader – never mind that the author’s stature (and sales) correspondingly will rise.



Readers pick up a novel or turn to a short story in a magazine ready to enter a fictional dream. Like a football team that can score at will over an opponent, the author gives away the victory when he repeatedly fumbles.



To maintain the fictional dream, avoid committing these errors when writing:

n Pointless digressions - The reader expects that every sentence will move the story forward. Taking a side trip that serves no purpose in the tale delays this forward momentum, which should only increase until the story reaches its climax.

n Expository lumps - Explanations of procedures, how devices operate and future history often run too long and again break the story’s forward momentum. The best way to explain something is to show it in action and have characters give brief, partial hints so readers through their own thinking can figure out it out for themselves.

n Lists - Even worse than a lump is a list. The items in the list usually are superfluous to the story. If they aren’t, then their importance ought to be incorporated into the action.

n Turgid prose - Bombastic or pompous phrasing sounds unnatural. Authors should write as if holding a conversation with the reader, not lecturing and talking down to him.

n Unrealistic characters - If a character appears false, then the reader won’t identify with him or will find his actions unbelievable. Premise with holes in it – Stories make arguments and draw conclusions. If the argument is satisfactorily supported or steps skipped to reach a conclusion, the reader will questions about the story rather than enjoy it.

n Shifts in viewpoint - Changing the perspective from which a story is told can be jarring to the reader.

n Telling rather than showing - By telling what happens, as if giving stage directions, the reader is distanced from the action and the characters.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Sometimes the
real pleasure of writing – and reading - isn’t about a well-crafted tale with a fast-moving plot involving intriguing characters set in a well-described landscape. After all, penning such a story entails a lot of sweat, and for readers, they expect nothing less than a well-developed piece. Instead, the real smile comes when the author leaves a special treats for the reader, such as hiding some surprise not germane to the story. These surprises are called “Easter eggs”, a term science fiction writing workshops have borrowed from the jargon of computer programming.



For example, an author might encode, with the first letters of consecutive sentences, some message to the reader. In other instances, the author may use obscure allusions, such as what James Lecky does in his recently published “The Season Without Sun”. In the Lecky’s story, the antagonists are a people called the “Dajzyn” - the Tuva word for “enemy.” Tuva is a Russian republic on the central steppes of Asia, which one theory posits is where homo sapiens came from when moving into Ice Age Europe, the apparent setting of this story.



The pleasure for the author is akin to being part of an inside joke. The pleasure for the reader comes in possessing a deeper understanding of the piece – or at least in knowing that he’s one of the few who got the inside joke! It strengthens the bond between writer and reader.



If placing an Easter egg into your story, remember that it usually is hidden deep within the text. It shouldn’t disrupt the narrative’s flow. After all, the Easter egg often is superfluous to the story. In addition, don’t sacrifice time crafting and polishing the story to hide an Easter egg. The reason a reader opts to look at your story is to enjoy a quality tale. The Easter egg is just a fun surprise.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

You’ve probably
read at least one story in which upon reading their climax in which the hero uses some object to help him achieve victory, thought to yourself, “How convenient that it was there!” If the object in question wasn’t mentioned – even in passing so that it did not distract you from the tale – you feel cheated as a reader.



Mentioning early in a story some object – or even a character, prize or challenge – that later helps the main character resolve his central problem is a ploy known as “Chekhov’s gun”. It comes from playwright Anton Chekhov’s advice that if you put a gun on the in Act I, you must use it by Act III. Otherwise, the gun is just a distraction that is out of place.



Of course, if your story is a murder mystery, such distractions are necessary to the plot and enjoyment of the story. Like a labyrinth, a mystery’s plot must contain wrong turns and dead ends for the main character.



But in tales that aren’t murder mysteries or detective stories, forcing the reader to invest time in an object or character that doesn’t offer some plot payoff later in the tale is downright annoying, not to mention poor craftsmanship.



Using Chekhov’s gun also avoids the inconvenient plot problem of a deus ex machine – an improbable contrivance that allows the central problem to be solved.



H.G. Wells uses such a strategy in “The War of the Worlds”. In the novel’s opening lines, he writes:



No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.



Bacteria seen under a microscope aren’t mentioned again in the novel until the story’s climax: As humanity appears doomed to defeat, bacteria infects and kills the Martian invaders, saving us from extinction.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Most published
writers agree that inspiration is overrated. After all, inspiration can generate a story idea or a character or even a scene, but it rarely generates a whole story.



Once a story idea has sprung from your head, you must grow and nurture it. This typically means outlining it.



Some writers prefer to just get words on a page rather than outlining. That may work for some, but for most of us, it’ll result in a disjointed story that’s missing elements. It’s certainly imperative for a novel and definitely a good idea for a short story.



An outline forces you to think deeply about your story in advance of writing it. Rather than penning passages that must be tossed because they don’t fit well into the final story, you can get that first draft closer to publishable form by working out exactly what you want to write. You can ensure the plot will flow logically from opening line through climax, can sketch out characters so that you know them better, can settle on the best point of view all in advance of writing that first line.



In many ways, the outline is like an instruction book for your story. It helps you feed the story with just the right nutrients and to ensure it receives the correct amount of sunlight. You know what you’re aiming for even before you sit down at the keyboard.



As with anything, a writer can misuse the outline by overrelying on it. Just because your outline says to write something doesn’t mean you have to, especially if it will result in a week story. Once you start drafting the story (the next step in the writing process), always remain flexible by considering the possibility that your outline contains flaws. After all, as you continue to think about your story, you may come up with better ideas than when you were outlining.



A side note: There’s no right or wrong way to outline. You can use 3x5 note cards. You can write a complex beat-by-beat or even line-by-line plan. You can make a quick flow chart. Do whatever helps you best organize your thoughts.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

All too
often as writers we wait for “inspiration” to strike. Certainly it does flash, and when it does, the story almost always is a great idea. The problem, however, is in seeing that idea through to its completion, which is a story in a magazine or a novel on the shelf.



To get there, you’ll need some good writing habits.



The good news is that there’s really only one good writing habit: You must write constantly.



Having a good idea means little if you don’t follow through with the writing, after all. But even more importantly, the quality of this writing during the follow-through will be poor if you have not developed the skills and acumen that come with regular writing. Think of it this way: You can’t run a marathon without doing lots of small, conditioning runs.



So how do you develop the self-discipline to write?

g Write daily – Somehow you must set aside at least a half-hour but preferably an hour or longer, to do nothing but write. Don’t worry about the quality; it will vary from day to day, but ultimately over time it will improve.

g Warm up – Many writers start their writing session start by reading or revising the previous day’s work, a sort of warm-up, and then picking up from there. This also helps ensure consistency in the story if the focus of your writing is a longer work, such as a novel.

g Work from an outline – Some writers develop outlines that are so detailed that writing the notes in a complete sentence is all that’s left to put the story in written form. Of course, others prefer to write with no outline or notes, as if they are channeling their story but most writers are somewhere in between, sometimes planning out scenes beat by beat other times seized by inspiration and writing a whole scene on the blank page with preconceived notion in their heads. Regardless of your preferred style, the goal ought to be to do enough planning that eventually inspiration sizes you.

g Don’t edit – During your writing sessions, save hard-core editing and rewriting (as well as the chore of sending out manuscripts) for later. While you might start by reading the previous day’s writing, don’t get bogged down rewriting it. Just do some quick proofreading and move on.



You always should use a writing strategy that’s best for you, but always remember one thing: You MUST write. New copy must flow onto the paper or computer screen daily.



As science fiction writer Robert Silverberg wrote, “The process of becoming a writer involves discovering how to use the accumulated wisdom of our guild, all those tricks of the storytelling trade that have evolved around the campfire over the past five or ten or fifty thousand years. Others can show what those tricks are. But only you can make a writer out of yourself, by reading, by studying what you have read, and above all by writing.”



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

A long-time
editing client of mine, Lasher Lane, has published her first novel. “Deadlight” tells the story of a young man who keeps encountering the ghost of a classmate who died after jumping from a bridge on a dare. And as with his deceased classmate, all of his friends metaphorically are disappearing, too, as they head off in their own directions – to college in the big city, to the California hippie scene, and to the war in Vietnam. Lasher has published a couple of short stories during the past year as a lead-up to her first book. “Deadlight” is available for sale online.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Three of
my hiking books are now available for purchase at Valley Bookseller in downtown Stillwater, Minn. Valley Bookseller is an independently owned and frequently hosts authors for book readings and signings. My three hiking books stocked there are: Hikes with Tykes: A Practical Guide to Day Hiking with Kids; Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities; and my recently released Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin. Valley Bookseller is located at 217 Main St N.



Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.