Holding it together

I'm hearing voices again. Only now do I realize that I'm hearing too many different voices.

In retrospect, it's obvious. How could I have not noticed it? I very consciously choose to have characters speak in their own voices. If a character is a kid, he should talk like a kid, not like a literature professor. I don't think anyone would argue that point.

What's easier to forget, though, is that the prose surrounding that characters will look uncomfortable out of place if it looks like it was written by a literature professor. The whole work needs some cohesion. Obvious, right? It is once you look at it. It's very easy to miss if you're comfortable with a particular style of prose. You may not even notice that you're doing it; I didn't.

I tend toward a more formal style of writing, coming from an engineering background. But, that can clash with "folksy" character dialog. I was so focused on making sure the characters were consistent within themselves I completely ignored the prose style. Oops.

Consistency needs to be an all-around theme. All the parts needs to hang together as a whole. It's so obvious it's embarrassingly easy to overlook.

Enough is Enough!

The end is nigh! All that can be said has been said, and any more will just prolong the agony. It's time to accept it.

No, the world isn't coming to an untimely demise. At least, not the whole world. For one little piece of it, though, the piece that exists in that in-progress story, there comes a point you have to put down the pen and walk away.The question is, when?

Not everyone is going to like every aspect of your work. Maybe that's a good thing. If something is 100% accessible, how much did you have to compromise to make it that way? Some readers may have trouble swallowing some of the things you're feeding them. Is that because it's bad or because it doesn't suit their tastes? I know people who put ketchup on hot dogs. Need I say more? So, how do you tell if it's wrong, or wrong for a particular reader? It's a tough call, and one I struggle to answer.

Read, rinse, repeat

My eyes are on fire and my brain is filled with fish.

Trying to put together a final draft isn't as easy as it looks. How many times can you read, and re-read the same fish story before you just don't see it any longer. I think I'm happy with the tone of the story at this point, though I'm sure that I could tweak it constantly for years. I think I found the last of the technical glitches: a misused word that a spell checker or grammar checker would never catch.

Let that last be a lesson: spell checkers and grammar checkers are not foolproof. They will choke on perfectly good sentences and let nonsense pass.

It's good to have someone you know and trust look over your manuscript. Hearing that readers like your work after it has been published is wonderful. Hearing everything that's wrong with it before it's been published is also wonderful. You don't have to agree with everything your friend/editor says, but it's good to hear it regardless. It might point out some things you've missed.

A little help from my friends

Shut up and listen to the voices in your head. That is, of course, assuming that the voices are those of your characters and not something telling you do go out and do unspeakable things.

Getting stuck in a story is frightening. I was in the middle of writing a short story and I found myself with two gaping holes in it. One was explaining the basic premise. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn't make it work. The other was the beginning of the end. I had the very ending nailed down, as well and the driving events that lead toward it, but I couldn't tie the two together. It was driving me nuts.

Then a voice spoke up.

"Let me tell it," it said.

"You're not in the story," I replied.

"But if I was in the story, I could say all the things that you're thinking are problems, and that the readers will think are problems, so they'll know what's going on. Oh, and I can be the one who leads everyone to the ending for you. You just have to put me in."

He was right. I needed him in there. Once I added him in, everything made sense.

Sometimes, our characters are smarter than we are. Listen to them.

Here I am, stuck in the middle...

How do you build a bridge without falling into the river and drowning? How to you make sure both ends meet in the middle? Apparently, writing has more than a few things in common with engineering.

I'm not the kind of storyteller that sets a scene and sees where it takes him. I like to start at the end. It's important I know where the story is heading, what kind of resolution I want, and work toward that ending. Maybe that's the software engineer in me speaking. You always need to know what the program is supposed to do, then figure out how to make that happen.

Outlining an ending isn't hard for me. Finding a starting point is a little harder, but still not too bad. That middle chunk, though... When you know where you want to end, and you have an idea how you want to start, the work is figuring out how to build the bridge between the two, and not fall in the river doing it. It's scary up here. Does anyone have a parachute and a life preserver I can borrow?

A view askew

I should have been ready for this, and I'm more surprised that I wasn't than I am that it happened: Writing changes how you see the world. This should have been obvious to me since I've dabbled in photography since I was a kid and the same holds true there. In photography, there comes a point when you don't just look at things anymore: You start to frame them; You think about the lighting; You think about composition. Everything becomes a potential photograph in your eye. What's more, you never really go back to how it was before. Once your perception shifts, it's there for good.

Writing does the same thing to you. Take a walk and look at things happening around you. There will come a time when you no longer simply look at and dismiss them. You start describing them in your mind. You look at two people sitting on opposite sides of a park bench and you wonder about them. Perhaps they're strangers, sitting far apart because they're uncomfortable with an unknown person near them. That might seem plain and boring at first, but you dig deeper. Maybe one of them is looking for someone to speak with, anyone at all, but is afraid to open a conversation. It gets more interesting. Why does he need to talk? What is his story? Did something bad happen to him? Did he do something wrong and needs to confess it? How will the other person react if and when he's told?

Where once you'd see two people sitting and avoiding each other without giving them a passing thought, now you see possibilities. Everything becomes a story, and you want to know that story. You can discover their stories, or create ones for them. Either way, you won't walk past that bench any longer without seeing a story there. You've crossed over, and there's no going back.

Taking the first steps

It may seem obvious, but the first step in writing is to write. Write anything. I've heard it said, and found it true, that writing is like water seeping through a crack. Sometimes it flows, sometimes it gets plugged up for a time, but so long as the water flows, the crack will get wider and the water will flow more freely. A journal is a great way to write each day, even if it's nonsense you will never let anyone read. Maintaining a blog is another. Your imagination is your only limit.

The next step: reading. I've always been an avid reader, but now more than ever I'm trying to read anything I can get my hands on. The more you read, the more you begin to understand voices, structure, and the written word. Oral conversation is not a substitute.

And so, it begins...

It started with the closing of a web site. A friend was shutting down the site she had been maintaining, and had asked my help in writing a farewell note to the users. It went over well: very well. Suddenly, I'm getting people encouraging me to write more.

I've always loved words. As often as not I'll read something, not for the content, but for the way it was written. Beautiful writing captivates me, though sadly it's becoming a lost art, with email and blogging (guilty!) filling the world with whatever passes for language today. Maybe well written material isn't necessarily more scarce than in the past, but it does get lost in the noise.

My love of words has always inspired me to try and be more creative in anything I write, which until recently has mostly been technical design documents and a journal. Granted, they were design documents filled with more humor and imagery than might be typical, but sometimes you just need to let the demon loose. I had never truly considered writing anything for publication.

Until those encouraging words got me to thinking: Judging by what you can find in any bookstore, a lot of other people are writing. Some of it is very good, and much of it...isn't to my liking. Why not toss my hat into the ring as well? What have I to lose.

This, then, is the chronicle of an engineer who wants to be a writer. Check that. This is the chronicle of an engineer who wants to write professionally. I am already a writer. I write constantly, and cannot not write. Now we find out of anyone wants to read what I write. It should be an interesting journey.