Creative Writing - Phase Four

This time around, we will look at different aspects of writing.

Slang and street talk in dialogue or description. Don’t use it if you don’t know how. Most writer’s that use some form of slang or street dialect already have the knowledge simply because they grew up with it. Each one of us has their own unique way or style of speaking. When writing a short story, or that one day all-important novel, and it can be used, then use it. Just don’t force the language, don’t overdo what doesn’t need used.

In a home, in the office, or any workplace, in normal every day, there is conversation where this one question could be asked: “What do you want?”

But in a street setting, or a couple of guys in a bar over drinks, or over a poker game, the same question could look like this: “Whaddaya want?”

(“Whaddaya want wid me?” -- “What do you want with me?”)

(“Yo, slick, wut up?” -- “Hey Joe, how have you been?”)

Dis = this

Dat = that

Whanot = what not

Daudder = the other

Fuhgeddaboudit = forget about it

Use your language where necessary. Or as often as necessary. Keep the tone the same throughout the story with the character who is speaking. Readers are smart and will catch the differences.

A million people can buy a book, but it only takes one person to ruin your career through word of mouth by recommending not to read the next book you have on the shelves. And it isn’t that they badmouth you as a person, but that you can’t keep things flowing in your writing.

To be a good writer, there are two things you must do. Read a lot. Write a lot.

Another good tip: when writing, omit needless words. Often – less is more.

Research material if your story deals with certain topics you know very little to nothing about but is still integral to your story. A good example is if your main character is an ME (Medical Examiner), and you perform autopsies. You may want to say more than, “I opened his chest, and found the slug from an apparent .45 Colt semi-automatic.” That may read good, but what else may you have found? Perhaps clogged arteries, heart valves clogged? Possibly lung cancer? Or you could say, “The entrance wound suggests he was shot from a downward angle, so I am guessing by the way the bullet entered him believing that.…”

If your thing is westerns, and say you are going to saddle your horse but you have no idea how it is done, research the saddle blanket and how it goes over the horse back, how to grab a saddle (western verses English) and how it is thrown over the animal’s back, bow to cinch the saddle (like using your belt) tightly enough where it won’t loosen and fall off the second you grab the pommel horn and foot in the stirrup to sit astride the horse.

Maybe being a killer. You stalk potential victims at night, always dressed in black, face never fully revealed. Your victims are always middle-aged women because as a child, your Aunt Matilda always made fun of you, and she was middle-aged, right? There is the connection for the murders. You kill all the victims with nylon hose. The same kind Aunt Matilda used. They die and then you perversely kiss them on the lips and say, “Goodnight, Aunt Matilda.” In doing so, you don’t want to change the method of murder. To go from killing five women with nylon hose, to five others with a baseball bat, and five more with a car. Stay with the same pattern. You can lengthen or shorten a killing scene but stay on the same path. Does he/she leave clues? Any incriminating evidence? Those are a few things to think about.

DC and Marvel Comics have made a big splash in recent years, both with comic books and the film industry. Maybe a super hero story could be your niche. Perhaps a super hero with limited powers; say for an hour or ten minutes. Maybe, like The Flash, he can run like hell, but after sixty seconds, he’s finished. Superman. Your character can fly, but only ten minutes. Take a normal average every day guy, and he is given powers that can only be used one at a time a day for a limited amount of time. If comics and this form of action/adventure is your thing, that may be a way to go. And Anime is real big these days if that too is your niche.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy. It’s been done, and re-done, but there is enough material in real life to do more. Lightning strikes a young boy guarding second base in a baseball game and is rushed to the hospital. Parents are told he is lucky to be alive. The boy goes home two days later. He then grows up to be a person with abilities to read people’s minds or see into the future long before an event will take place. Done and re-done, but give it a different slant, something unique and you could have a hit on your hands. Create a series on the central character, and you could have a career set in stone.

Mystery, romance, comedy, urban, it doesn’t matter. Find a new slant on an old subject. Bring it back to life.

Here is one I like: The Time Machine, written by H.G. Wells. In it, the lead character could travel a few years to millions of years into the past or future.

Take a character you create, one that stumbles across a dusty, cob-webbed filled time machine thought lost for over a hundred years, or only thought was fiction by the writer himself and put your character through the paces. Perhaps a down and out private detective? Have him go back a few days when a crime happened so he can physically see who did the crime. Perhaps a normal guy. And let’s say someone beat up his best friend who is in the hospital, but no one knows who did this to him. Have “normal guy” go back in time to witness the brutal attack. Or even take it by going into the future if the character is a gambler, where he can come back to the present and place big bets on games that haven’t happened in real time yet (think Back to the Future 2, I believe), but it also has its consequences. Time travel can generate a grip of stories (think Quantum Leap).

Then there is horror. What character can you create that will rivet the reader’s attention and send an icy chill to their psyche. Something that will or would keep them from turning out the lights when it is time to go to sleep or leave the lights on all day the next day because they don’t get home until after dark. Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde, did those very things to people when first published. Is your creature obscure, ghostly, something from the “wee-gee” board, an alien, something called up from the hordes of hell?

Give it a life, give it a purpose for what it does, and why it does what it does. Can it be killed? Can it be sent back where it came from? Will it ever die? Will all of humanity die? Horror can also call in all forms other than aliens and demons. Crazy people with their own agenda can kill and in brutal ways. Our own government can kill humanity, and if you haven’t ever read “The Stand”, by Stephen King; he gives an excellent portrayal of life and death by a military government accident.

So whether your story is cowboys and Indians, the future, crime, sex, rock and roll and drugs, wheelin’ and dealin’, being a funny man/woman or a hero, or, just struggling to live life the best way you can, or the only way you can; write what you know, write what you feel, and research the rest (That is a mantra I live by).

How much writing constitutes a lot?

That varies. But there is a story I have enjoyed reading about an author, James Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake and Capital Punishment).

One day a friend came to visit with him and found Joyce sprawled out on his desk, head down, his body just despondent. His friend asked him if the writing was getting to him.

Joyce opened his eyes, lifted his head and replied, “Yes, it’s the writing. It is always the writing!”

His friend asked, “How many words did you write today?”

“Seven.”

“Seven! James, that is good for you.”

To which Joyce replied, “I know, but dammit man, I still don’t know in which order they go in!”

Be it 7 or 7,000, that is for you to decide. You choose where and when to start, and when to end your day.

Here are a few author’s we read that have adjusted their time for writing:

Anthony Trollope would write 2 ½ hours daily. If he were in mid-sentence when time expired, he would come back to it the following day at the same time and not before. Other times, he would finish a novel, end it with 15 minutes left of his time, and he would begin another novel.

John Creasy wrote 500 novels under 10 different pen names.

Harper Lee who only wrote one book (To Kill A Mocking Bird), which has since been a classic read, whereby a film came from it and garnered an Oscar for Best Actor (Gregory Peck).

Stephen King once said he wrote 10 pages a day, roughly 2,000 words, and over a three-month period that is 180,000 words on 900 typed pages. From that, he would begin to edit, or such became the case, he would give it to other people to edit to clean up his grammar and obvious mistakes.

One thing, and this is important, I cannot stress enough. When you write to please the reader with a piece of crafted work, then you have created your wealth. The reader’s will keep coming back to you. In doing so, then as I have often said, you can say you have done your job as a writer.

In the end, if you are 100% pleased with what you have written, then the rest will follow. Write to write where you feel you have left a good feeling in reader’s mind, and in their heart, and where they feel they are part of the story itself.

The next chapter, we will get to several different aspects of poetry.