TWC SPOTLIGHT

It's almost spring! I can feel it under all the cold and snow. At least I think I can. I may be hypothermic and delusional. 

This month I'm sharing an article from one of my favorite writing newsletters. Randy Ingermanson is known as "The Snowflake Guy". His newsletter, Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, is always entertaining, not to mention educational.  If you haven't subscribed to his newsletter yet, you should. On second thought, that means I won't be able to use his articles here anymore...I may have to rethink that suggestion. I'll get back to you. 

Lisa wrote a Grammar-licious article just for me! She tried to protect my dignity by saying "A follower of this column...", but she should know I don't worry about dignity when I need to learn something. Remember, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. If you don't know something, you need to find out. Or else you're the dumb one. 

Kim's book review will introduce you to one of this month's guests, Sephera Giron. The review raised my eyebrows, since that's not a genre I usually read. But now I'm intrigued and thinking it might be time to broaden my horizons...reading horizons, that is. Calm down Don. 

Don't forget to change your clock next Sunday, if you observe daylight savings time. We do here, so check the clock on the Enter Chatroom page if you don't. You don't want to miss chats over a silly thing like DST! 

St Patrick's Day is only two weeks away. I rarely drink these days, and never could bring myself to drink anything green. I wouldn't even touch lime Kool-Aid or popsicles when I was a kid. A client brought me a pistachio muffin last week. I had to force myself to take the first bite, but then the darn thing just disappeared! I think I may have inhaled the rest of it. It was THAT good. 

Celebrate your own way, but be careful. Have a designated driver if you're going to indulge. In alcohol, not muffins. If you're indulging in green muffins, you need to walk instead of driving. The color doesn't make them calorie free. 

Keep writing!

Audrey

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Creating: Fiction is Like Chess by Randy Ingermanson

When I was in fifth grade, I learned how to play chess from one of the other kids. He wasn't a very good player and neither was I. Which was fine with us.

By the time I got to seventh grade, I was a confirmed duffer at chess. I could beat some kids. Some kids could beat me. I didn't really understand why I won when I won; nor did I really understand what went wrong when I lost.

Then in the space of a few months, I became a killer at chess. Suddenly, I could beat everyone I knew, including one of my friends, Richard, who kept
insisting that I was a terrible player and that there was no good reason why I destroyed him in every game.

Richard said over and over that he couldn't believe my "luck." He said I needed to play someone good, someone who would break my lucky streak. So he took me to the chess club at our school and introduced me to "the best player in the school."

Richard assured me that this guy would demolish me in no time. We sat down and played.

I won two games in rapid succession while Richard looked over my shoulder muttering that I was "incredibly lucky."

What happened? Was it "luck" or ... something else? What made the difference in my play?

The answer is very simple. I bought a book (WINNING CHESS, by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld) and read it. I set up every position in the book, worked at it until I solved it, and then moved on. I mastered that book. All in a couple of months.

So why did Richard insist that I was a terrible player?

Well ... because the book only covered one aspect of chess -- tactics. It taught nothing about position or strategy. Therefore, I knew nothing absolutely about position or strategy.

Richard had been taught to play for position and strategy. But he didn't know anything about tactics. And I crushed him. Over and over again.

In chess, knowing tactics gives you an enormous advantage. Tactics are those one-move or two-move or three-move combinations that gain you material. Maybe you win the other guy's queen. Maybe you pick off his
rook and lose only a knight. Maybe you nail his bishop and lose a mere pawn.

If you do that two or three times in a game, you can hardly help winning. Even if you don't know anything about position or strategy. You'll win because you'll have more and better pieces on the board. Eventually, you'll grind the other guy down.

Thanks to Richard's nagging, I got another book by Chernev and Reinfeld in which they taught me position and strategy. That made me an even better player. And it shut Richard up, because now he could see the reason why I was winning. He congratulated me on finally learning about position and strategy so I didn't have to depend on "luck" any more.

He was right, of course. Knowing position and strategy were good things. But they didn't turn me into a winner. They just helped me win faster.

Writing fiction is a lot like chess. In chess, there are really three levels to your play: position, strategy, and tactics.

Position is about getting your pieces into play where they can move freely and control the board.

Strategy is about setting up an attack that leads to checkmate.

Tactics is about the brute-force business of killing the other guy's pieces and pawns.

Position is good, because it facilitates strategy and tactics. But it isn't a substitute for either of those. Once your pieces are in position, they need to actually DO something. That "something" is either long-term (strategic) or short-term (tactical).

Strategy is good, because the long-term goal of the game is to checkmate the other guy, which ends the game. But strategy is no substitute for tactics, because at the end of the game, you need to have the material to carry out your attack. If the other guy has all the good pieces, then your attack is going to fail.

Tactics is essential. Tactical chess lets you use your position to gain material advantage to make it easy to execute your strategy and checkmate the other guy.

Each of these has an analog in writing fiction. Let's look at these in turn.

Many writers will tell you that story structure is essential to writing great fiction. This is true. Story structure allows you to create the emotional backdrop you need to give your reader a powerful emotional experience.

In that sense, story structure is like position in chess. You need good story structure.

But story structure is not enough. Even if you have a good structure, you still need to DO something with it.

Many writers will tell you that a good ending is essential to writing great fiction. This is true. When your readers close the book, you want them to let out a long sigh and say, "Ah.......! THAT was a great story. I need to tell all my friends."

In that sense, a great ending in fiction is like a checkmate in chess. If you have one, you win.

But a good ending is not enough. The problem is that your reader will never read your magnificent ending unless she first reads your beginning and middle and endgame. You'll have maybe a hundred scenes in your novel. All hundred need to work, not just the last one.
 

I have long believed that scenes are the fundamental unit of fiction. Each scene is like a tactical combination in chess. It is a sequence of moves and countermoves which ends in a decisive emotional change for the reader. Each scene needs to be giving your reader a powerful emotional experience.

Years ago when I started writing fiction, I didn't understand what made some scenes work and others not. I'd take my work to my critique group. Sometimes they liked it -- sort of. More often, they didn't. They'd explain what was wrong, and I'd fix it but break something else in the scene.

Then my writing buddy John pointed me to a book on writing. The chapters that rang my bell were the ones on tactical writing. I read the book twice in just a couple of months. I started applying what I was learning.

Very quickly, my critique group noticed a difference. They told me my writing was better, but they also pointed out plenty of flaws. But now I could see clearly how to improve the scene, because I now knew what made a scene work. So I could take their advice and fix the scene. For good.

Within a few months, my work got "good enough." By which I mean it would have been good enough to publish. Not great fiction, but good enough. Yes, I still needed to learn many things. But I had crossed a threshold.

That is the point I want to make here. If you want to radically improve your writing, study the tactics of writing. Those will give you the biggest bang in the shortest period of time.

Why look for quick gains? That's easy. Success breeds success. Once you see that you can write a strong page, you'll be willing to work hard to write a strong scene. Once you can write a strong scene, you'll be gunning for a great structure and a great ending.

And let's face it -- virtually all great writers write great scenes.

The converse is not true. There are a fair number of exceptionally successful writers who are terrific tacticians but who have terrible story structure and terrible endings. Every scene zings on its own, but somehow they never really close the deal.

Do readers care? Yes, of course they care a bit. Every reader would love a great ending. But a story that rips for 300 pages and has a mediocre ending is still a darn good read. It's a book people will talk about to their friends, probably before they even finish the thing.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in delivering the whole deal -- including a great structure and a great ending. That's the ideal.

But if you've got a choice in excelling in only one thing, excel in writing the scene. Be a great tactician.

Please note that I am not urging you to "write great plots instead of writing great characters." That's the wrong way to think about this, because tactical writing is not plot oriented writing. Nor is it character oriented writing.

Tactical writing is about scoring emotive hits with your reader. You can do that in many ways --  by showing great characters or a great plot twist or a great thematic element or even by showing the story-world in a great way. Any of those will work.

The key thing is that a great scene must give the reader a powerful emotional experience, and it must do so in just a few pages.

This is why I spend so much of my time teaching tactical writing. In the language of fiction teachers, tactical writing has two elements:

* "scenes and sequels"
* "motivation-reaction units"

I teach these because they work. You can read all about them in the book I mentioned earlier, TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, by Dwight Swain. Here's a link to this book's page on Amazon:
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blinks/swain.php

Note how many five-star reviews this book has. It's a long book, and some of my writer friends have complained that Dwight Swain is a tedious writer. I have read his book five times and always found it fascinating, but if you prefer the condensed version, let me refer you to an article on my web site, "Writing the Perfect Scene," which you can find here: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/art/scene.php

Let me reiterate that learning tactical writing will not make you a perfect novelist. Neither will learning tactical chess make you a grandmaster.

But learning tactics will give you a powerful boost in the right direction. It'll show you what you're capable of doing. It'll motivate you to become a more complete writer.

How could any of that be bad?

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If you're serious about seeing your words in print, Lisa J. Jackson can help you get your document or manuscript in its best final form. Lisa will review, edit, and assess your fiction or non-fiction piece of any length. She will correct obvious issues (spelling, grammar, etc.) and, if needed, make suggestions for how to improve wording. Lisa loves working with writers and offers affordable rates. For more information, visit her website at http://lisajjackson.tripod.com or email her at lisajacksonwrites@gmail.com.

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Grammar-licious: Making Grammar Fun 

Lesson Six: i.e Versus e.g. By Lisa J. Jackson 

Welcome to another luscious grammar tidbit, you brave soul. A follower of this column suggested today's subject. If there's anything you'd like help with, just drop a line and I'll make sure to address it in an upcoming delectable column. 

As with any Grammar-licious article, you will find several examples included below, but what makes this article particularly fun is that it is all about examples, specifically the when, where, and how surrounding i.e. and e.g.  

There is a difference between the two abbreviations. It's the similarity that causes the confusion. Let's get to it, shall we? 

In everyday conversation, most of us will say "that is" or "for example." Yet in writing, many of us prefer to use the abbreviations i.e. or e.g.  The test is: which abbreviation matches which phrase? 

We now need to break for some Latin language lessons. (I did that for the alliteration.)

i.e. comes from the Latin phrase id est, meaning "that is". You use i.e. when restating or expanding upon the idea. i.e. is used to give a specific, clarifying example, or more than one, but they are specific. 

e.g. comes from the Latin phrase exempli gratia, meaning "for example". e.g. is used when utilizing an open-ended list of examples.  

Real world examples:

I love something sweet, i.e., ice cream, after dinner.

I love chocolate candies, e.g., Hershey kisses, Dove bars, and Ghirardelli squares.

My grandmother enjoys playing social card games, i.e., bridge and gin rummy.

My grandfather enjoys playing solo card games, e.g., solitaire.

Susan plays with her sister, i.e., Paula, every day after school.

Susan loves when her cousins, e.g., Robert, Sheila, and Mark, visit at Christmas.

If everything makes sense now, wonderful!  If it's not quick clicking, read on. 

How about thinking of i.e. as "in effect" or "in essence", or use the 'i' and go with "in other words"?  And for e.g., think of "example given" or key off the 'e' and remember 'example', as in 'for example'. Of course, if you remember the trick for one of the abbreviations, you will probably know when to use the other.

Bonus tip #1 - since e.g. represents a partial list, it is redundant to use etc. at the end of any list following the e.g.

Bonus tip #2 - always use periods after each letter in the abbreviation AND use a comma after the full abbreviation

The best rule to follow, if you want to avoid errors, is to not use either abbreviation in your writing. Simply use "for example" or "that is" and you'll be fine.

This month's recommended grammar book is: Essential English Grammar by Philip Gucker. 

Glenn Walker is a writer with too much time on his hands, or depending on the day, not enough time on his hands. He loves, hates and lives pop culture. He knows too freaking much about pop culture.  Given that, he has to vomit up his voluminous opinions on it in his blog... 

Book Review

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Neon--Orion Publishing (May 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1905619227
ISBN-13: 978-1905619221

Hester is a young woman with a passion in her heart and soul.  All her life she's been plagued by gypsy dreams; dreams which inspire her to dance and to sing. Her waking time is spent as a bar wench, trying to etch out a meager living for herself. She lives for the weekends where she is allowed to perform, even if the crowd is drunk and unruly.