JON UNIV ER SI TY

JON MCRAE

TENES NVNC TENEBERIS

JON UNIVERSITY
First Edition, 2012
Jon McRae. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International license.

That means pass it on, copy it, print it, make it into an audiobook or a
slideshow or a diorama. None of these things for profit. If you have a
commercial project in mind, contact the author about licensing.
jonmcrae.net

CONT EN TS

ORIENTATION

101, BASIC TECHNIQUE

201, ADVANCED TECHNIQUE

17

301, THEORY

31

401, PRACTICE

44

1ST APPENDIX, INSPIRATION

56

2ND APPENDIX, PUBLISHING

61

3RD APPENDIX, PET PEEVES

63

4TH APPENDIX, READING LIST

64

COMMENCEMENT

66

O RI ENT ATION

The advice contained in these courses is one part mine, nine parts the advice of my peers and my lessers and my
betters. In art very little is true or false. I deal in what is useful or useless. Put each piece of advice to the test for
yourself. Keep what works, discard the rest. The proof is in the pudding.
For those of you who prefer a set of credentials to knowledge that speaks for itself I will provide a brief bio. I write.
You may read a few of my stories at jonmcrae.net. I am a published author, just like Umberto Eco or the Olsen
Twins. I read, I critique, I travel. If I were stranded on a desert island the five books Id bring are the collected
works of Shakespeare, The Koran, Blood Meridian, a Chinese / English dictionary, and a blank book to write in. A
blank book with many, many pages. If I didnt have a pen Id twist my hair into a nib and use my fluids for ink.
The sum advice I have to pass on is divisible into four courses: Basic Technique, Advanced Technique, Theory,
and Practice. These courses are supplemented by four appendices on the topics of inspiration and publishing, with
a small section outlining literary pet peeves and a list of recommended reading.
Before we begin, let us establish a few compass points so that we may properly orient ourselves throughout the
courses.
1.

The best fiction convinces us its real. Coleridge said poetic faith is the willing
suspension of disbelief. In plain terms that means the reader forgets hes a reader.
Whether he reads to escape, to understand, or to explore is his business. Our business as
writers of fiction is to help him experience, if only for a while, something that does not
exist outside his imagination or ours. If we write well he will finish our story and say,
Oh wait, that didnt actually just happen, it was only a story. If we write poorly, he will
realize this before hes finished and his suspended disbelief will reengage. The story
from then on will only ever be a story to him. He might even quit reading. For lack of
any convenient technical term I call this a hiccup. It is a seed of doubt that may grow to
corrupt your readers entire poetic faith. It is in your base killing your dudes. It is your
1

artistic nemesis.
2.

There are no good or bad writers. Only writers at different stages of development. Each
of us starts off writing poorly. Some of us choose to develop from there, others choose
not to. Some dont even recognize improvement as an option in the first place.

3.

The term body of work is no coincidence. A body has lovely parts like eyes and curves,
but it also has less attractive parts like armpits and an asshole. You will write armpits.
You will write an asshole. Admit it. Come to terms with it and move on. Otherwise
youll end up paralysed, either by your fear of failure or because you will mistake poor
early attempts for failed attempts. It is not a failure to write an asshole. Imagine a body
without the ugly parts. It would just be a face and breasts and legs floating disconnected
in the air. What good is that? Lovely parts unbound by mundane and ugly parts have no
meaning and so become alien, untrustworthy, ugly themselves. No part is unnecessary.
No part is unimportant, because it takes every part together to complete a body. Give
each part, each story or novel or poem, the care and attention it deserves. Make it as
good as you can at this stage in your development. The next one will be better.

4.

Let me be clear about my position on rules versus exceptions. It is essential to learn the
rules. It is wise most of the time to follow the rules. It is on occasion a legitimate and
powerful gesture to break the rules. Any idiot could lie and claim to be Spartacus. Its
doing it at just the right time, in just the right way, for just the right reason, that makes it
an act and a measure of greatness.

101, B AS IC T E CHN IQUE

This is by no means an exhaustive study of technique. It is merely a review of certain techniques I find particularly
useful, which are commonly misunderstood or ignored, or which have revolutionized my process and Im excited
to share. A number of these techniques span several levels of skill, so expect to revisit them accordingly
throughout the courses. For now its just the basics.

PUNCTUATION, I

First a brief refresher of the problem marks, followed by an explanation of why I consider them the problem
marks. Spoiler alert: its most of them.

The semicolon. A semicolon joins ideas related enough to share a sentence but not
congruous enough to be joined by a comma. This includes long or complex articles in a
list. ;

The colon. A colon introduces a list or an apposite. :

Parentheses. These delimit thoughts outside the narrative flow but pertinent to it. (Like
so.)

The em dash. This badboy can function as parenthesesby inserting a related thought
or detailor, chameleon that it is, it can function as a colonby offering a dramatic
introduction or apposition.

The ellipsis. An ellipsis indicates that some part of a quotation has been omitted.

The semicolon. Where do I begin? First, it is widely overused. Not only that, but it is easy to overuse. I rarely see
discerning use of the semicolon. If you give it an inch, it will take a mile. Use of semicolons is an easy way to make
your writing look intelligent or informed.
Second, given that the semicolons function is more or less halfway between the comma and the period, its use is
largely arbitrary. I say go big or go home. Separate your clauses with a comma or a period. A period lends stark
outline to either clause. A comma provides a solid bridge from one clause to the next. A semicolon weakens the
position of both clauses. Next time you read an article or a story imagine each semicolon replaced by a period or a
comma + conjunction. Do the sentences lose anything? Does the narrative have less impact? In almost every case I
find the writing stronger for having clear cut punctuation.
Third, one of my biggest pet peeves and a sure sign of amateur writing: semicolons are often misused in place of
colons. I dont know where this habit started but it has become rampant in online articles and occasionally even in

published stories and novels, which must have been printed while the editors were all on vacation. I have to tell you
something; I love you. Look at that. I found it in the dictionary next to the entry for ugly. The worst part is that the
semicolons function is so wishy-washy that its use in this case is perfectly acceptable. You could replace most
periods and commas in any piece of writing with semicolons and they might all be acceptably used. All the more
reason not to give it an inch. If and when you decide to use a semicolon, at least be sure each part of the sentence it
divides is an independent clause. That means each clause must qualify as a sentence by itself. Lines like I love the
way her hair smells; the way her eyes sparkle fail the test, because the second clause amounts only to a subject. There
is no predicate to make it a proper sentence.
The colon. Not a problem mark so much as one often forgotten or misunderstood. As indicated above the colon
rather than the semicolon is the appropriate mark to introduce a list or an apposite. I admire three things in a
person: honesty, consistency, and grit. Simple enough, nest pas? In the case of apposition you may just as easily use a
colon as an em dash. A colon or dash in this case is like an arrow pointing at some important statement which
follows the logic of the introductory clause. There was only one flaw in his plan: he forgot to lock the door.
On to parentheses. These arent a problem in a technical sense so much as they are in a stylistic sense. They can be
used to humorous effect, much like footnotes, by breaking the fourth wall. The problem arises when theyre used
in all seriousness. Your job as a writer is to compose the narrative in a consistent, believable format. The use of
parentheses is tantamount to admitting you are not very good at that job. Parentheses effectively say, Oh wait, I
forgot something. Heres this other point Im not skilled enough to weave into the narrative. That, of course,
amounts to a hiccup. It reminds the reader hes being narrated to, and not very well at that. In the case of a
subordinate clause or other aside within a sentence, prefer commas to parentheses. Given the size of the city, its
colossal towers and sprawling streets, it could take weeks to find where theyd hidden the disk. In the case of an
independent sentence, try it first without parentheses to be absolutely sure theyre necessary. Odds are theyre
not.
The em dash. I have very few problems with the em dash. In fact, I like it. I prefer it in places I might otherwise use
a colon or parentheses. My only advice is to be wary of overuse. Especially in the case of dramatic introduction.
The em dash is a great visual cue, almost cinematic in effect. This makes it all the more tempting to abuse. Too
many dramatic introductions make your work read like a movie trailer or some sensationalist investigative report
show. He thought he could get away with ithe was wrong. Shed entered a race against timeand she was already too

late. Etcetera.
Ellipsis. The most abused of all the marks and by far my least favourite. Use an ellipsis when youre writing an
essay and need to trim unrelated material from a quotation. To be, or not to beay, theres the rub. Like that. Do
not, as many lazy or ignorant writers do, use an ellipsis to indicate a pause. It is the job of a comma to indicate a
brief pause, like this. It is the job of a period to indicate a longer pause. A full stop, as it were. In the case of a
dramatic pause, use an em dash. If the pause is in dialogue and long or otherwise significant, consider it an
opportunity for narrative flourish. Describe a characters body language in the pause to give the reader a sense of
her mood. Or describe the scenery to indicate a characters preoccupation or wandering attention. For example:
I thought you were dead! she said.
Me tooI guess Im just lucky.
I thought you were dead! she said.
Me too. He opened his collar to show her the stitches along his neck. I guess Im just lucky.
You might say, But plenty of published authors use ellipses to indicate pause or to emphasizecertain words.
Does that make it okay? I dont know. Plenty of pop stars lip sync in concert. Does that mean you should?

DIALOGUE, I

Consider this an extension of punctuation. How to punctuate and attribute dialogue. In an attributed line of
dialoguethat is, one with a he said or she said tagthe attribution is considered part of the same sentence. It is
accordingly separated by a comma. Examples:
He said, Hi.
Hi, he said.
In the first example the period is enclosed by the quotation marks. In the second example the comma is likewise
enclosed. This is standard. Leading with attribution as in the first example is almost always more awkward than
following with attribution, but it is occasionally useful. Also in the case of leading with attribution, the comma is
interchangeable with a colon. He said: This is also acceptable.
In cases where a brief line of narrative intervenes between lines of dialogue, there are two ways to punctuate. The
first involves attribution. The second does not. In the first case, construct everything as you would without the
narration and just tag the narration to the end of the attribution. In the second case, the dialogue is not attributed
and the narrative is a separate sentence.
I dont know, Jenny said, biting her lip. It just seems, you know, wrong.
I dont know. Jenny bit her lip. It just seems, you know, wrong.
When using a characters name in attribution there is no hard and fast rule about whether to lead or follow with
the tag. Name said or said Name. The rule I follow is sound. Which sounds better? One method will suit and
enhance the rhythm of the sentence. The other method will detract from it. Each case is different.
I take the same approach to determine where in a long line of dialogue to intercede with attribution. Almost every
time the best place is in the first natural pause in the characters delivery. Compare the following variations:

Hi, he said. Ive been meaning to call you.

Hi, Ive been meaning to call you, he said.
The first is stronger not only because the narrative accommodates the characters delivery, but because it
establishes the identity of the speaker sooner rather than later. Especially in a scene where multiple characters are
speaking, it is a courtesy to your reader to make it clear who says what. At least at the beginning of an exchange.
Once a dialogue-heavy scene has established its rhythm it isnt always necessary to tag each line. In a scene with
only two speakers you may outright drop the attribution once either party is clearly identified.
As for terms for speech, it is best in almost every case to use said. Even when the line is a question, the question
mark is indication enough. Tags like he asked, he inquired, he posited, are unnecessary. If the character is not in fact
speaking it is suitable to use he screamed or she whispered or he laughed or she spat or whatever might apply.
However, if your dialogue is written well enough, even these arent often necessary. An exclamation point may be
enough to inform the reader how the line is delivered. Tags like he argued, she lectured, he indicated, she theorized
are not worth your time. Instead, construct the dialogue so that the reader will hear the characters delivery. If you
can do this, you will require attribution only to distinguish between speakers.
Yes, he agreed.
I hate you! he said angrily.
My name is Robert, lied George.
Although at first the attribution in these lines seems appropriate, when you think twice it is in fact redundant.
Trust your writing. Trust your writing and trust your reader to decipher it. Otherwise you risk insulting him, and
that is a patented recipe for hiccups.

SHOW

VS.

TELL, I

A common piece of advice in writing poetry is to show rather than tell. It is just as important in writing prose. It is
also often misapplied and misunderstood. Ive seen writing advisors go so far as to say that any use of the word was
constitutes telling and to avoid it.
At the basic level, show versus tell is the difference between explaining an event and depicting that event. A vague
distinction, I know. Consider the following examples:
He didnt like it.
That is telling.
He frowned.
That is showing. Both lines communicate the same sentiment. One exposes the characters internal reaction. It
tells the reader directly what the character feels. The other depicts the characters external reaction. It implies his
feelings via behaviour.
There is a place in prose for both showing and telling.

ECONOMY, I

A good writer is not one who uses small words or big words, few words or many words, but one who uses each
word well. Balzac put it best: Power is not revealed by striking hard, or striking often, but by striking true.

10

DESCRIPTION, I

As a reader I tend to forget description in direct proportion to its length and intricacy. A long description is a
grocery list. Her eyes are like this, her cheek like that, her nose like this, her hair like that. Who cares? Even if we as
writers have a clear and complete portrait in our head, there is only so much we can influence our readers
imagination. Past a certain level of detail our descriptions can actually frustrate their own purpose. The reader
becomes overloaded with details so he forgets them all and substitutes his own. Or, worse, he recognizes our
amateur writing for what it is and he abandons our story altogether.
As a general rule, in any given description I provide a broad overview and one or more memorable details. That
goes for characters, settings, objects, anything at all. The descriptee is roughly like this, plus it is notable for
features x and y.
As I reader I am most affected by this approach, so its what I gravitate toward as a writer. The overview gets the
reader in the ballpark. He might not share your exact vision of the character or the scene, but he gets the idea. A
detail or two gives the overview some foreground. Even one striking detail can create a real sense of depth
between that foreground and background. If there is anything crucial about a given person, place or thinga
landmark that will figure in the plot, an article of clothing that conveys some part of a characters history or
personality, a scuff just so on a piece of furniture that tells us its been used in an unusual wayinclude it as just
such a detail.
The office was a glass and steel monolith with a two story concrete H over the entrance.
It hardly matters how many floors the office has, or exactly how tall it is, or what colour the windows are tinted.
Saying its big and glass and steel gets you in my ballpark. Later in the story a saboteur will plant a shaped charge
on the concrete H, which will tip it onto the CEO at the ribbon cutting ceremony. The H is the only detail I need
you the reader to remember. What you imagine is probably some skyscraper in your city with a big H tacked on. It
doesnt matter if you and I picture the exact same building, because both pictures serve the story equally.
The detective had just returned from a three week bender starring himself, the couch, the TV, and a chorus of gin. The
chief called it a suspension. He called it a much-needed vacation.

11

In this example nothing is actually said about the detectives appearance, but the man you picture is probably close
to the one I envision. A man between thirty and forty, scruffy and maybe a little dishevelled. He might have dark
hair and he might have chiselled features a la romance novel detectives. In any case there is no need for a grocery
list description. If I want any detail explicitly understood, I will include them. I might append, You could light a
match on his cheek if it wouldnt ignite the gin fumes still wafting off him, or some such line to establish that he is
dishevelled. I might include his age. If hes young, you will probably imagine him as handsome. If hes old, you will
probably imagine him either rugged or dumpy, and even that can be resolved with some other miniscule detail.
That goes for people and things. The same approach works for places too. I cannot count how many books I
stopped reading because they opened with some socialist rendering of a scene. By socialist I mean each detail is
given the same priority and airtime as every other details. This sort of descriptions blends into a meaningless soup.
By the time I reach the last article on the list Ive forgotten the first. The trees were like this, the bushes were like that,
the stream was like this, the clouds were like that, the road was like this. In some cases each article is allowed a
digressive inspection, its own exploration through metaphor. This is all well and good in moderation, but when
each article is treated so expansively the reader is likely to feel lost. I see nothing wrong with a little fascism in
description. Give a broad impression of the scene and pick a few significant features to point out. Trust that the
reader will fill in the rest on his own. Establish the important facts of the scene early. The reader will get to know it
further as the story unfolds and incidental details emerge.
A readers intellect plays secretary to his imagination. If you appeal to the secretary, you will have to wait for the
secretary to puzzle out your message, to decide its priority, to petition the boss for approval, et cetera et cetera. It
is usually ideal to bypass the intellect altogether and engage the imagination directly. I like to build my
descriptions around a single image or metaphor that is sharp and palpable. An image so immediate and
identifiable that it knocks the intellect over and grabs the imagination. Get the bosss attention and the secretary
will be obliged to fill out your paperwork in due course. Your writing should never need an appointment.
Take for example this line:
The embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the
ground before them.

12

The comparison of embers to a heap of living viscera is so unexpected and unconventional that our intellect has
no time to process it before our imagination leaps into action and pictures it clearly, fully, powerfully. It is simple
and direct. It evokes not only an image but a mood. Cormac McCarthy, who gave us this line in Blood Meridian, is
known for this sort of grim, sidelong description. You might not intend your style to be as eccentric and brooding
as his, but you can just as easily employ in your own way the principles that make his writing memorable.
Give the reader an overview. A rough shape, a background, a ballpark he can match with a person, place or thing
already present in his memory. Then give him some detail or details to accent the shape, to provide foreground to
the background and thereby create a sense of dimension, to establish as a new entity that person, place or thing he
already has in mind. The reader will do half the work for you if you let him. For every thing you try to transpose
from your imagination to his, theres something already there waiting to be drawn on.
A picture is worth a thousand words. A thousand words depreciate real fast when you spend them all on just one
picture.

13

ADVERBS & ADJECTIVES

Adverbs and adjectives are present in every piece of writing. As a result its easy to forget that they are not building
blocks. Even if they are often useful and sometimes necessary, they are not strictly required to communicate a
series of events. Still, its natural to use them even in the earliest stages of drafting a story. To make sure youre
only using them when useful or necessary, ask yourself: whats the default?
If the average reader will assume a condition by default, there is no need to explain what is already inferred. It was
a dark night. Duh, right? If I say night, you will assume dark on your own. The ocean covered the horizon, blue and
sparkling. If I say ocean what colour do you assume it is? Blue. You might even assume sparkling, if the sun is up.
You do not have to narrate the norm. You have only to narrate whatever diverges from it. The amount of work this
will save you is inestimable. If, say, the aforementioned ocean is in the tropics, I might say instead it is green and
sparkling. Then you picture something you wouldnt have by default.
Some ascetic editors recommend throwing out adverbs altogether. I admit no love for adverbs, but they are in rare
occasions useful. A few of them we commonly forget are adverbs and we cannot do without. Case in point: often,
only, never, always.
As for adverbs you can do without, there are hordes. Employ the same guideline as adjectives: whats the default?
If a character is running, it is redundant to say shes running quickly. If a character is stroking his chin, it is
unnecessary to tell us hes doing so thoughtfully because the whole gesture is one of thoughtfulness. If a character
is falling, you need only modify that verb if the character falls calmly or gracefully or in some other manner the
reader would not assume by default. Likewise if a character is shouting happily, praying lustily, creeping quickly, et
cetera. Modify an action only if it is not conducted in a natural fashion.
If you want to add drama or power to a particular action, dont rely on adverbs. A regular verb plus an adverb is
not nearly as effective as a single strong verb. A verb is a building block. Instead of saying she moved gracefully, try
she sashayed or she swept or use some other verb which more precisely and fully paints the picture you want.
Whenever you feel inclined to use a verb + adverb combo, take a minute to see if theres a verb already for the
action you want to describe.
14

SENTENCE VARIETY

It is a courtesy to yourself and your reader to vary the structure of your sentences. How drastically you vary them
is a matter of style and taste. I will only supply a caveat regarding a couple of weak sentence structures.
The first follows this pattern: she did this as that happened. Everything takes place as something else is taking place.
Like every good structure, the as sentence has its place. Also like every good structure, that place is not
everywhere. Use sparingly and wisely.
The second follows this pattern: verbing this, he verbed that. Have you ever used this structure when you speak?
Say it out loud. Tying his shoes, he left the house. Say it out loud, go ahead. Use it in a ghost story at the campfire. I
dare you. Not only is this structure unnatural to the ear, but it also usually depicts a contradiction. The verbs get in
each others way. Have you ever walked out of the house at the same time as tying your shoes? If so, that lazy
sentence doesnt do justice to the acrobatic humour of the scene. Even in a functional example, as in the following
from Haruki Murakami, the phrasing is stiff and unnatural: Sucking on a lemon drop, I leaned against the chain-link
fence and looked at the garden. There is no contradiction between the actions, but the sentence remains awkward.
This structure is a last resort even in a famine of sentence variety. Use that garbage when you speak. I dare you.

15

NAMES & NOUNS

Following a note on variety, this is a note against it. Whenever you feel tempted to use synonyms or alternate
descriptions of a person, an object, et cetera, I advise you to resist. It is a bad habit to introduce multiple terms for
single entities. Lets say a narrator introduces a bottle of gin. In the next sentence when the gin is poured into a
glass, the narrator refers to it as the clear liquid. In a third sentence it is called the deceptively water-like substance in
the glass. This says the writer isnt confident in his writing. There isnt enough originality or variety in his
characters, plots, scenes, et cetera, so he must make up for it in original and varied terms for mundane articles. He
fears his wheel wont roll well enough so he tries to reinvent it.
If you want to describe a commonplace object or substance, consolidate your description into the things
introduction. If you think your reader doesnt know gin is clear then state it when the gin first appears. If you think
your reader is an idiot and doesnt know gin is liquid then by all means tell him. Just do it first thing. From then on,
refer to it by its common name.
Likewise with characters. Resist the temptation to sprinkle relevant info throughout the text via references. Bill
Smith did this. The professor did that. The avid cyclist and father of three said this. Did I mention Bill is a professor
and an avid cyclist and has three kids? Three disparate and non-complementary references to the same guy is just
asking for hiccups. If you have something to tell the reader about a character, do it at the characters first
appearance. Or do it in a more natural way in a later scene, by showing the character at his work (Reader: Oh, hes
a professor.) or his day off (Oh look, he likes to ride bikes.) or at home (Oh, he procreated.). Otherwise refer to
each character by a standard name. Their first name, their last name, their title, whatever. Pick one. Consistency is
whats important. If you refer once to Bill and later to Mr. Smith the reader will think some other dude has entered
the scene.
I make and recommend exceptions to this rule in cases where a character has several titles each disparate enough
to underscore a given narrative line with mood or tone. In the case of a prime minister, a royal, an ecclesiastic, et
cetera, using a title versus a name can show a different side of the character. Even then, of course, it is important to
clearly establish what titles and stations belong to the character before you switch between them.
In general, if theres already a word for what you want to say, use it. Thats what words are for.

16

201, ADV ANCE D T E CHNIQ UE

If 101 is black and white then 201 is shades of grey. Basic Technique is your line, your shape. Advanced
Technique is the shading that will more than anything else define your style. These are not rules so much as
considerations. How to approach, rather than how to execute.

17

DIALOGUE, II

Dialogue must be plausible. Thats 101 level stuff. Dialogue enters the realm of 201 because it has more dimension
and function than simply rendering characters plausible in the readers estimation.
First, dialogue may be used to create variety in the structure of a story. It is one of a group of narrative modes.
Other modes being action, description, exposition, introspection, summarization, recollection, transition. There is
no universally agreed-upon set of modes but these are at least the major commonly accepted modes.
Aside from the events of a story, the manner of its telling and the balance of these modes will determine how good
it is. By good, I mean loosely that the story is well constructed, entertaining, capable of holding the readers
attention and suspending her disbelief. A story with too much exposition is boring. A story with too much
dialogue lacks action and scenery. A story need not have each mode in equal parts to be good, but it does want a
balance appropriate to its purpose, its theme and its events.
Second, dialogue is just as capable of informing the reader as narrative exposition. The most common note of
critique I make when reading novels, professional and amateur alike, is That paragraph could be dialogue. Most
often the author has broken up a solid scene of dialogue with exposition to explain each line. The author follows a
characters speech with his private thoughts about what he just said, that sort of thing. In each case it would be
more natural, more consistent, and less hiccup-inducing to bundle all the info into the dialogue. Naturally the info
must be arranged to suit the characters delivery. It might end up incomplete, ambiguous, or not entirely true, but
this will only serve to better establish your characters. It shows the reader how they express themselves.
If the info is so crucial to the story that you cannot afford to have it misinterpreted, then save any relevant
summarization until after the dialogue has run its course. If it absolutely cannot wait, at least save it for a lull in the
rhythm of the dialogue. As we discussed in PUNCTUATION, I: save an ellipsis, narrate a pause.
Robert De Niro said of acting, Its important to indicate. People dont try to show their feelings, they try to hide
them. Excellent advice, and it applies perfectly to writing. A writer is an actor responsible for portraying the whole
cast. This doesnt mean you have to be an accomplished actor, of course. It only means you would do well to
understand the principles of a convincing performance. How people speak, what they reveal and what they

18

conceal, with whom they are pushy and with whom subordinate.
I recommend against the use of italics in dialogue. Try instead to employ metre and rhythm to convey subtlety in
speech. This gives the reader some leeway to enact the lines for himself, to imagine the speed and intonation of a
given line. The minute you emphasize a word with italics, you neuter the readers ability to hear your characters.
And if you italicize one instance of emphasis, why not every instance? The same goes for words in all capital
letters. Write well enough that you never need to use them.
Have faith in your dialogue. Let your characters speak for themselves.

19

SHOW

VS.

TELL, II

De Niros advice carries over from characterization into our general approach to exposition and explanation.
Think of show versus tell in terms of connecting the dots. To show is to give the reader dots. To tell is to connect
the dots for him.
It is wise to connect a few dots to get the reader started on the big picture. If you dont connect any, your story will
be nearly impossible to penetrate. Everything happens at a remove, leaving the reader excluded. The dots are
uniformly spaced and without any connections to even hint at the final picture. The reader is entirely free to draw
conclusions about the significance of the story, about the characters, about the events, but she isnt likely to care.
Any interpretation she makes is exactly as valid as any other. If, however, you narrow the endless possibilities
down to a few potent alternatives via a little telling, the readers choice becomes personal and significant. She may
ask, Did the protagonist sacrifice himself out of love or despair? To reach an interpretation she will draw equally
on the narrative and her own feelings. Without clues she can only ask, Did the protagonist sacrifice himself out of
love, despair, boredom, charity, revenge, alienation, hatred, or by accident? The wealth of possibilities devalues
the act of choosing one.
On the other hand, if you connect too many dots your story will read like a report. Its events, characters, themes,
and significance are all laid plainly on the table in one configuration and one configuration only. There is no room
for the reader to interpret or to draw her own conclusions at all. The author has flat out explained exactly why
everyone did everything and what each event means. This excludes the reader from the story just as much as too
much showing.
Everyone knows the saying easier said than done. Keep this in mind when you write. In most cases the easy
approach to narration is to say plainly, This character is shy, works at a bakery, and cant carry a tune. If this is a
tertiary character and it would be too digressive to convey these qualities by devoting a scene to showing them,
then by all means just tell it. If, however, this is your main character and these qualities figure significantly in the
story, then take the time to establish them by showing the character in his natural habitat. It is a story after all, not
a speed date or a job interview. Let your readers observe. Let them get to know your characters as they would real
people.

20

In description, what counts as showing is the apparent facts. The journalism. The who, the what, the where, the
when.
He was tall and red. He had dark hair, a crooked grin, and a tail.
What counts as telling is anything not apparent. The why, among other things. Anything that may be interpreted,
anything that is difficult to measure, anything not immediately plain to the five senses.
He was intelligent, ancient, and pure evil.
Notice that the qualities enumerated in the first example above imply the qualities told in the second example.
Tall and red, crooked grin plus tail. Thats a fair description of the devil. Given that the devil is a commonly known
symbol, it is natural for us to assume he is ancient and evil, and probable for us to assume he is intelligent. But
these are subjective, relative qualities. Even after a character has been introduced he can still be scrutinized for
interpretable qualities. You may introduce the devil as intelligent, but acts he perpetrates later in the story might
be viewed by the reader as unintelligent. Ancient tells us hes old, but it doesnt tell us how old nor whether or not
he looks old. Everyone knows the devil is supposed to be ancient but when is he ever depicted with grey hair?
That renders ancient moot as a descriptor.
Better than tell the reader a character is like this or like that, just show that character behaving however they will. If
you depict a red guy with a tail tormenting people, insinuating himself into the highest echelons of society and
then gumming up the works, and relating firsthand stories of the dawn of time, then the reader will connect the
dots on his own. He will recognize that your devil is evil, intelligent, and ancient.
Be careful with a mixture of showing and telling. If you describe the devil as evil and then narrate his evil works,
you risk not sharing definitions with your reader. You might show the devil stealing candy from a baby. Your
reader might think nothing short of murdering that child is evil. If the reader finds your claims and your evidence
at odds, he will hiccup.
This advice covers not only characters but other nouns you will describe. Must you say, It was an eerie scene? How
about instead you describe to us a disused Victorian manor on a precipice under moonlight with bats flying

21

around and the wind howling. Odds are the reader will catch on that the scene is eerie. Or at least that its
supposed to be eerie.
This will lead to variation in how your readers perceive the meanings and themes of your work, but interpretation
is part of the fun of reading. Given that each of us sees through the lens of our experience and beliefs anyway, there
is nothing you can do to guarantee that each reader will get the same thing out of your work. And why should
they?

22

ECONOMY, II

In the commerce of fiction words are not the sole currency. There are also scenes, settings, characters, action,
themes, and other elements of style and composition. Look on each with an economic eye.
That tertiary character who shows up late in the book. Is he worth keeping? Does the plot hinge on a decision he
makes? Is he the foil for revealing an important characteristic of the protagonist? Does he provide a moment of
levity to counterbalance the gravity of the climaxing story arc? If he doesnt serve a clear purpose, cut him.
Likewise, if you have a clear need, find a natural way to serve it. By natural I mean let the solution arise from within
the story rather than inserting an arbitrary solution, deus ex machina. Prefer reuse of a character or device youve
already established. The fewer unnecessary new elements you introduce, the better. Unless, of course, your
purpose is to knock the reader off balance with a game-changing wildcard. Even then your purpose is better served
if the wildcard is introduced early in the story but is so innocuous or forgettable the reader never sees it coming.
You might already know the rule called Chekhovs Gun. To wit: if theres a gun on the mantle in act one, it had
better come into play in act two or three. Chekhov I think meant it in a fairly literal sense, but I take it in a broader
sense. The gun doesnt necessarily have to be discharged in order to serve a purpose. It may adumbrate a
characters past. It may punctuate the storys theme of violence or colonial tyranny. A character may one day take
it down from the mantle and smash it because to him it symbolizes his impotence. Whatever the case, the rule
stands. If you include a conspicuous or decorative element it had better be there for a reason. If you need filler or
fluff, make it relevant.
As for economy in themes it is tempting, especially in first novels, to explore as many themes as possible. To
convey every brilliant idea or belief you have. To share with the reader every epiphany you have thus far
experienced in life.
Resist.
The more themes you explore, the less potent each theme becomes. Naturally any story will touch on multiple
subjects and depict a variety of relationships and convey an array of messages both intended and not. These are
ingredients whose proportion and combination determine the overall flavour of your story. Be judicious.

23

Otherwise your stories will taste like swamp water.

Also, if youre in the writing game for the long haul you would be wise to bank some of those ideas and that
experience so as to mete them out over a long and prestigious career. Dont spend it all in one place.

24

DESCRIPTION, II

A description is capable of being more than the sum of its parts. Even the description of a simple object can
communicate a great deal to the reader. Tone, themes, mood, tension, textures. For example:
He crossed the street into his old neighbourhood. The houses leaned shoulder to shoulder up the street, their windows
open and curtains lifting in a breeze.
He crossed the street into his old neighbourhood. The houses crowded the street, their windows like eyes vacant of
whatever soul once lay behind them.
Both examples depict the same scene, but each has a unique tone. They set a mood without having to say what the
mood is. Especially in a story which shows more than it tells, moody description can establish pathos and give the
reader a view to the inner workings of your characters and scenes without ever really exposing those workings.

25

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

Im a big fan of strong simple beginnings. Nine out of ten books I pick up in the shop I put right back down
because the openings fail to interest me in the slightest. Not always for the same reason. One opens with Elmore
Leonards hated rundown of the weather. Another opens with a conversation in medias resa boring
conversation at that, or one which dully sets up the plot or dumps a heap of back-story in the readers lap. The list
of weak openings is endless.
A strong opening can use the descriptive mode or the expository or whatever particular mode best suits the story.
The strength of an opening does not depend on its mode. Its strength depends, rather, on its simplicity and its
relevance.
A simple opening functions in prose as a thesis functions in an essay. It is brief enough to establish a place, a
person or a concept central to the plot. It does not launch a circuitous journey which concludes several paragraphs
later at the introduction of a central figure. It also does not meander or digress, forestalling the direction and tone
of the story rather than establishing it immediately and authoritatively. It should be relevant. It should give the
reader a clear sense of the story. Its identity. Its essence. Whether it does so in a literal, symbolic, or emotional
sense is your prerogative.
Time seems to pass.
Thats the opening sentence of Don DeLillos The Body Artist. This is what Im talking about. Simple doesnt have
to mean short, of course, but it is easier to be simple and short than to be simple and long. Time seems to pass.
That establishes the story in its purest form without really telling the reader anything at all. Not time passes, not
time seemed to pass. A number of books open with philosophical propositions or explorations that span several
paragraphs before anything of the story is revealed. This one line accomplishes just as much implication and
inquiry in only four words, without digressing one iota from the story its employed to introduce.
It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other
end asking for someone he was not.

26

Thats the opening sentence of Paul Austers New York Trilogy. As much as I love the book this is in my opinion a
perfectly mediocre opening. It leads into the story without any frills or ceremony. It establishes a mood of mystery
and a noir hint of things not being quite right, which are integral to the story. It might prefer function to form, but
Id still take a mediocre opening over one that tries too hard to be good.
Jack Torrence thought: Officious little prick.
Thats the opening to The Shining by Stephen King. It is nearly a good opening. It establishes the protagonist, and
even though it opens with a conversation in medias res at least that conversation is interesting. So we assume,
given its between a sarcastic lead and a self-important clerk. Where it fails is in the delivery. King abandons the
usual order of thought then thinker (or speech then speaker), which both reads counter-intuitively and scans
terribly given its rhythm. See how many different ways you can rewrite that line. Which is best? Try the same
exercise with your own opening lines.
Wax crept along the ragged fence, his boots scraping the dry ground.
Thats the opening of Brandon Sandersons Alloy of Law. It isnt as bad as some purple romance novel opening,
but its lame enough to serve as an example. Of the articles an opening may and ought to establishcharacter,
setting, theme, plot, moodthis line establishes only one. A man named Wax. The rest of the line is needless and
unclear description. If the fences raggedness is noteworthy then why not its material or its height? Since the
ensuing paragraph describes the fence in some detail, and the fence has nothing to do with the story, it would be
better to drop the adjective entirely. The same goes for the ground. Is it dry stone, dry dirt, dry jello? Before you
use a generic term like ground, ask yourself if you wouldnt be better off using a specific category. Prefer concrete
terms to generalities. From the scraping boots we may infer one of two things: the character is an amateur when it
comes to creeping, or the author and his editor dont understand that scraping ones boots is noisy and
counterproductive to sneaking. The rest of the paragraph makes it clear the latter is true. This is nitpicking with a
fine-toothed comb, I know, but if you give hiccups an inch they will take a mile.
As for closings, Im a big fan of punch. I like to finish a story and have to sit back for a minute to steady myself from
an impact likewise literal, symbolic or emotional. All of the above at best. I like a closing that leaves me not with
the need for points to be clarified, but with guesses as to what the storys ambiguities might mean. A strong closing

27

makes you want to read the story again. A strong opening you will understand twice as well once youve reached
the end and begun anew.
This isnt just creative advice, its also business advice. Literary agents begin reading dozens of manuscripts per
month. They do not finish reading dozens. You have about the first five pages in which to make an impression. If
your genre of choice is literary fiction, dont recoil because you think a punchy opening is some offence to
aesthetics. Pulp novels may be hundred metre dashes and literary novels may be marathons but both start with a
pistol shot and both end in some display of fanfare and satisfaction.
The counterpoint to this advice is to beware of gimmick. In the case of openings and closings, strong is not
inherently synonymous with shocking. Try too hard to be strong and you will only end up reeking of, well, trying
too hard.

28

PERSPECTIVE

Briefly, when deciding between first or third person, present or past tenseor, you daredevil you, second person
or future tenseconsider the effect each perspective has on the narrative. First person is intimate. The narrator is
directly involved in the story. Third person is remote, even when omniscient. Present tense creates a sense of
urgency and heightens the tension of events by describing them as they occur. Past tense is stable, perhaps more
convincing because it gives us the feeling that these events are facts of history rather than improvised scenes.
There are a number of nuances comprehended by each perspective. Is the narrator limited or omniscient? Is the
narrator reliable? I have no strong opinions on their use so I leave it to you to learn the differences.
The only other note I have on perspective comes from John Gardner. He made a point in The Art of Fiction that it
is often unnecessary to point out in description that a character is witness to said description. He saw that this had
happened. She heard footsteps. They noticed Christ floating down in some clouds. If you establish that the character is
present in a scene, the reader will naturally assume the character observes anything you go on to describe in that
scene. If the character misses a detail you may tell us he missed it. A lot of he saw and she heard kind of stuff is
hiccup territory. It only reminds the reader that she is not involved. She is merely reading about fictional people
engaged in fictional enterprises for fictional stakes.

29

NARRATIVE MATH

Last but certainly not least of these advanced techniques is narrative math. I hew to a formula of narrative time :
narrative importance. Anything I describe, expose, summarize, et cetera, I strive to do so in direct proportion to its
importance to the story.
If a particular character makes only a brief appearance I will only if at all describe her in the briefest terms. The
progress of the story does not hinge on the colour of her eyes. Conversely, if most of a story takes place in a single
city or building, I will devote appropriate paragraphs to its description. If its a real placesay, Parisrather than
describe La Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Louvre or other features everyone already knows about Paris, I will
instead describe trivia which bears on the story or sets the mood. A grimy alley, a posh caf, an old
neighbourhood, et cetera.
If an event which occurred prior to the narrative contributes greatly to later events in the story I will indulge in
some use of recollection or summarization to inform the reader. I generally avoid these modes, since theyre the
most telling. If said event doesnt have any significant repercussions in the story I will instead relegate it to a
passing mention in dialogue, or whatever mode is appropriate at that point in the story.
Likewise if an action or behaviour is signature of the protagonist, if it demonstrates her general attitude or
establishes a definite quality of her person, I will take appropriate pains to narrate it.
This ties in to economy. If buddy has a smoke, I wont waste time explaining the minute steps involved. Most
people are familiar already with the process of smoking a cigarette. Why go on about how He drew the cigarette out
of the packet, tapped it on the desk, pinched it between his lips, flipped open his Zippo, cupped the flame and lit it? In rare
cases you can use this kind of detailed description to set the mood or to create tension by drawing out a mundane
event when the reader knows some serious action is on the way. Mostly, though, no one cares. Just smoke the
damned thing and get on with the story.

30

301, TH EORY

This is the writing you do when youre not actually writing. It pertains in part to your style and in part to your
attitude and approach to the craft. These are strengths you will accumulate through practice, reflection and study.
When you draft you put theory to the test. Then you read over your work and alter the theory according to how
pleased you are with the results. Then you draft again. In this way theory empowers technique, and technique
refines theory.

31

BALANCE, I

The idea of balance is so broad and already implicit in these courses that I hesitate to address it openly.
Nevertheless it bears addressing. So far we have examined a number of elements of style. In order to write well we
cannot simply master each element individually. We must master their use in concert.
At one end of the prose spectrum we have the Hemingway type, direct and ascetic. At the other end we have the
Faulkner type, profuse and involved. Both were excellent writers. Both styles are valid. I happen to believe not all
writers fall between. Those who have found their voice do. Those who have not found their voice fall somewhere
outside that spectrum. Or below it. Or they just plain fall.
I nearly put quotation marks around found their voice. It is a tremendously clich phrase in discussion of writing,
and vague at that. But as with any clich it has a legitimate root. Find your voice is a platitudinous way of saying
experiment with rules of style until you find a set that best suit your stories. Then stick to those rules, purify them,
stake an indisputable claim on the literary acreage.
How heavily do your stories rely on dialogue? Are your best transitions made via description, introspection, or are
they cold scene breaks? How much exposition is too much? How many dots do you prefer to connect for the
reader, and how many do you want him to connect for himself? How remotely or intimately do you like to reveal
your settings, be they actual or fictitious or mixed?
The more you refine your style the more comfortable it will be to write. Readers are like children. They can sense
when youre not at ease. When you labour in the dark the reader has no light to guide her. She bumps into the
wall. The wall is you. On the other hand, when you hit your stride the reader is carried along light as a feather in
your slipstream. When she gets to the end shell have a smoke and pre-order the sequel, no questions asked.

32

PUNCTUATION, II

To carry over from the last section: experiment with punctuation until you find a style for yourself. I might gripe
about semicolons but theyre not so bad if theyre used consistently. I put down a lot of books because the author
has no apparent sense of definite function when placing his punctuation marks. In one sentence he uses a
semicolon to join independent clauses. In the next sentence he uses a dash for the exact same purpose. One side
note he escapes with parentheses, the next with commas. Then he uses one of those sentences rendered
labyrinthine by a gamut of marks all thrown in together at cross-purposes. This is nitty-gritty nitpicking, I know,
but it only takes one chink in a piece of armour to undermine the whole suit. If an author cant get a handle on a
few little marks, how much better will he fare with complex relationships and momentous plots?
By now you must know that I favour simple, artful prose. In this sort of prose, punctuation is the tigers whiskers
rather than its stripes. It facilitates his smooth movement rather than decorating or obfuscating him. Whether or
not I write well in this style myself is open to debate. In any case you might favour an entirely different form of
prose. You might adore sentences like puzzles that must be solved before the next may be read. You might despise
punctuation and compose your sentences with as few marks as possible. You might be anywhere in between. So
experiment and refine. Be conscious of your use. Be consistent.

33

SHOW

VS.

TELL, III

Im satisfied with the coverage in 201, so rather than explore the topic further Id just like to share an analogy
which may shed a different light on it.
Every work of art that I consider great has the same effect as a Rorschach test. The artwork imitates shapes and
colours found in nature. On a canvas or in a book these natural elements are severed from their moorings in the
world, freed from context. Isolation opens them to interpretation. A rabbit we see in a field is just a rabbit in a
field. A rabbit on a canvas may be a symbol. A rabbit in a David Lynch moviewho knows what crude or sinister
ideas it might represent or how he might use it out of its natural context to invoke some reaction in the deep
angles our hearts.
In the Rorschach test when we see these basic familiar shapes we tend to assign meaning to them. Did I say we
tend to? We practically line up to. Is it because were so uncomfortable with the lack of context that we invent
order to impose on the chaos? Are we just curious by nature, problem-solvers, seeking patterns or signs? Is it that
there exists no shape we have not seen and therefore everything draws comparison to something else, no matter
how reduced or disfigured?
I havent got a damned clue. Maybe thats why Im still so enamoured of art. Maybe the pattern Im looking for is
the pattern of looking. I cant be certain even of that, and so much the better. If I knew for certain then there
would be no surprise left in experiencing new art. No revelation.
So then, if your writing is a Rorschach card, what does it look like? It may be a tack-sharp, black-and-white, hairfor-hair outline of the rabbit. Or it may be the rabbits remains splattered on the altar of a haruspex. It may be
anything between. But what? It is impossible for us to predict everything a reader might get out of our work. It is
nevertheless important that we are conscious of what we put into it, and what we leave out.
The beauty and cosmic terror of the Rorschach test, as Alan Moore so masterfully explored it, is that no matter
what we see and no matter why we see it, we can never, ever, be 100% certain that its actually there.

34

ECONOMY, III

As with SHOW VS. TELL, III this is not so much an expansion on ECONOMY I & II as it is another way of looking at
them.
The line that has most influenced my approach to economy in writing comes from Jeff Smiths comic series Bone.
The hero is chased into a cave by some rat creatures. A dragon peeks out and says Boo, which scares them off.
The hero rebukes the dragon for not being able to do something cool or mystical. The dragon belches fire all over
the hero and says, Never play an ace when a two will do.
The poker analogy extends itself perfectly in writing. By volume, most of our prose equates to number cards.
Occasional passages equate to face cards. A line here and there equates to an ace. If the deck were all aces the
game would be no fun. Aces might be exciting and have big payoffs, but they are not necessary to win. Number
cards are your bread and butter. Four twos outrank a full house of kings and queens.
One sign of amateur writing is zeal. In my experience zeal is especially common in the work of creative writing
students. There is an urge in academia to put a new spin on everything. Why play a two when you can play an ace?
Aces, aces, everywhere. Even aces get tired. Even aces get boring. Pace yourself. Keep in mind adages like gilding
the lily and reinventing the wheel.
In my teens I fell into a lead guitar position in a band even though I was hardly a decent rhythm player. Rather
than pace myself, I tried to compensate for inexperience with activity. I noodled my way through every minute of
every song. I was deathly afraid that what I played wasnt interesting enough. I ignored the other ingredients of the
song, the other players. I forgot everything I knew about enjoying music as a listener myself. In hindsight of course
I recognize my mistake. Still, I appreciate it. I learned a valuable lesson. The structure of a story is similar to the
structure of a song: there are verses of newly covered ground, there are choruses where themes are revisited, and
there are transitions and breaks where those themes evolve. And there are solos. My, how there are solos.
Eric Clapton opens a lot of his songs with a little lick, a little riff. Then he backs right off into rhythm for the verses.
One of the most renown and soulful rock n roll guitarists alive and still most of what he plays is plain old rhythm.
Plain old deuces and treys. Every now and then he drops a face card to accent the lyrics. When the time comes for

35

aces, hes already played the other cards and has built his way up and boy he lays them aces on the table like they
were hammers and there aint nothin you can do to stop him.
If you feel tempted to spice up your story with clever phrasings and your own slant on grammatical clichs, then
okay. Thats fine and dandy. Just be discerning about it. Dont exhaust half your vocabulary in description of some
unimportant character. Dont endeavour to coin new figures of speech just to tell us the waiter poured some
coffee. Save the innovation for pivotal scenes. The main characters. The crucial actions. The thematic vistas. Your
reader will absorb the significance of these things so much more for the simultaneous intensity of events and
syntax. As with the formula discussed in NARRATIVE MATH, this is a congruence of content and style that will lend
grace and power to your writing.
Never play an ace when a two will do.

36

LISTEN

The most important piece of advice I have in the arena of theory is to listen. Listen to yourself. Trust your gut. It
doesnt matter whether you believe that art comes from inspiration, from a source internal or external, from God,
from spirits, from nature, or from no inspiration at all but that all creativity is simply laying bricks and a finished
work is no more than the sum of its parts. What you believe doesnt matter because it does not alter the
measurable facts of writing. Before you sit down to write, the story is not apparent in the world. After you stand up
from writing, the story is physically evident on paper or on a computer screen. Before you act there is nothing.
After you act there is something. That something comes from somewhere. You are free to give that somewhere a
name. I dont.
The one belief I have is that it is best to leave belief at the door when you enter the writing space. Leave yourself,
leave your self. As a species we have a tendency to think we know whats best. It is a chronic, epidemic,
unaccountably destructive tendency. Our biology gifts us with fine instincts. Feel a spider on your arm and youll
flinch to get it away. Close your eyes and youll still bristle when someone enters the room. Other instincts are
more overt, like hunger and tiredness. Bill Cosby said intellectuals are people who go to school to study what
other people do naturally. It is the intellect that gets in the way of instinct. When my body tells me Im thirsty I
often think, Im busy, Ill get a glass of water in a minute. An hour later I wonder why the hell Im so thirsty.
Im not listening.
In writing, whenever I have to reason my way out of a corner, I pause and sit back instead. Maybe Ive hit a knot in
the plotline or reached a conflict between characters I just cant resolve. In any case once I sit back and take stock
of the dilemma it becomes obvious that I cant reason my way out because reason is what got me there in the first
place. I dug myself a pit. Digging more wont help me escape.
Somewhere, out there or in here, the story already has a shape. The story knows its shape. The story tells itself, but
its voice is quiet. Much quieter than my loudmouth brain.
So I quit the Chaplin routine. Trying to pick up my hat but kicking it out of reach with each step. I put aside that
knotty plotline. I shelve that unresolved conflict. I put down the pen. I listen. What comes next varies but only in

37

the incidentals. First I retrace the story or scene thus far, point by point. At certain points alternate events suggest
themselves. I think about those alternates. I imagine how they might alter the chain of consequences. How they
might impact the storys causes and effects. My inner monologue presents these wonderings in the form of specific
questions. What if this happened instead? What if he said that instead? What if this character were a woman
instead of a man? I hesitate to say I imagine the answers, because it is not a conscious act. I imagine the questions.
The answers suggest themselves. Alternates play out in my imagination. I let one run its course. I make notes
during or afterward. Then I let the next alternate play out.
When alternates stop suggesting themselves I stop to review my notes. I keep listening. I think about each
alternate in the context of the whole story. It is often immediately clear which way the story should unfold. I
assume this is because Ive been lucky enough to detach from my brain and let my instinct, my gut, do the
thinking. But the gut doesnt think. It knows. The gut is your connection to the story. The story knows itself. It
tells itself. Listen and you will hear it.
In rare cases when the proper course of the story is not immediately clear, I might try cobbling my notes together
into hybrid alternates. Or I might sleep on it. Or I might spitball the ideas with a friend. Eventually, every knot I
have ever come up against has come undone, for no other reason than I listen.
I hope this works for you too but I promise nothing. Listen anyway. Trust your gut.

38

AUDIENCE

Speaking of trust, it is important to trust your reader. Our expectations of the reader are often inaccurate, unfair,
condescending and wildly varied. These are easy and natural expectations to have. Not sensible of course but
natural. The potential audience for our work is anyone at all.
If it helps, imagine a target audience. As in every industry publishing has target markets. What Im suggesting is
not to write to a demographic, but to imagine an ideal or typical reader of your sort of work. Of x sensibilities, y
education, z number of pets, whatever your criteria may be. Too demographic and you might limit your work too
much before youve even written it. You risk censoring yourself. You risk second-guessing your audience, which
Andy McKee says is the signature move of a hack. I agree.
That said, I myself aspire simultaneously to the general reader rule and to its paradoxical counterpoint, summed
up in a line from Joni Mitchell: I didnt really think about audience.
Ms. Mitchell didnt really think about it. That means she probably thought about it a little. If we dwell too much
on audience we become hacks. If we dont think about audience at all, though, we risk losing our anchor to the
very act of storytelling. Nothing remains to stop us from spiralling into impenetrable plots and alien grammar. We
cannot write wholly for others and we cannot write wholly for ourselves.
I see a clear line between the art and the business of writing. The art is what we do out of love. It bursts out of us.
Trapped on a desert island with nothing but a lonely death to wait for, we would still write because thats what
were made to do. But, of course, were also cells of a civilization. We have bills to pay. We make the art for
ourselves but we also want to share it. Others want us to share it. Our art has value. It is natural to ply a trade in
exchange for goods and services or for legal tender by which to obtain them.
As much as I can, I try not to let these halves of the process mingle. The art and the business. This is where the
general reader + no audience team takes the field. I know what kind of books I like. I know what kind of reader I
am. Left to my own devices I would write exclusively for myself and to myself. I did. I spiralled. After feedback
from peer reviewers I realized this was a very narrow-minded approach to writing. Especially because I already
know how all the dots connect in my stories. I had no idea how the picture looked from the outside. It never really

39

occurred to me that there was an outside view at all.

Now when I write I consider an audience at the outset. I model the imaginary reader not on myself but on some
fictitious alternate me, someone with similar tastes but who has no back stage pass to the story. I determine how
much I want to reveal to him and how hard he should work to piece together the rest. I decide which dots to
connect. Then, once I start writing, I forget about him. Ive set up the obstacle course, now its time to run it. I will
inevitably stumble and knock down a few hurdles. So what? Thats no reason to stop. I put that imaginary reader
out of mind and he stays that way until the first draft is finished and it comes under the editing knife. At that stage,
with input from peer reviewers, I evaluate the dots and the connections and refine them. I tend not to cede much
ground. I am not a fan of compromise in style. I do, however, strive to make my abstractions as clear as possible. I
want the reader to work, but I want her work to be enjoyable and satisfying. I dont want her to suffer. I want her
to sink her teeth into the story and to savour it, to digest it, and hopefully to gain some nourishment from it. I want
her to come back for more.

40

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

Sound advice, right? No one writes about aliens because no one has ever met them. No one who is innocent of
murder ever writes about murder. No one writes epic battle scenes who has not led armies against an ancient evil
risen again to threaten our feudal way of life and that of our estranged buddies the elves and the dwarves. No one
writes a girl who is a boy.
The real value of this adage requires a grain of salt. Forgive me if I sound like a bad teenaged poet, but what we all
know is emotions. The range of human emotion is, with a few precious and hideous exceptions, exactly the same
for each of us. Every person on the planet is capable of love, of fear, of empathy, of pride, et cetera et cetera. Our
job as writers is to become intimate with this range and then to depict these feelings. To evoke them in our readers
with no more than words.
I dont need to kill a guy to have felt the sort of anger or frustration that could lead a person to kill. I dont need to
have driven Aston Martins and tanks in her majestys secret service to have felt a thrill. What I do need is to convey
these feelings accurately and plausibly. I need to compose my narrative in such a way that my reader feels these
things as authentically as I do. Authentic writing helps the reader borrow these feelings from his own experience,
whereas inauthentic writing seeks to lodge foreign objects in the readers eye. The inauthentic writer cries, See
this, feel this! The authentic writer doesnt have to say a thing.
Of course I can write about aliens. Ive felt alienation. Ive felt fear and isolation. Anything Ive felt I can access in
my reader because odds are hes felt them too. Ridley Scott tore that shit up in Alien because he had the tools and
talent to invoke our memories of nyctophobia, of claustrophobia and xenophobia. And if we had not suffered
those particular phobias he knew how to insinuate them by evoking fear in general. He and Ms. Weaver conveyed
those feelings so urgently and palpably that we could not help but share them. Our disbelief froze in its tracks. Not
because killer aliens from outer space are plausible, but because the characters with whom we connected are.
Of course this is not a free ticket to just make shit up. Do the research needed to render your settings and events
plausible. Even the most realistic characters cant save your story if you set it in a Camelot which features flushing
toilets and whose peasants are happy-go-lucky intellectuals. Write what you know, yes. If you dont know
something, learn it. Knowledge has never been so free as it is now.

41

KILL YOUR DARLINGS

A man who taught me a great deal of practical skills and practical knowledge once told me: You know what the
old man says, ya gotta be ruthless. I wish you could hear him. The emphasis on ruthless. The nasal impersonation
of his father, a turnip farmer, passing on the wisdom of his father before him. The simple earnest truth of it.
This advice applies mostly in the editing stage, which is when we bridge the gap between art-for-ourselves and artfor-sale. When we stroll back through the rows we spent so long planting and tending and we tear up all but the
best, most suitable, most plausible fruits of our labour. It can be a painful process. Everything you write is your
darling. But this is a beautiful pain if we allow it to be. Cathartic. It purifies the work. Not every idea we cut is a
waste, necessarily. Not every character killed or subplot axed or description junked or chapter halved. Some ideas
are just unripe. Others are not meant to be eaten themselves but will germinate and turn into a whole orchard of
ideas later on. Be ruthless in dividing the useful from the useless, but salvage what you can from the useless pile
and set it aside. It might prove useful one day.
Ruthless. From reuthe, meaning pity, compassion. To be ruthless is not to be cruel. It is only to be impersonal. To
set aside pity. If I had a child and that child were, say, bitten by a zombie, it would be my duty as a father to set
aside pity and shoot the child to save it from misery. Not for my good but for his. Certainly not for my good. In
writing and revision, although I do not like to equate artworks to children, it is our duty to do what is best for the
story. We must set aside our own desiresor better yet, conform our desires to those of the storyand put those
unripe phrases, scenes, characters and chapters out of their misery. Kill those darlings. Ya gotta be ruthless.

42

A COUPLE REMINDERS

Remember the senses and how they can be used to convey ideas and themes. How they can be used to hook the
readers imagination. Even the most cerebral fiction has a stronger impact when the reader is drawn into the
physical world of the story rather than left to orbit it in a sensory vacuum. Its easy in this day and age of 3D blockbusting CGI-out-the-yin-yang movies to forget that there are senses other than the visual, other than the THXbombarded aural. In a book all senses are equal. A simple flake of milled pepper on the tongue can kindle a
readers imagination more swiftly and completely than ten sprawling cityscapes or thirty conflagrant sunsets.
Remember also the basics of journalistic writing. Who, what, where, when. How and why. This will help keep you
grounded. It will help you from straying too far off track, especially into introspection or heady exposition. Unless
youre Sartre, in which case who am I to argue? In which case who am I at all?

43

401, PR ACTI CE

Technique and theory are all well and good but without practice they are nothing. Nothing. If a man knows
everything there is to know about grammar and style, if he knows how to weave a perfect story or depict a
character so real it breaks your heart, if he understands how to construct a world that will capture your
imaginationif he can do all this but he never actually puts pen to paper, he is not a writer. On the other hand a
hormone-ridden teenager who has no conception of style, who thinks writing is not an art because it does not
hang in museums, and who hacks his way through Sonic the Hedgehog or Snape / Spock fan-fictionthis kid is a
writer. Why? Because he writes. It does not matter if his stories are graceless and perverse. It does not matter if his
grammar is abominable. It does not matter if his characters are dimensionless or borrowed. He writes. He
qualifies. The following are a set of practices that may help you qualify too.

44

BALANCE, II

Write a story twice. In the first version use short simple sentences, no more words than necessary, no semicolons
and generally minimal punctuation, and present no overt themes. In the second version write as extravagantly as
you please, narrate whatever digressions and themes arise. Do it well, mind you. Writing extravagantly is not the
same as writing poorly. Once youve written both versions, set them aside for a while and later rewrite a single
version from memory with whatever balance of style comes naturally.

45

SHOW

VS.

TELL, IV

Same deal. Write a story twice. In the first version expose your characters thoughts, motives, feelings, everything.
Write it from an intimate perspective even if the narration is third person. In the second version expose nothing.
Give only the external view of events. Leave every conclusion unspoken so that the reader must come to her own.
Set both versions aside for a while and later rewrite a single version from memory with whatever balance of
showing and telling comes naturally.

46

READ

The first practice in writing is reading. Its also the only practice in this course which does not involve your own
writing. Read, read, read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read works in genres you like to write. Read
works in genres you would hate to write. Read famous authors, read obscure authors. Read authors you adore,
read authors you despise. Read gold, read shit.
The artistic process begins with imitation. First we copy the masters, either directly or in flattering mimicry.
Imitation is followed by assimilation. This is when we incorporate several influences and package them in our own
concepts and devices. Assimilation is followed by innovation. Our influences become so numerous and finely
enmeshed with our own invention and tastes that our product is unique, never before seen, not yet imagined.
Although it may seem like reading is mostly important in the initial stages of this process it is in fact equally
important at all stages. It is always important. If you are a writer then reading is your fuel.
By reading we learn what has come before us. What territories have been explored, what twists utilized, what
standbys and clichs established. We also learn what territories remain virgin and which known territories are just
begging for a new expedition. More than once I learned by reading that an idea I had was not only already done
before but already tired and pass.
Say for example I wanted to write a vampire story. God forbid. Lo and behold! Its been done before. That doesnt
mean I should throw my idea out. It does mean that I can skip explaining certain common knowledge points of
the mythos. Vampires drink blood, burn in sunlight, look like Udo Kier, et cetera. It also means I may choose to
spin or reinvent other points. Maybe my vampires suffer from liver disease. Maybe my vampires thirst for feces
instead of blood. Maybe my vampires sparkle.
Would you trust a skinny cook? An uneducated teacher? A musician who doesnt listen to music? To be a writer
worthy of trust you must read. Read, read, read.

47

CRITIQUE

In addition to reading published work, read unpublished work. Join a writer`s workshop in your city or online. If
you cant find one you like, start one. Seek out your peers and read their work. Let them read yours. Learn both to
enjoy the writing of your peers and to weigh its artistic merits. Tell them what you think. This part works, that part
is weak, this drew me in, that bored me, this character I loved, that one is one dimensional, this plotline is
overused, that device is brilliant.
As you critique you will learn to do so in increasingly greater depth and finer detail. You will learn to better
articulate the principles of good writing as you understand them. You will learn to adapt your suggestions for
writers of varied temperament and skill level. This will help you view your own work with a critical eye. You will
learn to construct better outlines, which equates to fewer roadblocks when you draft. You will develop a clearer
sense of your characters and their purpose, both as imaginary people and as devices inherent to your story. You
will recognize and control how the events and descriptions in your story convey moods and meaning to the
reader.
You might find that a lot of peer review is useless praise, and the rest is mostly undue insult. Critique that is
thoughtful and useful is hard to come by. Put your work out there anyway. Mining for good feedback is like
mining for anything else. For every ounce of gold you pan there are truckloads of dirt and rocks.
Some of those rocks are jagged. Thicken up your skin. The tone of any criticism is irrelevant. Your work has no
emotion inherent in it that leaps off the page and possesses the reader. It only evokes. If a critic shows emotion, it
is because your work has evoked it or because the critic brought it to the table herself. When you receive a critique,
first trim away everything but the bare points the critic has made. Then you may sort the points according to
which are helpful and which are not. Do this only after careful reflection. If someone says your story sucks they
might just be trolling or it might in fact suck. Give every criticism, however absurd, at least some small
consideration. You never know where help might come from. Resist the urge to critique the critic. No ifs ands or
buts. Just say thanks.

48

MIX IT UP

In general we aim to write good stories well. Whenever someone tells me they feel blocked I suggest writing a bad
story, or trying to write a story poorly. Naturally the artistic instinct takes over. They can start a bad story or start
writing poorly but eventually they are compelled to write well. The words come despite their so-called block.
I suggest this also as a general exercise. Write a bad story poorly. Write a bad story well. Write a good story poorly.
It is important to know the difference between these things. In art the best way of knowing is doing, and contrast
is an excellent if a very blunt teacher.

49

BACK TO BASICS

Another useful exercise is to write a story using only essential words. Nouns, verbs, pronouns, conjunctions. In
other words write a story without adjectives or adverbs. Or, take a story youve already written and strip it of
adjectives and adverbs.
Read it over. Pretty stark, right? But its functional. It gets the job done. Nothing gets in its way. It is a Spartan.
Now, with a new perspective on the story, build it back up. Insert adjectives that genuinely enhance the meaning.
Insert whatever adverbs, if any, the sentences genuinely need in order to function.

50

GIVE IN TO THE DARK SIDE

Write a story in the dark. The first draft of a brand new story, the second draft of a story you already wrote, or the
Nth draft of a story youve been writing since high school. It doesnt matter which. By dark I mean in just enough
light to write by but not enough light to read by.
This exercise is, to use the vernacular, throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks. You cannot edit as you go.
You will continually forget all but the gist of what you wrote a moment ago. You will have no outline, no character
sketches, no dictionary or thesaurus. Its just you and the story.
For extra credit in BALANCE, I and SHOW VS. TELL, IV write the final unified versions of those stories in the dark.

51

READ ALOUD

In DIALOGUE, II we discussed the writer as an actor responsible for portraying the entire cast. To broaden your
approach to dialogue and the sound of narrative in general try reading your stories aloud. Learn to hear what you
write. Keeping a mental note about run-on sentences is one thing. Actually running out of breath reading them
back is another level of feedback entirely.

52

QUERYIZE, SYNOPSISIFY

A query is a brief letter written by an author to hook an agent interest in a novel. A synopsis is a point-by-point
summary of a novel. Both are gruelling to write. Writing query letters and synopses is a skill every writer should
have, not just novelists. Learn to write them. Lean to love them. Love the gruel. The ability to write a query or a
synopsis will improve your drafting and will exponentially improve your outlining.
A typical query letter provides an agent with the prospective novels title, its word count and its genre. It also
includes a teaser summary a few paragraphs long. The first of these paragraphs should answer the following
questions, each in as few words as possible:
1.

What is the main characters name?

2.

What problem or choice does the main character face?

3.

Who wants to foil the main characters plan, and why?

The subsequent paragraphs indicate how this setup unfolds. They may hint at the conclusion but they do not give
it away. Their chief function is to convey the stakes and the tension of the story. A query is bait.
A synopsis on the other hand is factual and journalistic. It tells an agent or editor exactly what takes place in the
story. Who is who, who does what, why they do it, where, how, when, and how it all ends.
Where a query is difficult to write because it is short, a synopsis is difficult to write because it is fiercely resistant to
style. In a synopsis your story is laid out on the table like a dissected lab animal. It may have style, of course, but
foremost it must be clear and to the point. It is exactly because synopses are difficult to write that you should learn
to write them.
A synopsis is just an outline written after-the-fact. In practice they are fuller and more flushed out, but in principle
they are outlines. If you can write an outline you can write a synopsis. Conversely, if you can write a synopsis your
powers of outlining will multiply. If you get blocked in a draft all you have to do is step back and work on the
synopsis. It will remind you in plain terms where the story is headed and what needs to happen.

53

A query is just a streamlined version of the blurb you give your friends when they ask what your book is about. A
sales pitch. A query condenses the most important elements of the story and delivers them in rich punchy
sentences. Knowing how to boil your story down to its bare essentials will help you keep track of those essentials
yourself. In drafting its easy to get carried away with subplots, intricately described locales, conceptual
explorations, et cetera. If you get lost like this all you have to do is step back and work on the query. It will bring
you face to face with the storys beating heart.
For extra credit, write taglines for your stories too. A tagline is a simple sentence or two whose job is to convey the
barest elements of the story and to hook the interest of a potential reader. Think movie poster text. For example, a
tagline for Romeo & Juliet might go something like: Two households, one love. Shit just got real.

54

WRITE, MOTHERFUCKER

Dont find the time to write. Make the time. Dont think about it, do it. Just sit down and write. There is a voice in
your head right now saying you could stop reading this and go write instead. Listen to it.
I assume between the last paragraph and this one you went to write for a while. Either you did and you feel fulfilled
and deserving of whatever entertainments the rest of the day holds, or you did not and you might just feel like a
coward and will until you actually write, or you arent a writer and just happen to be reading this. In any case
consider the basic math of the writing equation. If you write for a half hour each weekday. That equates to ten
hours a month. One hundred and twenty hours per year. Now say you produce an average of five hundred words
in a half hour session. Thats ten thousand words in a month. One hundred and twenty thousand words in a year.
120,000 words.
To give you some perspective, most authorities draw the minimum length of a novel at fifty thousand words. The
average length of a novel is between seventy thousand words and one hundred thousand words. Novels of a
hundred thousand words and more are usually fat fantasy books. Books by Neil Stephenson, for example. Heart of
Darkness clocks in under forty thousand words. The Trial is about eighty thousand. Moby Dick runs two hundred
and eleven thousand. War & Peace, Atlas Shrugged and Infinite Jest, while not the longest novels ever published,
each weigh in around six hundred thousand words.
That means if you write even so little as a half hour a day, just five hundred words a day, you can draft and revise a
whole novel each year. Thats taking the weekends off.
Stephen King says the first million words you write are practice. For a guy with such formulaic stories and
lukewarm prose he sure knows a hell of a lot about the theory and the profession of writing. I trust his estimate.
Put in nine years at 120,000 words a year and by year ten youll probably be writing decently, you should be
writing well, and you might just be writing incredibly.
Dont find the time. Make it. Most people spend a half hour a day on the toilet. A half hour lying awake before
they fall asleep. A half hour channel surfing even though nothing good is on TV. A half hour shuffling around the
house picking things up and putting them back down. If you have a half hour to waste on this shit, you have a half

55

hour to write. If you have a half hour you can probably bulk up to a full hour after a month or two, once writing is
engrained in your routine. If you can write a thousand words a day youre laughing. Thats a novel in a year with
room to spare for a day job, a family, a vacation, and a hobby or two without even breaking a sweat.
Write, motherfucker.

56

IN SP IR ATION

I recently browsed a list of questions posed to Margaret Atwood by an online writers group. Every other question
was Whats your inspiration? or What inspires you to write? In almost every interview of almost every artist this
question in one of its many forms is posed. The answers are infinite in variety. Here are a few viewpoints for
reference:
Inspiration. Circa 1300, immediate influence of God or a god, especially that
under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiration, from Late
Latin inspirationem (nom. inspiratio), from Classic Latin inspiratus, pp. of
inspirare inspire, inflame, blow into, from in-in + spirare to breathe (see spirit).
Etymology Online
I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the
ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.
Richard Wagner
The artist must raise the cup of his vision to the gods in high hope that they will
pour into it with the sweet mellow wine of inspiration.
Paul Brunton
Art is worship.
Abbas Effendi
A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, its better than no inspiration at all.
Rita Mae Brown
Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousnessI wouldnt know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-

57

consciousness.
Aaron Copland
What is indispensable to inspiration? Sound sleep and the provocation of a good
book or a companion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When inspiration doesnt come, I go halfway to meet it.
Sigmund Freud
I dont know anything about inspiration because I dont know what inspiration is;
Ive heard about it, but I never saw it.
William Faulkner
A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist
knows only what it will be when he has finished it. But it is unbecoming in an artist
to talk about inspiration; that is the readers business.
W. H. Auden
The longings to produce great inspirations didnt produce anything but more
longing.
Sophie Kerr
You cant wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always
generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
Frank Tibolt

58

Inspiration comes of working every day.

Charles Baudelaire
I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine
oclock sharp.
W. Somerset Maugham
JC: Where do you get the inspiration to write a play?
NS: Ive never had the inspiration to write a play.
JC: But thats impossible. Youve written so many plays, you must have had
inspiration to write them.
NS: Nope. Never had the inspiration to write.
JC: Well then, how do you know when to sit down and start writing?
NS: Well, thats easy. Eight oclock in the morning. Thats my job. Thats what I do.
JC: But what if you dont have anything in your head to write?
NS: It doesnt matter. I write anyway. Then I look at what I wrote. Sometimes I like
it and I keep going. Sometimes I dont and I throw it away. Thats my job.
Johnny Carson interviewing Neil Simon
Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. Its the fable
of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious
matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That
means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a
novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.
Umberto Eco

The answers are infinite in variety, but what about the truth? I dont know. That is, I know whats true for me, but I
dont know what might be true for you. Each of the artists quoted above is or was accomplished in his or her own
right, yet their opinions on the subject run the available gamut. That tells me there probably is no single truth of
the matter. My experience agrees. Even if there is a single truth, I favour whatever answer gets the job done.

59

Whats true for me is that inspiration is irrelevant. Thats not entirely true. I should say whether or not inspiration
is relevant, it is out of my hands so I dont think about it. It does not factor into my equation.
Me + Work = Result
As I said in LISTEN, the story exists out there. It makes no difference where exactly if it exists within me or in some
ethereal elsewhere. The story is not a delivery made to me but a discovery I am permitted to make. The story is its
own inspiration. You might ask what happens if I sit down to write and no story announces itself to me, does that
not equal a lack of inspiration? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it makes no difference to me. If nothing comes to
mind, I sit back and let my mind wander. I imagine. I am by whatever agency or power or acquired skill allowed to
access that womb of stories. I have never come away from daydreaming empty-handed.
I do this because it comes naturally. It is what my instincts guide me to do. As in other areas of life, of survival,
inspiration is largely beside the point. The why is not so relevant to survival as is the how. If Im hungry I eat. If my
bladder is full I piss. If I have to write I write. Being a citizen of a nation which affords me many freedoms,
opportunities and conveniences, I have the luxury of reflecting on the inspiration behind these acts. I may
investigate the science of hunger. I may consider the philosophy of artistic expression. But I must be careful not to
think my way into a corner. Not to assign so much significance to the why that I become paralyzed by dread or
reverence for the how. A caveman tens of thousands of years ago did not have the luxury or powers of reflection
that we have, but he also did not bear the vulnerability of doubt that we do. He painted the walls of his cave
because he had something to record. I hunted some elk. There are ten people in my tribe. Inspiration wasnt a factor.
Does that mean the caveman was a clerk rather than an artist? I dont know. What I do know is that he never sat
there with his dye of crushed berries staring at a blank cave wall unsure what to paint.
Whatever the truth of inspiration is to you, I recommend giving this instinctual approach a try. Feel free to
consider inspiration but do not depend on it. Do not wait. Sit down and write. Trust your gut. Maybe thats all
inspiration is: the act of trusting yourself with a duty without asking why its yours.

60

P UBL ISH ING

I consider art and commerce two sides of the same coin. Although they are necessarily linked, they cannot exist in
the same place at the same time. Write for your heart, publish for your stomach. Writing is intimate, dire, sacred.
Leave any thoughts of money and fame and even rent at the door when you enter. Publishing on the other hand is
convoluted and protracted and indifferent. Shield your heart or it will get broken.
There is a very simple and typical career path in writing fiction. First, before you have any credits to your name,
submit your stories to pro bono or low-paying magazines, reviews, journals, quarterlies, whatever publication your
stories suit. Once youve been published and have a few credits to your name, submit to publications that pay a
better rate for your work. Work your way up the chain.
I only have one resource to offer for story publication, and it is the best: Duotrope, an online index of story and
poetry publications. It is searchable by genre, by story length, by pay scale and by a variety of other conditions. It
tracks submissions versus rejections and acceptances based on your feedback.
If you write novels, you will still benefit a great deal from having short story credits. When you send out query
letters to literary agents those credits will tell them people pay to read your work. You might even have an
established readership. It might still take a hundred query letters before an agent offers to represent your work, but
thats just how publishing works. Something like a million or more new titles are published each year. Millions of
people write. Millions. Agents get thousands of query letters a year. Of those thousands they might ask a hundred
or fewer prospective clients to send the first three chapters of the novel for them to read. Of those hundred or
fewer they might ask a dozen to send the full manuscript. Of that dozen they might offer to represent one or two.
If you want to be that one or two, I recommend subscribing to Query Shark and trawling the archives of the
unfortunately discontinued Miss Snark. Even if you dont write novels, as I said in QUERYIZE, SYNOPSISIFY you
can still benefit a great deal from knowing how to query.
For a comprehensive list of agents and publishing houses, as well as other resources related to publishing, I

61

recommend Predators & Editors. Their site design might be out of date, but their info is gold and might just save
your ass.

62

P E T P EE VES

You might have noticed by now that Im a picky reader. I try to be as picky a writer too. To carry the obsession a
step farther I will be a picky teacher and share with you certain phrases commonly misspelled and misused. These
are very, very minor errors which no one should feel guilty about making. If you acknowledge the error and you
continue to make it anyway, however, then you may certainly feel guilty. In fact I insist.
1.

By in large. The correct phrase is by and large. It means in general. By and large, that bi was large. By in
large means nothing. To its credit, at least, I have only rarely seen this misused.

2.

Intensive purposes. The correct phrase is intents and purposes. Although some people mix up the
words, they use this phrase correctly to mean something like as far as Im concerned. It is an
embellishment. It serves no real purpose. If for all intents and purposes I mean to nit-pick this phrase,
then I just mean to nit-pick this phrase. You could apply it equally to anything you almost definitely
intend. For all intents and purposes these are some words in a sentence. My guess is some ad
company coined this phrase in a commercial and people adopted it into their daily vocabulary in
order to sound informed and important.

3.

Low and behold. A common and understandable error. Most peoples exposure to older forms of
English comes in the form of forced and quickly forgotten high school readings of Shakespeare. The
correct phrase is lo and behold, which to Joe Twelfth-Grade-Reading-Level probably makes no more
sense than low and behold does. How would he know lo is an old diminutive of look?

4.

Try and [verb]. This is one that rankles me, try as I might to be mature and impervious in matters of
grammar. Ill try and see if I can make it. Hell try and meet us. The correct use in these cases is try to
[verb], not try and [verb]. In these sentences the predicate is try. The second verb, whatever it may
be, is a complement to try, since it is what the subject is trying to do. Not, as is painfully obvious in
this very example, what the subject is trying and do.

5.

Supposively. This is not a word. The adjective is supposed, not supposive. The adverb is therefore
supposedly.

6.

Alot. This one has been covered much more skilfully than I could do it, so Ill just point you in the
right direction: The Alot.

63

R E CO MMEN DED R E ADING

I think it can be useful to talk about writing. I think it can be useful to read about writing. I think it can be
especially useful and that it is in fact our duty as writers to share the techniques and experiences that have
improved our work. These activities can be beneficial but they are peripheral. They are not writing. They do not
accomplish the work, they only support it. If at any time they take the place of the work itself then they have
become counterproductive and perhaps even destructive. As Camus says, whatever prevents you from doing your
work has become your work. A person who talks about sports but rarely plays is called an armchair athlete. Do you
want to be an armchair author?
There is a time to play, a time to spectate, a time to coach, and a time to ape Pete Ecclesiastes Seeger. It is
common knowledge even outside the realm of medical science that the human body has an internal clock. The
human soul, spirit, qi, chakras, genius, creative force, right brain, whatever else you might call itthis part of us
also has a clock. You and I probably do not share the same circadian urges toward ingesting and expelling art.
Maybe no two people do. It doesnt matter. You only have to know your own. Know it well.
The body has convenient systems for indicating hunger and the need to void the bowels. One system, really. Pain.
Greater pain indicates greater urgency.
In my experience the heart employs the same system for indicating creative needs. If I go a few days without
reading fiction I first feel an uncomfortable boredom. If I ignore it and go even longer without reading then the
discomfort becomes irritation, and I get the creative equivalent of hunger pangs that tell me something important
is missing from my body. If I ignore this too I eventually just get stir crazy. The need for creative influx becomes a
nail in my shoe that jabs me at every step. The same is true when I go without writing for a while. I do not, like
Byron, write to avoid this pain. I write because I love to write. The pain is merely a symptom of withdrawal from
that love. Read when you need to, write when you need to. Just as you breathe in when your lungs are empty and
breathe out when your lungs are full.
When Im hungry for knowledge or have less urgent need of it I read things like the following:

64

-The Elements of Style or The Chicago Manual of Style.

-The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
-The Artists Way by Julia Cameron. I was fortunate enough to encounter this and The War of Art around the same
time. They complement each other very well, with a striking and natural masculine / feminine dynamic.
-10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard.
-Kurt Vonneguts eight rules.
-How To Write Badly Well.

65

CO MMEN CE MEN T

If you retain only one sentence from this course, let it be this summation: define success in your own terms, learn
to keep what is useful and ditch what is not, and just sit your ass down and get to work already.

66