Of Two Minds

MOST NOVELS ARE written from a single point of view ... one narrator telling one main story. But what do you do when you want to tell more than one main story?
   That was an issue I had to address when I wrote my 2009 novel, Pirate Hunter. It was going to combine the stories of two protagonists: one a rescued slave who was serving as a crew member on a pirate ship in the seventeenth century, and one the story of a contemporary marine archaeologist who was searching for the remains of a pirate ship.
   I wanted my stories to echo one another. I wanted to tell them, for the most part, in alternating chapters, and I wanted the transitions from one chapter to the next to be as smooth as possible. And I didn't want to depend on a dateline at the beginning of the chapter ("The Spanish Main, 1638"). In fact, I didn't want to use datelines at all.
   So how were my readers going to tell which story they were in?
   Easy: I told my historical story in third person ("he"), and I told my contemporary story in first person ("I"). It worked well; in fact it worked so well that I've had readers wonder how it was that I kept it so clear which story I was in ... and then they were surprised when I told them about the shift in person. They weren't aware of it; they only knew that it worked.
   This is by no means an idea original to me. I've read books by my friend Steven James in which he does the same thing. In fact, in some of his work, he will shift both person and tense (past in one and present in the other), which works quite nicely.
   So ... got two stories to tell in one novel and want to keep them distinct? Not a problem. You have first-person, second-person and third-person narrative points of view to work with. Pick two.
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NOTE: If you are reading this on January 29, 2014, and want to see how I did this, for free, get yourself the ebook edition (Kindle, Nook and all other major ebook platforms) of Pirate Hunter. Today only, the price is $0.00.

NaNopeWriMo

AS I WRITE THIS, we are three days into the 2014 edition of NationalNovel Writing Month. The purpose of NaNoWriMo (as it is known) is to create a novel of at least 50,000 words in length, which means one has to average 1,667 words a day throughout the month of November.

   So how many words of fiction have I written in the last three days?

   Zero.

   And that doesn’t concern me in the least.

   You see, while I have occasionally signed up for NaNoWriMo in the past, mostly to offer encouragement to friends who were taking their first crack at book-length fiction, I don’t believe I ever did so with the intention of actually trying to churn out 2,000 words a day (which would have to be my goal, as I don’t write on Sundays). And this year, I have come to a conclusion that has been festering for a few years … namely that NaNoWriMo is basically a bad idea overall.

   I feel that way for three reasons.

   The first, and most obvious, is that a novel one writes in a month is almost certainly going to be the literary equivalent of a train wreck.

   Yes, I know … Hemingway wrote TheTorrents of Spring in just ten days. But it’s the literary equivalent of a train wreck as well, and it’s widely believed that it was deliberately created as such. When he submitted that manuscript to his then-publisher, Boni & Liveright, they rejected it, releasing Hemingway from his contract with them. Hemingway claimed that this was never his intention, but the fact remains that The Sun Also Rises, which would otherwise have belonged to Boni & Liveright, was sold instead to Scribner’s—a much more desirable publishing house.

   And yes, I know that there are a few hundred traditionally published novels claimed by their authors to have been written during NaNoWriMo. But of that number, I suspect some were merely begun during the November event, others simply worked on during that time … and it’s entirely possible that a few authors merely claimed participation to gain some word-of-mouth publicity.

   Even if all of those books were legitimately created during National Novel Writing Month, they amount, if my math is correct, to fewer than twelve hundredths of one percent of the manuscripts by participants since the event began in 1999. So at least 99.88 percent of what’s written during NaNoWriMo receives no reaction from legitimate publishers other than a gag reflex, and creating something like that hardly seems like a good use of time.

   The sad fact is that most of the novels written at any time of the year are, from a readability standpoint, rubbish … as are a significant fraction of the novels that are ultimately published. Forgive me for being a spoilsport, but it hardly seems as if we need a special event to add to those statistics.

   The second reason I’m not keen on NaNoWriMo is that its primary purpose seems to be the creation of trophy novels: books written so one can cross “write a novel” off one’s bucket list.

   The issue I have with this—writing a novel in order to call oneself a novelist—is that it inverts the proper order of things. The real reason one should be writing a novel is to entertain and intrigue readers.

   Was this the reason I got into fiction? Of course not. I wanted the recognition as much as anyone else. But I quickly realized that one does not gain recognition merely by writing. One gains it by being read, and one does that by creating something that is eminently readable.

   The third reason I’m not fond of NaNoWriMo is actually my primary reason, and this is that the basic purpose of the event lies at odds with a fundamental characteristic common to every successful novelist I have known.

   I’m talking about grit.

   “Grit” is an old-fashion word that refers to a particular strength of character—the ability to devote oneself to a goal that cannot be reached quickly or without sacrifice. In terms of the novel, grit is the willingness to sit down at the keyboard every morning, even though you may have known how the story ends now for months, or even for years. It is the ability to write the book and make it moving and beautiful even though you may be sick of the story and wish it would simply go away.

   And 30 days is far too scant a time in which to determine if you have something like that.

   So if you’ve gotten into NaNoWriMo for the camaraderie, or the novelty, or simply because you don’t care to watch what’s being offered on TV this month, then more power to you.
   But if you truly want to be a novelist, you are better off purchasing a truly comfortable chair, and thinking of November as nothing more than the first month of the rest of your life.

TUESDAY TIPS: A Banquet of Beginnings

AS YOU HAVE probably assumed by now, I am totally sold on my Amazon Kindle.  
   I am on my second one. My first Kindle was the keyboard model; it had both wifi and 3G cellular connectivity, and I vividly remember being on a cruise ship leaving the Azores, leaning out over our stateroom balcony railing to catch the last vestiges of a cell signal so I could download a guidebook for Lisbon, our next stop.
   A little over two years ago, that Kindle bit the dust when it fell off the back of our couch (we live in Florida: ceramic tile floors), so my wife took pity on me and bought a replacement, the keyboard-less model. And now I am trying to figure out a way to kill it, so I can get a Kindle Paperwhite (I know, I know ... thou shalt not covet ... I'm still a work in progress).
   As an author, I know that Kindle ebook sales dwarf every other form of digital delivery. 
   And as an author, I use my Kindle as a tool (you can also do this with virtually every other ebook reader) to read the beginnings of books.
   Why the beginnings? Two reasons, really.
   The first is that the beginning is the free sample that Kindle will allow you to download when you are considering the purchase of the book. So (provided most of that beginning has not been taken up by front matter) if that book is a novel, you'll usually get most, if not all, of the first chapter. Sometimes more. This is far more cost-effective than buying every book that piques my interest, and it's much more efficient than a trip to the library.
   The second reason I browse beginnings is because, particularly in this age of free digital samples, that first chapter has a great deal to do with whether the reader is going to buy, or engage with, a book ... especially a novel. By perusing the beginnings of dozens of books every week, I get a pretty good sense of what works and what doesn't, and that is a very good sense for a novelist to have.
   Many ebook delivery platforms, Kindle included, also have two bestseller lists: one paid and one free. If I spot a book that looks interesting on the free list, I will download the entire book. That said, if anyone at Kindle is analyzing my reader use, they will probably notice that most free books spend no more than five minutes on my reader. Most free ebooks are self-published by writers not yet ready for prime time, and if this becomes apparent in the first page or two, I delete the book to keep my library screens down to a manageable minimum. The free "bestseller list" is mostly like the remainder table at a bookstore, and you don't want to reflect that; you want to emulate the books that sell well. Still, some very good novels occasionally show up on the free list; generally these are put up by publishers trying to promote the author's newer work.
   If you don't have an ebook reader, you can still browse samples. Most platforms allow you to download an app so you can use your smart phone, tablet or computer (i.e., whatever you are reading this on right now) as your e-reader. By going to the online store and clicking on the "send free sample" button, you can still browse beginnings at your leisure.
   All good writers are good readers first. Get acquainted with how great books tend to begin, and you can't help but up your game.
   And now, if you'll excuse me, I am off to balance my aging Kindle on the back of the couch.

Gone Sporadic

THIS HAPPENS from time to time. After blogging twice a week for most of this year, I now feel the need to dive into a fresh project that is going to keep me writing fiction (as opposed to writing about writing fiction) for the foreseeable future.
   In keeping with what I recently said about sharing news of works in progress, I won't go into detail on what I'm working on. Just know that I am writing, and I trust you are doing the same.
   This ain't goodbye. As nuggets occur to me in my work, I'll surface from time to time to post them here on the blog. And when I do, I will tickle the social media to let you know I've posted something fresh. But the twice-a-week time-release capsules are going  into hiatus; I need to spend this creative time ... well ... creating.
   If this blog has been useful to you, or if there is something you've been wishing that I'd comment on, I hope you'll write it in the "Comments" section below. It will be a help to me when I come up from air from the fiction.
   In the meantime, strength to your writing arm.
   Now ... go craft something amazing.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: The Best Buck a Writer Can Spend

MANY THANKS TO everyone who downloaded my free ebook earlier this week. I'm looking forward to hearing what you thought of it. And now I'd like to recommend that you spend 99 cents to purchase another ebook.
   No; it's not one of mine. It is The Complete Works of Mark Twain.
   Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the man who wrote under the Mark Twain pen name, was easily one of the more extraordinary individuals of his time. In a period when most Americans never traveled more than 200 miles from the place where they were born, Clemens participated in the California gold rush, visited Hawaii, took part in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land by way of Europe, married a wealthy woman and had four children with her, spent many years in Europe, made a trip around the world, and built and lived in two fabulous mansions. 
   He also lived with great tragedy, losing virtually everyone he loved. He convinced his younger brother to join him in the riverboat trade, and the younger Clemens was killed when a boiler exploded. His wife and all of his children except one preceded him in death, and the one who survived him did not particularly care for him. 
   But it is writing, and not his life, that makes him essential reading for aspiring novelists. In an era in which American novelists were expected to write like Englishmen, Twain wrote about American characters, using the American vernacular, from an American point of view. Kurt Vonnegut believed him to be the only saint of American writing, and William Dean Howells called him "the Lincoln of our literature." And whether you are reading this right now in America, or Australia, or Germany or Paraguay, there is a lesson here; readers love a fresh voice that shapes and echoes their perspective.
   So ... no plans for the weekend? Read Twain. Be transported. And be inspired.

TUESDAY TIPS: Free Ebook -- PIRATE HUNTER 8/6/2014

WE'LL KEEP THIS short and (hopefully) sweet. Pirate Hunter is free on all major ebook platforms Wednesday, August 6th.

Please download a copy and tell me what you think of it! Comments section is below ...

FRESH ON FRIDAY: Accountability?

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SAYS that, if you want to reach a goal, you should share it with people, so they can help hold you accountable.
   I'm not sure that's the best idea with a novel.
   For one thing, some psychologists say that the whole idea of sharing-to-motivate can backfire. If you say you're becoming a novelist, people who love you may praise you for doing that, and the gratification that results can play a trick on your psyche: in your mind, you have already accomplished what you are being praised for, and so become less inclined to actually write the book.
   At the other extreme, people in general have no idea how long it takes to write a novel. So if you share your goal and, four months later, people ask how you are doing and you say you only have three chapters written ... the look they give you may so discourage you that you give up the entire idea.
   And finally, writing a novel is an intensely private act that results in a very public outcome. Oftentimes, inviting others into that extremely private space just somehow seems wrong. I know that, on those rare occasions when I've been able to keep the news of a novel-in-progress to myself, I've been happier in my work.
   So ... are you writing a book? That's great.
   But you just might want to think before you go sharing that news with all and sundry.

TUESDAY TIPS: The Lyric Start

I'VE SAID BEFORE that writing is recorded sound, and that this is the general difference between great writers, good writers and writers in general. When you're enjoying a book, part of the reason is that the writing sings to you. You enjoy the experience of mentally hearing the words.
   So what do you do on those days when you seem to be tone-deaf?
   It happens to all of us. At least I know that it happens to me.
   And when it does happen to me, I usually find the best course of action is to stop writing fiction, get out a pencil and notebook (for some reason, this works better away from a keyboard) and start writing poetry, instead.
   Now, don't go Googling for published poetry by Tom Morrisey. You won't find any; I don't write poetry for publication. But what I do write poetry for is to tune up my writing instrument and get back in touch with the sound of the words and the ways they work together. Usually I write blank verse, and the subject can be anything ... if I don't have a subject, I will look out the window and write a poem describing what I see. Usually, it only takes a few minutes of this to get my writerly voice back into my head, and then I can go back to fiction.
   This technique is not unique to me. I understand that Issac Asimov and Robert Heinlein both wrote poetry to get the current running (the difference being that what they wrote was good enough to publish). And I imagine they did it for the same reason I do it ... it works.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: Nom de Notebook

I DON'T WRITE my novels under a pen-name, and I know very few writers who do. But I get asked about it frequently, which makes me wonder if, to the general public, writing fiction seems a craft so despicable that it is best performed anonymously.
   The writers in my circle who do use pen-names have their reasons. One case is a husband-and-wife team who didn't want a double-byline on their books, so they created an alter-ego to stand in for the two of them. And another case is a writer who established himself in one genre and then switched to another; he didn't want to disappoint readers who might buy his books because of name recognition, expecting his previous genre.
   Writers have all sorts of reasons to use pen names. Stanley Leiber believed he would one day write full-blown novels, so when he began writing comic books, he shortened his name to a nom de plume, "Stan Lee." That name became so well-known that he adopted it legally.
   The author of The Sun Also Rises was originally "Ernest Hemmingway" (double "m"). That was the family name, but he didn't like the way it looked on a book cover, so he changed it to "Hemingway."
   Sometimes it's the publisher's idea. Joanne Rowling  created the pen-name, "J.K. Rowling" after her publisher expressed concerns that boys might not want to read her books if they knew they were written by a woman. Jo didn't have a middle name, so she adopted her grandmother's name (Katherine), and "J.K. Rowling" was born.
   Then, when she switched genres and wrote The Cuckoo's Calling, Rowling adopted yet another pen-name (Robert Galbraith). But similarities in style were noted between that book and the Harry Potter series ... enough so that one English newspaper commissioned a comparison using linguistics software. It suggested an extraordinarily high probability that the author was Rowling and, when confronted with the evidence, she 'fessed up. But Rowling continues to write as "Galbraith," and predicts that eventually his titles will outnumber those in the Harry Potter series.
   Many years ago, when I wrote my first book (a climbing travelogue called 20 American Peaks and Crags, now long out of print), I did so under the name "Thomas Morrisey." But these I do all of my writing under the name I'm known by to my friends: "Tom."
   Would I ever use a pen name? If I made a huge genre switch, I would consider it. But other than that, my body of work is directly linked to me, and that's probably the way it will stay.

TUESDAY TIPS: In High Places is FREE July 22nd

IF YOU HAVE READ my novel-writing how-to, The Novel and the Novelist: An Insider's Guide to the Craft (link at right), you know that my 2008 novel, In High Places, is used as an example through much of that book.
   And if you've been intending to buy In High Places, but your book budget hasn't allowed it, you are in luck. Today only (July 22nd, 2014), In High Places is FREE on all the major ebook platforms.
   So pull it up on your ebook reader and buy before midnight. Or, if you are away from your reader right now, here is the link to the title in Amazon's Kindle Store.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: The Actual Writers Conference

WHEN I LIVED in Michigan, the county library system held an annual writers conference, one that they asked me to teach in. They also asked me to serve on its board, which I did, thinking that I would have all sorts of expertise that might be useful to them. But when I got to my first board meeting, I discovered that they already knew something that most writers-conference organizers either do not know, or don't apply. And the thing they knew was this: to have a successful writers conference, you need to have a plenary speaker that people have actually heard of.
   This is something that all writers conference say they do, but few actually succeed at. Conferences run for profit often aim for an A-lister, but then discover that, to turn a profit, they have to settle for someone further along in the alphabet. And university writers conferences often fall victim to inbreeding, with academics convincing one another that Graham or Desdemona really is extremely well-known, even though the writer in question may have written exclusively for the sorts of magazines whose sole purpose is to occupy shelf space in university libraries.
   Our little county library system avoided these traps. 
   First, we were a non-profit, so every penny we made on registrations went straight into providing content for the conference; we even held the conference at the local Carnegie library, so we wouldn't have to spend a cent on facilities. We also sought sponsors to make up the shortfall between what we took in and what we spent to put on a good conference.
   And second, our board had an unwritten no-BS rule. If you proposed someone as a plenary speaker and had to spend time explaining who he or she was, then you were not proposing someone in whom the board was interested. As we had librarians on the board, we also had a darn good handle on who our county residents were reading, and that played into our decisions as well.
   Following these simple guidelines, we got people such as Elmore Leonard and Audrey Niffenegger as our plenary speakers. 
   When we did this, something amazing happened. Really good writers came out of the woodwork to teach at our conference, partly because they wanted to hear the plenaries, and partly because it looked as if we knew what we were doing with our conference. Published writers came to take our workshops. The atmosphere was positive and not desperate, and when you sat down to lunch, chances were that there was someone at your table who could offer significant insight into an area of writing that you wanted to know more about.
   So these days, when people ask me about writers conferences, I ask them one question: have you heard of, and do you admire, the person who's headlining the conference, or was it someone you had to Google?
   Because, if it is the latter ... keep moving ... nothing to see here.

TUESDAY TIPS: The Light at the Beginning of the Tunnel

EARLIER THIS WEEK, I woke up and wrote this in the notes app on my iPhone:

The years just after the war were especially hard on the general, who wore civilian clothing like a penance.

   That's an opening line. Whether it is to a novel, or a novella, or a short story, I'm not sure, because that is all I have written so far. But I now know a lot more about that story, because I have been thinking about the general ever since I wrote it. 
   First lines are like seeds: they get the story started. And that is why I have that collection in my notes app ... I think of it as the greenhouse, where I start growing things that may eventually be stories.
   I haven't written more about the general yet because I don't like to sit down and really start cranking on a story until I know how it ends. That gives me a destination for what I'm writing, and knowing where I'm going means I throw away less of what I have written, although I still throw away quite a bit. In fact, more often than not, I throw away that first line, because the line that gets me thinking about the story may not be the best one with which to start it. And that's fine; seeds often cease to be, once the plant begins to grow.
   In workshops, a great exercise is to have everyone come up with a great first line, and then exchange them with a neighbor, who expands the first line into a paragraph. And that initial paragraph is almost never what the author of the first line was thinking about, because each person will start grasping and toying with that initial thought in his or her own way.
   Do all of my stories begin this way? No ... they do not. Frequently I will think of an ending first, in which case it is easy to begin writing, because I just follow the story back to a starting point and begin work. But for those days when it is not that cut-and-dried, it is good to know that I have all those seedlings in the greenhouse, waiting to be cultivated into something larger and more complete.
   

TUESDAY TIPS: Wind River is FREE July 8th

I OFTEN USE my own books as examples of technique on this blog. And Wind River is one that I use as an example of taking "show, don't tell" fully to heart.
   Well, today only, that book is available free on Kindle, Nook and all other major ebook platforms.
   So we'll keep this post brief. Click the link above, get your free novel, start reading that and stop reading this.
   Fair 'nough? We'll see you on Friday.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: Financial Independence as a Novelist

IT'S THE DREAM that most unpublished novelists share: selling your novel (finally), quitting your day job, and living the good life ever after.
   So ... can you do that?
   The answer is "Yes," but as you may imagine, there are a lot of conditions attached to it.
   For instance, income from a novel tends to arrive in chunks widely separated on the calendar. If you are fortunate enough to sign with a publisher who pays advances (some do not), you'll typically get half of the advance upon signing a contract, and then the other half when the manuscript is agreed by all parties to be in final form (some publishers do this in thirds: a third on signing, a third on delivery and a third on acceptance). After that, if your novel earns out its advance (and the odds are against this with a first novel), it might be a year or more between your final advance check and your first royalty payment. 
   Even if your advance was lucrative enough to live on for a year or more, it takes tremendous financial self-control to make it with such sporadic income. It is not uncommon for first novelists to wind up in dire straits; in fact it is so common that I know of at least one publisher that requires first novelists to present proof of a second source of income as a condition of their contract.
   There are things that will help. One is to sign a two-book contract and have both manuscripts ready at signing. This will increase what you have to work with, and probably space out the advance checks a little more.
   Even better is to have three years' worth of income in the bank and ready to live on (separate from your 401k or retirement savings) before you sign that contract and deliver your two manuscripts. Saving up that sort of nest-egg takes time and discipline, but it does a tremendous job of helping to keep the wolf from your door.
   Now, here's the funny thing; while I know some novelists who live entirely in the income from their book-length fiction, most do not. Some get a second income from teaching. Some work as freelance editors. Some (I'm one of them) hold down full-time nonfiction writing gigs; a measure that helps put important things such as health insurance on the table.
   In fact, during the decade-and-a-half or so when I worked full time as a freelance writer, fiction was oftentimes the majority of my income, but it was never the entirety of it. Then, as now, I wrote travel stories, not only for the extra money, but for the fact that doing so allowed me to research the settings for my novels at no expense to me. And then, as now, I wrote speeches because (in addition to the extra income) doing so required me too write in another person's voice, which helped (and helps) to make my fiction sing.
   Particularly in his later years, Mark Twain made most of his money on the lecture circuit. The poet Wallace Stevens never quit his job with an executive with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.  F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote for the movies. They knew what many novelists learn as they go along: that while it is possible to live exclusively on one's fiction, you just might find greater satisfaction if you make it part, and not all, of your professional life.

TUESDAY TIPS: Why Copyediting Matters

JUST THIS WEEKEND, I was reading a book by a New York Times bestselling novelist ... one that I am fairly certain the author self-published. I was in the first chapter, just getting into the story, when I hit this sentence: "Symbols clanged."
   At first the sentence intrigued me; I thought it was an unusual image. Then I re-thought that, wondering how a symbol, a visual element, could clang. I re-read the sentence in context, and then it finally hit me. What the author had meant to write was, "Cymbals clanged."
   It was an understandable mistake. The two words sound alike ... sort of. And between the two, only two letters are different. 
   But those two letters were enough to remove me from the story, dissolve suspension-of-disbelief, make me realizing I was reading something someone had written, and get me wondering why he hadn't used a better copyeditor (if he'd used one at all ... in the same novel, I later found "baby's" used as a plural).
   Copyeditors get a bad rap. We think of them as wan, cantankerous individuals who never see the sun, and live to pounce on novelists who write "who" instead of "whom" and end their sentences with prepositions. But they also serve the very useful purpose of helping the writer to keep readers in the storyworld, to help those readers forget they are reading, and encourage them to surrender the disbelief that stands between audience and the story. To that end, even if your next reader is an audience of one—an editor or an agent—it's worth your time and money to hire a copyeditor if you can afford one, or to ask several careful readers to beta-read your manuscript for you if you cannot.
   It's important, because you want to keep your readers lulled within the storyworld, undisturbed by typos, wordos or other errors.
   And symbols cannot clang.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: Rules? What Rules?

A GREAT MANY years ago, I had lunch with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. And when I say, "I had lunch," I don't mean I was in a hotel ballroom  and that he was at the head table while I was sitting far off, near the fire escape. No ... a local library society had asked him in to speak, and because I was a local author (I had written one—count it, one—book at the time: a travelogue of American mountaineering) they asked me to attend and then, at the lunch afterward, placed the two of us across a table from one another, assuming we were kindred spirits and would have oodles of things in common.
   They were wrong. I'd not yet begun to write fiction at the time, and Vonnegut and I had virtually nothing in common. But as my book was outdoorsy, he told me about his most recent outdoorsy vacation: a cruise to the Galapagos islands. I remember him pantomiming the courtship dance of the blue-footed boogie, using dinner rolls on forks (a la Charlie Chaplin) as facsimiles for the boobies' feet.
   This is a significant memory because I now understand that vacation was the genesis of Vonnegut's 1985 novel Galapagos, a book I consider significant because it breaks most of the so-called rules for writing a novel.
   The narrator of the novel is dead. He is Leon Trout, a Vietnam veteran who moved to Sweden after the war, got a job in a shipyard, and was decapitated by a falling piece of sheet metal. Throughout the book, Leon is a ghost, telling a first-person, present-tense story from a point 1,000,000 years in the future, when human beings have evolved to become sort of a cross between a dolphin and a seal, and their brains have all shrunk (because a smaller cranial cavity is more hydrodynamic and makes a person better able to catch fish).
   But while Trout's narrative is austensibly present-tense, he is talking about an event a million years in the past when (as a ghost haunting the ship he'd been working on when killed) he accompanied the members of a doomed cruise on a trip to the Galapagos Islands. 
   Being a ghost, Trout can inhabit other people's bodies and know what they are thinking. So he does that, oftentimes multiple times per scene, which for most narrators would be the storytelling error of head-hopping (using more than one point of view per scene), but works just fine in Galapagos because the primary point point of view is that of the ghost. Vonnegut's narrator also does a great deal of telling, rather than showing, which again is something the writing conferences rant against, but works just fine in Galapagos, as Trout does not think he is telling a story; rather, he is explaining why it is good that human beings evolved to have smaller brains, because it was big brains that created all the problems that almost led to our extinction.
   The list goes on. Trout doesn't want to shock his readers unnecessarily, so eventually every character will have an asterisk in front of his or her name: this is the narrator's way of warning the reader that this particular character is going to die in the next few pages.
   Funny thing is, it all works (you can see for yourself as, at least as of this writing, Galapagos is selling for a buck-ninety-nine on Kindle). And reading this book tells me that none of the fiction-writing rules are actually rules at all, but merely suggestions. 
   Then again, if you want to violate those suggestions with impunity, you'd better be a Kurt Vonnegut.

TUESDAY TIPS: Phone a Friend

TWO DAYS AGO, I answered an e-mail and explained how a diver would replenish the soda-lime scrubbing material in a diving rebreather. At the same time, a friend of mine in Palm Bay (a city not far from me in Florida) was detailing how a particular type of evidence would be collected from a crime scene. Meanwhile, in Virginia, a third friend was explaining how to do a tracheotomy using found objects, and yet a fourth friend (this one in California) was answering someone who wanted to know the differences between English and American libel laws.

   Oh ... and all of the people I talk about above are bestselling novelists.

   We are all members of a private Yahoo group, composed of more than 200 novelists scattered around the world, all with at least three books published by conventional, advance- and royalty-paying publishers. 
   Because the group is extremely active, we email one another daily, as well as getting together for the occasional retreat. And because we know each other well, we get to know one another's backgrounds. Several members, in addition to being popular novelists, are very successful physicians or attorneys. One is a retired police detective. Another is an actor. Yet another is an architect, and one is one of the world's greatest authorities on quilting. 
   And one service we provide our peers in the group is a sharing of that knowledge base. 

   So, as I am a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer (two steps above an instructor), as well as an NSS-CDS Full Cave diver, and a closed-cell rebreather diver, I tend to be the go-to guy whenever someone is writing a scene that involves scuba diving. And virtually everyone in the group has some area of micro-knowledge. One just published a book on how to do portrait photography ... of dogs.   

   True, much information is easily Googled today, but that's a two-edged sword: much information on the Internet is also incorrect. So by asking people we trust, we get solid information that helps us maintain the crucial reasonable suspension of disbelief with our readers.

   Point is, what we do on a wide scale basis, just about any writers group or critique group can do on a smaller scale. Get to know the people in your writing circle, and get to know them beyond the superficial level of what they write. 

   You may just discover that the medieval armor expert you're looking for is actually the blank-verse poet who sits next to you on Tuesdays.

FRESH ON FRIDAY: Your Turn ...

TODAY, I'D LIKE TO shift from pontificant to supplicant.
   So far this year, we've covered a wide array of topics in this blog, ranging from why you should write two novels before you try to sell one, to why you should not put confetti into the envelope with your book proposal. We have had posts on writing realistic dialogue, and using cinematic cutting techniques in fiction, and I have even shared a never-berfore-seen photograph of novelist Terri Blackstock writing bestselling fiction in the front seat of her car.
   Here's the thing. As you've probably noticed (since I hype it just to the right of the blog entries on this page), I have a new book out on writing the novel, and that is getting me increased attention, the net result of which is that I'm getting invited to speak at more and more writer's conferences and to more and more critique groups and writers groups.
   For writers conferences that are five days long or longer, this is a slam-dunk: by doing one one-hour session in the morning and one in the afternoon or evening, I can present the entire contents of my book in five days.
   But some (many) conferences are fewer than five days, and at most critique groups, I'll only have a single 30-45-minute block allotted to me, after which I am expected to sit down and shut up. 
   So here is my question:

Imagine that you have found a magic lamp, and you have rubbed it, and out has popped, not a genie, but a well-published, bestselling novelist. What three questions would you like to ask that novelist?

   The "comments" section, below, eagerly awaits your response. 

TUESDAY TIPS: Start Once

EVERYBODY WANTS TO avoid the rookie mistakes; the things that scream out to a reader (or an editor, or an agent), "I am really, really, really new at this, and not quite sure what I'm doing yet."
   So let me share with you the one thing that, often on the first page, tells me I am reading the work of a writer who is still beginning to navigate the waters of fiction writing.
   They start twice.
   Often, when I review a manuscript, I'll read what appears to be the beginning of a story. And then, a few paragraphs down (or, in a novel or novella, in the next chapter), the story will present what appears to be a second starting point.
   There are a few reasons for this. One is over-delivery of information. We want readers to understand what the characters look like, what the setting looks like, and so on. So we pile that in, and then we get around to story.
   Or, with more experienced writers, we understand that we have to create a sense of normalcy or peace in order to disrupt it and create conflict, so we start with a pastoral opening. Then we introduce conflict and the story starts.
   Or (and this, I think is the most common), we write our way to the beginning. That is, we start at what we think is the beginning of the story and then, in the process of writing it, we arrive at the true beginning.
   So how do you tell where the true beginning is? For me, one question that I ask is, "How many elements of a story are here?" If I have setting, and characters, but no conflict, then I probably haven't arrived at a story yet. And yes, I know that conflict does not work if we are not yet invested in the character. So a way I typically solve this is by introducing an early conflict: something that is going to be overcome in the space of a few pages, but still gets the reader wondering how the character is going to get out of trouble.
   In In High Places, a novel that centers around the world of rock climbing, my story begins in the middle of a climb, with a character who does not know if he's equal to the task at hand. In the process of talking about that climb, and its aftermath, I'm able to get closer to what will be a central issue of that novel: a strained family dynamic. This frees me from beginning by showing the family at home, then sending them on the trip, and then getting to the rock climb, which is where the issues truly begin to emerge. By skipping all the throat-clearing, I allow the reader to start where the story starts, on the first rung of a ladder of increasing jeopardy.
   How do you avoid beginning twice? Some writers never do. But the difference between the professionals and the newer writers is that, when the pros realize that they are starting twice, they go back and get rid of that false, preliminary beginning. And that allows them to bring the reader into the storyworld at the proper moment: when the story begins. 

FRESH ON FRIDAY: 5 Things to Leave Out of Your Book Proposal

A FEW YEARS AGO, I surveyed several fiction editors of my acquaintance, asking what newer novelists tended to leave out of their book proposals. 
   One of those editors responded, "Chocolate!" (with a smiley face). So, a few months later, when I sent her a proposal, I included a few bars handmade by a local chocolatier. 
   This got no reaction, so I asked her about it when I saw her next.
   "Oh, yeah," she said. "The chocolate. Why did you do that? That was weird."

   Of the myriad of reactions one is hoping to get from a proposal, "weird" is not one of them. And here, based on stuff that I have heard about from actual acquisitions editors, is a list of other things that you should leave out of your book proposal:

• Confetti. You should have learned around the time you were five that negative attention is not better than no attention at all.
• A manuscript on anything other than white paper. The cuteness of a romance printed on pastel paper wears off about one sentence in.
• Manuscripts printed in anything other than black (or dark navy) ink. The one thing common to every editor I know is eyestrain; purple ink is not your friend.
• An 8" x 10" color glossy photo of your smiling face. Your object here is to sell a book, not to convince the recipient to cast you in their toothpaste commercial. Occasionally, on proposals that were requested as a result of face-to-face meetings, I have put a thumbnail face shot on my proposal cover page, to help the editor remember who I am. But that's it.
• Your idea for the book cover. You are the writer, not the art director.